The goal for this winter is to get Kermit's TD. So I met up with a friend who's an experienced tracker and we did a bit of training this morning.
Kermit got an easy straight track to remind him what to do, then we laid a track with a turn. He nailed both, dragging me at a dead run. Didn't super care about the hot dogs, just wanted to follow the track. He hasn't tracked in two years but we immediately got back to where we'd left off.
Zaku took to it a lot better than I thought he would-- he isn't a huge fan of activities that require tons of brainpower, like nosework. He prefers to zoom. But he did two straight baby tracks pulling me like a motherfucker. I tossed his bally for him at the end for a reward. I can tell that crittering is going to be our biggest obstacle, but it is for everything we do, so, lol.
Very proud of both of them! Might go back tomorrow for some solo training.
Constantly reminded that if I had a spouse and two incomes, I too could achieve the dream of having a place to live. Single people deserve housing too.
Its been years since I’ve done any regular snowboarding. This year is going to be different living within 25 minutes of a big resort and a season pass! I have a lot of rust to shake off and need to actually get an instructor a few times to figure out why I plateaued before COVID started.
1. Talent Associate at Solutions Dynamics (pyramid scheme)
2. Wew are looking for a jack-of-all-trades “Blockchain Guru”
3. Tutor My Children (unpaid)
4. Mcdonald
5. Earn 100 Thousand Tollars Working At Home (phishing scam)
6. [listing that expired in 2019]
7. Brand Manager (Tiktok) at Keystone Pipeline
thank you WA state department of agriculture for not only providing valuable bear safety information, but also for providing valuable reaction pictures.
Apparently there are board members of the local paragliding club that don’t believe a women’s fly in is important and they don’t want to support it.
So the one woman on the board is trying to gather opinions on how it helped last year and why it’s important.
Let me tell you in paragliding, women are very obviously a minority. Legit get excited when I see other women on launch. About half the time I am the only woman on launch. I’d say that 1/20 pilots in the USA is not a man. (Haven’t met any non-binary pilots, but I hope there are some out there!)
I’m trying to come up with a personal account why the fly in was beneficial and we need more. But I’m finding that I’m just mad. Can’t they look around and see there are very little women in the sport?! How about the fact that why women will pay the large cost to get into paragliding (training and gear can cost 6-10k) then never really get into it past their training. It’s wild that I see so many women getting their P2 license (required to fly without an instructor, so when you finish training you have a p2) but see almost no new female pilots flying.
Landing from Pine a few days ago. Ended up a good 50’ short of where I wanted to be but the wind picked up close to the ground and I didn’t get the glide I needed.
I really wanted to kiting it to the dirt and put it down there but laid the glider down poorly…still in the road. The wind really grabbing it from me and I wasn’t prepared. Next time I’ll move further from the road.
Glad I had road spotters when I landed! Otherwise would have probably choose the riverbed.
Launched the south side of Pine for the first time this year.
It wasn’t a great flight. It was turbulent in just the right way to make me nauseous. I haven’t felt motion sick while flying for several months now. So was not pleased about that.
I did have a great launch and landing, which I’ve been feeling a bit shaky on recently so that was nice. Yet I had trouble getting established and climbing up with everyone else. It took me close to an hour to top out the thermals and it wasn’t a high day. Even Eric said he noticed something was wrong and I wasn’t flying great. Almost an hour in I started feeling light headed and foggy brained. I was only at 9.4K and that isn’t high enough for me to feel the altitude. So I drank some water and tried to shake it off but it wasn’t going away.
So I choose to land feeling like it wasn’t safe for me to stay in the air. Especially with the slightly more on conditions than I’ve been flying in recently. Luckily everyone else was landing around then too so it’s not like I had to wait.
I think it may have been the fact I didn’t eat lunch and apparently I can’t handle exercising or going long periods of time without food anymore.
Sure was pretty though. I really do like flying at Pine. It was a bummer we didn’t get to go to Ojai. (Probably good conditions didn’t tempt me to try) I’m hoping I’ll have more chances this season.
A flame emoji? A tumbleweed? A…pom pom? All of the above!
It’s a pom pom anemone! This spherical deep-sea species can roll around on the seafloor like a tumbleweed and has noodle-like tentacles dotted with stinging cells, much like its cousins, the jellyfish. Anemones use those swaying stinging cells to capture prey and bring it to their mouths. So next time you wonder what’s rolling in the deep, think of this astonishing anemone.
Late afternoon sessions at Happy Canyon. One of my favorite spot to take photos. I launch early when it’s more thermic, and play around for a while before landing and getting to take photos of everyone else as they start to launch and enjoy soaring.
I think I wrote and rewrote my caption for my Instagram post with this video several times. When it comes to paragliding I often feel out of place with my own opinions and thoughts. So I feel more uncomfortable putting them out there. Instead I’m going to write it here.
In this moment I felt like I couldn’t get my heart rate to slow down. I was working on taking deep and slow breaths. I checked all my gear over and over. I almost backed out of launching. I’m glad I didn’t but I sure learned a lot about myself. I didn’t really relax and have my heart rate slow until I was standing with my feet on the ground in the valley below.
The Owens Valley has a valid reputation in the free flight community. It has big violent thermals, dust devils ripping across the valley where you land and plenty of turbulent conditions that requires a high level of expertise to navigate. When I was here two months ago, to watch a Hike and Fly race, one of the competitors broke his pelvis after some weird air caught his wing and it collapsed about 30-40’ off the ground. The way people talk about flying in the Owens borderlines between concern for people underestimating it and gate keeping.
In all reality though with research safe flying can be done for beginners and low hour pilots. Conditions are typically mellower in the morning or in the late afternoon when it’s cooler. Midday is when things get rowdy.
I had being the retrieve driver for three more experienced pilots on Saturday. All three talked about strong 8m/s climbs and sink, and their whole flight requiring active flying to keep their wings open and flying. Two reported having such strong surges that their wing ended up in front of them instead of over their heads. In comparison the strongest lift I have experienced is closer to 3-4m/s with an average being around 2m/s.
So when I got the opportunity to fly on Sunday I was apprehensive. Eric reassured me that I had the skills to fly the conditions and that if do fine. When I woke up I could feel the heat beating through the tent at 6:30a. Then everyone seemed slow moving so we didn’t get to launch until 10. Which was later than we had planned on. When we got there we found a bunch of Hang gliders setting up, covering the whole launch area except for a tiny area right at the edge. They were nice and tried to move out of our way but their wings are massive and need the space.
I could tell I had barely enough room to lay out my glider. I felt nervous about it. With a launch like that sometimes it’s hard to get the wing up because at the angle there isn’t much wind on the ground where the glider is, but stronger wind once it gets up. I was going to have to step back, off the edge and onto the steep slope to inflate and then try and not get plucked before turning and going. If anything went wrong I most likely was going to get my paraglider tangled up in someone’s hang glider. Which I didn’t want.
Yet the launch was beautiful. It felt solid and I was told it was a great looking launch. Normally I settle fast and relax once I’m in the air. This flight was not one of those. I immediately started climbing up in lift and didn’t have to search for it. Which normally I’d be thrilled in. But I found myself afraid to turn and thermal up. When I got out in front with a clear view of landing areas, I did force myself to start thermalling up telling myself I was being ridiculous.
Slowly I started being able to see a favorite hiking trail pop up, and lakes I was familiar with. Langley and Whitney were in clear view and I could see more and more the higher I got. Somewhere right below 13,000 I started feeling the effects of not drinking enough water over the past few days and ended up deciding to push out and follow the range down. I could have easily cruised around Whitney and other peaks but found myself still worried and afraid that some strong 8m/s thermal was lurking on a spine or peak. Since it was approaching 11am I decided it would be better to just land.
I had a nice decent and a great landing. I almost laughed at myself after touching the ground. I had been so stressed and nothing I had felt had been outside of my skill level. I had done my research and flew within my capabilities. I just really think that the words and fears of other pilots creeped into my head and took hold.
Next time I won’t be so worried about the looming fear and gatekeeping by the community. This isn’t saying I don’t have a crazy amount of respect and caution for flying this valley, because that will always be there. But next time I won’t be so worried about my morning flights before it gets too rowdy.
if i bring a book someplace it doesn't necessarily mean i want to read it mayb i just want to take her on a walk. Get her some fresh air and a change of scenery
One Adventure To the Next @finishingflight - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
