Another eventful day.

The Willi ended the same way it started, with some scary incidents. We went up to launch a little later so we wouldn’t have to wait on launch so long. As it turned out we waited a while as no one was staying up much before 3’oclock. As soon as a couple paragliders started climbing, pilots started piling off. I took off at 4’oclock and the wind was coming in strong from the north. I climbed up in strong lift and found it very rough. After being in the air for a half hour I had no motivation to go any where. I thought maybe I was being a bit of a whimp as every one seemed to be gone down range. I crossed over to Kapristo but didn’t like the air and didn’t want to land out. I took one more climb in front of launch but still wasn’t motivated to head back down range. I headed out to land and found several other pilots who didn’t like conditions either.

Fiona got hammered down at Parson and didn’t even bother trying to come back. She just went out to land. Just about every one I talked to found the day to be really rough with most choosing to land. Timmy flew to Brisco and Jim Scoles made it to Invermere. Both reported rough thermals all the way down the Valley. Two paragliders went into the trees. Search and rescue was called as one pilot looked like he went in hard in a bad area. He managed to hike himself out but the second pilot landed behind the front range at Spilli. She was picked up by the search and rescue helicopter. They were both uninjured to end the comp on a happy note.

We got to fly more days than the past several years but with some very tricky days. We had a lot of close calls but got lucky with no one getting seriously injured. I hope we all learned some lessons from the mistakes that were made this year and make safer choices in the future.

I managed to put together three good flights and won the Willi this year with Fiona close behind. Fiona seems to fly under the radar but is flying really well. I expect she will do really well at the nationals this year.