#309 The Letter H

King Mountain near Moore, Idaho (population 196) is one of HANG GLIDERS' favorite launch sites in the nation.

The scenery is gorgeous and you couldn't ask for a more beautiful day!

From the back side, most of the gliders are silver. From the front side it's a colorful array indeed. They are lined up, facing uphill, waiting for their turn and for the wind to cooperate. There was plenty of wind but they needed to fly into the wind. On this day they had to fight a cross wind.

This pilot takes off a-running, hoping the lift will keep him up and headed in the right direction. The pilots had gathered to participate in the annual King Mountain competition. The distance is calculated with GPS coordinates - as the crow flies, not time aloft. Winning has as much to do with good wind as it does with gliding skill.

Like I said, the scenery was beautiful and the day was gorgeous.

This guy had quite the video setup to record the flights. He had almost as much equipment as the glider pilots.

Little known facts: The glider weighs 100 pounds, give or take. You buy a cap for $8,000 and they give you a free glider. You need a roof rack on your four-wheel drive vehicle (required for access to some launch sites). It takes about twenty to thirty minutes to unpack and put the glider together. A few of the pilots were women. There is a lot of hurry-up-and-wait in hang gliding. I understand the best winds come up in late afternoon. Hang gliding pilots are the nicest people and don't mind answering questions from ignorant spectators.