Sun Valley was a hell of a lot of fun, with five solid flying days out of seven, amazing conditions. Paragliding comps are always good fun when the flying is on, if all comps were like Sun Valley I'd go to everyone, it's always a total learning experience. I didn't do all that well, but then again none of last year's top five were in the top five this year. I'm going to do some thinking about paragliding comps, mainly along the lines of, "Are they totally random or can a pilot figure out how to win them regularly?" Hang Gliding competitions generally have one or two pilots who manage to place on the podium, but paragliding comps generally produce wildly variable results. I don't know what the difference is,but I'd like to figure it out. Thanks to all the pilots at Sun Valley, the meet organizers and the crew I hung out with, it was fun!
On Sunday we took another go at the Lava Tube on the way home, I sent the thugfest 5.13 that had been slapping me around. Although I was only able to climb three days in 10 I don't think I lost a tremendous amount of fitness, it felt good on the redpoint even though my skin was tattered. Dave Bingham reportedly opened up the routes in the Lava Tube, thanks for doing that, we had an awesome time there. It was crazy hot Sunday, but the tube was still nice and cool, strange to feel the temp go from about 95 on the surface down to about 60 in the very bottom of the cave, you actually had to wear a sweatshirt belaying. Amazing.
I'm back at home and aiming for a route I've been working on Yamnuska, it's a big rig with many hard pitches, the focus is now fitness and work to get it done.
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