So on Saturday when we got out of the car at the Squaw Peak overlook we noticed a
few people unpacking paragliders. The weather was gorgeous so we
decided to stay and watch what happened.
When you're driving around in
Utah county you see paragliders high in the sky quite often but we had never seen any up close like this. They were only about twenty feet from where we were sitting.
E was intrigued by the people unpacking their parachutes but Mimi was much more fascinated by all the cigarette butts on the ground--gross.
It was really interesting to watch the gliders take off. It happened so fast that I missed it the first time. They would just start running downhill and then the wind would grab the sail (you could hear the loud SNAP of it catching the wind) and they would in the air.
This guy below had a rougher takeoff than his friends, though. The wind blew him back into the mountain and he bounced off the ground a few times before getting airborne. It was a little scary--he was fighting for control and for a second it looked like he might crash into the observers. Just watching him made my heart race; I wonder what his felt like.
But then just like that he was off like a bird.
If we had gotten to the overlook 30 minutes earlier we probably wouldn't have waited to watch the gliders take off and 30 minutes later and they would have been gone already.
It was a special family outing, one that I'll remember as a little bit magical because of our good luck. Labels: family outings, for locals
