It started raining as I was passing through Rosarito. My daughter had a dance recital at 5:30 that evening and I knew I was going to have to fight rush hour traffic to get there. If I wasn't even going to fly I had no reservations about going straight back. I called Gabe and asked if I should turn around. He said, "No way dude. It's going to be epic." I've learned not to second guess Gabe. FYI: Verizon doesn't work in Baja: I have t-mobile. Gabe has Cingular so the advice here is to have a GSM phone (t-moble, cingular) if you're heading to Mexico. After hooking up with the crew at the Baja Seasons Resort and taking on Eric and Megan as passengers we headed to the LZ. It never even occurred to me to go to the top. Gabe said he was waiting for me to follow him off the highway ramp to the launch. The conditions looks so awful I figured I would only have a sled ride, and I was not missing that recital. It turns out I made my passengers hike when they didn't have to. I loaded up my back and hiked up about 400 feet. I consider this a pessimistic move on my part. That's not good form.
I enjoy that hike. It's the only rigorous exercise I get these days. I suppose I shouldn't impose that on others. I should mention that Megan was yet another hot paraglider chick. Interesting that the men/women ratio was about even, again.
When I got to the top Gabe was beginning his PWAITT lecture. We made it to the first T when someone overhead called him out. Someone took a fall. The first T is topography. Gabe was explaining that we shouldn't scrape the rock ledges here for lift as they have a way of sucking you into them. That seem to be exactly what happened to this poor guy.
There was a group of paragliders visiting from San Luis Obisbo. I believe he was with this group. I jumped in the truck with Gabe and booked over to where they said he was down. When we got there he wasn't moving much. Another paraglider was trying to get him out of his harness. Gabe suggested 4 of us just pick him up by the harness and carry him to the truck, which we did. His legs were bloddy, pants all ripped up and he had a huge bloody gash over his eyes.
From the way he was lying I guessed he broke his collar bone. He was unable to move his left shoulder. He couldn't walk either. His knees were bloody and really looked fucked up. We got him into the truck and Gabe took him to the hospital.
Danielle and I walked back to the launch site. She was not eager to fly, especially without Gabe's guidance. I asked Gabe before he took off if I should fly without his advice and he gave a big yes.
Everyone that had launched was really high. The conditions seemed ideal. However, just about everyone had trouble getting their wing stable at launch.
On the walk back with Danielle she said that she had trouble launching recently and after 2 frontal collapses Gabe asked her if the wind was trying to tell her something. Sometimes you should just opt out.
I took my time setting up my wing, getting out some tangles in the lines and then took it up. The wind pulled me straight up in the air and I flipped around from my reverse inflation position. I couldn't check the lines and didn't want to fly without a stable wing and visual check so I pull the brakes and came down. It all happened in a second. The wing landed on the brush and it took me 20 minutes to get all the lines out of the tangled branches.
My second try was much worse: I got the wing up but it was very unstable. I was pulled up and then did a quick brake. This time the wing was stable for a moment. I turned to launch and the wing dove down in front of me, not so much a front collapse as a roter effect. My wing again got stuck in a bush.
Here I thought: is the wind trying to tell me something? Should I call it quits. I had spent almost an hour already trying to launch. I needed to be back at my car by 2 to make it to my daughter's recital that evening and I did not want to hike down that hill. I decided to give it a 3rd go. The wing went up and crashed down again. I was pissed. I manhandled the wing back on to the launch and said, "Fuck it!".
This was the first time I had ever tried to fly without professional instruction and I was eating shit. There was a P2 pilot up there with me having just as much trouble. He gave up after watching me struggle for 20 or so minutes. My internal check was fine: my intuition said fly to the car, however, your intuition is not the full story. Just looking at the conditions and how many others had trouble getting up was enough for my rational mind to say: call it quits.
I tried again: Wing up, out of control, pulled the brakes and this time got pulled along the rocky terrain ripping up my legs and elbows. When I came to a stop the wing was not tangled in any bushes and I was pretty far back from the rotor of the ridge.
Flight 31: I thought, "Can I even kite it here for 30 seconds?" I pulled the wing into some kind of half wall and tugged the A's. The wing went up and stabilized. Wow… I hadn't felt that feeling all day. Then a cycle came and lifted me up. As I came back down I ran for the edge, and then I was airborne.
After all that shit the air was as smooth as it looked. I immediately got strong lift, but I had no time to fly: I had to make my way straight to the car.
I did some big s-turns on my way to the LZ. This should have been a 3 minute sled ride. I was getting so much lift it lasted almost 15 minutes. Thermals were just pumping off of the Baja ground. I wasn't sure if I was loving it or hating it.
Then I relaxed. I took a good look around. The plateau where we launch was a lush green with fields of yellow blossoms. The last time I was here in October everything was bone dry, dusty and brown. It couldn't have been more different.
There were 2 farmers with sombreros and mules walking in a field almost below my feet. I was only 2 hours from suburban America but clearly in another world.
As I began to approach my car I got another strong lift. I was too close to the ground to pull big ears but I almost felt if I didn't I wouldn't get to the ground. I could have turned right then and there to the ridge lift and flown for the rest of the afternoon, only 100 feet from the ground. Amazing.
When I landed I heard Gabe yell, "Good Job!" He was encouraging everyone to come down and have lunch. I told him about my proposed 2 strike rule. He said if he can't launch after 3 tries he bails. I said that if I failed on the 3rd try I was going to try the alternate launch site. He laughed and said, "And reset for 3 more tries?!" I had some huge gashes on my legs and my elbow from the falls I took up top trying to launch. Gage was looking at them and I said, "I think I'm going to stand out a bit at this recital." We laughed.
I learned a lot in that hour of frustration. I was concerned that I was not making the right judgments, especially after seeing that gruesome accident. I never want to be dragged to a Baja hospital. In the end I was thrilled I could have such an awesome ride in conditions I never imagined.
La Salina is an amazing place. I don't have enough experience to say how those thermals work there, but they do, and you've got to fight to get down. I left the LZ at 2 and arrived at Torrey at 4 to clean up my wing. I made it to the recital in Encinitas with time to spare. What a perfect day.
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