2012 paragliding season begins...

Paragliding is a great way to get some perspective on where the snow is.

I suppose it began 15 days ago for anyone who was in Chamonix to enjoy the warm, almost spring-like weather that I missed while I was lying on a beach in Thailand... 

But today it began for me, and the best part about it is... I only went today because I had declared today as an "office day" despite the beautiful blue skies, and crisp winter tempertures that frosted every windshield in town this morning.  I can make it from my couch to the brevent lift - paraglider on my back - in about 7.5 minutes...

I launched from typical spot one launches from when they've got limited time: The Plan Praz launch.

Plan Praz launch: complete with nice, firm snow one can run on. 

The afternoon air was cool, crisp, and blowing gently downhill at the standard winter landing field tucked within a grove of trees between the Brevent base station and les Moettieux.

Having never landed there I was a bit nervous wiggling the wing in between the rows of trees - a sloppy final approach here will put a pilot in a tree - or worse, a tree will snag the edge of a wing, forcing an assymetric collapse.

Les Moettieux: A sloped landing with down-slope breeze, tucked within 20m tall trees... Not the best beginner landing field...

Anyway the flight was nice. I look forward to flying my little cloud spiruline 18 down the Vallee Blanche soon...

Wanaka Paragliding

I’ll probably be cursed as a novice paraglider pilot forever… I shy away from aggressive flying, I have hardly any good cross country flights to brag about, and I hate seeing my wing trying to get beneath my feet… But after a month and a half of sitting in the cold of Antarctica, the opportunity to fly my paraglider in the early summer conditions of Wanaka, New Zealand was hard to pass up…

When the Northbound C-17 from McMurdo landed in Christchurch, I spent a quick night in town – no aftershocks to arrest one’s sleep – and rented a car from options car rental before driving  5 hours to a camping spot in a shipping container at my friend’s place behind Mount Iron.

Apparently Wanaka is known by paraglider pilots for its fickle weather, blown out conditions, strong afternoon winds. When I arrived, 6 weeks of bad weather had just ended, and the sky started to fill with pilots anxious to get out and take advantage of good, lifty conditions.  That weather window would end the day I left NZ.

We flew from Treble Cone almost every day that week. Treble Cone (aka “TC”) is the standard Wanaka launch for anyone who doesn’t want to carry their glider very far uphill. It’s a popular launch for the local tandem company – Wanaka Paragliding – owned and operated by Richard van Nieuwkoop. Richard’s business van – the “Tandem Van” – drives laps up and down the steep and winding TC road on busy days, and Paraglider pilots can catch a lift up the hill for a cool $5 bucks.

My most frequent flying companion was Mal Haskins, of “speedfly 8000” fame… Mal flies tandems for Richard when things get busy, so he always seems to know what the conditions are going to be like… He’s also brutally honest, and doesn’t hesitate to tell me when I look like I am doing something poorly – a welcome addition of feedback in a sport that doesn’t offer many second chances…

A few local pilots were hitting TC hard that week too, and using it as a launch pad for much longer cross country missions. Flights from TC to the park at Wanaka were happening almost daily. One pilot made it to Cook Village over a 2-day 140km vol-bivouac flight. Another group of pilots made it over 120km to Omarama at the end of the week.

My longest XC flight? I think I made it 12km to Glendhu bay, landing in a fallow field 10 meters from the lake Wanaka road. Oh well… Perfect practice makes perfect!

 Rory, A local Wanaka pilot, launches from Treble Cone for a 6 hour XC flight to his house in Albertown.

 Mal Haskins, flyby of the TC launch...

Rory, Pete, and Mal - each trying to gain height before going on glide to Glendu Bluffs. Mal climbing towards cloudbase at Treble ConeYou know it's lifty when you can climb directly over launch before your friends have finished unloading the car...They say that the hardest part about XC flying isn't finding your first thermal, it's finding your second (and third, and fourth...). I searched for a second thermal after my glide to Glendu Bluffs, and never found one. Fortunately, XC flying in New Zealand is logistically easy - as long as you don't land amongst the sheep. Hitchhiking is a breeze, and walking across empty padocks sure beats bushwhacking...

Climb and Fly: The Frendo Spur and some paragliding fun...

Ben Mitchell is another American Mountain Guide transplanted into the Chamonix scene for the summer. He's also a Base Jumper, and paraglider pilot.

Ben and I decided to climb the Frendo Spur to see how fast we could do it,  and thento fly off with our paragliders, if possible. After September 1st, the airspace over the north side of the Mont Blanc massif becomes available for paragliding again.

Ben and i took the first bin up from Chamonix (pretty late this time of year - it was at 8:00am I think). We stashed our wings at the mid station - thinking we would come down and get them if the conditions on the midi were good enough to launch - which they weren't. So we flew from the mid station on our way down.

Ben and I walked up to the route, soloed the first 500m, and pulled out the rope for the rest. We laughed, we told stories, and we tried to hurry a bit, but we were really just out having fun on some easy alpine granite. The ice pitches at the top were, well... quite icy. But what do you expect for dry September conditions? The ice took us about an hour longer than expected. So our time from the mid station to the Aiguille du Midi station was 5:20. We had a beer and a sandwich on top, took the lift down to the Plan, and flew back to Chamonix. I like this kind of day...

We saw some ass when we left the Plan des Aiguille station. Upon leaving what some may call a glacier, and gaining the lower ridge of the Frendo Spur, the first 100m of climbing is nothing more than pure, loose, drudgery. François Damilanos' "Neige, Glace, et Mixed" describes this section of the route very well. This is where you gain the ridge proper. The middle section of the route provides alpinists with a fun and easy section of granite climbing. Great for soloing and/or simuclimbing. Ben on top of the majority of granite climbing. Only another 50m of alpine looseness to gain the famous snow arete. The famous snow (ice) arete of the Frendo SpurBen following the penultimate pitch of the technical climbing. The ice here is about 65° (steeper on the last pitch). Its the perfect angle to feel easy but at the same time destroy your calves. Ben below me, but above Chamonix. There is almost no nicer way off the side of a mountain. Sometimes the crux of flying down in a regular paragliding harness is trying to figure out where to put your climbing gear...