Two young French guys who are paragliding from Canada’s Northwest Territory to the Mexican border had a down day Thursday in Durango.
The problem? Wrong-way wind.
They plan to walk to Aztec today to launch from Hollis Pass, then head for Albuquerque and then to Mexico.
The pair are cousins, Thomas Punty, 24, and Nelson Defreyman, 22, from Barcelonnette, a town of 2,000 in southeast France.
Defreyman and Punty have pursued their sport for seven years in Africa, Bolivia and Kyrgyzstan, as well as Europe. Paragliding, not to be confused with hang gliding that uses a rigid frame, involves an elongated fabric wing connected by shroud lines to a harness for the pilot.
The wing is about 30 feet long with an area of about 42 square meters.
A good paraglider costs $3,000, Punty said. But even so, it’s the cheapest flying sport, he said.
Locomotion relies on thermals, columns of rising air created by uneven heating of the Earth’s surface by the sun, orographic lift, the movement of air over rising terrain and wind direction.
The cousins left Canada on March 15, following the Rocky Mountains south. The variety of terrain – mountains, plains, forests and desert – has impressed them. They plan to fly home from Santa Fe in time for Bastille Day, July 14..
Their first project will be making a movie using video and photos from their four-month outing. The goal is to share their adventure and describe the potential of paragliding in the United States.
Punty is a college graduate with a business degree who is looking for a job. Defreyman teaches paragliding and skiing.
At night, the adventurers camp or find a motel when they want to bathe. They have established a network of ground contacts who know local terrain and can help with logistics.
Brian Parker, a retired 40-year U.S. Forest Service employee and former hang-glider enthusiast, Wednesday met Punty and Defreyman at 8,600-foot Menefee Mountain near Mancos from where they launched hoping to reach Aztec or beyond.
They soared as high as 19,000 feet, but became separated by unfavorable winds. Punty landed in the San Juan National Forest north of U.S. Highway 160 near Mancos Hill and Defreyman near the Durango-La Plata County Airport.
Parker got them reunited in Durango and ready to soar Thursday, but the uncooperative winds again did them a disservice.
Down time has been minimal, Punty said; they have been grounded for fewer than 10 days total.
Skilled pilots read the clouds and the terrain (a dark-colored plowed field creates stronger thermals than a patch of green shrubbery).
Veteran pilots have a sixth sense that guides them, Parker said. It’s the same intuition that tells an astute skier that snow is unstable, he said.
Seventy ground miles is the most they’ve covered in a day. Usually it’s around 30 miles, with air miles impossible to calculate, they said.
daler@durangoherald.com
