www.FlyingMax.com – Paragliding

The application deadline for the xAlps is coming up soon and the big question is, are we going to apply again to represent Canada in the race? It often crosses our minds, especially during the race, why are we doing this. What pushes us to train so hard, spend our “holiday savings” on it and dedicate so much time and energy in preparation and during the race? There is something very special about the xAlps, and something that no one will really understand unless they are part of it. However, one of the reasons for participating in it, is the adventure, which I share with my partner (Penny). The other is the mental aspect of the race, and to be able to do things you dream of. Many of which are hard to do on your own. Also the whole atmosphere of the xAlps, which includes everyone from the organizers, volunteers, supporters, sponsors and competitors. They are all like family or brotherhood, and everyone we have met over the years have played some sort of roll in our life, whether it be during the race or afterwards in a continued friendship or mentor. We are very proud that we have been accepted/invited 4 times to this amazing race, to experience the adventure, and to meet and make so many new friends.

Since the 2013 race, many new things have happened in our lives. Last October, I started a new business (www.TrappeurHomes.com) with a good friend, Aaron Cameron, which has taken off in a big way. It has been a lot of work, but a lot of fun at the same time. Furthermore, I have

decided to get back into Ultralight flying and teaching, and we are looking to get a float plane to explore the mountain lakes around here. Also on the agenda for next year is a holiday to Penny’s “homeland”, South Africa and experience the African life with the kids. Penny has recently also finished a refresher in open water sailing and she wants to go on a sailing trip with the kids for a couple months too. As you can see, with all this, and focusing on the new business, we will not have the time and dedication for the preparation and participation in the 2015 xAlps. For this reason we have chosen not to apply to represent Canada in the next xAlps. This decision was no an easy one, but in reality you only have so much time in day and instead of spreading ourselves too thin with all these plans and projects, something had to give. Thanks again to everyone who has cheered us on and supported us over the years, and who keep following our adventures through the available social media. Max, Penny and the kids

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Winter here in the valley is not boring at all,Here are some pictures from a flight off Mt. Swansea with the Canadian flag and landing at the start of the Winter Festival and the Annual Bonespiel.

Click here to see more pictures.

Check out this video about our Whiteway (right in front of our doors)

 

Are you still flying in the winter? This is a question asked every year

I still hike up Mt. Swansea and do the odd flight through the winter, but most of the time we head up to Panorama www.panoramaresort.com and fly at the ski area.
We love skiing and flying there, and the resort is very generous to us pilots, and guests seem to really enjoy watching us soaring the skies.

Christmas day, Penny and I flew, dressed as Santa and an elf. We landed at the day-lodge with a good crowd of kids and adults waiting for our arrival. (click here for more pictures)

Over the Christmas holidays, we had beautiful weather and very good flying conditions, and were even able ridge soar.
Our New Years flights were fantastic and I really enjoyed the footage and the picture Penny took when I flew with the Canadian flag.

 

 

We have had several more flights since new years, with a lot of other local and out of town flying buddies joining us. If you don’t have any plans over the next couple of weeks, consider coming for a ski & fly at Panorama. More information is at my website at https://flyingmax.com/area/panorama/ 

If you have not heard yet, the annual Panorama Easter Flying Meet, which is usually held the Easter long weekend, has been moved  to March 28, 29, 30th. Because Easter is so late this year, we had to re-schedule it. For those of you who have never come to the event, you don’t want to miss it, and for the those of you who have, I know we’ll see you back again.

 

 

The take off is facing east and is an ideal morning to early afternoon site. The ride very well protected from the west wind as there is another ridge right behind at about 2500 meters and further west another ridge with 2700 meter high mountains. There is also some good potential of XC flights in the area and the terrain is spectacular.

The xAlps finished Friday July 19th at noon. This is 12 days after the start and was the minimum time set for the race. Crigel Maurer set a new record and finished the race in just under 7 days and it took more then 2 days longer for the next guys to arrive in goal. From the start, I felt pretty good and was very happy with my pace and performance until I had to do an emergency landing past Innsbruck (by Seefeld) into restricted airspace and I received a 48 hour penalty. I could have done a tree landing (in very rough conditions) on top of a ridge to avoid the penalty, but I decided to land 500 meters lower, and to my disadvantage, safely in a field. The good part was that Christa Vogel and Juergen Kraus (flying friends from the 80’s) lived near by and we could enjoy visiting them and were treated with their amazing hospitality. It got even better as the kids just showed up for a visit and stayed with us for the 2 days. It was fun to invite all the other competitors for a snack or meals while

they passed us, or landed in a field close by. After 2 days of watching 13 pilots pass us, we had to refocus and get back into race mode. Thanks again for the mental support from Stewart Midwinter to be able to start my own race and adventure from that position. We came from the very back of the pack (only 1 hour ahead of the last person) and fought ourselves into position 23. I was enjoying being in a close pack with such a great group of people/pilots and I was always close to my good friend, Andy Froetscher, who finished 17th. I was hoping to finish the race with him or better. Overall, it was an amazing race with very good flying conditions. We experienced a lot of set backs due the lack of local “area” knowledge. It was very frustrating thinking you know where thermals “should be”, what ridges and terrain would work better than others, only to find myself flushed down from 3500m to the ground and ended up having to hike up very high mountain passes more often than the “locals” The good weather also brought a lot of windy and dangerous conditions as well. We had flights in plus 50 km winds, in rain and thunder storms, but at the same time we had some long flights (one over 150 km) flying over glaciers and very beautiful terrain. We had hikes in areas we never would have gone to and met such a wide variety of people along the way, some who we’re sure were the start of a long friendship. All this would not have possible to do without the support I received. Thanks again to Mik Broschart for all his technical support, and who drove with his “fancy” RV and made it possible that Penny could walk and fly most of the route with me. Penny did an amazing job as a pace setter, along the flats, up the mountains, and because she figured she needed more of a workout, she’d run back down to the valley!! My stats for hiking was, 6 km/hr, 471 km distance and 40 km elevation gain. I would say that Penny did at least 90% of that, plus going down, cooked dinners, cleaned most of the dishes, checked weather, and was up earlier than Mik and I everyday to have breakfast ready, and everything ready and prepared for the day ahead ….. she is more then living up to her name (Powers). I would also like thank everyone who cheered us on and supported us throughout our training and during the race, A photo gallery will follow soon.

Wow, where is the time going??

The weather

forecast was good for today and we decided to stay and fly at Chamonix. We got up early in the morning and hiked up to the mid station of Mt. Brevent (south side of Chamonix). When we got up there, there there were at least 40 pilots up there and the launch site was a very busy place. Soon we got airborne and I flew to Passy. The cloud base got lower and I decided to come back to Chamonix, from there I headed north until I could go no further due the north wind. Dave landed and I decided to come down as well as I planned to head to Germany to meet up with Penny and the kids. Dave was set to take up the gondola to Aiguille du Midi (3842 meters). Instead of heading back, we headed up to Aiguille du Midi. Wow, what a incredible place, I am sure glad we headed up there. We could not fly from the top, but the views were incredible. We took one gondola down to the mid station (2300 meters) and setup for a flight from there. The wind was strong, but once airborne it was great. We were able to fly over the glacier and had a great flight. After the flight we got a quick bite and started to hit the road to Austria which is about a 7 hour drive.

More pictures of this day at https://plus.google.com/photos/107366320201211493303/albums/5894083807073517441

Before we got to St. Hilare, we stopped at Silvain’s (French Nova rep.) to get the Mentor 3 light…. no luck and it should come by Monday. So we drove to St. Hilare and prepared our self’s to go hike and fly for the next day. The next morning,the clouds start to build early and at 8:30 am the cloud base was about 200 meters above launch. At 9:00 am the first paragliders started to ridge soar and playing with the clouds and we decided not to go hiking up any higher and get ready for a flight. The first flight was about 2 hours and I flew low all the way east to the Les Marches control zone and back. Top landed and adjusted my harness to make it fit perfect. The 2nd flight was again ridge soaring and the the cloud base got up to 1400 meters. I tired once to cross the valley, but returned as it was to early for the other side to work. About 45 min later I tried again and I managed to find some lift on the other side and worked my self up to cloud base (1600 meters). The clouds made it impossible to fly my planned route to the south and I ended up flying low to the west towards Grenoble and then to the south. After about 30 km I top landed at a higher plateau and contemplated to hike about 10 km south to a higher and more open mountain. I decided to try to fly but ended up to ridge soar only in valley wind and eventually landed at Sechelienne. When Dave picked me up we headed further south and stayed overnight south of La Mure. The next day we tried to hike up another mountain along the route, but felt that the wind was picking up quite a bit and pretty soon we realized that the north Foehn was starting up. We decided to drives further south to Lac de Serre-Poncon. The Foehn was full on and we watched the kite surfers and wind surfers playing in the strong winds. Later this day we decided to head back to St. Hilare and pick up the new Mentor 3 light. Well, the wing was still not there and we ended up driving to the DHL depot in Grenoble to get the parcel. After that we headed back towards Germany as Penny and the kids will be arriving soon in Germany. We stopped at Saint-Jean-de-la-Porte as we heard there was a site where you can fly in a north wind. Once we got there and after a short hike it started to rain and hiked back to the campsite. The next day, we headed to Chamonix and at Passy we could watch a couple paragliders flying and thermaling up right under the clouds. We found the landing site but no hiking trail and the only way up was on a long paved road, so we decided to drive. Wow, what a place to fly, the conditions were perfect and after 1 hour of flying the clouds were sucking a lot. I decided to top land to bring the

car back down and Dave landed in the Valley. It was great to fly the new Mentor 3 light in such good conditions and I have to say that I am very happy with it. The difference to the normal Mentor 3 is that it launches even easier and it even turns nicer, which is hard to believe as the original Mentor 3 is already a very nice wing. Not to forget, the weight of the wing is a lot lighter then the normal wing and the packing seize is just about half form the regular wing. Well done Hannes and crew, this is a very nice wing.

Big thunder and heavy rain woke us up in Chamonix. At least we got a good thunder concert as we could do nothing else around Mt. Blanc. We contacted

Clement and Bruno (from Supair) if we could come for a visit to Supair’s headquarters in Annecy which is just an hour from Chamonix. They had time and made us feel very welcome and wanted as much as possible feedback of the new harness. In the mean time Bruno added and adjusted small bits and peaces on the harness he wanted to do anyways. I had some issues with the shoulder straps of their backpack which resulted into pain in my shoulders and Bruno knew right away what it could be and added more padding and changed what needed to be done. Wow, what a service, thanks a lot again Bruno and to your team. Clement (manager in Sales for SupAir) is also a xAlps competitor and was very helpful to give me valuable information of the Chamonix to St. Hilare section, thanks again Clement, it all made sense wen we saw it the last couple of days.

After the SupAir visit, we headed to Villard sur Doron stayed overnight and the next day we hiked up to Mount Bisanne. This site is known as a very popular XC starting point, but when we got up, it was still covered in clouds and once the clouds lifted, we had a good north wind which is from the wrong direction. After spending some time up there, we hiked down a couple minutes and launched in some week lee thermals and managed to fly down instead of hiking down 1200 meters. After we packed up, we headed to St. Hilare and checked out the route Clement was telling us. We planned to hike up Dent de Crolles (2062 meters) which is just above St. Hilare, but the cloud base was just about 100 meters above St. Hilare (900 meters) and we could watch the first para gliders playing in the morning sun (9:00am). After watching this for 20 minutes, we decided not to hike and start flying. My first flight was about 2 hours and I flew part of the route back to Les Marches and back to St. Hilare, top landed had some lunch, adjusted the harness a bit and got ready for another flight. Cloud base raised up to 1400 meters but it was still not enough to cross the valley to follow the xAlps route. After my 2nd attempt crossing the valley, I managed to thermal up some small bumps on the other side and could work all the small bumps and ridges to the south west passing by Grenoble. Cloud base never got higher then 1800 meters which made it impossible for me to follow my way-points which were leading me into the higher mountains (about 2500 meters). I ended up at a ridge soaring site on a high plateau by Lac Mort, top landed there and contemplated to hike about 10 km south to a open grassy mountain. Instead of hiking, I launched again and tried to fly east and to work myself out of this area, which resulted in a landing down in the valley. Overall I had a great flight and spend more then 6 hours in the air trying out different things. Today we plan to hike up another mountain and head down south towards Monaco.