While I was driving through Sioux City on a Friday with another five hours
driving to go, I saw the Thunderbird diamond just flying along.
I found a bunch of lookie-loos and stopped, asked about it.
Airshow tomorrow!
Thirty minutes later I had broken my kit lens, booked a room at the hotel on the approach end of the runway (by chance!) and another half hour later I had converted from being a Canon fanboy to Nikon with a 200-400. The saleslady laughed at my face when I saw the price - I forgot sales tax existed.
I spent the next hours learning the Nikon and getting the SDRs out to act as a scanner. I forgot to eat, but luckily restaurants were easy to come by.
The next day was hot. Out on the hotel golf course with my new camera, I turned around and saw some heads peeking over the hotel roof.
Long story short, my new camera and lens apparently convinced everyone that I meant business, so I got a couple great shots and made two new friends (cute couple, into motorcycles - this was before I got into it!) on the roof of the hotel. We burned in the sun. Then we did it again the next day, which got rained out.
There are more pictures, but these here are my favorites.
Then I made it to the Badlands. I like all the pictures I took here, but more because they remind me of the trip. I got my first helicopter ride here. I recommend it.
This one is the only picture I kind of like for its self.
Earlier that year I had occasion to be in Boston on a Winter evening near MGH.
I walked by and had to back up, and lacking a real camera, snapped it with my phone.
What you see here is pretty nearly what I saw with my eyes, a rare thing.
And these are my favorite shots from the Utah portion of the trip. These are all from Point of the Mountain, either North or South flight parks.
Learning to paraglide means getting up early every day. This was a stretch sometimes, but it was always worth it.
The morning air is smooth and glassy, and the wind slowly picks up and changes direction a bit as the sun comes around.
Trending towards noon it starts to get bumpy and a little more dangerous especially for fledglings like us.
Learning also means that you spend a lot of time not flying, but kiting or ground handling.
This helps you learn the wing with less distraction, and to learn some of the nuances and reactions that keep you alive.
In the evening you can usually get smooth consistent wind from the north, which is why Point of the Mountain north exists.
The bumpy, thermic mid-day air starts to become a little more gentle, and then slowly glasses off. You can go thousands of feet up nearly effortlessly.
There’s two ridges, one rising above the other, and the flight park is on top of the lower ridge. This makes it easy to take off, go up, cross over to the larger ridge (“bench up”), and use the ridge lift of the larger ridge to go very high and fly for hours powered only by the wind.
There were often many dozens to possibly over a hundred paragliders in the air on good flying days. This place is why paragliders are in SLC.
Then you land to a beautiful sunset. Every evening on PoM north had a sunset like this shot here - though usually with fewer clouds!
The flight park is a great spot for picnickers, so landing was sometimes fraught. Many pilots chose to land off the grassy area and then run it in to avoid the risk.
I roomed with a crazy pilot, full of energy like she’d just taken 10 shots of espresso. She hadn’t.
The first time I saw her drinking coffee I backed away slowly.
One time I was about to swat a house fly; seeing this, she said these exact words:
“Wait don’t kill it! It’s a fellow pilot!”
(So we got a cup and released it outside somehow.)
Later she met someone crazier than her, and here you can see them bonding over being crazy.
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