Weekend Report: The Paraglider

General Updates

My necrotic toe is finally off to see a surgeon for a consult in June. Unfortunately the health care system doesn't realize I am the most important person in BC and isn't fast-tracking me - not sure who to complain to but this feels very unfair to me (the most important person in BC).

On to the paragliding...

Gabs suggested it would be fun to learn to paraglide together, so a while ago we signed up to do a four-day intro course to see if we liked it. I have to admit I've never been especially drawn to wind sports or aerial sports but I've never met a human-powered sport I didn't like, and the thought of flying around seemed quite cool. Also, I've seen a couple films about paragliding trips so I'm basically an expert.

We took the course through S2S Paragliding, and drove up to Savona - small town in the interior near Kamloops - on Saturday morning for the course, parts of which were on Skeetchestn first nations land. Savona is an old gold mining and CN railroad area and the Skeetchestn joined with the Thompson and Okanagan peoples to fight some of the murderous miners in the Canyon War back in 1858; the wikipedia article on it is really interesting and worth a read. If you can't tell, I found their excellent website during some downtime.

I really liked all the instructors and our group and Savona itself, although there were an alarming amount of cacti that attacked me over the weekend.

I was a bit confused about the process so here is what I gleaned: paragliding is loosely regulated by national bodies, and in Canada, you get licensed from P1-P5 depending on your experience. The four day course we did was to get our P1, which the instructor described as a participation badge - once getting it you still need an instructor to guide you and give you landing directions. P2 is where you graduate to being slightly less of a weenie and can fly around on your own after doing another course and writing an exam. P3 and P4 mean you're an adult and can do stuff on your own and P5 is for legends only.

P1 Learnings

At first I was like "ugh why do I need to do multiple four day courses" but I was thoroughly humbled by the paraglider (the "wing"). First we went over the harnesses, the wings, and how to attach the two. The wing has "risers" which are the bundles of cord attaching the points on the wing to you, and the risers have different groups that do different things to the wing if you pull them. You also have two brake handles which you can use to steer the wing around. Then your harness has some locking carabiners you use to attach yourself to the wing so you can ideally soar about in the sky.

The first day felt like it was entirely devoted to untangling my risers and making sure I was clipped in correctly. You would not believe how many minor variations on being clipped in improperly I found.

And then we learned the dark art of "ground handling" or "kiting". This is when you stand on the ground and attempt to fly your infernal wing above your head while an instructor yells at you to go left or right. The problem with this is that if there's wind, it tries to blow you away when you haul on your risers to pull it up, and if there's no wind, the wing lands on your head. Then there is the additional complexity that usually you're facing the wing in reverse and you need to do some shenanigans in reverse to balance it out when it inevitably tries to fall over.

I never anticipate this futile struggle between myself and the wing but it's important to learn so you don't tip over and roll down the hill when you try to take off.

Come Sail Away

We were flying by Day 2. The process for P1 was that you get a radio and then two instructors help you; one watches you take off and instructs you and then the other instructor guides you to the landing zone.

I really enjoyed the flying aspect as it was a lot more straightforward than kiting once you ran off the lip of the hill. I suspect this was because I was making no decisions on my own and just happily turning around when I was told. The mysteries of air currents and wind directions have not yet entered my brain.

It didn't feel at all scary to me. I have a very situational fear of heights: diving boards above 5m and trad multipitches are very alarming to my lizard brain, but climbing in general and apparently running off the edge of something strapped to a wing are totally fine.

I'm Like a Bird, I'm Gonna Fly Away

Okay, yeah, I got bitten by the bug and I want to paraglide more. I'm looking at buying a wing and doing the P2 course. Stay tuned for more flight-related song lyrics.