Paragliding The Crimea, Ukraine 2012

On my way out to a business trip in the Ukraine, I quickly looked up the weather conditions on Bing and did a quick search for ‘Ukraine Paragliding”.  A 10-second analysis told me I should bring my paraglider on the off chance that I’d have some spare time after work and was able to find a good spot to fly.  I am certainly glad I took the chance.  I had a great flight off the coast of the Black Sea near the town of Yalta in The Crimea, Ukraine.

A bit more back story – I flew out to the Ukraine to meet with an equipment manufacturer.  My key contact, Sergii, offered to make my hotel reservations since I have never been to the area.  I left it in his capable hands and was quite happy with their decision.  We stayed at the Oreanda Hotel in Yalta, a cool coastal town with a great boardwalk, rocky Black Sea beach, and a vibrant energy.  The hotel is listed as “One of the Special Hotels in the World”.  Anyway, after work they offered to take me to a local, world-famous winery, Massandra (more on that in another post).  Sergii did some research for me and found a flyable mountain about an hour away from the hotel.  The mountain is generally flyable only early in the morning or after 6pm, so we ate a meal after the winery and headed up the long, winding road in Igor’s BMW SUV to get to the top of Ay-Petrinskaya Yayla mountain.

We arrived at the top of the mountain right at 6pm.  The views from this location were breathtaking.  We were clearly able to see both the towns of Yalta to the East (the picture here on the left) and Haspra and Koreiz to the south.  The Black Sea was an incredible deep blue, but unfortunately my photos don’t accurately portray that very well.  The surrounding mountains were a combination of imposing cliff-faces and lush, green trees, which are clearly visible from any point in town.

 

By the time I was preparing to take off, the SE winds died down significantly.  A few local hang-gliding pilots were hanging out after having done some flying earlier in the day.  Being locals, they gave me some pointers on the local flying conditions and the landing zone, which was a dried out vineyard off the main road and on the way to the coast.  Due to the light winds, take-off required some significant speed, with an overzealous pilot giving me an extra push for good luck.  Here’s a video of the take-off:

Once airborne, it was smooth sailing straight to the Black Sea.  I circled over the town of Kurpaty for a bit, tempted to make a dash for the Sea and put down on the coast.  I decided to err on the side of caution and headed back to the designated landing zone which was north of the main road.  The road and landing zone are visible in the picture to the left.  I decided to land as close to the road as possible near the center to minimize my travel over the dried vine-field to the exit.

Total airtime was close to 30 minutes.  I packed up my gear in my stuff sack and started hiking east on the main road to minimize Igor’s trip from the top of the mountain to the main road to pick me up.  I walked about 2 kilometers before they made it down.  Overall, a great flying experience, my only regret is that I didn’t have more time in the Ukraine for additional flights.  If I ever go back, I plan to have my paraglider handy again.

Wrapping Up 2010 in Central America

Happy New Year to all!  I just returned from a two week trip to Central America.  I spent the first week in Honduras with my wife and then did some solo traveling with my paraglider to El Salvador and Guatemala.  It was an eventful two weeks, with lots of things checked off the list:

• Complete ownership of an entire beachside resort for a few days – check
• Petting monstrous iguanas and feeding giant barracuda – check
• Catching the lunar eclipse over the surf and sand – check
• Zip-line through the treetops of Roatan – check
• Seaplane ride to a small, deserted Cay – check
• Lunch at a luxurious “mansion” accessible only by boat – check
• Paragliding onto a surfer’s beach in El Salvador – check
• Paragliding over the aptly named “Most Beautiful Lake in the World” in Guatemala – check

More details to follow.  Here’s to 2011!

Trip to Seoul, Korea

I had a research trip for Microsoft in Seoul, Korea and took my mountain glider with me as I usually do in case I could find a mountain to fly from after work.  I lucked out and found a spot a two hour bus ride south of Seoul.  So, on Thursday, June 13, 2007, I hopped on the bus and headed to:

– mountain : jungkwang san(mountain; san(山) = mountain )

– Take off site altitude : about 450 m ( sea level )

– Landing zone altitude : 120 m

The guys who owned the paragliding school there were very nice and took me to lunch as we waited for the winds to improve.  I then hopped on their jeep to go to the top of the mountain, where I had a very pleasant flight – my first paragliding flight in Asia.  Overall, I was very glad I brought my travel glider with me and had a great time!

Flying Lake Chelan

What a difference a year makes.  Last year one of my first solo flights was at Lake Chelan, WA.  Lake Chelan has this amazing clear water that looks Caribbean blue when the sun shines on it.  Anyway, my training flights last year at the Lake were short but sweet.  This time, with my new soaring abilities, I was able to get over 1500 feet above the launch (which is itself at 3,800 feet) to take the fabulous shots you can see in the photo album.  The flight on Saturday, July 10th was a bit turbulent since I took off after 4pm.  After gaining about 800 feet above, I head for the nearby landing zone.  It was too shaky for picture taking.  On Sunday, I took off close to noon and instantly caught some major thermals, shooting me straight up into the sky.  My brake was wrapped around the flying lines, so I was only able to make left turns until I got high enough in the air to fix the situation.  Once that was done, I used weightshifting to steer while I took the photos.  In the last few, you’ll be able to see the landing zone, which  was a nice grassy park/soccer field right next to the river.