Fillmore 1/27/13

[Nitrous]

12:30 at launch, Ron Groul and I were watching condors scratching a few feet from the hill. Within ten minutes they were a few hundred over and Ronny said it was time to launch. Ron was off in under 10 min it took me another 20. Chris Grantham let me barrow his I3, I was fumbling around trying to adjust it. By the time I looked up Ron was just a speck in the sky behind launch and looking like he was headed for magic mountain. I launched in shade, in strong lift, into the tendrils of clouds. I tried to snake my way through the darkest of them, as I was racing with as much speed bar that I could. I did not want to lose the sun's lighthouse direction to clear sky. I came out to glorious sunshine and did 360s up the face of the wall, going in and out with every turn. Then the next line of clouds would start forming upwind of me, and the race was on towards the sun again. All I could see as I looked eastward down 126 was dark angry demons with rain falling from their lips. I was scared just looking downwind so I tried to just stay in front and hope the angry clouds would calm down, them maybe I could follow in Ron’s direction. Chris's harness speed system sure works well. Started to rain, but could not find the cloud that it was coming from, then the rain hurt, it was small frozen hail that would bounce off the speed bag and hit me in the face. Clouds forming towards Santa Paula so I headed down 23 toward the blue sky of Moorpark and Simi Valley. Sink just north of the tops of the mountains, did not want to commit going south because I wanted to land closer to home, on the 126 side of the mountain. A rancher on a rhino drove up and parked at the top of a ridge that I was doing a poor job working the lift off of. Got low so landed next to him in the hopes of relaunching when conditions got better. As I was introducing myself the wind sifted to the NE and started to get dark and blow progressively harder. Called Ronny, he said he was OK. The rancher saved me a 2.5 mile walk by taking me to the 23. Kristyn pick me up and was back home in 15 min, and got to play with my grandson.
My goal for the day was to just test fly a harness that ended up a fun XC. Could have been a much better day if I had been more focused on XC, did my weather homework, and was willing to land farther from home. This dimension of life called paragliding is incredible.
Max 5042ft
Max Vario 984fpm
Flight time 1:06

[Aaron]

WOW! killer flight/adventure! thanks for the post, i felt like i was right there with you.