Posts Tagged ‘paragliding’

Greece is a country which has far more to offer than one imagines. The land of magical islands and fascinating history and historical sites, is fast becoming a land where extreme sports abound. It is affordable too, which adds to its attractions…

The other day we talked about ski-ing in Greece, and today we will touch on the subject of paragliding, with thanks to left1976 for this great video from Mount Falakro in the Kavala and Drama region. With a height of 800m, wind direction S/SW and good launch and landing areas it is a perfect place to start:

Thessaloniki also has a wide choice of paragliding destinations and several of them have a local club from which you can get advice and guidance.

Edessa in the north, near Yugoslavia, is a gem of a site  with perfect launch and landing sites, although paragliding between November to March is not recommended. There are a lot of cross country possiblities with distances of about 60kms in all directions, apart from North.

Florina is another region with plenty of choice – 8 different sites to my reckoning.

In a nutshell, most paragliding clubs can be found in the Peloponnese, Epirus and Macedonia areas. They offer their members all the equipment they need and the paragliding activities are conducted in safe conditions.

The months when you should not consider going to Greece for a paragliding holiday are July and August – the winds are very strong and it is very very hot; and the weather is generally considered too stable between December and February. Apart from that it’s pretty well perfect. However, it is worth noting that the winds can be strong in June and early September -perhaps more suitable for experienced flyers and not beginners.

At the moment, paragliding in Greece is controlled by the general rules of aviation. Flying on the islands is possible but you wont find any local Greek pilots flying there.

If you want more information or would like to contact some clubs in Greece directly I suggest you follow the link to www.paragliding.gr and continue from there…

We wrote the other day about paragliding and the great experience it is to soar like an eagle – the feeling of freedom that it gives you, the rush of the air and the wonderful vista that is spread out before you.

Some people do not consider paragliding an extreme sport because, as they say, it is so easy to learn how to do it. In our mind that is great to know but it doesn’t take away the extreme element of the sport. Lets face it – homo sapiens was not meant to fly under his or her own steam. Artificial assistance is a must. Thin air is not our natural environment and consequently if there is an accident you could be in serious trouble.

What is a must if you want to learn how to paraglide is that you take proper qualified instruction using tested and guaranteed equipment.

Here are some suggestions:

• Join a paragliding club that has been well established and is close to your home.
• You must then take lessons from a fully qualified instructor, registered with the likes of the USHGA.
• Equipment – always a tricky one – to start with you probably will not need to purchase too much – you may be able to hire kit from your club and you will anyway be going in tandem with an instructor and therefore using his equipment. But if the bug bites you will want to buy your own kit. By that time you will understand the jargon, what is required and how much you will need to spend. Our only advice, particularly if you are thinking of buying second hand kit, is that you talk with your mentor and make sure that he or she checks it over and gives you the green light.
• When and if you have bought some equipment it must be well maintained – as we have already mentioned thin air is not man’s natural environment. Necessary equipment includes a canopy, harness, boots, helmet and flight suit.
• Finally do not rush your training – although it is easy to learn you must respect your environment. One mistake can be fatal which is why this is an extreme sport and generally we find that if you take your time the right procedures are followed and there are therefore no mistakes.

This excellent video from expertvillage shows what happens in the launch sequence. How you should set up with reverse inflation and then let go of your risers with a little tension on your brake. Then turn and move into the wind assuming the torpedo launch position. And then how you should run head well forward until you are lifted off the ground by the wing.

It is not as difficult as it sounds – give it a go and enjoy that weightless sensation. Of course the other matter to pay attention to is the weather – strong winds are a no no – you will be pleased to hear this is a fair weather sport – its really a matter of common sense – but as we all love to talk about the weather there will be no shortage of advice to be found at your local club.

Have you ever arched your back and stared into the distant skies and marvelled at the grace of an eagle as it soars overhead effortlessly with just a flicker of its wing and thought ‘Wow – that looks fun’. Well land loving man under his own propulsion is rooted firmly to the ground but with an ever inquisitive mind he has been able to develop the means to soar like an eagle.

Photo courtesy of First People the link to which is:  http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Pictures/eagle_pg1.html

Paragliding is the answer of course and today we will provide you with an insight into this fantastic extreme sport. Below are some handy tips.

• Seek out professional instruction and you will have a safe and happy flying career, (probably). Paragliding is not something that should be self-taught.
• Decide whether you want to learn near to where you live or in a more ‘paraglider friendly climate’. For many people it will be easier to learn abroad, or at least some distance from where they live.
• Find a reputable paragliding school. It is worth using your national association to locate the school nearest you. These are readily found on any search engine.
• Before you part with your hard earned money, spend some time with the school, ask questions, ask if they mind you tagging along for a day to see what it is all about.
• Realize that paragliding is very weather dependent, so your training might take 4 days, 4 months or even longer.
• Be patient. It might seem like you will never get qualified! You’ll get there in the end though and it will all be worth it.

See below what the world looks like when you get your wings and succeed where Icarus failed. Yes no feathers, no wax – just soar like an eagle.

This is an extreme sport that we will visit again and hope that this great video from Finkenstein will whet your appetite for the sport of paragliding.

Instead of talking about one extreme sport today, I am going to wax lyrical on an area which supplies just about everything you could possibly want to do on an active summer holiday (we’ve already covered this region for the winter season) – Chatel in the Haute Alpes.

In the whitewater sports they offer canoeing (two-strong team), canyoning (jumping, sliding, daredevil abseiling), hydrospeed or whitewater bodysurfing (a slippery, fast, exhilarating experience), rafting (a 7km ride down the Dranse) and kayaking.

Then there’s bobluging… a 650m descent with 7 bends, an average speed of 7m/sec – definitely a fun-filled thrilling descent. There’s a chairlift to get you back up to the top. The bobluge is open from 28th June to 31st August – weather permitting, and closed over the lunch hour.

And then of course there’s the ubiquitous mountain biking.

The Portes du Soleil has around 650 km of marked mountain bike trails and seemingly endless single track to explore. Using the 24+ lifts that are adapted to carry bikes in the summer, you have access, from Chatel, to almost every resort in the Portes Du Soleil including Morzine, Les Gets and the Swiss resorts of Morgins, Champery and Les Crosset – this really is prime mountain biking country and ideal for mountain biking holidays.

ffredt gives us an idea of what the mountain biking is like:

There are also many downhill mountain biking tracks. Châtel bike park is situated at Pré-la-joux and accessible by Pierre-Longue and Rochassons chair lifts, it consists of 13 trails of all levels of difficulty (including 12 downhill courses) and one “Cross park”.

The 27th and 28th June will see the PassPortes MTB event celebrating its 6th birthday. More than 20,000 people have now participated in this 80km circuit. The event takes place at an altitude of between 1000 and 2250m and covers resorts in France and in Switzerland discovering the Portes du Soleil area and its fabulous landscapes.

You can check out the link here if you’re interested in taking part yourself:

There’s a second competition on the 3rd, 4th and 6th July called the Chatel Mountain Style contest. Professional and amateur riders will compete over the 3 days on the 300 metre long “Face” course. 22 Pro Riders from all over the world have already entred the competition.

Climbing:

There is also a good range of climbing routes available in the area.

Plaine Dranse is an excellent place to learn with more than 26 routes, but its the Essert waterfall which will suit our readers I think. You can abseil and canyon at this 250m landmark, with two semi-wet and wet routes and six 30-50m descents. Plus the Pas de Morgins which offers 50 climbing routes of 10m-40m and with a difficulty level of 3 – 7.

Of course there are artificial climbing walls too…

And then there’s the Fantasticable…

This is for the thrill seekers, the adrenaline junkies of this world. Dizzying speeds and astonishing heights in a ride that is unique in the Alps. Safely harnessed you can fly over the Plaine Dranse hamlet at nearly 100kph, 240m up. The length of the first run is 1,200m and the second one is 1,325 and participants must be no less than 35kg and no more than 120kg.

Watch TheBukakeMaster experience the Fantasticable. I love the superman music and the euphoric laughter!

And, of course, paragliding where you can go for a first tandem flight with a professional.

This is an extreme sport we have blogged about before but we feel has not been given enough column inches, enough exposure – we are talking about speed riding. It is young – only conceived in 2003 and it is therefore still very young. You can take off from 9,000 feet above sea level and be on the valley floor in less than five minutes. It is fast – very fast – furious and will give you a rush like you have never experienced.

It is also exclusive – born in Europe, more specifically France – it is Europe which far outranks the United States in numbers of participants. Europe affords the space of where to go which you will find is more restricted in the US – whereas up to 4,000 can be found practicing the sport in Europe the numbers in the United States are only a few hundred.

Further more it is claimed to be safer than a number of other pastimes but in the same breath it is also said to be safe – see what you think in the video below from r1g2b3 which shows action from……….well the Eiger of course, where else would you go for a buzz after lunch on a quiet Sunday afternoon!

A combination between paragliding and skiing we went in search of some info for you and were rather chuffed to find that Wikipedia did not have an entry for speed riding (at least not in the top 10 of our Google search!). It was to the www.Telegraph.co.uk where we turned and found this article by Mike Peake.

‘There are few extreme sports to which you could realistically ask for a gentle introduction. ……but speed riding, which is best described as falling down a mountain with grace, is one adrenalin rush that your grandfather could experience and hope to live to tell the tale.

Not that this new French addition to the thrill-seeker’s repertoire isn’t dangerous: hurtling down a snow-covered mountain at 60mph can only be risk-free when you’re at the controls of a Wii console. But this bizarre fusion of skiing and flying comes with an incredible get-out-of-jail-free card that has given it a safety record that’s hard to beat. When you see a rock, tree or Prince Charles and his entourage on the slopes ahead of you, all you have to do is yank on a cord and the paragliding canopy above your head will hoist you straight up and out of the danger zone.

“Base jumping is so extreme that there are no margins,” says 35-year-old François Bon, one of the paragliders who invented the sport at the end of 2003. “You have to be 100 per cent precise and base jumping is little more than a cascade. Speed riding is something that you can learn, slowly. It’s not something you have to throw yourself off the top of a mountain to try out.”

Designated speed-riding slopes and classes started springing up on the Alps three winters ago and since then hundreds of people have been certified as bona fide speed-riders (or speed fliers, as they are sometimes called) by the French Paragliding Federation. There are between 3,000 and 4,000 speed-riders worldwide and the sport has found friends in America, Japan, Scandinavia and New Zealand, although Bon insists its home is on the slopes of Les Arcs in the French Alps, where it was first conceived.

“When we started many skydivers and paragliders wanted to try it,” he says, “but now it’s mostly skiers. They’re not used to flying or using canopies, but that’s no problem because it’s better to be a good skier than a good flier. The rest you can learn.”

An adventurous speed-rider is looking for height, good snow and an exciting descent and the hardcore elite hire helicopters to drop them in places that would otherwise require a week off work. Kit consists of a pair of skis, helmet, goggles and a specially-designed canopy that is closely related to the traditional paragliding rig.

The idea of following the contours of a mountain while paragliding isn’t new: paragliders have been skimming mountain tops for years, sometimes with tragic results. But once Bon and his friends latched on to the idea of doing it with skis over more fall-friendly snow, they were onto a winner.

“We knew that the chance to fly fast and close to the snow would be very exciting,” says Bon, a paragliding test-pilot and former member of the French national team. “So we started to play with some existing canopies that we modified. By 2005 we were designing products specially.”

With just one fatality and a smashed back to date, speed riding is proving insurable and a surprisingly low-risk “danger” sport. “When you see our videos on YouTube, it looks pretty intense,” he says, accurately describing footage of one of his own hair-raising descents of the Eiger. “You’ll see that we’re going very fast and that there’s lots of flying, but when you start out there’s a lot more snow than air.”

But just like every sport, speed riding does have its golden rule. “It’s all about controlling your speed,” says Bon. “To run out of speed makes the glider fall down. You don’t want to be on a big slope and totally reliant on your skis if there are cliffs and the risk of avalanche. I’m only happy when I can see that canopy above me.” ‘

So where do you go if you want to give it a go and what do you need:

• probably a very good idea about how to ski to a proficient level
• equipment will be provided by your instructors
• training essential
• in Europe try www.speedriding-school.com
• in the US try ………..uh – we cannot find a teacher – now there’s an opportunity

Now watch this totally crazy footage from nimpO of Antoine Montant – another Frenchman – speedriding his way out of the path of an avalanche that would have swept all else before it – awesome.

… yet another thing you can do with a kite!

The second edition of the Nissan Outdoor Extreme Winter Games are happening right now in Chamonix.

5 international teams of extreme sporting professionals have, this week, been climbing, freeriding, BASE jumping, wingsuit flying and paragliding their way around the valley in an attempt to make the most impressive extreme sports short film.

Do you know what the Nissan Outdoor Games is all about? Here’s a quick video from OutdoorGamesTV to remind you…

The films will combine the skills of the individual athletes as well as the creative talents of the film crew that they work with.

Chamonix, the death-sport capital of the world as it has been described in the past, is the perfect backdrop for Nissan’s second games . This quote, from someone who lived in and loved Chamonix many many years ago, personifies Nissan’s quest:

“The great object of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even though in pain; it is this craving void which drives us…” Lord Byron

The results will be displayed on a giant screen in the Outdoor Games Village in the Tourist Office square today, Friday 20th, and Saturday 21st February, and prizes will be awarded for Best Sport’s Sequence, Best Photography and Jury’s Special Award.

There will also be an opportunity to talk to the experts themselves or try your hand at ice climbing, slack-rope walking and the climbing wall.

On Saturday there will also be two air shows combining BASE jumping, wingsuit flying, speed flying, acro-paragliding and hang gliding. The first one will take place at mid-day on the Aiguille du Midi and the second will be above the Grands Montets ski area at 3pm.

Cham will be at her best – difficult when lovers of Chamonix say she is ALWAYS at her best, but Cham has it all this weekend, and with the fantastic snow conditions that Europe has had this season, this year’s films should capture some amazing images of the valley and surrounding regions.

This was the Ride The Planets winner last year, again thanks to OutdoorGamesTV for posting it: