In 2019 I wanted to go paragliding. But I was broke and about to move to a very flat country, so I put the plans on hold for 2020 which, well, you know how that turned out.

Fast forward to 2022, I was in the French Alps on holiday and spent my days watching the paragliders lazily circling above the big cliffs near Morzine, being lifted by the warm thermals off the rocks. It drove me crazy. It looked so peaceful and easy.

Higher up the mountain, there were also a bunch of guys with speed wings and twin tip skiis bombing down the slopes doing barrel rolls. That looked less peaceful and easy.

My girlfriend (now wife) was exasperated at my longing looks and big sighs while watching those guys above the cliffs, and finally snapped and said if I didnt book a tandem flight right away, I would never forgive myself. So I called up the local school and the guy said he would meet me in 20 minutes. That didnt leave a lot of time for deliberating - which in hindsight was perfect.

After that smooth landing, I was hooked. I think. I was also terrified. I couldnt stop smiling, but also my knees were jelly. Quite conflicting, all things considered.

Another 6 months went by of me watching every youtube video of paragliding, until once again, my wife gently nudged me to stop talking and do something. I enrolled in a stage 1 course in the Vosges mountains of Eastern France. I crossed my fingers that my french would be proficient enough to distinguish ‘left’, ‘right’ and ‘stop’.

I camped at night, and practiced ‘gonflage’ - inflating the wing for takeoff, for the first three days. Then, it was time to tackle the 200 meter takeoff in the town of Fellering.

Here is the thing you might not know about learning to paraglide - depending on the school, you never fly with someone else. The school teaches you how to inflate the wing safely, and once the teacher is confident that you are proficient in that, they strap a radio to your chest, and instruct you play-by-play on what to do. There are no practice landings - just real landings.

Of course, the school waits for the calmest conditions possible, we flew at 6:30 in the morning, with barely a breath of wind, but still, once you take off, the responsibility of safety rests on you. Pretty wild.

Here you can see one of my first takeoffs. You can hear the constant stream of guidance from the teacher (the guy in the blue shirt) as I go.

Not ready to go alone, or to commit to buying the gear myself, I enrolled in the second stage course for April 2024. We had some challenging conditions, with freezing temperatures, snow and wind. The flying was turbulent and intense. And for the first time, I flew from Treh - a takeoff of 1200 meters.

Still not fully confident in my abilities to go un-supervised, I returned again in June for two final days of training before committing to buying my own equipment.

After that, I felt confident enough to buy a (certified) second hand wing, new harness, and new reserve parachute, and start flying on my own. I took a road trip in the Xantia with Rico (from the Belarus trip - also from the “Four idiots drive to the Arctic in a $500 French car” trip) back down to the mountains and did my first real solo flight.

My new wing!

In the fall of 2024, I flew in Northern France and the Ardennes of Belgium, racking up a dozen usually short flights, still scaring the shit out of myself each flight, asking myself ‘WHY DO YOU WANT TO DO THIS?!’ while in the air, and for some inexplicable reason, finding myself back at the launch every time.

Paragliding is a weird sport. There is no point to it - no goal. But it is intense. You are responsible for all the decisions you make on the ground and in the air. You have to make judgements of conditions, of your comfort level, of your skill level. and nobody can help you fly once you commit. It is a very dangerous activity, and there is no ignoring the grave seriousness of making a mistake.

But the sensation is indescribable. Flying with no noise, no engine, skimming your feet on the tree tops, looking down through the forest and seeing chamois, following the circling birds, and finally making the right approach and a soft landing when the wind stops rushing and your heart goes back to where it should be in your chest, and you know you have succeeded.

In a weird way, its not really an adrenaline junkie sport I dont think. A majority of pilots I have met have been much closer to your average airplane pilot than to your average base jumper - not that I know any base jumpers.

I am not sure what my future holds in this sport. It demands a lot of mental certainty, and forgives few mistakes. I think, of all the paragliders in the world, I must be the most scared of all of them, who keeps doing it time after time, even when my legs havent stopped shaking yet.