3 years ago I vowed to quit flying Mingus Mountain. A 4000 ft vertical paradise for Hangliders due to the dangers or basic lack of a paraglider launch. This past weekend I made some time to help with renovating the site and making it a safer place for paragliders. In the old days we had to ask for the help of people on launch to lay out safely below the concrete ramp on a rock pile or try to get your wing up in no wind in the lee behind the cliff edge. Neither one was all that safe. Long time AZ paraglider pilot Morgan Stine wrote a grant that went through.He supplied manpower and equipment, know how and a ton of time to make the changes required. After hammering rock hauling in dirt stacking of rock and grading everything out we have a launch. Saturday I ran a trackhoe to move rocks and grade the launch. Sunday we all spread topsoil and moved more rocks before test flying the launch. I did a little damage to Morgan's trackhoe but luckily we fixed it. Notice the bent hydrolic ram for the thumb near the bucket in the picture.
The test flight went well with hardly no wind coming up the hill we all got of relatively easy. I then managed a 10.5 mile jaunt around the Jerome and Clarkdale area. Landing in the desert between Sedona and cottonwood.
Paul Alley came to the rescue and we went back to launch to seed and mulch the whole area. It was a great day and a great moment in time for flying in Arizona.
