I've been watching videos of people paragliding recently, and I thought that just looks so
awesome I'm going to try to do that.
I went on yelp, found a place with pretty good reviews that teaches paragliding and
I gave them a call, and just asked how do I get started on this and they said if you
want, you can come in an hour and we'll get you started on your lessons.
So here I am on my way to learn how to paraglide, it's not parasailing it's paragliding I think.
I don't know anything about paragliding by the way.
Yesterday was awesome, as soon as I got there, he laid out the canopy and basically showed
me how it worked and it's actually pretty simple once you lean where everything goes
and I spent a little bit of time learning how to fly the canopy and kiting is what they
call it. and just get it up in the air and learn how to control it and prevent it from
collapsing and then after a little while, he was like.
do you want to jump off this little hill?
It was an epic 10 seconds.
I was laying out the canopy and I heard a rip and everyone looked over thinking I ripped
the parachute but luckily it was only my pants.
So today I was hoping to jump off the big mountain but I got there, did a few jumps
off the bunny hill and I sucked.
so instead I just did a bunch more practice jumps off the small hill.
Still fun, anyways, now after I got it down a little bit more, he said come back tomorrow
and I can jump off the big mountain.
Over here it always seems like there's an epic sunset.
I'm terrified.
Yeah, this is a lot scarier than I thought it would be.
Oh my god. this is terrifying.
Once you're up here it's actually really easy, you just pull on one side to turn, and when
I want to turn left, I pull that.
it's awesome.
look at that.
So how much does it cost to learn how to paraglide.
Now there's a lot of different options out there and I went with the more expensive one
which was 2,200$.
The reason why I did that was because this specific school give you unlimited lessons.
It includes all the basics, but it also includes all the advanced licenses like if I wanted
to be an instructor later down the line.
It also comes with all the equipment rentals you need for the first three months.
So after the first three months, if you like it enough, you can invest in your own equipment
and continue taking classes with your own gear.
At first I was looking into hang gliding but then I saw how much setup and breakdown time
there was and how much equipment you have to carry around and paragliding is pretty
similar but just with very little equipment.
When I was first going into it, I assumed you launched off the top of the mountain and
just fly down and then land at the bottom.
But really it turns out that you can really fly for as long as you want.
A lot of times when the wind hits the mountain, it causes the wind to go upwards and you can
kind of catch that and ride that up.
And another option is to catch a thermal which is a pocket of hot air and once you find it,
you can just ride it all the way up.
A lot of people actually even land at the same place they took off from which I thought
was awesome!
If you're thinking of learning how to paraglide, I would highly recommend it, it's awesome.
It's actually not an extreme sport like I originally thought, it's not like skydiving.
First time I went paragliding, there were two guy that were over 80 that were doing
it and although there is a lot of initial investment upfront, once you have your equipment
and license, there's almost no cost really to flying afterwards so I think it's the least
expensive form of flying you could do next to tying a bunch of balloons to your back.
which also sounds fun, I might try that next.
yeah! oh my god!
Oh god!
Jesus Christ!