Today we had a great flight from a small local hill.
Let me try to explain what happened today as it is typical....here...in Canada.....in Italy....etc. we got up had breakfast and a press conference. Then we hear some rumblings....some of the pilots were going to fly...whisperings...are you going, is there room, where are we going, what are the conditions like, do we have to hike, what is launch like? Well the problem is that there were more paraglider pilots than there were seats in the vehicles. Waiting and milling around....chatting for over an hour. Then someone made the decision. Two taxis and two 4x4's to get us into Urushu. The taxis arrived and then we decided to eat. Trying to round up 35 people to all go to the same restaurant....order, eat then pay!!! It's like herding cats!!!
Then we all load up into 5 land rovers and head off to launch, but not until we had a 45 minute stop at the grocery store. Our drivers didn't know the way so we stopped to call the others who were ahead of us. Another 30 minute delay. Finally we got to the hill about an hour before dark....with about a 1000' hill to climb to get to launch. There was only one person whining and she stayed behind while the rest if us headed up, anxious for a flight.
We got up and the wind was strong. I was thinking of heading down, but after about 20 minutes it backed off a bit, so I set up and launched. There were about 20 pilots in the air....all having a great time. I had about 15 minutes in some magic air.....so worth having spent almost all day for it.
The locals at a nearby village came out and hiked up with us, watched us fly and greeted us at the landing zone. We collected some money to give them which was very appreciated.
In about 5 hours I will be getting up and getting ready to leave by 7am. I have a SIM card so I am hoping that I will be able to blog while in the mountain....at least part way up. Yeah!!!
Let me try to explain what happened today as it is typical....here...in Canada.....in Italy....etc. we got up had breakfast and a press conference. Then we hear some rumblings....some of the pilots were going to fly...whisperings...are you going, is there room, where are we going, what are the conditions like, do we have to hike, what is launch like? Well the problem is that there were more paraglider pilots than there were seats in the vehicles. Waiting and milling around....chatting for over an hour. Then someone made the decision. Two taxis and two 4x4's to get us into Urushu. The taxis arrived and then we decided to eat. Trying to round up 35 people to all go to the same restaurant....order, eat then pay!!! It's like herding cats!!!
Then we all load up into 5 land rovers and head off to launch, but not until we had a 45 minute stop at the grocery store. Our drivers didn't know the way so we stopped to call the others who were ahead of us. Another 30 minute delay. Finally we got to the hill about an hour before dark....with about a 1000' hill to climb to get to launch. There was only one person whining and she stayed behind while the rest if us headed up, anxious for a flight.
We got up and the wind was strong. I was thinking of heading down, but after about 20 minutes it backed off a bit, so I set up and launched. There were about 20 pilots in the air....all having a great time. I had about 15 minutes in some magic air.....so worth having spent almost all day for it.
The locals at a nearby village came out and hiked up with us, watched us fly and greeted us at the landing zone. We collected some money to give them which was very appreciated.
In about 5 hours I will be getting up and getting ready to leave by 7am. I have a SIM card so I am hoping that I will be able to blog while in the mountain....at least part way up. Yeah!!!
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