Treble Cone Paragliding

After the Christmas in July celebrations at Wanaka Bakpaka (an evening where everyone cooks something and then shared in smorgasbord style). Paul arrives in late, and misses the great feed which must have something to do with the premise's earlier life (as it was a restaurant before it got converted to a backpacker).

Paul is on his way up to Treble Cone in the morning and offers me a ride up there. We start the day with the best breakfast in town down at Kai Whaka Pai (keep in mind "wh" is side like "F"), and get up the hill with glider on board for opening time. I hang about by the outside fire down at the base of the ski field waiting for conditions to get perfect. I'm on my own here, and the take off area is extremely small, so I'm not taking any chances. At about 11:30am I walk down the area to lay out my glider on the 45 degree angle slope, and from the top Mal is calling out from up top. I later learn that Mal is one of the "speed riders" here, and is about to launch from a slightly different area just around the corner. He's got a camera on his helmet and a small glider that is probably smaller than a parachute and is off the fast way down the mountain. He jumps off, drops like a lead balloon, and then immediately executes a barrel roll before skimming the contours of the mountain all the way down (in about 1-2 minutes). He makes what I'm about to do look like a past time for fairies. If he can do that I shouldn't have any concerns taking off from here.

In any case, I'm setting up the glider on a sloping ground, it's muddy, icy and slippery, and only two steps before walking over the edge. I'm double checking everything. I wait for a small bit anabatic air flow up the side of the mountain, pull on the risers, the glider comes up beautifully even overhead, I take another step and launch off into the air. Phew.. it worked, and glide around the sides of Treble Cone for the next 15 minutes. It's a one way glide down as expected as the air isn't thermalling, so I land down at the road entrance up to Treble Cone below.

I end up hitching back up the mountain with Mal another three times and repeating the process, as was Mal except he was doing three flights down the mountain for every one of mine. He speed rided 18 times that day, which means he had to hitch up 18 times as well!

Here's some of Mal's first person view of what it looks like Speed Riding down Treble Cone.