Winging it in Yunnan

Early last Wednesday morning, GoKunming met up with a few friends on Jiaoling Lu for a trip out to Anning. Red-eyed and sleepy, we all needed a coffee or two, but none of Kunming's cafés had opened yet. Packing into the van we were to take on our trip, there was a slightly giddy feeling reminiscent of skipping school.

There was also a palpable feeling of nervousness, perhaps even dread, of what was to come. Our minds were on something far more intimidating than Kunming morning traffic – we were all preparing to go paragliding for the first time.

Paragliding – known in China as huáxiángsan, or 'gliding parachute' – is a relatively new sport in China. It first began to be promoted in China about ten years ago but has yet to attract the numbers of die-hard pilots found in the US, Europe or even South Korea and Japan.

"Paragliding is one of those sports like Kung Fu or bicycling that can become a way of life for those that enjoy it," said Mike Fougere, the internationally-certified tandem pilot and instructor who would be taking us up into the sky later that day. Poring over indecipherable (for us) wind charts for the area around Anning's Longsan mountain, Mike seemed pleased with what the glyphs were telling him about what the day had in store for us windwise.

"It's been so windy lately it's almost been discouraging," Mike said, recounting a recent day of tandem flights that he had to cancel due to excessive winds, "But today should be just right."

After making it out of Kunming we stopped in Anning's hot springs area for some bananas and water before heading up toward the mountain that we were all going to launch off of. Nervous smiles belied the churning stomachs beneath the veneer of calm that we were trying to maintain.

After a bumpy ride to the flat top of Longsan Shan, we disembarked and ate bananas as Mike planted a wind indicator and spread out a 43-square-meter nylon airfoil, which he refers to as a 'wing'. After some deliberation, we determined who would be the first to take to the skies.

GoKunming techie Matthew was the first to strap into the paragliding harness, which allows for semi-easy running during takeoff and quite comfortable seating once airborne. Mike, originally from Canada, has piloted around 500 tandem flights over the last three years at a Quebec City paragliding school (aerostyle.ca) and has been logging more than 200 hours annually in solo flights in Asia and North America.

Over the last two springs, he has been exploring ideal areas around Kunming for paragliding – in addition to Anning's Longsan, he has also tried out Xishan in Kunming and Liangwan Shan in Chengjiang, about 50 minutes' drive from Kunming.

After a quick briefing on the finer points of taking off and triplechecking all of the key points of the harness, Mike waited for an ideal wind and then instructed Matthew to start moving forward, toward the edge of the mountain's flat top. Wind direction wasn't acceptable for the pilot, so Mike decided to abort the attempt, which would happen a couple more times. On the fourth attempt all was good and Matthew and Mike took to the sky.

Meteorological knowledge is crucial to being a good (and safe) pilot and understanding how the sun heats the ground and creates hot air currents in specific areas is how you find thermals - and go up. After much fruitless searching, the winds smiled upon the wing, sending pilot and passenger about a kilometer straight up in a very short amount of time. For us on the ground, nervousness was giving way to eagerness.

After Mike and Matthew landed atop the mountain which they had launched off of half an hour earlier, the rest of us took turns making the launch. Your correspondent and another friend both ended up missing the big thermals, but the tour of the face of the mountain was far from disappointing - we were flying, after all.

The last two in our group ended up catching some major thermals, quickly shooting up to nearly four kilometers above sea level (see video above). Both times the wing was nearly too small to see without binoculars from the top of Longsan Shan, with the pilot and passenger spending around an hour gliding across the sky.

At one point the instrument that measures altitude and rate of climb was emitting a high-pitched noise that meant the two were ascending at a rate of six meters per second. Both of the lucky high-fliers were slightly dazed but happy to have flown upon returning to terra firma.

Should you decide to try paragliding it is recommended to fly with an experienced pilot who is certified by a country with a developed paragliding community. Hiking boots, sunscreen, a windbreaker and plenty of snacks and water are also recommended.

Tags: Anning, Mike Fougere, paragliding