[Lukas]

Paragliding in Golden BC, (Rocky Mountains)

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YouTube.com and type in "paragliding golden 110 km"


I would like to share with you my recent experience flying in Golden BC ( Rocky Mountains). I was flying in Golden for almost 8 days late July to Aug 3 during the National competition and had a truly amazing experience that words can't even come close describing it. I had great time and learned probably the most out of any 8 day stretch of flights. I am sharing this to inspire you and others to go there during nice weather and have a great time and also I guess to re live it while writing this.

I flew every day and did almost 300 km of cross country paragliding flights including.

110 km flight from Golden to just past Invermere BC
90 km flight from Golden to just short of Radium Hot Springs.
50 km flight from Golden to Spillimacheen BC
All of these were with zero tail wind and no flight instruments.

One full moon 3am flight directly to LZ which was a magical experience.
One beautiful hour long evening ridge soaring flight.
Bunch of short XC flights
Camping with other pilots and refreshing in a Lake.
About 25 to 30 hours of flight time in total.

I decided to go to Golden to see what it is like because few pilots told me that you got to experience it first hand and I am glad I did. I was in Pemberton late july when I made the decision to go as Pemberton was had stable air at that time and I had some time in my schedule. I drove for 9 hours roughly arriving at Golden campsite just before midnight. The drive was very scenic and worth the trip by itself. National competition was two days in ahead of us. One of my friends was competing there so we camped together. My interest was to observe and learn from the competitors, that is learn the positive stuff they did.

Within the first couple days I flew 50 km from Golden to Spillimacheen. I decided to go one way south along the mountain range. It was a challenging flight as there was no tail wind to help and no instruments to make it easier. Once I got up over Mnt. 7 which took a little while to do I pointed my glider south and went along the spine of the range and jumping from one peak to the next. I passed couple pilots friends on my way as they were returning and wanted to land in the LZ. I wanted to see how far I could go before the lift stops. The lift was consistent and not to rough so I decided to fly low over the peaks thermalling up only enough to make the next jump to the next peak. I prefer this style of flying cross country flight because I am scared of hights J no just I like to be closer to the mountains and use them as a reference. I also enjoy semi scratching mountain ridges, etc. Flying this site was so incredible not only are the mountains larger and the range longer than most sites in BC but the air is so big. Some times it just picks you up presses you in the harness like being in a good sports car at full acceleration.
As the sun got few degrees over the range the lift dropped off and I landed just past the point when the range splits into two parallel ranges. Landing was nice and soft and I did not bother packing up but instead I just bunched my glider and went to the highway to hitch a ride. I stood at the side of the road with my glider bunched up over my sholder and harness and helmet on me. According to the people that stopped it made a huge difference at least to them. So that is what I recommend is don’t pack up but get a ride first as you look more appealing when dressed as a pilot rather than someone with a large pack. Anyway I got to the LZ and Campground before night fall and had lovely time with half a dozen pilots camping in the same spot.

Full Moon flight, well I got to say that it might seem reckless and unsafe from most peoples prospective but you would have to be there to see the truth. Sure the risk was higher than normal but than again its all relative look what we are doing hanging thousands of feet up from Kites, at least that is the prospective of average people. Anyways the four of us around a campfire decided that hey its full moon and actually nicely illuminated ground and air so why don’t we go up and see if we can do a full moon flight. We made a mental map of all the light on the field and went up to launch. I is 1am and it only took us 1.5 hours to get up to launch that takes normally 40 minutes to get up. I’ll tell you the details in person if your interested. So its just before 3am and we arrive at launch and see that the wind is coming nicely up the NW sloape, and not only that but its strong 15 to possibly 20 kph. We look at the LZ and clearly identify it. Than we quickly put all our clothes on as it was cold with the wind at night. We lay our gliders and before I even realize it on of the guys brings it up nicely and launches beautifully. While I am checking my lines and building a wall few times making sure that the glider is fully inflated with no tangles. Within 10 minutes or so we nail all four of our launches. I launched last as I was the only one who did not drink or smoke. I made one short pass along the side of the launch before heading directly to the LZ. This was one of my smoothest flight ever. I got to say it was a magical scenery to see the full moon the city lights and dark mountains. I could see the other gliders in the air and we were at different altitudes so there was no danger of collision at all. Actually few hundred feet over LZ there was some temporary nice ridge lift from the trees or something. Anyways we had a great time and a flight that I will not regret that I did not do it. Our landings were easy especially when I saw exactly how the others landed. We packed up with gliders all wet from the dew and at least I sleped till after 10am.

Golden was a very challenging site to fly as there were days when launching was a real struggle. One day I think I had 9 or more aborts over the coarse of 3 hours or so. Maybe it was me but most pilots had few aborts that day. The air is big and when turbulent it can really be punchy.

So this is the day when I surprise myself with a 110 km flight to Invermere. This flight will take 8 hours approximately from 1 to 9pm. I launch before the competitor do because it’s a zoo once 60 of them want to all launch as soon as possible. As soon as I launch I get to work getting over launch and over Mountain 7 from where I will cruise south towards Invermere. There are few cluster of gliders in the air all around me. You can see the thermals so nicely when there are like 15 gliders in each. Once the start of the race began it was nice to see them all just boot it southwards. I learned from previous day to just not race and to pretend that I am doing a normal cross country flight because previously I sank out because of rushing myself and not doing things that I would normally do. The task for the competitors is to get to Invermere as fast as possible which was very nice because most of the way I had a flock or at least a couple gliders in sight to see what the conditions are ahead of me. It helped a little bit but not much as I was flying a different style. They were on speed bar and competition gliders and flying bit higher. I flew my style which is just enough to the next jump point. Its funny other pilot later mantions to me that it was interesting how I snaked along the range just high enough and actually making reasonable time he said. This day was very challenging as the air was comfortably rough and I had to focus to not be influenced by all the gliders / flocks passing me by on their comp gliders. Interesting enough only about a third of them made it to Invermere but than again they made it more difficult by going as fast as they could.

What was it like for during that flight? Well the 8 hours went by feeling like 2 or 3 hours only because it was full on focus almost all the time feeling the brakes anticipating the next punchy thermal, looking for good spots to find thermals, watching my penetration and glide, looking for landing zones, thermalling etc. This was a very educational flight and enjoyable also. The duration was no problem as I am used to longer flight. The views are breathtaking and awesome from above. I was pleasantly surprised to see the launch in Invermere as I was not sure if this town is Invermere or not. Just as I passed it the lift eased down and I tried to milk it for twenty minutes to make the next jump but I just did not get the lift and had to land in a field south of Invermere. It was getting late so I was so happy to see Ben with a retrieve Truck on the highway. We end up with 8 guys and bags in the truck eventually going towards Golden. It was a great day so many people going far and getting to goal. This flight made my trip, it was so nice to do a flight that I thought about for a long time, I was only imagining what it would be like to do a 100+ km flight when my instructor Dion said to me years ago that he did a 150 km flight in from Golden.

The next day I launch after the competitors launch and fly 90 km south to almost Invermere all by myself and one other pilot part way.

I had a ridge lift flight in the evening that was nice and smooth. The wind was strong actually very strong blowing at 30+ kph couple hundred feet over launch. I guessed it right thinking that it would be close to my trim speed. Well a tandem pilot waiting on launch said that it would be no problem penetrating. I trusted my instinct and insisted to wait until someone else launched. So my friend launch who has a faster wing and he was doing fine and from that I could see that I would be ok. We only were making 200 meter passes NW of launch as we did not want to be traped behind to the side of the mountain. Eventually there two tandems and 4 other pilots joined us in the smooth lift. Later in the evening we landed one by one and had a nice camp fire.

Golden is a incredibly nice place and challenging at the same time. I would recommend it to anyone who want to see a site that offers so much.

I got to say that the competition was nice to observe but at the same time it was shocking also to see how pilots compromise their safety / life by flying in ways that are questionable at best. The whole idea of competing individually is not appealing to me because there is not real point for competing with others but only with yourself every flight I have. I am not saying that I don’t push it, because I do responsibly. I would never attend a comp like the one I seen. What I would like to see in a competition would be a group of experienced pilots with some less experienced pilots compete not agains each other but with nature to see how far they can fly as a whole group helping and co-operating all together. Maybe at the most for two or three groups like this and compete as a group but still co-operating within a group to make sure that no pilots sink out and are safely flying farther. How about that, I am sure that this would be highly educational not only for the less experienced pilots but for the experienced as it is one thing to fly well yourself but to guide and help others do the same requires different skills of more like a teacher / trainer. That would be a cool competition I think.

Thanks for reading and please check out the videos on you tube.

Lukas Ircha
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