Free Flight: Paragliding and Hanggliding

Please Watch and Share: Gliders vs. Miners

The mining company purchased the property behind the houses in the 1990's when there were already houses.  This mining company will devastate the neighborhood and quality of life if they are allowed to mine "Phase 2".

I find it interesting that one neighbor cannot change his adjoining property (house and land) in a manner that negatively impacts mine without at least a massive effort to prove the need and to then hear opposing views. How can a different neighbor be completely exempted when their intended use of the property includes the words "total disturbance"?

Please sign the petition https://www.change.org/p/salt-lake-county-government-save-steep-mountain

A Taste

I am eager for a taste of this tricky evening.  I watch the wings that sink out. I watch the wings that hold on. I watch the C wings take the last bench.  I see that flat, yet tight turns, determine the fate of those that hang on.  Tips that wobble, from brakes pulled too much or too little, will miss the narrow thermals and rocky rolling lift line.  I watch and watch, learning, absorbing yet hesitating. 

This is some of my favorite air.  It may look crowded for a few minutes but I know I will have most of the ridge to myself if I hold out because most will sink or land out.

I am eager for a taste but I pause as I watch launch.  Many of the pilots, including those who possess kiting skills that far exceed my own, are struggling.  Light easterly cross wind mixes with strong tapered thermals in densely cool air causing wings to rapidly switch from surging forward to buckling in; all while trying to also to rock them into the gullies. 

Once I am past launch, the air will engulf me in the moment.  I know I will be present, 100% present in each instant.  It is a drug for me.  I don’t care about the last course; I don’t care about the bench.  I want the thrill of listening to my wing, of staring fiercely at the stiff sage for flickering foliage, of guessing which ridge will have the tiniest bit more movement as I try to correctly time each sink and lift cycle.

Oh I am eager for a taste!   Again, I pull my wing up but just as quickly I set it back down.  Again the light sharp feather of memory teases my neck.  I have been ‘gullied’.  The result was only a few nasty scratches and a twisted ankle but I have not forgotten it could have been more. I turn around to watch another pilot get picked up, sat down and snarled into a knot.

I look around for an instructor who has before helped me this year on a similar evening but they aren't here. Drat.  I turn back and as I watch I can see the gusts are abating.  It is going to continue to be cross and uneven but it is smoother.  I roll my shoulders, take a deep breath, decide and ask someone else to assist me; to ask them help me be safe and coach my launch.

And they do, while telling me I should take a pass on this tricky air…. J  With their much appreciated verbal only guidance, I have a safe launch and I have my taste.

Oh such wonderful air; the best kind, the teaching kind, the kind that keeps me hyper alert.  I grinned as I missed the minuscule thermal at the gazebo and I carefully tapped my brakes into a flat turn to catch it again, relying on weight shift.  I laughed as I climbed back up to ridge level; I dropped my inside hip, just touching my outside brake to level out my wing’s porpoise effect caused by flying close to the gullies and ridges.  I repeat this movement, searching the ridge for all of the steps.

A strong thermal lifts me up quickly and I turn into it, ‘parked’ for a moment until I feel it roll over and past and down I sink again.  The rowdiest air on an easterly evening seems to always towards the end so I use the lower landing zone to as a visual marker to not go past.

I dance in this silly, laughing turbulent air delivered by a wind that challenges me to be present, to be in every instant, to never let my attention stray and to never give up.  For thirty four minutes I sink, I soar; I live in each heart beat until I hear her sigh that she is done with our play.   I turn in my last chance to be on top, land on the grass and laugh at myself. 

Our Muse

I am twisted slightly to look over my shoulder, eyes glued to the sluggishly waving wind sock behind me.  Every exhale of moving air against my neck is mentally measured. My peripheral vision watches the cells of my paraglider breathing in the north wind's presently insignificant gasps.

A tiny bead of sweat cools the side of my temple.  The rest is caught inside the mesh of my snug full face helmet. My fingers slide softly against my lines...

The north wind is coming.  I know it.  My imagination pictures my Wind Woman tumbling, laughing, teasing around far off flags and trees.  Although she is carelessly delayed by distractions from the eastern mountains and then tardier still as she momentarily pauses to smile at leaves... she is coming and I am patient and impatient as the late summer sun roasts my shoulders through my long sleeved shirt.

All around me stand 30 or more others; gear on, harnesses clipped, their heads also steam cooking in colanders called helmets.

We wait in near silence.

Then... the hang glider waiting on the edge of launch, having leaned forward on his wires for minutes the length of hours, suddenly straightens and takes the base tubes (the frame) of his wing in his hands; he has seen the flag down the valley snap up and strong.  He launches. The nose dips down and then curves up.

She is here.

There is a unvoiced cheer of unified relief as we pull up our wings, each of us now competing for our spot to take off.  We stagger forward like zombies, chests to the ground, toes scrambling; we are laughing with our belated muse as she catches us off the earth's edge to toss us up and up.

Winter is Coming (Original Art)

'Winter is Coming'
16" X 20" X .75"
Print Available 

Headed Home

Lately, the Wind Woman had been something of a pill, delivering only turbulent rain or half-hearted little breaths of a breeze.  Just in the prior week, on THREE evenings, I stood clipped into my gear, sweating in my full face helmet, fingers fiddling with my lines, staring over my shoulder at the flag on the end of launch.... and no wind....

Additionally I was immersed in family chaos composed of college graduation, dinners, military commissioning, an impromptu bridal shower -All of which a happy series of events, of course, but also loaded with family politics and emotions.  

Naturally, it was fantastic flying conditions the two nights booked with family gatherings....

And then it was Sunday and although the weather was not predicted to be flyable, it was still Sunday, the most lovely day of the week.  I am very fortunate to have a deeply religious family and usually I am left Sunday as my day -no interruptions, no events. Ah Sunday, how I eye this day with excited scheming and anticipation.  

Sunday morning we pulled weeds, hauled branches and after four hours of yardwork, the rental property was a little more presentable.  That afternoon, we hurried to Alta to celebrate closing day by slugging through heavy slushy spring snow and admiring the array of inappropriate costumes and outfits (or lack of ).  

As we returned to the car, my darling man checked the winds on his phone and announced... "Hey! It's flyable!".

Skies and boots were never so quickly shed.  Tearing down the mountain, falling out of the car to swap our ski gear for paragliders, we dashed to the flight park.  

And it was flyable;  we stepped out of the car, into harnesses and off of launch into bouncy and perfectly ahhhhhmazing wind. 

We flew and flew, for around an hour until it was time to head home.

"Headed Home"

"11" X "14" X ".75"
Original Fine Art - Acrylic (Sealed to protect against fading/UV)


***I have decided this piece needs a lovely vibrant background... ;)

(Twitter)

Point of the Mountain -Autumn Flight (Original Fine Art - Dimensional)

"Point of the Mountain"

10" X 20" X 1.5" 

Original Fine Art - Acrylic (Sealed to protect against fading/UV)

Turning point

Something strange has happened.

I noticed it when we went skiing in January.  Something had switched in my focus, something was different in my decisions; I have a feeling of intention.  I skied thinking about the snow, about the day, about the line.  I did not thinking about how steep was the run, how many were the trees and how thick was the falling snow… not one of my usual inner questions awoke to look for and find flickering familiar fault.   I just skied. 

At the end of the day, when my hero wanted to show me a view that required a hike, I didn't mention my trembling legs and exhausted hands.  I followed.  When he turned and saw my slower steps, when he pulled my skies off my shoulder and carried both, I just said thank you. As he turned away, I swallowed back my salty girly reaction to the beauty of our friendship and his seeing heart and hurried up.

I just had my first 'real' flight this month.  Even though it had been months, I didn't find my usual nauseating swirl of nerves and self doubt as I pulled out my wing. I ran my fingers through my lines, clipped into my harness, completed my pre-flight check, kited for a couple of minutes and launched.

I actually felt lonely without my shadowy quivering fears. I am the queen of self doubt, the champion of personal mistrust.  All alone with the wind on my face, I just flew. I flew for thirty three minutes until I decided to land and warm up. There I found the glow of sunlight, a calm sunset and familiar friends.  I looked around as I packed my wing, wearing my usual dorky 'just flew' grin plastered on my face and I wallowed in awesomeness that is this time in my life.

While I would love to attribute my new found confidence to myself; it is because I am watching someone else's audacious bravery that I have this unfamiliar poise.

Someone important to me, someone I have long respected, admired; someone I 'knew' would always alienate me because I'd chosen a path he could not understand, relate to - much less praise –This person has decided to chose an uncharted and unknown path, one that is the complete opposite of the one he has long followed. 

I am amazed, I am enlightened because his new direction was discovered only because of his staggering possession of courage and his driving need for truth.  But that isn't what astounds me, it is that He Intends to Take the Journey.

Ohhhhhh I flinched and glowed when I heard his intentions.  I took this journey.  I remember my horror when I realized my prior belief system was built on terrible deceit. It seems that all religions maybe presently followed with good intentions but the original story was certainly not. 

Individuals I respected and loved looked at me as the betrayer for questioning their strongly revered and complicated superstitions.  When a person declares they are leaving - leaving means you are a cancer and you may infect the rest and so you must be cut out or held at careful bio-hazard clothed arm's length.

For YEARS I had stood bewildered by my loss of culture, acceptance and identity.  And here's the thing Reader -I got out early, I took the chicken route, I moved away and I never approached the topic directly.  Snide comments were swallowed and judgmental verdicts accepted.

He, on the other hand, has invested years, oodles of  tithing money, scarified friendships - Every personal and professional decision ruled by  rationale decreed from inside religious parameters..... And he didn't just have the spine to research questions, earnestly and honestly.  He actually accepted the answers he found deploying sound logic and He Intends to Take the Journey. 

– By this, I am set free. 

http://mormonexpression.com/2012/12/19/episode-219-ex-mormonism-as-a-heros-journey/