Tag Archives: human flight
The Higher You Get, The Higher You Get
We got home to Sun Valley exhausted but in good spirits. Cool fall nights and shorter days had already set in, the Aspens were already going golden, the tourists had left town. In my opinion Sun Valley has the best big air flying on Earth. A number of recent distance records, including my own world mountain record this summer of 240 miles confirms this opinion, but what we don’t often get to do is fly here in the absence of fear. Flying in Sun Valley is usually a pretty full-on affair.
Read More...Hypoxic Magic Lines
It’s kind of hard to write this log knowing what happens on the day after this flight went down (wait wait, don’t fast forward yet!), but it was a magnificent day and deserves it’s own place in the Mayhem blog. Things looked…ok, but not great for a big flight. The wind looked once again right on the edge and given it’s July I thought things would be a bit hairy up in the sky. I was up the hill first, knowing we’ve got a short launch window on Baldy and I feel like we’ve been leaving a lot of distance on the table launching too late.
Read More...5 for 5 in Speikboden
On Monday, the morning after our flight from Scuol we aired out Bruce’s reserve and got it packed back up and came up with a plan. Much of the eastern Alps were now looking possibly very good for Tuesday, even “Hammertag” good, depending on what forecast you were using. A big heat wave was moving in from North Africa which meant the air might be more stable, but with the summer solstice only a couple days away, we had very long days to work with.
Read More...Chasing Chocolates Part I
Yesterday we finally got a chance. Bruce and I are about as hungry as you can get. And not for food, the Abazzia restaurant continues to blow our minds. Hungry for distance. It didn’t look like it would be a great day. Too much wind, too early over-development and rain. All of which were true, but maybe, just maybe we could squeak a chocolate (100 km flight).
Read More...Rain, Wind, Pizza and Dicey Landings
After one short flight in Fiesch and a continued blurry forecast we hit the road in the Niviuk mobile for the only place in Europe that held any promise- Bassano, Italy. Many people are saying this is the wettest (ie worst) spring in history. Whatever the case may be, it has been dismal. But the flying forecast was for two good, maybe even great cross country days.
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