This morning I put my paramotor in the truck and drove to a local gas station where local PPG pilot Craig and I took off for my flight #48.  The plan was to fly over the RV on our way to the sand dunes nearby.  The flight was amazing, as the terrain here is dotted with ridges and mesas that have to be navigated.  M spotted me approaching in the distance:

I was about 700 feet up, enjoying the view, while Craig was flying low following the contours of a creek.  After looking around at the landscape for a moment, I looked back down and saw that Craig had landed on a sandbar in the creek.  I thought this was odd, then noticed that power lines went across the river where he had landed.  I realized Craig had not landed voluntarily.  His wing had hit the lines, collapsed, and he came down pretty hard from 15 feet up.  I came down low to make sure he was still moving around.

Once I saw him waving at me, I flew back to the gas station and drove back to pick him up.  We then drove back to the gas station, he picked up his truck, and we drove back to the crash site.  We had to walk about a quarter of a mile out to the creek to retrieve Craig’s paramotor trike.  He had broken the rear axle, so we had to carry it back.  Before we slogged back to his truck with his trike, Craig pointed out the power lines.  It was a long span across the creek, so it’s not surprising that he didn’t see the pole on either side of the creek.  All in all, Craig was very lucky to come away uninjured save for a bruised elbow:

Meanwhile, back at the RV, B patched her bike tire:

M rode his motorcycle around:

Unfortunately, he went over a hill too fast, and came down hard enough to break the motorcycle frame.  He tumbled off the motorcycle as a result of the frame failure:

Trish got him patched up:

After I returned to the RV, Trish a B went out for another Tour de Simcha training ride:

They found an abandoned mine:

B also found a blooming prickly pear cactus to photograph:

On the way out of town, we stopped at the local C-A-L Ranch store to buy propane.  The store has everything a rancher might need, like chicken feed:

We also stocked up on groceries before driving east to Kanab, where we dumped our tanks, then North and east to overnight in the Dixie National Forest just outside of Bryce Canyon National Park.  See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.