UHGPGA Members & Friends:

 I just got back from meeting with our flying brothers and sisters at Lookout Mountain in Golden Colorado http://www.rmhpa.org .  The Lookout Mountain site is now facing many of the same encroachment pressures the Point was a couple of years ago.  They, like us, have been working on saving their site for many years.  The RMHPA members and leaders have taken notice to the recent success we have achieved at the Point and are very interested in seeing if they can reproduce the model that worked so well out here. 

 We’re hoping the site preservation model that has resulted in success at the Point can be reproduced in Golden.  If so, it may ultimately serve as a national model for preserving threatened sites.  We’ll see!

 If you haven’t been to Lookout you might want to plan a trip.  The flying community is welcoming and when the weather cooperates the flying is outstanding!  When the weather is not working there’s a ton of fun things to do (too many to list). 

Mark Gaskill

The UHGPGA interviewed Utah flying pioneer Harold Meakin earlier this week.   Harold, now 87 years young, and his brother Robert were towing various aircraft off the Point of the Mountain in the early 30’s 40’s and 50’s.  Their story is amazing and an important part of Utah flying history.  We are fortunate to have had the opportunity to capture some of these stories from the people who were playing at the Point back in the day. 

 The UHGPGA and USHPA will be filming other early pioneers this week.  This footage will be use in a variety of ways (e.g. supporting the Point becoming a historical landmark).  More on that later.

 The UHGPGA officers look forward to bringing these stories to the membership in the coming months!

 
 A big thanks must go to Greg Gillam, Ryan Voight, Martin Palmaz and the UHGPGA and USHPA for helping to move this project along.

 Mark Gaskill

News from the UHGPGA

The USHPGA has announced the awards for 2008.  The UHGPGA has been awarded the chapter of the year award for the second year in a row!  I think this is certainly an indication that we are doing things right in the face of increasing challenges.  Credit for this repeat must go to all the officers but especially to last year’s president Ty McCartney. I’m hoping this year we will have good weather, increased participation, and a season of great flying.

Also, Brad Gunnuscio was named Paragliding instructor of the year.  So, when you Brad make sure you congratulate him.  From what I understand the competition for instructor of the year was tough.

The awards will be given out at the March USHPGA Board of Directors meeting in Colorado Springs.  I’m sure we will see more details in Hang Gliding & Paragliding & magazine following the official awards presentation.

Finally, the boys from Cloud 9 just returned from conducting the first ever (as far as I know) speed flying tour.  The group hit France, Switzerland and Italy.  Apparently most of the flying occurred in Chamonix.  The group consisted of 15 guests and took place over a 7 day period.  Apparently participants achieved over 100,000 vertical feet of decent - which from what Mike Steen states “isn’t necessarily hard when some flights are over 9,000 vertical.”  Nobody was arrested or detained during the trip so they must have had good flying thus avoiding the idle minds and board pilots dilemma…..

Cheers, Mark Gaskill

Click here to see day to day results, pictures and video thanks to Eagle Paragliding.

Congratulations to Brad Gunnuscio for placing 3rd in the 2009 Monarca Paragliding Open in Valle de Bravo MX.  The US team had an impressive showing.  Check out the task!!!  Valle de Bravo is also the site of the 2009 World Paragliding Championships later this month.  Hopefully, the Monarca Paragliding Open will be a good warm up for the US team. 

It's hard to imagine what the sport of free flight would be like without the influence of a few driven individuals.  One such person lives in a little town in central Utah called Richfield.  Stacy Whitmore puts on more miles on the dirt roads of Utah than most people put on asphalt, and that's after he's traveled hundreds of miles on asphalt to get there, all in search of the next great paragliding site.  Stacy is truly a pioneer in our sport, if he isn't working you'll probably find him at the top of a mountain somewhere trying to find a big enough spot to lay out his wing or at the bottom of the hill trying to find a landing zone.  Then he'll huck off and if he can't land back at his car, call his wife or a friend or depend on the generosity of someone he's never met to get him back to his car. When he finds a site that works he doesn’t keep it to himself, he tells all his friends (that’s everyone).

But apparently that wasn't enough, so this year he got together friends, family, students and people he hadn't yet met and set out to break every record he could think of, including Utah's highest Paragliding launch, Utah's highest drive up launch, Utah's highest hang-gliding launch, Utah's biggest vert, I'm sure I'm forgetting a few, and some of these he broke more than once.

If he’s not flying he’ll sit down with his buddy, Google Earth and rewrite the Utah site guide with GPS coordinates no less. If you already know him you are lucky, if not you can head down to Richfield or click here to read more.

2009 U. S. Paragliding Team Named. Utah local Brad Gunnuscio has been named as one of the elite pilots to represent us on the U. S. National Paragliding Team.  Big congrats needs to go out to Brad and the other members of the US team.  This is no small accomplishment.  Brad will be joined by Eric Reed, Matt "Farmer" Beechinor, Josh Cohn and Kari Castle. The team will be led by Rob Sporrer and Jeff Huey.  The road to the US National Team is long and hard fought.  The team is named every two years with the intention of competing in the World Paragliding Championships.  The next World Paragliding Championships will be held in Valle De Bravo, Mexico from January 23 thru February 7, 2009 in Valle De Bravo, Mexico.  This is a grueling two week event.  This should be an exciting meet as Valle is practically the second “winter” home for some members of the US National team. To read more about the National team click here. For more about the World Championships click here.

Read the article written and performed by our very own Gerry Wingenbach and Chris Santacroce for Park City Magazine. Click here to get to it.

With Paragliders flying in the background, elected officials, club officers, club members, news media and the public attended the official ground breaking of the North Side Point of The Mountain Flight Park reconstruction. Wednesday, April 23 marked the beginning of a new face for the old familiar park. Weather was a little sketchy but we pulled it off anyway. Click on the following link to see news footage of the event.  Groundbreaking Video

As with progress also comes inconvenience. Due to the construction, the North Side will be closed starting April 29th and remain closed until May 14th. The entrance will be shut down to all non-construction personnel as they will be installing utilities. If you have permission from property owners, it would be possible to walk in to launch however it is strongly encouraged not to fly during this time as we want to be respectful of the neighborhood adjacent to the park. There will be many other times throughout the summer when the park will be closed so please check this website for closures and also watch the construction on our Club's North Side webcam. Thanks to our UHGPGA members for being the catalysts of this extraordinary change to our sport. Soon we'll have green grass to unfold and fold our wings and amenities that make us feel we're at home rather than roughing it.

How cool is this? Dad teaching his son to fly at The Point. See the video under the photo/video section above.