Mt Prevost!

Wonderful Day at our local mountain

Overall, yesterday was a pretty special day at Mt Prevost for most pilots who made it out. It was supposed to be cloudy with light south wind so it looked like a perfect student day - and I tried to rally the troops accordingly.

As for students, only Chris and Kris (K-ris we'll call him) could make. Otherwise, the usual suspects Ian, Bev, Maurice, Rick, and Lee shuffled their days and were able to join in (the forecast for the rest of the week looks dismal).

We started a bit earlier than normal and I'd hoped to get multiple, short student flights in, however, the wind was west in the LZ and on launch and Lee (as he kindly does) took to the air first and was soon 300' over launch and gaining. Hmmm...

Rick launched next and, after a number of passes, started climbing.
Next up was Chris, who reversed off nicely and then K-ris - both of whom headed out soon after. Ian and Maurice didn't get the height gain they'd have liked, but timing and flight path can often make all the difference.

Bev was the only one who forward launched and she did so beautifully - right into a nice fat thermal that she proceeded to put some smooth S-turns in, slowly but surely getting up close to where Rick and Lee were flying around high above. Way to go Bev!

I drove down to pick up Chris and K-ris and, by the time we got back to West launch, the thermals had started rolling in much stronger forcing us to wait for lulls. K-ris went first and let out a yell as he got lifted up over launch right away! It wasn't looking good for Chris though, and we almost decided to pack it in when a perfect lull arrived, and boom - he was off!

I hiked back through Middle launch on my way to the car and gave Chris some radio guidance as I could still see him up over West. At this point I felt a wave of content wash over me through sharing in the flying of others.

Now, when I think about it, I am Vancouver Island's longest-flying paraglider pilot, now having flown here every season for 13 years and I never thought I'd be able to say I was content with actually not flying when the conditions were good but still feeling happy about it? What?! Guess when you hit 40 your perspective changes.

Just before I got into the car to drive down, I received a text from Lee saying that he'd flown all the way to the Training Hill (and then back towards Duncan) and that he'd meet us for lunch. Not bad for your first Prevost flight of the year Lee! (turns out it was his longest flight south).

Then I heard that Charlie went the other way to Ladysmith, Rick got an hour plus, Cal had a good one, etc. and my grin widened and my step lightened as I finished hiking back down to the car with Hannah.

After a nice lunch at The Garage, we drove back to Victoria where this happened...

(thanks for lending me your Astral Lee!)

RIP Don Sr. :-)