General News

On Sunday we drove from Chelan, WA to the Nelson area. The sky was perfect the whole way, just insane! I so wanted to get into the air, but we needed to work it home to stay on the schedule. We hooked up with some friends in Winlaw Sunday night, and after checking the weather and winds forecasts I had to change the schedule, Monday just looked too epic to miss...

Thanks to Jason at Kootenay paragliding for the information on the Slocan Ridge, which is a hang gliding site basically just above Winlaw. He warned me to get off early because of strong conditions in mid-day, but due to some 4wd escapades we didn't make it to launch until about 1:30. Then the problems started--launch was a flat patch of dirt in front of a radio tower with a steep hillside to fall down after the dirt patch ended. The lines on my comp glider are so long that with my feet only a few feet from the edge my glider was right up against the shed/tower, which put the glider firmly into the rotor. I can't drag my comp lines through the rocks like I could with a lower-performance glider, it has to come up sorta clean or the lines will just break. I tried for an hour, then finally moved down the hillside to a snag-infested little hummock. I'd almost given up getting off the hill when the perfect cycle came through, and with some Santacroce-inspired glider dancing I was able to lift the wing out of the junk without snapping any lines and get into the air. Despite the strong cycles I sunk down about 1,000 feet before getting absolutely beamed out in a solid 6m/s climb to base. Yeah!

I flew toward the Valhallas just 'cause they looked so cool. Spires everywhere! I gotta go climbing there! The Slocan ridge was pumping to the end and even out over the valley so just kept flying toward the Valhallas. Eventually I got a great view of these amazing granite faces from the next ridge to the north (west?). I considered flying right into the Vallhallas, but there was about 20K of headwind, I didn't want to beat into that anymore. I ran back to the Slocan Ridge, and got just beamed back out to base again. I love XC flying in new areas--it's a real test to figure out what's going to work where, and it's a joy to plan the game and have it work cleanly.

I wanted to tour the whole Nelson area, and from 3500M the options were pretty wide open. I flew out toward Castlegar for a bit until I could see it clearly and check that area out, then headed back toward Nelson over Bluet (sp). It was about 4:30 by this time and and the sky was starting to dry up a bit as a new airmass moved in, but the lee thermals were still working well. Just bomb it into a logging cut, "BOOM" back up, mega fun flying. The Kootenays are in general pretty "round" mountains; it would be hard to glide out from several of the summits, the small valleys don't slope enough. There's usually a logging cut down there somewhere, but some caution is in order. I got a little concerned about the glide when I was deep in the mountains southwest of Nelson, gliding out into the wind could have been challenging. But it was working really well, just glide downwind of the sunny windward slopes and latch a rowdy lee climb out. It seemed a bit odd that the climbs were so far downwind of their sources given that the wind was only about 20K, but that's how it was.

I kept it pretty deep and headed up toward Ymir and Salmo. I'm not at all familiar with this area (I couldn't find the road to Ymir until I got low enough to see some pavement, figured that valley had to to go to Ymir and Salmo--but which town was first in the valley exactly? No map...), cool to be just making it up. The sky seemed to so expansive and the possibilities endless; it suddenly hit me that this was what I loved about flying, the sheer unconstrained sense of openness and possibility. I could see literally dozens of potential launches, hundreds of things to climb, about a dozen rivers worth paddling, and so many little nooks and crannies that really ought to be explored... My friends from Winlaw loved being up at launch; it was the first time they really figured out how their valley doglegged, and where the drainages were. I hope to take them flying sometime there; it's just fantastic to tie all the ground-based features together into a coherent whole. Anyhow, it sure was fun to see Nelson (stayed well out of the way due to air traffic concerns) and all the valleys spread out.

I worked up the west side of the Nelson/Ymir valley with adequate but not exactly endless landing possibilities until I could see a small town below me, and then suddenly two gliders popped out of a mining/logging cut. Yeah! I figured this was likely to be Ymir, home to Kootenay paragliding. That's right, a full-fledged school and tandem operation! I still wasn't totally sure if this was Ymir (no GPS with a map in it, no map), and headed farther along the valley toward the next town to be sure. Eventually I was able to recognize Salmo from the small ski hill I'd driven by ten days earlier on the way to Chelan, and headed back to Ymir. The ridge was still working, so I did a few more climb and glides in the late afternoon light before setting up for a pretty tight landing along the river. Whatever doubt I had about where I had flown to was quickly dispelled by the sign on the building 50 feet in front of my wing: Ymir Hotel. There is a more wide-open LZ, but it had gone into shade and I didn't want to be trying to find powerlines and such in it, better to land in the sun where I could see everything.

Jason, from Kootenay Paragliding, came out and let me use his phone to call the crew back in Winlaw (no cell), and then his student, Douglas, gave me a lift back into Nelson. The ride was surprisingly long--from the air everything around Nelson looks pretty close, but the valleys curve and meander so much that it takes a relatively long time to drive anywhere. I could probably fly from the Slocan Ridge to Ymir in lesss time than it would take to drive if I went at it.

This was my first flight in the Nelson area, and all I've got say is, "MORE!!!" There are so many potential launches, so many great flights to do, it's just wide open to exploration and adventure flying. Apparently the season hasn't been great this year, but the forecast for the next week is epic, I might have to go back. If you're ever in the area it's well worth a stop. I'd recommend some other launch than the Slocan Ridge if you're on a PG, it's gnarly, but there have got to be better launches elsewhere. And when I was climbing out from the Slocan Ridge I saw some small meadows basically straight down from launch that looked really nice.

There are six pilots in Ymir and another dozen or so in Nelson; given the size of these towns (Ymir must be under 1,000 people?) this is just incredible. But I can see the Nelson area becoming one of the epicentres of flying in Canada, the potential just so obviously excellent. I often check the winds aloft for most of western Canada, and they are usually much lighter in the Nelson area than in the Rockies. The weather probably isn't as good on average, but I'll bet that in a given season you can do a lot more flying in Nelson than in Golden, and have a lot more choice for wind direction. I'm contemplating a move west--climb in the Valhallas, ski, paddle, so much to do!

Thanks to Kim, Warren and Margo for the ride to launch and patience.

The last two days of flying have been off the charts fun, just epic!

The last day of the Chelan comp was fantastic--a 120K triangle with absolutely rocking conditions. If there was wind I was planning to blow the task off and try my luck chasing down the Washington state record, but with minimal wind (maybe 10-20K) the task just looked like too much fun not to do... I went out hard and led to the first turnpoint, where I broke my speed bar. We were headed crosswind to the next turnpoint so a bar would be nice to have--I spent some time tying the bits back together as the lead gaggle caught me and then flew by while I tied knots, but I got back into the game to the second turnpoint until the cord broke again. I was having a bit of a hard time tying knots as I had forgotten my gloves on launch and had pretty cold hands, and the course was now taking us back into the headwind. The lead gaggle went right, I went left under some better clouds so I could try and glide straight while tying knots. Eventually I rigged up a full junk show system with my speed bar line coming straight out of my pod to the risers. This required holding the riser with one hand while pushing bar, but it worked enough to get moving again. I wasn't racing for any sort of lead in the comp as I had sucked the first two days, so I got stinking high and stayed there, just enjoying the conditions over the flats. As usual I flew almost the entire day on my own, I just like that better than gaggle flying. I like flying with my friends, but the gaggles just annoy the hell out of me, it doesn't feel "free." The smart "comp" thing to do was push it hard to goal, but I tanked up super high on the rim and flew over the goal on the moon so I could tag launch on top of Chelan Butte and close out the triangle totally. This added maybe 10K to the overall flight but was well worth it--so much fun to burn it back into launch after flying a big task!

I'm pretty sure I'm done with paragliding comps. I just do not make a good herd animal--I want to fly the air, not other gliders. There's too much waiting around on launch, too much circling, just too much in the way of FLYING for me. I like seeing friends and the whole scene, but the part of flying done in the air is for me fundamentally about the experience of the atmosphere and my very small slice of it. There's a joy in being all alone or with a couple of friends way out in the middle of nowhere that I just don't find in comps very often. It was great to see Bernard, Nate and some of my other friends out on course, but turning circles before the start with so many gliders just doesn't fill me with joy--in fact, it pisses me right off. That's not how I want to feel in the air. One of the hardest things in life to do is recognize when you have changed; I could keep going back to comps, which have taught me a lot over the years and I highly recommend for any pilot, or seek out what truly lights my mind up today: XC flying, preferably with a huge goal or in a new place where simple exploration makes me happy. I need equal measures of what I feel as meaning and uncertainty to truly get into flying; I love winning, but that doesn't pull as much as the thought of, "What's over that ridge over there?" Yeah! Paragliding is one fantastic sport with so many different possibilities, and a great community. If we could have a comp without the comp that would be great--fly with friends, come up with interesting goals and celebrate flight without having to mess about I'd be in.

Congratulations to Keith MacCullough, who defended his Canadian National Paragliding Champion title successfully. Keith has gone from a talented pilot who would generally do random things in about half the tasks to a focused competitor. He wants results in comps, and has matured enough to get 'em. Well done.

I had the (mis)fortune to spend a week in Beijing recently, and have a few pictures to share. I say "mis-" because I was just getting over two bouts of pneumonia when I went to Beijing, and something in the air or on the airplane flight home gave me a serious flu which threatened to bring back the pneumonia. But let's focus on the city (map at end of this post) ...

The new Terminal 3 at Beijing International airport is now by itself the largest airport in Asia, as well as the newest. After registering with the Immigration authorities -- who you are invited to grade on their customer service! -- you are quickly whisked to Terminal 1 in an automated train that takes only a few minutes (compared to up 45 minutes of hell for the same process at London's Heathrow airport).

You may see a few, or more likely, a lot, of these fellows if you are arriving during the Olympics.

Speaking of the Olympics, traditionally, synchronized swimming is a women-only event at the Olympics. But the Beijing airport police have a strong contender for a new event - synchronized walking.




Once through Customs, you are free to head off on your way to Beijing. I was lucky to be met by the office manager of my employer's Beijing office, and took a taxi to town, but otherwise you can just walk over to the Airport Express train station, location on the roof of the parking garage (which itself has a field of crops growing on its roof). By the way, this picture was taken on a sunny day from my departing aircraft - that's smog, not fog, in the background. The train station is the silver teardrop in the centre of the circular parking garage.


The train runs on an elevated track all the way to the city, paralleling the airport expressway. In the photo at left you're getting your first glimpses of the city through the smog: lots of apartment buildings and some stylish garden work in the cloverleafs. (That's the 4th Ring Road in the background).

The train eventually dips underground for the final few kilometres to the station. Here's what that part looks like:




After I got in to town, I checked in at my hotel, got my room, and gazed upon the bridge where Dongsishitiao Road (E-W) crosses over the 2nd Ring Road (N-S). Pedestrians, bicyles, tricycles, scooter, cars, trucks and buses all seem to negotiate this roundabout without apparent anguish. Friday rush-hour traffic.







Next morning, I took another look. The traffic was quieter, but the air quality no better: that apartment building disappearing in the smog up the 2nd Ring Road is less than 1 km away.










After an over-priced breakfast in my hotel, I stepped out the door and into the subway. Gulp - my first solo adventure in a country where I don't speak more than 3 words of the language. I confess I felt a little appre-hensive. At the ticket counter, I realised I didn't know how to say "Do you have any all-day tickets?", or even "I'll have one ticket, please", or even "one", or "please". All I could do was hold up one finger, to which the agent replied by holding up 2 fingers. Right, I need to pay him 2 Ren Min Bi (about $0.30). I got on the No. 2 line (dark blue) northbound, then transferred to the No. 13 line (yellow) northbound. After one more stop, I got out and started walking. My destination: a Dahon folding-bike store.

Lucky for me, I found the store without too much difficulty. And even luckier, they could speak a few words of English. Pretty soon, we had most of their stock out on the sidewalk. I felt like Goldilocks trying one that was too big, another one (the pink one) that was too small, then a final one (silver, behind the red one) that was just right. The price: $200. It's a Prestolite with 16" wheels (more portable than the 20" model I already own). At a local clothing market I found a good carry-bag for it for about $15. I was all set to go exploring!


After a couple of hours of aimless wandering around, just enjoying the new sights, sounds, smells and sensations, I found myself at the north gate of the Forbidden City. It didn't look like I could take my bike inside, so I rode around to the east gate and walked in there with it. Because the folding bike is so small (and probably because I'm a foreigner) I got away with this. I followed the crowd and eventually emerged out the south door of Forbidden City and then the south door of Chairman Mao's tomb.



Here I wanted to take a picture of the portrait of the great leader but a policeman told me to "keep walking" and "no pictures". Finally, 100m down the sidewalk, I was able to turn around and take a picture of the building. Next, it was time to investigate the very large open space across the road: Tian An Men Square.







At the exit of the underground passageway that crosses the busy thoroughfare, from Mao's Tomb to the square, police officers wouldn't let me take my bike into the square. But after I folded it and stowed it in its bag, I was able to walk right in. The square indeed does seem like it truly is the world's largest public square. I made my way to a famous local statue, the monument to the people's heroes. A local resident gestured that he wanted to have his photo taken with me in front of this statue. Individuals are always welcoming; governments less so. The Chinese government in particular doesn't want its citizens to remember the massacre of June 4th, 1989 in this very square, but I felt the history like a weight on my shoulders as I slowly crossed the enormous space.

Time for some retail therapy! I rode over to Wangfujing Street, supposedly the shopping street of Beijing. It was jammed with shoppers, or at least pedestrians, as it's a car-free mall for a couple of blocks. It was bike-free, too, so I rode around the block to the far end, then continued on north.







I went looking for the Lama Temple, and crossed through a neighbourhood of narrow streets, called Hutongs in Mandarin (not to be confused with the Cantonese that people from Hong Kong speak). Apparently much of Chinese traditional life takes place in the residences that line these hutongs or the side-alleys. I had vivid memories of this topography from the night that I watched the movie 'Beijing Bicycle' while in Rio de Janeiro Brazil. You can watch a trailer for the movie below.

The Lama Temple was closed unfortunately, so I returned home and planned to try again the next day.

Sunday: one more day before I change from tourist to business person. I got up early and rode up to the Lama Temple, or Yonghegong, and paid the modest fee to enter. I was greatly honoured to be able to spend a couple of hours contemplating the buildings, originally a royal palace but turned into a Buddhist lamasery in 1744. I was somewhat surprised at how many Chinese-looking people seemed to be paying devotional respects by burning incense and kneeling (always three times). Inside the buildings were a variety of religious statues, including in the largest building an 26m-tall Maitreya Buddha statue carved from a single block of rosewood (and thus, the plaque says, holder of a Guinness Record). The pictures below don't begin to capture all of the rich visual tapestry of colours and forms that inhabit this place.


incense offering; Buddhist symbology on rooftop


prayer wheel; guardian demon

Near the Lama Temple by chance I came across the Guozijiang Hutong, which apparently is Beijing's only ancient-architecture street, dating back at least 500 years. I found a temple to Confucius which I didn't have time to visit, and the Xu Xiang Zhai vegeterian restaurant -- Beijing's first -- where I returned to dine that evening.


Guozijiang Street; Hutong alleyway

During my work-week in Beijing, I continued to ride my bike, commuting with a few of the millions doing the same. I got a chance to appreciate some of the impressive office buildings that have gone up in recent years -- a testament to the vast inflows of capital to the country. Many of these buildings display an innovative and intriguing architectural style, leading to embarrassment over the beige rectangular boxes that pass for design in downtown Calgary.


CCTV network headquarters; random office complex

So, what's it like to travel around Beijing by bicycle? Fairly relaxing, actually. Most of the major roads have separate bike-only frontage lanes, while the lesser roads have painted bike lanes -- though these can be a bit tricky when buses decide to pull into and stop. In addition you have to cope with some cyclists travelling the wrong way (probably to avoid having to cross the road for just a block or two). At the intersections, things get a little trickier yet, but the best advice seems to be: ride as slowly as the locals, because you have time to adjust to everything that's coming at you. If you try to ride as fast as most North Americans do, you'll find that problems crop up much more quickly -- as can be seen in the video below.



And here's a video I took along one of those separate bike laneways:





One night while riding near the Buy Now Hui electronics market I heard music coming from a parking lot and stopped to investigate. A number of elderly women were performing a traditional dance, while several musicians provided appropriate music for the dancers. Young people passed by without paying any attention (in many cases talking on cell phones) but I was fascinating and stayed quite a while. If I hadn't been riding a bike, I would have missed this cultural moment.



The remainder of my week was spent working in the nearby Langfang City, just a baby of 3-4 Million, and where the air quality wasn't any better.

On my final morning in Beijing, I started with breakfast with an American friend, Bill Hardy, who by wild coincidence just happened to be in Beijing and staying in my hotel, then went for a ride out to Chaoyang Park and amongst other things saw two examples of the breadth of experience available in this city caught between the old and the new:


Brand-new Apple store in San Li Tun; women practicing Tai Chi in Chaoyang Park

If you haven't been to Beijing, give it a thought. It truly is a world-class city and has lots to offer the tourist. Spring or fall might be best though, as it can get very hot during the summer, and quite cold during the winter.

Below's a map showing some of the locations mentioned in this post (click on the placemarks to see a description). And if you want to see more pictures from my Beijing trip, check out my Beijing album on Picasa.

Addendum: a couple of weeks after my rides through Beijing, US Cycling team member Jason McCartney went for a ride through Beijing. The NY Times has a story and nice slide show with audio.


View Larger Map

Yesterday was blown out for flying so pilots started searching out other adventures. Mini-golf, mountain biking and "toasting" (Franglish for tanning) were all popular. James and Pam suggested that we check out some "ice caves" near Chelan. The problem was that the entrance to the caves was dynamited in the sixties because the local government figured they were a hazard. This is despite the fact that the the local fruit growers used to store their fruit over the summer in the caves. The caves were popular enough to have been a state park at one time... They must have been big, there is a lot of fruit around here. A local pilot, Brad, thought he might know where they were because every time he rides his motorcycle through a small canyon the air temperature drops very noticeably. Pam and James went to the Chelan museum, checked out Google Earth, and we were off. We found where the cave used to be--the air blowing out between the boulders was frigid. I went on a bit of a hike up the hill side (first one with my knee, feeling good!) in search of other entrances but couldn't find any unfortunately. But from my perch up on the hillside I could see what looked like a decent boulder field across the canyon. Our ice cave expedition turned into a boulder recon mission in short order.

I think somebody at some time must have climbed a little on these boulders as there were some rocks stacked up in strategic places, but there had been no cleaning, no chalk, just a collection of decent boulders. I did a half dozen good problems in my running shoes before the expedition was called due to hunger. It's not Bishop, but it's a worthwhile spot given that there doesn't seem to be much in the way of climbing close to Chelan. The wind finally died this morning so we might get to fly today, but if not I'm pretty fired up to go back and get amongst the Ice Cave boulders. Anyone who knows about these boulders might drop me a line, I'd be a curious on their history if any.

We've only had two days of flying at the Chelan XC open/Canadian Nationals. Both days have been relatively weak and low, with short tasks. Very challenging flying. I'm doing my usual thing, which is to head off on my own plan. This isn't working, but I dislike gaggle flying enough that I'm resigned to it. It's not the strategy to pull a result on weak days, but I'd rather finish last doing my own thing than gaggle fly for a place other than first. Right now I'm working on finishing last, grin... Keith is doing well for Team Canada, currently winning our Nationals and third overall, which if he can hold onto it will be his best finish in a major meet yet. Keep with it Keith!

Tomorrow looks OK, but if it's not on we're going to head north and check out the Nelson/Slocan area and do some flying there. The knee is feeling pretty healed despite falling off a bicycle a couple of nights ago when a little kid challenged me to do a wheelie. How can you resit, "Hey, old guy, can you do a wheelie? Just try!" I did and busted out a decent wheelie but came off the bike with less than perfect coordination. It was all worth it to hear the kid say with the supreme confidence of a ten-year old, "Hey, you got skills."

Time to hit the taco cart up in downtown Chelan. That cart is one of the very best things about Chelan.

When I was about 27 or so I jumped off a fence wearing a 50-pound paragliding bag. Yeah, real smart. My left knee hurt like hell for a month or so but got better, my right knee healed faster. In the last 13 years I've put more miles on my body than long distance trucker, and that knee never really felt great. I just dealt with it. Then last November I was kite skiing and ambitiously hucked a pretty good air that unfortunately greatly exceeded my ability to successfully land it... I was also on a frozen lake with less than 10cm of snow. That really hurt my knee, but I sucked it up, only pussies need knee surgery. I then tore my oblique after walking, or rather hobbling, into an ice climb. I had to "hip kip" every step to make my knee work, and the oblique was just worn out from the effort. The walk out sucked as the entire left side of my body was a mess. Anyhow, long story short, I finally got into have the meniscus sorted out.

6:00 a.m.: Arrive at the Banff Hospital without any coffee or other stimulants in my blood stream. A tremendous waste of a nice morning for sure, how does anyone live without caffeine?

6:30: Fill out all the paperwork. Get given a bed to wait on. Fall asleep.

8:30: Wake up, my room now has two other patients. They see me asleep in the bed and assume that I've already had surgery. I'm grumpy and surly due to the lack of morning java and feed them horror stories about it until I give in and admit I'm waiting too. We joke about it all but everyone is nervous. Someone is shortly going to stick huge tent stakes into our knees... I spend five minutes scrubbing my leg with a disinfectant sponge that smells like the stuff I used to put under my tape to make it stick better. I have flashbacks of climbing in Joshua Tree, all that morning coffee before we went out and cranked...

9:00 a.m. I'm on the table, and Dr. B and his team are attaching various monitors etc. The anesthesiologist asks if I want some happy juice in my IV before they stick a monster needle attached to roughly a can of Red Bull full of anesthetic into my knee. I decline, I want to watch this action and be fully with the program.

9:01 a.m. There's a med student sticking the needle in. She's looking worried. I try and get her psyched and relaxed by joking with her. She gets more nervous until I tell her I'm just joking, I won't yell if she does it wrong. The mood lightens up, and she does a great job. I want everyone in that room psyched and into working the game. I know I'll get better results if they see this all matters to me. It does.

9:15 The camera on the end of one tent stake shows the operating room, then dark redness, then it's exactly like watching one of those TV shows where the sub is thousands of meters below the surface and searching for some nightmarish creature. My femur, patella and various tree trunks of ligaments float by. It's surreal, almost like the old TV show where a bunch of people are miniaturized and dropped into someone's blood stream. Who knew there was a universe inside my knee?

9:16. Dr. B goes to work. The only thing that tells me that the image on the screen is inside my knee is that the various yanks and snaps correspond to movements I feel only as dull forces. It's dentistry meets carving a turkey in a tent at night. Dr. B. does an excellent job of telling me what he sees and is doing, and I'm glad I looked at a bunch of photos so I could follow along reasonably well

9:30 Dr. B finishes up with the medial meniscus and gives me a tour of the rest of my knee. I have to say that was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. It's also enjoyable because my ACL and the rest of the bits are in good shape considering how much I have abused them over the years. The tent stakes come out of my leg, the room relaxes, the team starts breaking down and I'm wheeled out. Very professional, very smooth, thanks.

9:45 Because I've refused the happy juice I go directly back to my earlier room and not the recovery room. I get handed the single worst turkey sandwich I've ever experienced in my life. What is it with hospital food???! I eat the first half of it anyhow 'cause I'm really hungry. The second half wins, and I back down.

10:30 I hobble out. My knee is still totally numb, but apparently this is OK. My ride shows, we head for coffee and painkillers immediately.

Monday Afternoon. My body knows something is really wrong, but can't figure out what. Amazingly, the anesthetic lasts until 2:00 a.m. Tuesday morning. I know it fully wore off at 2:18 a.m. 'cause that's when I woke up. My knee actually hurt less than it often did before the surgery, and I'm too lazy to get up and find the pain pills so I go back to sleep. I am pretty certain that I'm not going to be able to compete in the Canadian Paragliding Nationals, which start a week from today.

Tueday: Pretty much the same as Monday but now I can at least feel my knee. I didn't want to do much on Monday because I figured that I needed to be able to feel my knee to know if what I was doing was too much. I don't do much but ice and walk to the fridge for more food. Pain pills still not necessary.

Wed: Feel better. Walk slowly, get some work done, the meniscus actually doesn't hurt too much but my range of motion is pretty limited and slow to move through.

Thur: I feel pretty darn good until I walk more than 30m. The problem isn't the meniscus but all the supporting muscles firing in weird ways.

Today: I'm packing for the Canadian Nationals as I can walk more or less normally if not fast. Flying seems like the logical thing to do because I can't really walk, can't ride a bike, can't kayak (water in wound not good), can't climb, can't even go swimming. I might have to get my friends to help me get off the hill, but that will be pretty funny too. My knee didn't hurt at all last night for the first time in about four months. Amazing. I haven't taken any of the big pain pills as it simply hurts less than it often did over the last couple of months. I don't know if this means if the pain isn't too bad or that I have adapted to a lot of pain in my knee. In either case I have a nice big bottle of industrial pain kills to stick in the first aid kit.

Thanks to Dr. B and the team at the Banff hospital, I really hope the rest of this goes as well as it has for the first five days.

See ya in Chelan!

WG

A few weeks ago I had the good fortune to enjoy some truly epic flying conditions off of Lookout Mountain, near Golden, Colorado. Those conditions took me to 14,500 feet. I've flown off of Lookout hundreds of times, but only reached that altitude maybe a half-dozen times. Today I flew at over 16,000 feet for far too long, and hit the FAA ceiling of 18,000 feet. This was an interesting experience, one of the top three "weird" things I've ever had happen on a paraglider. Here's the story, pounded out fast about July 15th but forgot to post it up.

The morning started out with a nice hike up Green Mountain. Despite a meniscus tear I can still hike on trails, I just can't walk around Home Depot on the cement floors for more than 15 minutes without starting to hobble like, well, a guy with a torn meniscus. At 10:00 in the morning the temperature was already hot, and the morning thermal cycles were strong enough to move the trees around on top of Green. All other plans were canceled, time to go fly.

By about 1:00 I was on launch in Golden with MR and a few other pilots. It was great to see MR and Rusty were still at it! But conditions seemed rather weak, with a few pilots sinking out. For whatever reason the day just wasn't on there yet. Eventually MR and I launched, and climbed out slowly out to about 9500 feet (my vario is in meters so feet are an approximation). The rest of the pilots soon joined in, and we bounced of the inversion for a while. There was a guy on a yellow Advance already heading north, but the Boom 5 with bar made catching up pretty simple. I passed under him and headed on before hitting a 5m/s thermal, which was about double what we had gotten so far. BOOM! Soon I was climbing through 15,000 feet, a new record for flying over the Front Range for me, and I decided to start gliding north as 15,000 feet is, ah, plenty high. Yeah!

That's when the first jet went by overhead. Not super close, but close enough to have a good look. My heart rate went up a little, but the sky is big. It's not uncommon to have jets fly overheard, that one was just a little bit closer than I like. I'd like to know what the guy on the yellow Advance got up to--the last time I saw him he was many thousands of feet below me and still heading north. (Edit--you can read Sam's account and see his excellent photos here, what a day! Glad Sam took some photos 'cause I didn't.)

Denver International Airport is about 30 miles east of Lookout, and it's normal for the jets heading west to overfly us as we head north to Boulder. No big deal, I continued gliding north. Strangely, I was still climbing despite having some bar on and flying straight. 16,000 feet is when I started to get pretty excited and notice the symptoms of hypoxia (slow thinking, less than prompt reactions, the usual). But a perfect cloud street was popping in front of me toward Boulder, and I wanted to be out of the area where the jets were so I stayed on bar, and kept slowly climbing.

At about 16,500 I hit the west winds and started to drift east a bit, but made sure to crab so that I was nowhere near DIA airspace (I stayed west of the Boulder-Golden road to be sure). 17,000 feet is when I pulled big ears, and the second and third jets went by. Again, not close enough to file an incident report, but a jet looks pretty big when you're a butterfly. My heart rate accelerated dramatically.
By this time I was high enough to have a clear visual on DIA, and I kept a very sharp eye to the east. I didn't want to fly back through the lift I'd just been in as that would have put me above 18,000 for sure (base looked to be about 20,000), and the clouds to my west looked even harder. Clouds with flat hard bases mean stronger lift, something I did not need. I couldn't really go east as that would put me more toward DIA. I pondered spiral diving, but would that put me back into the altitude range of the jets coming out of DIA?

So I kept heading north. By now I was well north of DIA and right at the FAA ceiling for hang and paragliders, 18,000 feet. I let myself drift a bit farther east, still cautious of the Denver airspace, and flew east of Boulder. There's a very active drop zone in Boulder, I didn't want any part of that. Then another jet flew right under me, and my heart rate really went ballistic. I also noticed that I couldn't relax my hands anymore, my lips were tingling and my thinking process very, very slow. I was also frozen--I'd launched expecting to maybe hit 10,000, now I was near 18,000 and cold.

There was a perfect line of clouds heading east, but I was feeling pretty concerned about the air traffic, was noticeably hypoxic and had generally had enough. I flew north toward a big blue hole, which normally means sinking air. At this point my hands and forearms were cramped clubs. I was not losing altitude, clouds kept popping above me... Normally when you get beamed to 17,000 feet plus you fly out of the lift and plummet back to a much more reasonable altitude where it's possible to recover from the oxygen deprivation. I'd now been above 15,000 feet for close to an hour, and decided that I would just glide until I was below 9,000. The ground out north of Longmont is probably at about 5,000, so if I felt like continuing I could from that altitude. But I still wasn't losing altitude. I'd been watching the sky carefully for signs of serious over development (or jets) and there just weren't any so I wasn't concerned about that, but my body was in full revolt. I was as near puking as I've ever been in the air, and had all the fun symptoms of both normal old paragliding hypoxia and also the ever-fun altitude sickness more familiar from climbing too high too fast on mountains. As hypoxic as I was, I didn't want to start spiral diving to lose altitude and add more stress to my body, but with non-functional hands and a seriously messed up mind the situation was not what I like when flying. If I continued to gain altitude I would be in controlled airspace. But that might be the least of the immediate problems--what if this got so bad that I blacked out? I've been to near 20,000 feet+ over Telluride and about 18,000 feet a lot in Aspen, but I was well-acclimated at the time. At a site where 11,000 feet is considered high I'd just flown high enough for long enough to encounter a new physiological wall, something I'd never experienced anywhere else in flying.

I mulled the options in my mind while sucking huge lung fulls of air in. I know from being high in the mountains that even while at relative rest my pulse and respiration often at least doubles, but this was much, much more intense. I wasn't panicked, but I was sure as hell stressed out. Jets, altitude, something was really going wrong...

I literally could not open my hands, and my glider inputs were reduced to moving my arms with my biceps and lats. I fly like that a lot when cold, but I just wasn't that cold... As my vision narrowed I decided I was extremely hypoxic and near systems shut down. I contemplated throwing my reserve, but throwing my reserve at just under 18,000 feet didn't seem like a good idea. I figured that if I were to pass out I would likely wake up before I hit the ground as I was at least two miles above it, plus I wasn't sure if I could make my hands work well enough to throw the reserve anyhow. Like I said, new physiological and mental ground... I focused intensely on staying with the program and continuing to breathe as more and more of my body cramped up. I have never had anything like this happen in flying, it was kinda traumatic.

Eventually the sink alarm went off, and feeling started to return to my arms and face as I continued to glide northeast. By the time I was down to 10,000 feet I felt pretty good, but went through the most excruciating "screaming barfies" I've had in years as I windmilled my arms to pump blood back through them. I don't think the barfies were just from the cold as I was reasonably warm, it was the cramps that kept my blood from circulating. I flew straight through some decent lift while sorting my hands out, I just didn't want to take it high again.

By 8,000 feet I realized I'd flown myself into a large shaded area, and there was likely no getting back up. This really didn't both me too much. The west winds had pushed me well north and east toward Greeley, not sure where exactly as I didn't bother to put a waypoint into my GPS for launch. Eventually the west winds turned to east winds and I landed smoothly next to a gigantic green lawn perfect for folding my glider up on. The lawn's owner came up, real friendly guy, and we talked as I folded. I still had my balaclava on, which must have seemed a bit odd in the heat (102 according to my host), but he rolled with it. A liter of water and some food put the situation more or less right, but in retrospect I find it somewhere between humorous and frightening that I forgot to ask Mr. Lawn where I was--and that I didn’t think to take my balaclava off... My mind still wasn't all there. I knew I had to go east and south to get my truck back at launch, and my host told me it was about 50 or 60 miles away as the crow flies. Not an epic flight in terms of distance, but epic in lots of other ways.

The hitchhiking went pretty well; a solid guy named Jim picked me up and drove me into Longmont, where we did a friendly cash deal that found me back at my truck in reasonably short order. As always, I enjoyed the ride and talking to a random guy about life, politics and whatever else was going on. If Jim finds this scribble, thanks for the ride, absolutely worth it in many ways, hope to hear from you in the future!

Tonight I started to research the effects of hypoxia to try and understand my experience. Hypoxia/altitude sickness certainly explains the muddled mind, urge to vomit and so on, but cramped hands and tingling are not the usual course of the experience, at least according to the ten minutes I spent on the web tonight. Those symptoms fit much better with hyperventilation, where the calcium levels in your body can get seriously whacked. I had consciously been breathing deeply and smoothly while high, I've found that really helps me with altitude while climbing. Had I done too much of it? Had the stress from the jets sent me over the edge? Does hyperventilation cause cramps and tingling faster at high altitude de to some combination of lower partial pressures and oxygen saturation? Who knows, I'll do some more research and find somebody who does, 'cause that was an experience I don't want to repeat. Lookout mountain sure delivered the goods...

July 23rd note: I'm more certain now that, while I was certainly hypoxic, the situation was likely compounded through hyperventilation-induced problems.

I've also checked a sectional for the airspace rules around DIA, I was not in controlled airspace at any point. It's just that neither were the jets, and they move a lot faster than I do. I would suggest staying below 15,000 feet anywhere along the Front Range, I did not enjoy the experience of so much air traffic even if it was relatively far away. It's not something to gamble with in my opinion.

I've been writing about movement, flying and of course training some, but with another rider busted in the Tour de France today my thoughts are on that event.

I used to really like watching the Tour de France. When Floyd Landis was busted for doping in the Tour I was pissed at Floyd. I had reveled in his stunning comeback, his guts, and his general down-home attitude. Then it turned out that he had doped (no real surprise for any Tour rider), and I felt betrayed despite feeling I should have known better. I followed Floyd's appeals and legal maneuvering as the case went through the courts, and at one point I became convinced that he hadn't been busted so much as framed by bad evidence. Then I read some more, and the reality is that nobody but Floyd will ever know exactly what happened. I expect that maybe in ten or 20 years the "real" evidence will come out as it often does. This year I followed the Tour a bit, but it's the same old game of doping violations. I've now just lost interest in the Tour; what does it mean to win an event that's so obviously drug-fueled? What it really boils down to for me is that the Tour is simply nothing more than a bad joke no matter what happened with Floyd and others. Either Floyd is lying like mad or the Tour is incompetent at drug testing. Either way my response is the same: I'm not interested anymore. My opinion matters little, but I suspect there are a lot of people out there who feel the same. Maybe drug testing is a dead end for athletics, maybe there are ways to test effectively, but the real problem is that high-end aerobic and strength events have big stakes, and someone will always try to cheat in that environment. It's human nature.

I've lived and worked with amateur and professional bike racers over the years and deeply respect the dedication and effort they put into their sport, but I can't respect the Tour as an event, nor can I find the confidence to trust any of the athletic performances I see on that asphalt stage. Football, baseball, hockey, any "huge" event has basically the same set of temptations and will likely produce the same behavior.

I do not know of one climber, kayaker or paraglider pilot who has ever doped to win a contest of any kind. I've heard vague accusations, but despite being involved in the high end of those sports at various points I have no solid, factual information that anyone has doped to perform at a higher level than any other competitor in any event. And even if someone had then I seriously doubt the podium reflected the doping effort; it's seldom the strongest who wins in any the sports I compete in. When someone wins a climbing or paragliding comp I can see the training, see the effort, and balance those factors against the luck everyone needs occasionally. I've had luck when I needed it and not had it when I would have liked some. I've seen competitors screwed by the "rules," and also given a break by the officials, but that's competing. Perhaps there just aren't enough rewards in my sports to inspire serious doping? That's OK with me, and I can look at the accomplishments of my friends and know that the results came from them, and not from who could avoid the drug tests the best.

I clearly remember the first time I saw someone who could truly walk well in the mountains. I was in Mexico, basically lost deep in Copper Canyon. A friend and I were carrying our kayaks on our heads and staggering around the trail like a couple of drunks in search of a bar. We never did find the river, but we did find a bar eventually, but that's another story. The locals in Copper Canyon are the Tarahumara indians. Being kinda ignorant (hence not finding the river) we didn't know much about these people, and my first sight of one came when an older woman with a huge stack of stuff floated past me up the trail. I can still remember the way her feet flowed around and through the rocks and mud, and the supple ease she displayed despite both her age, load and the tough going. It was as impressive to me at the time as watching Sharma boulder when I saw that for the first time many years later. She just knew how to move on a trail.

Over the years I've spent a lot of time beating around in the mountains while climbing, kayaking and paragliding. Often the walk to the "sport" takes far more time than the sport, and the success of many days in the mountains has often hinged more on the success of the approach and descent than the climbing or whatever. Some of my partners are very fast in all kinds of terrain, others slower despite being much stronger aerobically or physically. Of course, some people just plain kick my ass in terms of speed on about any type of terrain, I'm not claiming mastery here, just that I've put some time in and seen enough people in enough terrain to notice the differences in skills. Even those who have spent a fair amount of time on trails often fall apart when traversing some rubble fest on the side of a peak, and even fewer can move smoothly up a river bed or over a talus field. Given the importance of being able to walk well in the mountains no matter what our choice of sport in the mountains is, how do the people who do it well approach the movements, and what do they do that others don't?

Some time ago I wrote a short piece for a running magazine about how to trail run, and while that piece is still relevant to running I've had the chance to think more about moving well in the mountains over the years. I've also had a few situations in the last month that have really prompted me to think about moving in mountain terrain, so of course I'm now going to write about it 'cause that's what I do when I want to figure something out. If you have to teach something you have to understand it. So take the following posts on here as my attempt to understand something we all see as "basic," but that in my opinion isn't. I'm going to divide this writing up into three broad sections: Trails, Drainages/Talus and Steep Rubble. Look for the "trails" effort shortly, I'm pounding on it now. I'll welcome people's thoughts on the rough drafts about whether this makes sense or not, the final drafts of this writing will be used for a couple of projects I'm involved with, thanks.

WG

I keep having these Boulder flashbacks... Over 20 years ago I drove an ancient, even for then, van into the Eldorado parking lot for the first time. I was blown away by the rock walls, and the climbing beat the hell out of me. I've climbed in Eldo hundreds of days since then, the place always fires me up despite it's "old school" vibe. A roaring river, epic quantities of rock, yeah!

One of the first routes I did (or tried?) back then was T2, a six or so pitch 5.9 that starts with an overhanging, poorly protected 5.11 high-ball boulder problem with a really bad landing. I remember my 18-year old hands sweaty hands sketching on the holds as my partner decided spotting was a waste of time and ran away before I could fall on him. Smart move.

Yesterday I was back early in the morning with an old friend, and despite the hour my hands were sweating on the first holds. It is possible to stick-clip a pin to protect the boulder start, but shit, a stick clip in Eldo is just wrong if you're from my generation of climbers. I could vividly remember my feet blowing, the resulting endless swing and time-creeping battle to hang on years ago, but if 20 years of climbing hasn't made me any smarter it has at least made me slightly stronger, and it all flowed. The rest of the route did too, setting belays, cruising, watching the birds circle in the morning thermals, Eldo is, to use the phrase from back in the day, "Mega!" We were back at our shoes in under two hours, about the same time it took me to lead the first pitch over 20 years ago, but just as happy to have had a great time of it.

We even had the obligatory, "I think the easy way to solo off the last bit is just over here" experience at the top to keep it spicy, but it sure is nice to climb rock that is generally solid instead of my normal Canadian Rockies diet that's generally not anywhere near solid, and even the solid bits are best treated with suspicion bordering on hostility as they often aren't solidly attached to the earth (at least on the trad routes in the Rockies, we do have some super solid sport climbing).

If you haven't done T2 you gotta go do it! Maybe bring a stick clip if you're not burdened by history... Thanks to the Punter for a good day of it.

I have a good feeling about Zapata this year.

I was there the first year when we were static lining behind Davis's truck. When Dave Sharp flew the first 300 miler on a crappy blue day, I was in awe. I knew it was on.

I kept trying for years and forgave the place for it's many disappointments because I had seen the impossible. After just a little practice, several of us were cracking a hundred miles before noon....the place is amazing, but the mornings are when the magic happens. The over running is the hidden gem that looks so unassuming at first glance it's no wonder it went unnoticed all those years.

I don't even want the record, I want 500 miles and I know they are there for the taking. I'm obsessing over it. I know I will throw away some good days trying to ace the early start but I know that's what it will take to turn any sub-perfect day into the day. That and it needs to be blowing the earth sideways all day.

This time I have the glider for the job, a super clean harness, a radio that works, a driver and vehicle, and years of Arizona summers to think of when Zapata does it's best impression of 'hot'.

A project started mid-December of last year finally bore fruit. Six months of toil allows me to now construct these little beauties in one lay-up. They pop out of the mold exactly as you see here, already joined, already painted, and mirror finished. No seam to crack, no post-cure joining, just slap em in, pop em out. This is the most difficult project I have ever attempted and I am glad that I actually made it to the end. I test flew the pod today to see how the super-slick airspeed indicator works and I was relieved to find no problems with it. I landed as the sky overdeveloped and it hasn't stopped raining for the last ten hours. A completely unexpected bonus: somehow, enclosing the 6030 has created a speaker box effect and instead of using full volume on glides and 75% in thermals, I was using 50% on glides and 25% in thermals. Girls want it, guys want to be it; more on the pod later.

Edit--thanks to Chris Webster for the photo, taken shortly after launch at Lookout. That's the Coors plant and the source of the beer thermals directly "under" me in the photo.
I started flying about 15 years ago in response to a serious case of climbing burnout. I was sick of being cloistered in a small cave hanging by my fingers; I wanted the big picture, to feel something so totally new and fresh that it fired me up the way climbing used to. In retrospect, I should have just gone into a different form of climbing, but I didn't think of that and flying was everything I wanted it to be and then some. Hanging high in space and truly seeing the geography of the land at a bird's pace (well, a really slow bird) is about as good as it gets. After doing nothing but flying for a year I got back into climbing, and balancing the two sports since then has been a constant battle of love.

On Saturday I'd made plans to go climbing, but all of a sudden these perfect clouds started forming and I flaked to head for Golden, Colorado. I learned to fly in both Golden, Colorado, and Golden, BC. Both are great sites, but totally different. Golden BC is a big-air, big glide, big place to fly. Golden, Colorado (also called Lookout) is a little site with a big attitude. When I started learning to fly at Lookout the landing zone had a powerline across half of it; it's still one of the trickiest places I know to land in. But the flying is worse--you're flying on the wrong side of the Rocky Mountains so you're always in the lee. The mountains heat up and draw the air west onto the east-facing slopes, but the entire front side of the Rockies is generally a mass of down-flowing air. There is also always a sheer layer somewhere between the top of the hill and the clouds that will toss your glider around in an engaging manner, and all you have to do is make one little mistake and you're on the ground. But it's kind of like learning to ski at an area with really bad snow; if you can survive your local skiing disaster then you can likely ski anywhere. When I got to launch on Saturday there were only a few pilots left, everybody else had headed off on about a 40K task to North Boulder. Conditions were a bit strong, but not too bad, and I got into the air uneventfully off of the Lookout launch for the first time in almost a decade.

I found my first real thermal by following the classic Lookout rule--if it starts smelling like beer in the air turn and follow the smell! The Coors plant is upwind of the hill, and the yeasty-smelling"beer thermals" are a great indicator of rising air. I had a huge smell-induced memory and was turning to core the brewery lift before I even realized it. Thanks Coors!

I first went south about 10K, and remembered all the "fun" that Lookout has to offer. Scrappy thermals that move in random directions at different altitudes, climbs that go from 1 to 5 and back on the vario with no notice, and glides that were atrocious. I loved it, it was a ten-year old flashback. Little-remembered skills kicked in almost sub-consciously; move with the thermals even if the direction seems "wrong," never leave any shitty lift, conserve every foot of altitude with a passion bordering on neurotic... Then I headed back north to try and intersect any pilots coming south from Boulder, but didn't see many. The strong east wind down low soon turned northeast, and I found myself going only 25K an hour on glide, but the sink was even worse. Normally paragliders sink at a meter or two a second on glide in air between thermals, but not at Lookout. I was hitting 5 and 6 meter sink consistently, with thermals only in the 2-4 range. Ah, Lookout! I was only hitting about 2900M for the first hour, but about 20K north the magic happened and I was suddenly at 4300M, or over 14,000 feet. I've only been at this altitude maybe ten times in hundreds of flights from Lookout, it was a sweet moment to look west and see the snowy peaks of the divide, south all the way to Pike's Peak and out onto the flat plains extending seemingly forever. I really like that combination, few sites I've flown offer it.

I was due back home to kid-sit early that evening and didn't want to have an epic with getting my truck back at launch, so just short of Eldorado Canyon I turned and ran back south to launch and my vehicle. Flying my Boomerang 5 at Lookout felt like cheating compared to the old days; with half bar I was going 65K, and was able to fly well out over the town of Golden, tour the Coors plant and still have more than enough altitude to make it back to launch, all on one glide. My mind remembered fighting to glide even a few K, but the new gear makes things so very nice!

I'm hoping for some more good days at Lookout while here in Boulder, it's the best lousy site I've ever flown. I hope to see some more pilots from back in the day while I'm launch or in the air too. The local crew at Lookout likely saved me from killing myself several times, often with very direct and effective commentary such as, "Well, shit, that was about the dumbest thing I've ever seen anyone do--if you want to crash why not just fly straight at the hill and crash closer to the road so the rescue will be easier? Do that again and you'll likely end up dead, can't believe you haven't killed yourself yet. Can I have your truck when you die?" It was all meant in the best way, and the ideas behind the words absolutely stuck with me over the years. A good local crew is as important as the school lessons for a pilot, maybe more. Thanks to the Lookout crew of all those years ago, and thanks to Lookout for the stellar flight on Saturday, yeah!

I'm in Boulder, Colorado. Just mention the name and most people have an idea of the place and the societal meaning. Hippies, athletes, the University, lots of tech, and of course the odd bit of climbing. No, make that a whole lot of climbing and even more climbers. Boulder is one of the world centres for climbers, right up there with Yosemite or Sheffield; the number of climbers here is just insane compared to any other place in North America, and maybe the world. The variety of climbers is also astounding; trad, seven bumpers, sport, boulderers, ethical satirists, ethical hard-liners, poets and of course an unlimited supply of posers, which, come to think of it, covers pretty much all of us who call ourselves climbers. But the climbers are relatively tame in their posing compared to some of the other athlete groups in Boulder. The cyclists are the most obvious; is it really necessary to walk around the mall in a Lycra outfit with your cleated cycling shoes on? I had to buy a new battery for my computer the other day and was surrounded by the click-click of cleats in the computer shop. My chalked hands couldn't compete.

It's hot here, which for me is like Kryptonite to my climbing. So I've been going to the gym and jumping in the river in my boat, and getting little morning boulder sessions on before the temperature dial goes to "pasty white guy can't hang onto a pull-up bar anymore." I have spent hundres of hours in the gyms of Boulder, and for me it's like going back to an old local crag. The Spot has savage bouldering, and the Boulder Rock Club still has the best route-setting of any gym I've ever climbed in (Thanks Chris). What amazed me were how many of the same people I used to train with were still in the gym. We're all ten years older, but it was great to see so many of the old faces pulling harder than ever and loving it. Boulder has a lot of "lifers,' my favorite kind of climber because they will be pulling until they simply can't reach the holds anymore. That's what it's all about.

Stay cool.

One Truth: Skin is temporary, climbing is forever.

One of my multipurpose GPSes gave up the ghost recently, and I picked up the Garmin Forerunner 205 as a possible replacement. Here are some comments based on my week with the device:

• uploading tracklogs ('syncing' in Garmin-speak) was easy and painless using the provided USB cable and dock. You can use the provided GTC, Garmin Training Centre (more on that later), or else use any number of 3rd-party apps like SportTrack, G7ToWin, GPSDump, and others. The 3rd-party apps will also export the tracklog as a tracklog, while the Garmin adopts a logbook paradigm instead.
• receiver sensitivity is not as good as I hoped for. Since the SirfStar III chipset is used, I expected good sensitivity. Instead, the GPS briefly lost its fix 4 times during a 20 minute run along the Bow River in Calgary; I ran on a pathway shaded by poplar trees. When I uploaded my trip, the Garmin GTC software said I'd complete five "laps". Like hell I did!
• Speaking of GTC, it maintains a database of activities by date, and further splits out your activities by type: running, biking, or 'other', which could include anything from hang gliding and paragliding to riding a motorbike, skiing, etc. When you start your activity, you tell the GPS what type of activity you are undertaking. Otherwise it will go into the 'other' category. The GTC does not understand or know about tracklogs.
• The Forerunner 205 can record 3.5 hours of activity at 1 point per second. If your activity is longer than that, you need to put it into "Smart recording" mode. No information is provided on what this means or how long you can expect to record. Further, you can't set the GPS so it will stop recording when its memory is full. Instead, it will begin over-writing earlier activities. Not good for record record flight attempts!
• You are quite limited in the data fields you can display. Yes, you can display speed, altitude, heading, but not rate of climb or descent, or even distance to next turnpoint.
• You can create waypoints and then create routes that use these waypoints, but there's no simple Go To button or feature.
• You can't use the GPS as a watch because you cannot select the current time for display. A small clock appears in some Settings displays, but it doesn't show the seconds, only the hours and minutes.
• There is a start/stop button and a lap button, enabling you to record just the parts of your activity that you are interested in. Each time you lose satellite coverage, you also create a new lap. If that's not what you wanted, then you can export the data in a .gpx tracklog format, open the file with a text editor, and stitch together the segments by removing pairs.
• The small screen can only show up to 4 data fields at one time. However, there are two main pages plus a sport-specific page (e.g. you can have separate layouts for biking and running), so in fact you have 3 pages x 4 fields = 12 fields in total you can display. You can tell the GPS to automatically 'turn the page' between screens, and set the interval to slow, medium, or fast so that you cycle through all the pages and data you want to see
• The wrap-around body is designed to ensure that the GPS antenna always faces the sky. This works well for running, but the angle may not be right for biking with a flat-bar bike. For flying, it would be okay for paragliding, but likely poor for hang gliding. However, the Forerunner probably does better at biking than the Edge model does at running! When you start up the GPS, it will likely take at least a minute to get its initial 2D Fix, and another minute to go to 3D (with altitude). During this time you should not walk or move at all, otherwise you will have to wait longer, or have an incorrect altitude in your tracklog.
• The GPS comes with 2 lengths of wrist-strap, so virtually all wrist sizes can be accommodated.

Conclusion: an acceptable running GPS, but has poor performance under tree canopy. Not as good for biking, and poor for use while flying.

Looks like there is almost/sorta convergence around Chatham today...

I sent this over YahooGroups but I will post here as I think it stripped out all the pics included in the email.

It's an email between me (MD) and Wayne (WBK)

WBK: Today was exactly the kind of day I was talking about. A convergence line set up on the Erie shore line, and marked itself with a well defined street that I could see from south London. As the day developed, the street moved further North and made it to London itself by 4:00-4:30.

Phil came out tonight and we went trike flying. The lift was still workable (if you were high) at 7:00 PM.

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Below is the text from the attached document....it lays out most of the proposed airspace changes that were discussed at the last NavCan meeting.

It's really concerning as they are now wanting to change the rest of the uncontrolled airspace in SW Ontario to Class E above 2500'agl. That means we can't take the tug above that....ultralights aren't allowed in Class E.

Stay tuned.
Mark

PS - the pictures have been omitted as they are a lot of work to add them all in. Feel free to download and look at the PDF attached at the bottom.

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My bud Sonnie Trotter finally sent Rhapsody (edit, brain junk), which is a really hard trad (meaning no bolts) line over in Scotland. If you haven't been following his blog I'd really recommend checking it out. He did some fine writing about trying to climb something really hard--the mental ups and downs, and finally success. Good stuff, a big group of both friends and people who were reading his blog were really hoping he'd get the job done. We went so far as to offer $ to help him change his ticket (which he politely declined, but he won't be buying beer for a bit I'm sure), post rants on his blog and just generally let him know we were pulling for him. It was fun to push some energy across the Atlantic. Sonnie's writing and climbing got me fired up to train harder and go at it with more intensity, thanks to Sonnie for that. I heard that our cluster of attempted support actually might have helped Sonnie make the decision to stay, which was all he really needed to climb the rig so I'm super psyched to have been a very small part of his send along with everyone else who was pulling for the kid to get 'er done. Yeah! Now the question is: Sonnie, what the hell took ya so long? Grin...

Cory Richards (the friend I finally got Yamabushi down with a couple of years ago) is over there with Sonnie and also having at a very hard route. He and Sonnie have already changed their tickets twice, time is ticking, get 'er done Cory!

Training Notes:

I'm just giving it at the moment and loving it! The weather sucks, I've got tweaky elbows, tweaky fingers, a torqued knee and some other issues but damn is it fun to be putting it all into climbing right now. Some days I make big leaps in progress and feel my old limits disappearing, other days I'm back to where I was four months ago, but that's how it works. You just gotta show up, do your best to train and climb well, and the curve slowly keeps going up. I know I can't hold this training and performance level for long, but I've got some ideas that are important to me, hopefully the lines of performance and my objectives will cross at the right time.

Title a blog entry, "One Truth," and readers will likely be expecting something monumental. After all, successful religions have been started with far less. I often read corporate mission statements that involve the words such as "Truth" and "Honesty." Given the prevalence of the word "Truth" in all kinds of settings that have very little to do with anything approaching reality, I've started to think the idea of Truth is over-rated. The more a group or person claims to have the "Truth" about anything the more likely it is that he or she is either lying or insane, often both. Just think about the doomsday cults, government leaders, statistical junk shows in politics or real estate, etc. etc. I was going to get all sarcastic about the "Truth" in mountain sports, especially given the rather easy pickings in the mountain press, but then thought that would be just too easy. Instead I'm going to present some "Truths" I've learned over the years doing various mountain sports. I'm going to call these mini-commentaries, "One Truth," and endeavor to capture something useful in one line or less. Sort of koans for myself. This is pretentious, but this is a blog, home of the pretentious, and I aim to live up to my pretentious potential as I usually do when given a decent shot at it. So it's off the races.

Truth #1: It's always better to go and do something, anything, than not.

This evening my family and I hiked up Cougar Creek in the misty rain. We walked for a grand total of 30 minutes, and the piglet laughed a lot about the various dogs, people and other things I didn't quite get but she sure found entertaining. We didn't get our heart rates above about 70, and we almost didn't go because it was raining. But I'm glad we did, it was lot better than not. Mountains have a soft beauty in the rain and mist that they lack in sunshine.


Climbing: Been doing a lot of that, sure is fun. Climbing your way back into good shape is a rollercoaster of up days and down days, but my body is holding together well enough, and rock never feels better than when you haven't had enough of it. Blown skin, pumped arms, tweaked muscles, it's all so right. I hobble a bit going to the crag, but get 'er done once I'm tied in and pointed up. Or don't. Today was 4X4 day in the climbing gym, an old-school but potent workout that always feels nasty in a liberating sort of way. I've set some goals for myself that are lofty and will require hundreds if not thousands of layers of skin and effort. Bring it.