Valentine’s Vlog: Torrey Pines

February 13, 2013
Blog Post
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avgeek, aviation, blog, captain, career, cockpit, flight deck, flying, hang gliding, love, pilot

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For once you have tasted flight,

you will forever walk the earth

with your eyes turned skywards,

for there you have been,

and there you will always

long to return.

—Leonardo da Vinci

Recently I was invited to visit San Diego by my good friend and Cap’n Aux blog fan, commercial pilot Barry. When his wife Becky suggested we take a drive up the coast to Torrey Pines…

my heart leapt in my throat.

Decades before, when my parents announced a vacation to the same locale, the same feeling had stirred within me.

Torrey Pines. The very name evokes powerful emotions deep within my soul. For, to me, Torrey Pines was a pilgrimage to Mecca.

The USHGA (now USHPA.) This sticker on the back of a car window would get my pulse racing.

As a young teen, I was obsessed with hang gliding. Every month, I voraciously read my Hang Gliding Magazine cover to cover. Each issue was filled with the gallant exploits of hang gliding heroes, and gorgeous color photos of famous flying spots the world ‘round.

And none was more renowned than Torrey Pines, California.

Since the late 1930’s, intrepid aviation pioneers have been soaring the ridgelines here. Mild year-round California weather, with a steady offshore breeze pushing up the sheer cliffs to create consistent lifting action, make for perfect soaring conditions. In the 70’s, the hang gliding craze literally took off, putting this place on the world map.

Overwhelmed with nostalgia,
I view in awe the amazing scenery
that is Torrey Pines.

Like a giddy teen on his first date, my heart raced as we pulled into the parking lot of Torrey Pines Gliderport.

No human birds graced the air that fine day, I was sad to see. Even so, I felt flushed with anticipation at this unexpected sojourn to nirvana. With weak knees, I walked in a trance straight to the viewpoint overlooking the ridgeline.

Right and left, the California coast

stretched for miles.

Right and left, the California coast stretched for miles. Hundreds of feet below, nudists the size of ants strolled clothing-optional Blacks Beach—world famous in its own right, for obvious reasons.

Nudists the size of ants strolled Blacks Beach below.

A man shouted behind me. I turned to see, in a grass field on the other side of the gliderport building, a flight instructor barking instructions to his fledgeling paraglider student.

I chat with Gliderport owner Robin and Junior, both certified Advanced paraglider instructors. Overcome with nostalgia, I present the shop with a signed copy of “The Last Bush Pilots.”

Surreptitiously ambling over, I watched with awe as the student practiced filling his colorful sail with lift, mimicking a takeoff.

Behind me, a paragliding instructor barked orders to his student.

The clink clink of carabiners on the pilot’s harness and the thick, salty air took me back to a time when I was a mere teen, taking my first tenuous, tentative steps out of the nest and into the air.