What a fantastic weekend for the end of October!  It was lightly thermic for ~4-5 hours both days, and given that it was a weekend, lots of pilots were out.  We had 25-30 on Saturday and 10-15 on Sunday, and most had 1-2 hour flights! Relocating the Bridal LZ weather station to Woodside launch. All the bald eagles were out in force this weekend with most of them hanging out on the SE corner of the south knob.  The prevailing winds were light east so it made sense, and that's also where most of the pilots found the best/most lift.  The conditions on the Satu ..read more

 The forecast was calling for unstable conditions, but too much north for the Fraser Valley, but Blanchard was looking like a possibility as the north wind wasn't forecast to kick in there until the following day.  So a group of 5 Canadians made the trek across the US border. The RASP for Blanchard showed light north, OK when it's otherwise unstable, with stronger N wind the following day.  So today was going to be the day, if at all! Oodles of pilots out, 19 in total, and the north wind was in evidence but very light, so it was flyable on the west side.  Hard to ..read more

The forest fire at Mt. St. Benedict was (finally) out so lots of pilots out today to enjoy one of the last warm summer days.  North wind up high so the clouds were forming over the back and then spreading out in front of launch, creating lots of shade.  But if you could get up, you could get high and then fly the shade/sun interface all along the Mt. St. Benedict-Dewdney range!  And cloud base was somewhere in airspace, but it was cold enough you didn't want to get that high anyways!  RASP for Mt. St. Benedict September 30, 2023.  North wind up high. The LZ ha ..read more

 A mostly-cloudy day but rather unstable, a good day to fly, top-land, and directly compare gliders as I was further-test-flying a Lynx2. Woodside RASP showing the overcast but concurrent instability. Ultimately decided against the L2 as I didn't find it that different, performance-wise, from my current Swift6.  So at this point better to stick with my current glider and keep looking. Kevin and myself flying under the overcast skies.  Photo courtesy of Alex Raymont. The next day was a clearing one, forecast to blow out by early afternoon, and with the winds ..read more

 A stable day at Bridal as there was more cloud shading the sun than we expected.  But after 30 minutes I was able to get high enough to topland and save Rob S from having to retrieve his truck. After I top landed, it actually got a bit better so Tom was also able to topland and retrieve the other truck that showed up with a second load of pilots ..read more

It’s been a while since I did a paragliding trip in Europe, but this time I wanted to try eastern Europe.  I decided it would be fun to go paragliding in Greece and North Macedonia, as we had a family wedding to attend in Czechia already later in July. One of the major industries in the Drama valley is marble, with numerous quarries in the surrounding mountains.   Photo courtesy of Alex Raymont. There are many flying sites in Greece, many of them in the southern Islands and around Athens, but since it was coming up to high tourist season (July and August) I wanted to go s ..read more

Went for a quick road trip to the Okanagan.  Began at Coopers where it was forecast to blow over the back, so went up early and it was indeed rough and turbulent on the east side.  So much so that I decided to head over to the Saddle where it was much smooth (it faces west) and was able to stay up indefinitely there.  Eventually landed at the LAR Flight Park as it looked like it was overdeveloping (as the RASP was forecasting). Coopers RASP for May 28. Coopers flight.   After lunch went over to the King Eddy LZ where I met up with Lars and crew, got a ride up to ..read more

A beautiful spring day and did the classic Bridal run from Ludwig to Elk.  Strong south wind up high but as usual, not a problem for flying Bridal!  Bridal 38km OR. RASP for April 29 @ Bridal ..read more

 The weather conditions in the Fraser Valley were looking a bit overdevelop-y, but perfect for the north shore, and with a very low tide of 0.5m at 5pm, that meant a Tunnel Bluffs flying day! I have only been up Tunnel a few times, it's a long hike for me so I don't do it very much.  Many thanks to Guillaume who drove a bunch of us to the upper trailhead parking, and then drove back down, so we could get a 200m elevation gain head start while he hiked from the bottom (he's training as a supporter for the 2023 X-Alps!). A busy launch at Upper Tunnel This time of year there ..read more

 Alex and I have been wanting to go on a southern California road trip, but unfortunately since many of the roads and passes in CA are currently (still) closed due to snow, flooding, landslide, etc, and since the weather on the Oregon coast was also looking iffy, we decided to head to the southern Okanagan instead to fly with the local pilots there. It's still very much winter there with snow higher up, and the occasional snowsquall in the Willowbrook area.  But flyable if you are willing to put up with the cold! As usual Ottos was the call for most days (they have a ENE launch in ..read more