Tandem Paragliding - Anyone Can Do It!

For some people, the idea of stepping off terra firma into the sky for fun is unimaginable. If we were meant to fly, the thinking goes, we would be born with wings. But instead of wings, we were born with imaginations; and those imaginations have invented wings for us. For the adventurous – and skilled – hang-gliding and paragliding are the result of all that imagining. For the purely adventurous – without the skills – there is tandem paragliding, in which a person with the skills does all the hard stuff and the client straps on for the ride of a lifetime.

Alright, some will think, I'm intrigued, but where do I go in BC to do this? The answer is Golden, BC, where Altitude Adventures operates from famed Mount 7 – where every Canadian time and distance record has been set. With over 30 years of paragliding experience, the pilots of Altitude Adventures insist anyone can do it. Just ask Mike Alexander.

Mike is no regular guy. And his is no regular story. At the turn of the century, when still completely able-bodied, Mike was engineering and selling sit-skis under his brand Strange R&D. Just like they sound, these are skis designed to be sat on by paraplegics. Expanding his market potential into summer recreation, he was testing a prototype sit-bike on Mount 7's downhill mountain bike trails, albeit without the rollbar mounted. He took a spill and landed on his head, breaking his C5 and C6 vertebrae. The irony is as thick as the snow that falls on the mountains here. “It was no fault of the bike,” he says, “it was me going way too fast.”

Three years after his accident, inspired by returning sensations and an unbroken will, Mike went tandem paragliding off Mount 7 with Altitude Adventures. Yes, a quadriplegic went paragliding. As part of his catharsis he even used the same sit-bike (for take-off and landing) on the same mountain. “It was sensational,” he says. “The guide was so helpful and accommodating.”

Then last year he went solo kayaking on a lake a few times. Then this winter he got on a sit-ski - one of his own Strange R&D making, of course, specifically for quadriplegics - and ripped down Kicking Horse Mountain Resort.

As previously stated, Mike is no regular guy. What he is is an inspiration. And tandem paragliding with Altitude Adventures is no regular adventure. It gives us wings.

Altitude Adventures http://www.altitudeadventures.ca adventures@heliparagliding.com 1-250-344-3214

Mike Alexander Strange R&D strange@persona.ca 1-250-344-7066