During my visit to Jackson, WY with my friend Julia, I decided I was going to face my fear of heights and go paragliding and drag her with me. We had originally booked our flight two days earlier on my 31st birthday, but it got postponed due to windy conditions. I wasn't complaining.
Fast forward two days to the 30th and we found ourselves driving to Jackson Hole Resort to get after it. As we approached, we started to see more and more parachutes dotting the sky, floating down to the ground. Then we parked the car and I inspected the site of all these gliders filling the sky a bit further. Upon this inspection, I observed many of the parachutes doing wild, yet controlled spirals. I freaked out, then I told myself that while I was crazy for doing this, it was going to be ok.
About 45 minutes, $300, and a couple some forms signing my life away later, Julia and I were on the tram making our way to the top of the mountain. The tram offered up the perfect place to view the gliders launching themselves off the mountain and float their way down, but even more, it gave me plenty of time to freak myself out again.
After you get to the top, you are given a little while to acclimate yourself with what you are about to do and watch from an immediate distance several other launches. While still nervous, this definitely calms you a bit. Then, it becomes your turn. As you walk with your tandem pilot to the launch spot your nerves begin to act up again. You watch helplessly as your pilot lays the chute down on the ground and untangles all the chords. Then you get strapped up together. This is when you take solace in the fact that if you you're gonna die, you know you're not gonna die alone. Finally, you wait for launch.
The concept of launching is very simple. It relies completely on having the right flow of wind to run into and open your chute. Pick a line to run in and the wind will do the rest. Luckily for me, we didn't have the right wind for maybe 5 - 10 minutes. Because of this I grew impatient and this impatience turned any of my nerves I had into "come on let's fuckin' do this already!" Then the wind came, the instructor screamed "run!" and before I knew it we were hanging in the sky. No butterflies, no stomach issues, nothing. Launching was absolutely painless.
Now we were up in the sky doing what I paid to do. It's an incredible feeling to look around and see nothing but mountains and air and then look down and see your feet and the ground hundreds, if not thousands, of feet below. Then there's the sound. You hear nothing but wind. As you move about 25 miles per hour through the air, you feel like you are going 2. You just sit and take everything in and marvel at the world below.
A word of advice. Don't get too settled in. Sooner or later your pilot asks you if you'd like to do some "tricks". Gulp! I hesitantly say "yes". You start rolling back and forth like a half pipe, 2 miles per hour drastically turns into 60 and you are literally doing barrel rolls while your body is parallel to the ground. "Holy shit! This is AWESOME! Why haven't I done this before" is pretty much the only thing on your mind. Moments later you land on a patch of grass several hundred feet from where you parked and you are back where you started, but with a little bit more hair on your chest.
For more information, check out Jackson Hole Paragliding
