Belinda and I arrived in Alpine on the Wyoming-Idaho border on
Monday around 5 PM and by 6 PM I was in the air being towed by Tiki behind a
Bailey-Moyes Dragonfly with a 582 engine. Tiki pulled me to almost 9,000', I got
off a few hundred feet too early, on the west facing side of the Teton Range.


Tiki and Bart run Cowboy Up Hang Gliding (http://www.cuhanggliding.com/)
here in Jackson Hole (Jackson valley) here in Wyoming. They tow out of Bureau of
Reclamation land (managed by the US Forest Service) near the Alpine airport.
They have a new hangar there and have sold their trike. The tandem glider and
the tug are stored in the hangar.


We're at the KOA campground across of weird Dick Cheney's place on the Wilson
Moose road. Great place for bicycling with a separate path next to the road all
the way to the Teton National Park to the north. The road through the park from
that entrance is thin and windy, but the speed limit is twenty five miles an
hour so it is also great for road bike riding, and is mostly paved.


Bart and Tiki are mostly in the business of giving tourist "instructional"
flights. They also have students and also local and not so local hang glider
pilots who would like to be towed up. As Jackson Hole and Teton National Park
are premier destinations, Bart and Tiki have a great spot to have a business
such as theirs, providing fun to tourists.


The eastern faces of the Tetons are rather spectacular and make for great flying
(don't land in the park, which is huge). It's also pretty cool that the towing
takes place on the windward side of the mountain range, which is not that far
away from Wilson, the town that Bart and Tiki live in and which is next to
Jackson.


We went kayaking on the Snake River this evening just down from Jackson Lake to
check out wildlife. We saw Elk, Moose, ducks, fish, Osprey (carrying fish), and
river otters. Pretty cool.


More on flying in this area over the next few days.