Come Fly with me...

Last week I went to the Lost River Valley in Idaho to visit my mom. She is 93. My sister Sylvia is taking care of her and I went to help as much as I could. While I was there, they were having the National Hang Gliding Competition on our beloved King Mountain. This is a view of the valley from the launch area. The pilots come from all over the country and camp in a small park there in Moore. I went walking with my sister on Tuesday morning and saw their rigs around the park and thought that it was really exciting that we were there at the same time.
My brother, Kirby asked if I wanted to go up on the mountain and see the hang gliders take off. I said that I would LOVE to do that, so Friday afternoon my sister Cynthia and I jumped in his pickup for a fun steep ride up the mountain.
We stopped at the lower landing and there was an even steeper road up to a top landing. Cynthia wanted to walk on up the hill and our brother said "go for it".
Just then four pilots rolled down the window of their pickup and asked if we wanted a ride up to the top, lucky us! This is the view looking down to the lower landing, you can see a white hang glider in the sky and one ready to take off.
Below is a picture of the guys who took us up,their gear is on top of their truck. The one on the right is starting to get his glider ready.Below is a pilot getting ready to take off. It takes a lot of support to get the glider just right for take off. Safety is a big factor, you have to work up to the level of these pilots, they are not beginners, they are champions.
This is John, who drove us up, he is putting his glider together. As you can see the assemble is something like a tent with all the bars and tubes. All the people up there were so friendly. We were the only spectators. We saw a pilot who had lost his leg in a motorcycle accident at age 18 and he was walking down the steep hill on crutches that had spikes. They said he is an inspiration to all of them. The average age of a hang glider is 45 to 50! We started walking down before John was ready to take off. It takes at least 45 minutes to put the glider together and get strapped it. It was fun to be there, feel the hot wind blowing in our faces, hear the gps beepers, feel the rush as the pilots launched and hear the stories. Some of the targets are 150 miles away. Here is John right after take off.

My camera wasn't showing the red dot that indicated that I was on movie, so excuse the commentary in the background. We are standing on a very steep road, looking up. This is John taking off.

This is someone that took off right after we got up there. It is such a beautiful day. The wind was wonderfully hot and just right for hang gliding. The sky was so blue.