This page contains articles and photos Jeff has written in
the last few years: 8 Hours and 120 miles Into Arizona,
Touching The Andes, and An Indian Odyssey South and
North.
Over the last several years Jeff has written many articles about his paragliding adventures and travels:
Eight Hours and One Hundred Twenty Miles Into Arizona: Published in Paragliding Magazine 2001, describes a record breaking flight from Telluride Colorado.
Touching The Andes: Published in Paragliding Magazine 2002, describes a journey to several high mouinain sites across Peru.
An Indian Odyssey Part I: South: Describes two months spent exploring and flying paragliding sites in Southern India.
An Indian Odyssey Part II: North: Describes several months flying cross country from Billing on the edge of the Himalaya.
1:10 am May 16, 2002. Jorge Chavez Airport, Lima Peru. Again in South America, my sixth trip to Peru. For my wife Ursula, this trip is to visit her family for the first time since our marriage two years ago. For me, it is an excuse to complete another paragliding adventure exploring the many flying sites along the length of the Andes.
Peru has changed a lot in the twenty-one years I've been visiting, but more has remained the same. The wild landscapes, thin mountain air, wholesome simple meals, exotic fruits and friendly people still call me back. While the few known tourist spots have been overrun, almost all of the Central Andes have been left untouched.
When I discovered paragliding, my vision of reality and view of the world fundamentally changed. A deep appreciation for so much of Peru grew to include the vast flying potential. After three visits with my wing, I know that Peru is a fantastic paragliding destination.
David Wieder, a Prescott College outdoor education student originally from New Mexico, arrived in Lima, paraglider on his back. David was the first and best unexpected find on this trip. We toured as three for almost two months, searching high mountain valleys and coastal sand dunes for flying sites, some well known, some never flown.
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AN INDIAN ODYSSEY PART I
SITES AND SIGHTS OF SOUTHERN INDIA
India, one of the grand countries of the world, is a masala of countless regions, people, and cultures. The insanity of a billion people all moving in different directions at the same time quietly contrasts with soaring in smooth evening ridge lift watching the sunset, or even locking into a thermal and coring out. This is paragliding in India. It is hard to say which part is more intense.
In January 2003, my wife Ursula and I quite our jobs at a resort in Sri Lanka. I was there to teach a group of ex-commandos paragliding and rock climbing. Naive about the reality of working in a country in the midst of civil war, we've been told our situation wasn’t unusual concerning our payment and safety. We made the best of our situation and bought plane tickets to India. As tourists we spent the next four months discovering the smells, tastes, sounds and rhythms, people and dress, religions, customs, language and landscape. We also found several of India's premier paragliding sites.
An overnight bus took us from Bangalore to our first stop on Goa's famous beaches, on India's Southwest coast. The tourist haunts felt well worn. The restaurants, shops and bungalows perfectly fit the European winter vacation theme. I got some airtime above sandy beaches, but soon our simple hedonistic needs were satisfied and we left in search of a more real, potent India.
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AN INDIAN ODYSSEY PART II
SITES AND SIGHTS OF NORTHERN INDIA
After working for two months in Sri Lanka, my wife Ursula and I bought tickets to Bangalore India. January and February were full of discovery and adventure, flying sites and exploring Southern India. The last two months in Asia passed quickly in the foothills of the Himalaya, paragliding from the world renowned launch at Billing. We traveled north across India, on trains for three days. The small village of Bir was the destination for the second half of our trip. Bir sits at the edge of the Dhaura Dhar Range below and just south of the Great Himalaya. The soaring site at Billing is perched on the first ridge of this range which rises from rolling hills, the flat expanse of Northern India's Punjab, and eventually the Great Indian Desert in Rajasthan.
We traveled during "Holi", a Hindu festival where paint and colored powders are thrown on people in celebration of the start of spring. Bags of red and blue paint thrown through open train windows are especially exciting. The slow narrow gauge railway carried us from Pathankot up the Kangra valley, which runs along the range of snowy peaks. As darkness fell, we arrived in Baijnath just short of Bir. In the morning we shopped for warmer gloves and sweat pants in the market before hopping on a bus to Bir. We arrived just in time to meet up with the local pilots as they headed up the hill. I tossed my wing on top of a jeep taxi and six of us drove out of town, winding up switchbacks past thousands of spring bloom red rhododendron trees.
Facets of the diverse religions of northern India are everywhere. In Baijnath we saw a fifteen hundred year old temple covered in intricately carved stonework. Even on the road to launch we found religion. Tucked between switchbacks, the Thermal Devda Temple has an altar with tridents dedicated to the Hindu God Shiva. Visit with respect. Remove shoes and leather before entering. Make an offering and ask for protection from collapses, help finding thermals, or whatever you need, then ring the bell as you leave. It's a good idea to visit and ask the local deity permission to play with such strong magic as flying. 
The Billing launch sits high on a ridge among a few small stone structures. Almost a thousand meters above the landing zone in Bir, the knob is a superb South to west facing launch. Even though the morning prevailing winds are from the East, pilots launch from the lee West side of the ridge. As with many morning mountain sites, the light nature of the early wind makes this practice safe. One of the stone buildings holds a small shop and teahouse run by a friendly older man affectionately known as Chachu, which means uncle in Hindi. A few minutes walk above Chachu's teashop is another launch facing East as well as West. Crouched next to the small earthen cook stove, Chachu cooks an excellent dal or lentils, a runny curry with a chickpea flour base, and of course lots of sweet dhud chai, which means milk tea in Hindi. 
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