Saturday, December 02, 2006

Ski-Gliding the Eiger

With all the snow we've had in Coloardo the past week I've been itching to go snowboarding, but alas I spent all my recreation money on the trip to Moab last weekend. Who needs money though, there is always the backcountry right! Yesterday would have been the day, but I was the only one motivated to hike and going alone just isn't a safe option. So to ease my need for powder I've been drooling over this video I found on the OZ Report about Ski-Gliding down the Eiger in Switzlerland. It recently showed up on YouTube, which is more blog friendly.



Ski-Gliding is similar to paragliding, but done with a smaller wing that has a lower glide ratio. For those of you who don't know about paragliding, it is similar to hang gliding, but instead of a rigid glider it is done with a high aspect ratio, multi-cell, inflatable parachute. The gayness of paragliding has always prevented me from trying it, but ski-gliding is different enough that I think I could take up the sport without it affecting my heterosexuality.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think sky divers might have a beef with calling this paragliding. After all, the paraglider evolved from the ram air parachute sky divers use. Then they shrunk it, went back to something that looks like a sky divers chute, and attempt to call it a paraglider, haha. This is nothing more than sky diving down a ski slope.

Cloudbase said...

I agree - it’s similar to (i.e. forward launch technique, judging glide ratio, etc) but definitely not paragliding. Seems like everyone has a beef with paragliding!