Karen and I were out in the Pacific Northwest for a few days riding horses on Vashon Island, off of Seattle. It was a high of 70 degrees each day and sunny.. and in the upper 50s at night. I wish we could have stayed longer. We had one afternoon free to stop at Tiger Mountain on the way home and lucked out with more spectacular weather. We dragged Karen's wing on the plane and I had made arrangements to rent a wing and harness from Marc Chirico of Seattle Paraglding. I had talked to him several times on the phone and had emailed him. Each time we spoke he had no recollection of our previous communications. When we got to Tiger, the shop was closed and Marc was giving a legless man a tandem flight. The man is a paralympics skiing medalist and was born with no legs. I spoke with Marc's wife, who was talking students in on approach in the LZ, and she had no idea of what I was talking about in relation to renting a glider. And Marc was busy with his passenger and an accompanying film crew.
Long story short, tandem pilot Todd Henningsen rented me a wing for 20 bucks and another tandem pilot, Mark Heckler (sp?) lent me a harness with a chute. Big thanks to these guys and the rest of the pilots who welcomed us and gave us the Beta on the site.
Karen and I took the 4:45 shuttle to launch-- which was running late due to the film crew. We got into the air around 6. At Seattle Paraglidng, students go solo after only two or three tandems. They have no launching or kiting skills. The instructor and a helper kite the wing up for the student and then push the student into the sky in what is called a Princess Launch. They are radio controlled to the ground with radios taped on both sides of helmet making the students look like rabbits. It's pretty unbelievable. The plan was to launch the legless man the next day for his first solo even though he had gotten airsick and threw up twice during his tandem... and had been rattled seeing a glider partially collapse and almost go into the trees!
Anyway, Karen and I each had nice flights. I got an hour and up to 2900 msl, 1200 over launch. I was on top of the stack most of the time with a spectacular view of the mountains and the lake. There were very few pilots doing 360s in the thermals. Towards the end of the flight, I spent most of the time flying with a blue glider. We kept pimping off one another as the lift started to fade. When I landed I went to talk to the guy flying the blue glider. The pilot was Hakan Olsson. Karen and I were on a flying trip with him in Brazil 10 years ago! Small world!
The three of us had dinner together and caught up on the last ten years.
Matthew
Tiger Mountain Paragliding
Moderator: CHGPA BOD