The Extremes at Torrey

I arrived at Torrey at 10 today, just in case. The wind has been awful lately. There's massive heat wave now in California which has equalized the pressure inland and with the sea, eliminating the wind. Today was different. I had a feeling it would be. Still, I had to wait until 11 to get flying. It was south, but blowing 10-12. I'm certain some gusts were 15+.

Bill asked what I wanted to learn today. The truth was I just wanted to fly. You've got to have a flight plan at Torrey. I told him I wanted to practice a big ears landing. He said, "It's a great day for it." It was.

Flight 66:

I launched and got nice lift right away. By the time I hit the top of the north slope I was at 513 on the vario. I turned out into the ocean, pulled my big ears, lost altitude to 400 and started in. I did a pretty good landing IMHO. I looked at Bill and said, "I'm just going to fly a bit." He said, "Okay!"

Flight 67:



Scripps Pier in La Jolla. The southern extreme at Torrey

I headed south to La Jolla. I've heard that you could fly all the way to the pier at Torrey, but I never had. I was determined to get there. There was tons of lift. I made it past the 1st few dream homes and found a ridge that I never new existed. An apartment building and, lo, the pier. I felt like I could keep going but I didn't want to push it. There may be some restrictions I don't know about. It was fun. Then I turned north.

I was playing a bit with the bowls and spines that jet in and out along the coast. Which provide lift? Is there sink? I passed the LZ and continued north. Some guys were searching for a golf ball off the ridge which I spotted. I informed them it wasn't playable and they all seemed amused.

As I continued along the Torrey Pines Golf Course. It starts to get low as you head to bathtub rock. Whenever I've been this low I've always felt I was going to the beach. I did a few turns by the ridge just to make sure I could get lift. I did.



Bathtub Rock. The northern extreme at Torrey

I really had no concern about going to the beach or hitting any kind of rotors. That's not good it turns out. After returning to LZ a paraglider I had been leapfrogging the whole way north came over to me in desperation and told me he was very concerned for my flying. He said I was going far too deep over the ridge, especially along that far north spine. It was far too close to the ground for his comfort.

My first thought was how well he presented his criticism. It can be done: you can see someone do something you don't like and talk to them about it without insulting. He said his name was Tom. I thanked him for his concern and comments. It did freak me out a bit though. I have to admit I was not concerned at all before he said something.

I check the time; I had been up in the air over an hour. It sure didn't seem like it.

Flight 68:

Before I got ready for my 3rd flight Bill informed me that David was going to instruct. He asked, "What's your flight plan?" I told him I was exploring the extremes of the ridge. He said, "No, that's no good. You'll do some spot landings here then some 360s." Cool.

David is much different in style. I had to do my first landing quickly just to turn down the volume on my radio. He's sure of what he wants and assertive in his instructions.

Flight 69:

I had to wait for the other students to get into position before I could do my moves. I circled the north ridge a bit then it was my turn to do some spirals. As I flew out over the ocean it reminded me of the SIV clinic. I was pretty excited. I wanted to see my wing below me again.

I went into the spiral and didn't quite nail it. I was a bit too slow, too underpowered and I came out of it all wrong. David asked me to come it to talk about it. He said I need a lot more weight shift, "Your leg should be hanging way over the side and you should only be in your seat by a bit of one ass cheek." OK I thought. Also, when you come out of it there's a bit of action on the opposite brake. You kind of evenly bring the brakes back to level. I was ready to try again. Second time was much faster. I lost 300 feet in 2 spirals. I flew back to the ridge and we had a sit down talk.

Flight 70:

David went over a number of things including how a P4 paraglider died 6 weeks ago at Blossom Valley getting locked in a spiral. The way you get out is to brake on both sides. The leading edge actually gets lock below you, you need to slow it down to get out. The bottom line was all about safety: know your limits and stick to them. It's easy to get cavalier about what we do, especially at Torrey were the conditions are so gentle and consistent. Reading about the accident has me a bit freaked out.

Anyway, a few of my friends showed up after David's lecture and I got distracted in conversation. When it was time to go back up the skys were crowded, too crowded to try to get in another spiral. I headed south and just enjoyed the ride. After 30 minutes I came back up to the LZ. I touched down at exactly 4PM, perfect timing.

Falcons at Torrey

The wind was strong and south today. Thunderstorms were even predicted which is very strange for July in Southern CA. I was passing by the gliderport and just dropped in to see what was going on on a day like this. Quite a bit to my surprise.

Robin's son Max was ripping it up in the 15-20 mph winds, but that wasn't the main attraction. A new student at the gliderport is a falconer and brought one of his new birds.



Jim Tigan from the West Coast Falconry Academy told us quite a bit about how these animals are protected in the USA, and some of the ways those laws work against the birds. It was very interesting. He's learning to fly to fly with his birds.

He told us he's an old hang glider who's going to dark side. I told him we're having a lot of fun in the dark.

Here are two more amazing photos:




In other news, I spent the afternoons today and yesterday with my new wing in Mission Bay, kiteboarding of course. Here's a picture of the wing:



There was no way to paraglide today, far too cross. It was nice to be able to kiteboard instead.

Power Zones

There's a nice power zone illustration in my new kite manual:



The interesting thing about the illustration is how there is only power at 45˚ directly overhead. It's not clear why there wouldn't be power at 0˚.

Apron landings and relationships

I arrived early at Torrey today, around 10. Bill and Ki were milling about the office eating breakfast and preparing for the day. Jackie offered cheery Hello. Suzie, the new girl, offered the same. She always very warm and welcoming. The wind was far too light, 4 mph.

I mentioned to Bill that it's been a long time since I had a lecture. I'm certain I've had every lecture they offer but I feel like I need a reminder. He said, "You can always go back and read the book." "RTFM" I said, and we laughed. He put a video on about alpine thermaling which was very good. After that I opened up my laptop and went back to work. There was a noticable wave of warm air, then 15 minutes or so later the wind started to pick up.

I took a break at one point to hang out on the ridge and just admire the ocean. There were 4 whales playing out in the water, just playing. It was beautiful. Robin's son was there doing all kinds of crazy maneuvers in light wind, 4-8 mph. He always seemed to get back up.

The main thing is I'm working on my landings. Bill drilled me all day. I probably had 12 flights, but they were literally launch, turn, land.

I worked on an "apron landing" which is more of a mountain landing. The idea is to turn in and ride the ridge. If you're high, come in deep, if you're low, ride the ridge without committing, then turn in and back to the wind to land. Sounds simple, but it took nearly all day to get it right. I got it towards the end of the day. I got in at least a dozen landings. I was counting on my vario to record everything, but the batteries went dead. I need to some extras. I noticed Antonelle's arrival as i was doing my landings, but for the most part the LZ was empty.


Launch, rinse, repeat.

Towards the end of the day it got light. I was the only one on the ridge for a very long time. At one point Bill told me to stay aware of the airspace. Even though no one is up with you you don't want to get complacent. I went to the far north over the golf course then headed for the beach. I landed near a knockout beautiful nude blonde on the beach. It made me wonder why I'm so reluctant to land on the beach.

My buddy Joe DeBriyn showed up late in the day. He brought my HDV camera back from his SIV clinic. One of the guys on this clinic fell in his canvas and 2 threw their reserves. I can't wait to see these tapes. I'll post them when their up. You can see the video from the last SIV clinic here.

I found a worth reading article with Gabe here.

My friend Gal directed me to a fall into a tree that didn't end well here at ifilm. It's worth a watch. The bottom line is fly within your abilities. It's been a day of multiples: multiple landings and multiple relationships. It's been a great day.

Kiteboarding in San Diego

I haven't always been obsessed with wind. Now I'm unknowingly drawn to it in all it's forms, even in my casual reading.

I picked up "Ruling Your World" by Sakyong Mipham, an excellent (so far) presentation of his meditation experiences and training. He describes the energy of the basic goodness of the world as "lungta", which translates from Tibetan directly as "Windhorse". Having wanted to kiteboard for some time now and finally taking my introductory course I can say that's exact what the kite feels like when you do a power stroke: a Windhorse.

I took my girls to the beach yesterday. It was an ideal southern California beach day: warm, sunny, surfers and boarders of all kinds playing in the open waters. We call Trinity our sea turtle because she is drawn to the water like a baby Olive Ridley. When I went with her into the surf I experienced the beauty of the clear water under my feet, the smell of salt air and the gentle draw of the breaking waves returning to sea. On a board you lose the stability of land. You need to work with the currents and the waves. You can fight it I suppose, but you won't do that long. If you're going to have fun boarding you need to get in sync with the flow of the water.

Similarly, Sakyong Mipham explains how solidity is an illusion in this world, and the primary illusion, the cause of all our experiences and suffering, is the illusion of "me". I may well be obsessed with wind and water, or perhaps I'm obsessed with losing solidity.
Kiteboarding adds another dimension to my love of the elements and especially the wind. On a basic level kiteboarding is water skiing without a boat: you use a kite in the wind in its place. There's enough appeal there to keep my interest. As a teenager I was a water skiing instructor in the Poconos. I loved it. I skied every morning. I had no money of course so getting that experience in took some ingenuity. I worked on a gas dock at the White Beauty View resort on Lake Wallenpaupack most days. We kept a tank on that dock for "extras" sometime just the drip left in the nozzle from the end of filling a tank – that can add up when you're filling tanks all day – sometimes late at night we'd siphon a gallon here and there from boats docked in the slips.

Water skiing is noisy and polluting. Even as a 13-year-old in 1973 I sensed there was something fundamentally wrong with what I was doing. I remember the anger of fishermen as we went whizzing by their boats, 90% of them tanked at the crack of dawn. I felt these issues all resolved today as I got up on a kiteboard for the first time. Let me back up and give the basic information.

I googled for kiteboard instructors in San Diego and came up with a few options. This isn't exactly as easy as you may think. "Kiteboard" brings up a lot of crap in google – it looks more like the result of a myspace search. I narrowed it down to 2 options and sent both an email. Paul Lang of West Coast Kiteboarding reponded. I'm lucky he did. When I showed up at Fiesta Island in Mission Bay, the primary spot for kiteboard training, the other guy was there. I didn't know who was who and drove right up to him and offered a cheery "Hi! I'm Kris." He spotted the West Coast Kiteboarding email on my passenger seat and dismissed me. He was a real dick. When I asked what was up he pointed to a black truck as said, "You're with Paul." My luck.

I signed up for the "New Rider Package" which promises a day of kiting and all the essentials you need to get started. It makes no promises about being able to get up by the end of the day, in fact, it lowers expectations.

Paul was happy to greet me and did so in a relaxed SoCal way then pulled a small whiteboard from the back of his truck. His calm presence was welcoming. Enchanted Cove at Fiesta Island is a beautiful place. Fish were jumping out of the water so frequently it was hard not to be distracted. Paul went right into the basics. Safety, site selection, the fundamentals of the "window". I'll describe a bit of what I learned.

You can only kiteboard when the wind is cross to your shore. When the wind is coming straght in or straight out you're in too much danger. This is perfect as there are many strong days where the wind is cross at Torrey. On those days I'll kiteboard. The lines on the kite are 100 meters (and everything is in meters). The basic rule is never allow anything to get between you and your kite. Too many kiteboarders use too little care and end up hitting people on the beach or obstacles which end up shutting down beaches for kiteboarding.

Some of the best local sites are Belmont Shore and Seal Beach, Enchanted Cove (aka: Stinkies), Sail Bay , Silver Strand State Beach and Tourmaline. Paul has a place in San Quintin, Baja where he says there's 13 miles of kiteable beach. Cool.

The "window" is a quarter of a sphere with all the possible places where the kite can fly. At the zenith of this window the kite has the least pulling power and has maximum pulling directly downwind at the water (or sand if you're practicing on the beach). The manuver that gives you all your moving power, the power stroke, goes like this: You position the kite almost directly overhead at the window edge, turn hard to one side making the kite go straight down, then turn hard the other way so the kite makes a hard U-turn. It may look like a figure-8 as well.

We took our equipment over the ridge to a large sandy area on Fiesta Island and practiced these moves, first with short lines on a small wing, then with full-length lines on a big wing. The wing connects to your body with a harness that looks like something a professional wrestler would wear. The center line that connects to the harness is attached to the upper edges of the kite and the control bar to the lower edges. This enables it to steer much like a paraglider though it's much more crude. You can adjust the wing's angle of attack with the control bar by sliding it forward and back. The line where you slide the line back and forth is called the "chicken loop" as the further forward you hold the bar the weaker the power – you chicken!

After mastering these control skills (it really wasn't that hard at all) we went into the water to body drag.
Body dragging is to kiteboarding what kiting is to paragliding: it's how you develop your kiting skills. You launch on land, take the kite to the window edge, position it over the water, then start doing power strokes. You get pulled right into the water. In the water you maneuver the kite.

Paul brings a little boat to recover you from the other side of the bay. The big deal here is keeping the wing in the air. It's difficult to re-launch from the water. To the way I think about these things the kites need A-risers. Paul mentioned that some wings have a 5th line to aid launching from the water. I'm sure it's in the A-position of a paragliding wing.
After 2 drags I'd made a lot of progress in keeping the wing up and fully powered. A few times I jumped right out of the water like the fish I was admiring when I arrived.

Then it was time to put on the board. A kiteboard is a lot like a wakeboard. It's much easier to get up on these than a water ski which is a quarter of its width. I launched the wing, walked a few feet to the water, sat my ass down and put my feet in the board. Then, a power stroke to the left. Bang – I got right up. Of course, then I went right back down.
I got that experience a few more times. It was really mellow, not at all the kind of thing I'd put to a Rancid soundtrack which is pretty much all you see on TV of kiteboarding. When I mentioned this to Paul he said my wing was a 12m and I really need a 19m or 20m. I suppose the Speedcore soundtrack is coming.

At the end of that run the wind really died. We tried for 20 or so minutes to relaunch. The wing keep collapsing on itself from lack of pressure. Paul said it was time to call it quits. I looked at my watch. It was 5. We were there from 11 to 5. What a day. I had the impression this was a 3-hour gig. My guess is Paul pretty much does what he likes and he made a day of our lesson. I'm grateful.

I really got to know Paul on this lesson. I can't express enough how much he reminds me of my older brother: very calm, patient and with a lot to say.

I'm eyeballing new wings now. You can't rent these things. I like the Cabrinha Crossbow with the seat harness.

One more thing, you might think this sport is for kids. There wasn't one dude under 40 at Fiesta island when I was there. I think it's more about who's got the time and the money. Paul is an editor for Kiteboarder magazine and was proudly handing out a few copies. I was looking at some of the pictures of the kiteboarding women with one of the older guys there who said, "Women that age look my way look my way, but they don't see me!"

Scraping for lift

The week after I praised Torrey for consistency – consistently excellent lift – the wind died.



Savannah and Trinity practicing with my harness on their playset.

I checked conditions at Torrey online all week and saw they sucked. I didn't even bother having lunch there. Friday looked a bit more promising. I wanted to just feel the lines, even if it meant going to the beach.

I said "Hi" to Ivan who said today looked promising. I got my wing up and started playing. I've been getting pretty good and kiting back up the hill,l to the left and right, and pretty much getting whereever I want to be on the hill. At one point I was kiting where the tandems take off. Some dude yelled over to me to get out of the area. I was agitated. He obviously wasn't paying much attention to what I was doing. Without being too much of an asshole I kited out of the area.

I've been thinking a lot lately of how distorted my view of life has become. I like having a clear mind - to see things as they are. I don't like feeling insecure about money or sex or security or (fill in the blank). And, I suppose it goes without saying, I've been feeling insecure lately. My first reaction seems to be blame. I blame my wife for everything, then my friends. I'm in control enough not to say anything out loud, but I act like I'm blaming (because I am). It leads to many uncomfortable situations.

So, big old fat ass starts telling me to move my wing out of the tandem area and I start blaming. Oy! This isn't right. It's a blessing though. Let me tell you why.

My nuts have been twisted in a gordian knot for a week and it didn't occur to me what was going on. Everyone else in the world was wrong: politicians, my wife, the market, you name it – everything but me.

The world is my mirror. When that mirror is dirty that's all I see: the dirt. I don't see my friends, the beauty, the love. Ass monkey with his loud mouth got me thinking about this: "Should go over to this dude and educate him on how to treat me?" Then I thought, "Actually, he's right. I shouldn't kite there." The knot began to unfold.

The world isn't the way I want it to be. I'm not milking all my opportunities, the phone is not ringing off the hook. If I told you the details you would say "What a whiny rich guy." And that's what it is: whining.

It didn't all fall apart at once, but over the rest of the day I began to breathe a bit more deeply, relax. I reintroduced some care and spontaneity into my moments.

Flight 53:

Some stronger winds started coming in and I jumped on this opportunity. I kept one eye on my vario as I approached the end of the north ridge: 480. Not exactly soaring from the LZ at 330, but I can stay up if I like. Two or three more passes and I came in for a landing. I did a south approach and turned late. I hit the ground running: not good. Ivan said I needed to crab in. I knew that but I wanted to get in deeper. Anyway, it wasn't a good landing.

Flight 54:

After the LZ cleared I got back out. Fat ass petty tyrant was launching right in front of me. He had an orange wing. My intuition told me to stay away from him. He went south, I went north.

Again I tried to practice a spot landing. The wind was dying. When I turned to approach on the south again I was at 380. It felt too low. I was hoping for venturi as I approached the ridge, but it didn't materialize. I think the wind was dead. Regardless I didn't feel comfortable so I turned back out to the ocean at what I felt was the last moment.

Heading north my suspicions were confirmed. I was sinking. Ivan said, "Keep your brakes up when you're sinking, and light brakes when you're getting lift. Cool. I liked that. Actually, I liked the fact that I had to scrape. I'm getting much better at judging what the wing can do.

I scraped for almost 15 minutes. At one point I got back up to 380, well above the ridge, but I was at the end of the north ridge. When I was back at the LZ I was below the ridge again.

I had heard that the bowl where the trail leads up on the south side was better for light lift because of the gradual slope. I headed over there and gave it a try. 250, 225, 200, 180 okay, I'm not getting back up there. I turned out again, further south, positioning myself to land right at the trailhead. On this score I did very well, a spot landing indeed about 10 feet from the trailhead.

I enjoyed this hike up. I usually do. They've fixed the trail and it's a much easier hike.

It's all about the moment paragliding, the moment of spontaneity. It doesn't matter if you're para-waiting, soaring, scraping for lift or hiking back up. It's beautiful. The point of paragliding is the moment. There's no particular moment, but there are moments to talk about. Everything about the sport puts you back in the moment.

"There is no point to a song", I heard Todd Park Mohr say in his philosophy podcast. It's just the beat: each moment puts you in the ecstasy of that moment. "The point of a song is not the last note." Similarly, I don't know what's going to happen each time I put my wing in the trunk and head to the LZ. The point certainly is not the landing. The point, if there really is one, is the ecstasy, the aesthetics, the truth and beauty, and the occasional kick in the ass that brings you to your senses.

Everything we need is in the present moment. Why do we look elsewhere? The present moment alone is real. Everything else is a shadow.