Do yourself a favor. Before reading this article, please make sure you understand the difference between paragliding:

and parasailing:

If this distinction is above you, I can only offer you my deepest condolences, and wish you on your way. If, on the other hand, you DO know what paragliding is, bear with me as I try to verbalize how this one activity has consumed every waking moment of my life.

I suppose I would be lying if I said I didn’t dream of flying from time to time. Frankly, who hasn’t? The dream of human flight is one which undoubtedly has enchanted my grandfather, his grandfather, and even his before him… back to before Leonardo Di Vinci (I’m not yet convinced that we’re NOT somehow related). As cliche and farfetched as this dream may be, it is one which is within reach. It is as simple as strapping yourself to a bunch of string, nylon, and mylar, hiking up the closest hill or convenient high thing:

dismissing conventional wisdom, and jumping off. Turns out, the devil is in the details here, but that’s for another time and place.

Who doesn’t want to fly like a bird? Who doesn’t want to climb, using only the power of the sun, tens of thousands of feet above the ground?

Who wouldn’t want to soar with massive birds of prey, wingtip to wingtip in a delicate dance of trust and mutual understanding?

Find me someone who hasn’t at least considered the awesomeness of any of the above questions, and drinks are on me.

Finding myself in a uniquely fortunate position, freshman year at the University of California Davis, I was introduced to my then teaching assistant, Honza Rejmanek. Being a student of Atmospheric Science, it was only natural for me to be interested in all things “sky”. Honza spoke of epic adventures, high above the European Alps, flying a paraglider hundreds of kilometers with nothing but the sun and wind at his disposal. As time went by, my understanding of meteorology grew stronger, I became evermore curious how I could take my knowledge of the air, and apply it to an activity that would get my feet off the ground.

Turns out, this process is relatively straightforward…involving not much more than a bunny-hill, a good pair of jeans, and an open mind. It should go without saying that having an intimiate knowledge of how the air works (read: meteorology) gives one a massively large head start when learning to paraglide…check. With the minimum number of flights and test scores quickly under my belt, I was sent off into the wide blue yonder to discover for myself exactly the pandora’s box that I had opened.

There is a term, long-ago committed to memory, rooted deeply within every pilots vocabulary, that saying it sends a shiver down every paraglider pilot’s spine….Parawaiting. This clever portmanteau, means exactly what every pilot dreads… not flying. Countless afternoons have been spent deep in the backcountry, on some mountain, parawaiting with other pilots. Countless small stones thrown down hillsides waiting for some wind. Countless dumb jokes told in an effort to pass the time. However, out of the darkness comes the light, and it is here, that my first realization materialized. I have found part of myself in other pilots. Those who look up at the clouds and think “I could fly that”. Those who would rather spend a weekend hiking up in the mountains, than window shopping in a city. I have taken a lot of comfort in finally discovering that there are others like me, and paragliding is the medium which has connected all of us together.

As with any type of aviation, or extreme sport for that matter, safety is always an utmost priority. It takes a very specific skillset to accurately analyze a situation and make a non-biased judgement as to whether or not this is a relatively safe situation to be in. Paragliding is obviously no exception to this rule. At the end of the day, I am preparing to jump off this cliff that may be thousands of feet above earth, and as the saying goes,

it’s not the fall that kills you; it’s the sudden stop at the end.

Serious consideration needs to be given to this point, as avoidance of this “end” is the utmost priority. The gear needs to be checked, the conditions need to be assessed, the proper mindset must be achieved, all before even considering strapping into a harness to fly. It is here, amongst my paragliding peers, that I again see parts of myself. I am analytical in my approach to life, sometimes overly so. This sport is definitely not the place for spontaneity. How else am I supposed to know about the approaching cold front, carrying gusty winds that would surely knock me out of the sky? How would I have otherwise learned about the Temporary Flight Restriction in the vicinity of the flying site. Where fire-fighting airplanes and helicopters would treat me like a bug on their windshields. To neglect the preparation would eventually mean bodily harm, mild or severe, that I am not trying to experience.

Every weekend during the flying season, which turns out in California is nearly January-December, I am faced with a struggle. Do I stay in the city and hang out with friends to socialize? Or, do I head up to the mountains, to camp, to hike, and to take part in something which has been the fancy of human kind since Icarus let his curiosity get the better of him. On one hand, maintining a social life is important to my well-being, as it is for any 20-something in a big city. On the other, I can try to scratch an itch to fly which has plagued me my entire life. This back-and-forth is constant, and one which has no “right” answer. To fly is to do what I love…while neglecting to spend time with friends. On the other hand, to be social, hanging around with my friends, is to neglect the one activity which truly makes me happy. To bring balance to this situation is to solve one of life’s great challenges…and I am far from it.