Kalalau 2025

Over the holidays, my parents and brother went on backpacking trip to Kalalau Valley, on the northern side of Kauai island. I have gone to Kalalau on several occasions, most recently in 2017 (also, coincidentally, also with my parents and brother that time). Katrina and the kids would join me a week later, at a resort on the eastern side of the island for the second half of my Kauai vacation.

The hike is a full day's endeavor. We hiked in on Day 1, spent Days 2/3/4 in the valley itself, then hiked out on Day 5 (plus the morning of Day 6). I sent Katrina messages via satellite-based texting every day; below is a lightly edited/embellished version of those texts:

Day 1 (hiking in) + Day 2 (swimming). All written on Day 2

Good hiking weather yesterday, modulo some wind towards the end; then a deluge overnight; but sunshine and blue skies again this morning.

I’m doing a most excellent job staring at waves and the surrounding mountains. Clouds and light rain rolled in, so I’m now having a lovely time sitting on the bluff and getting coated in drizzle. (The rest of my family has disappeared — my parents to the river, Ariel to seek refuge and grumble in his tent). I’m enjoying the relaxed pace of leisurely filtering water, cooking food, etc.

Off to swim soon. (Well, to stand in water — further out there are man-eating waves).

…

Had a fantastic time swimming (or more accurately, body-surfing) with Ariel; and then by myself, once he tired of it. Tossed a frisbee in the sand; and had a nice fire going after dark back at our campsite, before a deluge opened up and we had to beat a hasty retreat under a tarp.

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Day 3: (Valley walk)

There was a formidable dumping of rain last night, but then a beautiful sunrise and sunshine this morning.

Today was really nice in the morning… transitioning, at 4pm, to heavy rain (holy Moses, parter of water, you can’t even believe how heavy!). All four of us had gone hiking up the Kalalau valley to the “Cascades”, first through the forest on the eastern side of the valley, then on the rocky river bank, and eventually back down through the mud and bamboo grove on the western side.

We had just made it to the tarp in light drizzle to eat a late lunch before going to swim in the ocean… and then water started pouring out of the sky. Under the circumstances of needing to walk a mile each way to make it happen, the swimming outing is now canceled.

…

A break in the rain: going to fetch some water from the river, before it gets even more sedimenty overnight if the rain persists.

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Day 4: (last day in the valley; Canyoneering + swimming)

The ridiculously rainy evening suddenly transitioned to a warm blustery night, and then a still-blustery morning.

It’s our last day here in the valley. We ate breakfast, and I was going to get more water at the stream and do a quick swim; but the swim was so fun, I decided to canyoneer up the Kalalau Stream for about an hour, meeting up with my parents en route. Found a nice cold jacuzzi and sat there with my mom for a while, before heading back to camp to make lunch.

Went swimming in the ocean for a long time, it was really fun! Played with waves (they were less man-eating this time), body-surfing; played fetch with a frisbee that my brother would toss from the shore; and later swam with my mom.

Drizzle is starting, but I am obstinately sitting on the bluff (rather than under a tarp within the forest), heating up water for our forthcoming meal. May as well get some last views of the valley and the authentic Kalalau experience — rain and all.

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Day 5 (hiking out)

After a night of on-and-off rain, a beautiful morning for departure. Saw a rainbow in the sky. Mist is playing with the mountains surrounding Kalalau Valley. Waves are breaking rhythmically — calmly, methodically — over the rocks beneath the bluff, and against the rocky shoreline to the east.

…

Soon, the rain returned, right as we were packing. It then went away, making for ideal hiking weather: clouds to make it not too hot; mist on top of the mountains to make it beautiful. Unfortunately, the Goldilocks weather didn’t last long: a couple hours in, it started raining. First just a light drizzle — so light that we even dropped our packs at the 6 mile mark and did the extra 0.5 mile trail to the six-mile waterfall. But once there, the mist from the waterfall combined with the drizzle from above got us thoroughly soaked… and soaked we continued to be, as the rain intensified. The Hanakoa Stream crossing was fine, though water was clearly rising; but the trail became muddier and muddier. It never felt dangerous per se, but it definitely required more attention. We never saw any oncoming traffic — and we knew there wasn’t anyone behind us, as we were the only people at the beach / Kalalau Valley the preceding night. Later, we learned that the trail had closed due to the muddy conditions.

My pace was slow — I’m guessing I was carrying significantly over 40lb (maybe even approaching 50) between the wet gear and my mom’s stuff (Ariel and I took her full load, so that she could hike with no weight whatsoever). I took frequent breaks to munch of Java Plum berries, growing plentifully along the trail. They are an acquired taste; but that day, I acquired it.

The rain continued still, not exactly soaking us any more than we already were — that was now impossible — but keeping us and the trail dripping with water. On the plus side, it kept us from overheating or needing to reapply sunblock; and the views, including walls of rain on the ocean, were still pretty. I was enjoying the trail well enough; my brother was seething, both at the rain and at his fifth continuous day of Internet-deprivation.

The rain eased right as we arrived at the 2 mile mark, although not before I had pitched my tent under the drizzle. We ate a hasty dinner under a shelter roof (hasty both because we were ready to go to sleep, and because there were mice scampering about the ground: they were clearly used to human food being around), and went to sleep right as the weather fully cleared and the stars came out.

••••••••••••••••••••••

The following morning, we uneventfully crossed the river and hiked out the remaining two miles (and I went on to pick up Katrina and the kids from the airport, for our joint week at a resort on the east side of Kauai).

Success story: using a battery + an electric vehicle for an extended power outage

With the historic wind storm that hit Washington earlier this week -- knocking out power to something like half-a-million customers! -- I bet there are a lot of people thinking "I should get a generator". I want to plant the seed of another idea: that a great alternative is an electric vehicle with V2L (Vehicle-to-Load; which the Kia EV6 & EV9 have, among others), plus [ideally] a whole-house battery.

A low-key solution that involves an EV and nothing else -- and what I ended up doing for my parents -- is just running an extension cord from the vehicle into the home, and plugging in a select few things (a fridge, a floor lamp, and a microwave -- just being sure to alternate the microwave and fridge usage, to avoid exceeding max wattage). If you're OK with "roughing it" or live in a dense neighborhood and can expect to get power back on within a day, this is totally survivable.

But for our home, we bought a whole-house battery (in our case, an EcoFlow Delta Pro Ultra, but there is a similar offering by Anker and others): and WOW, it's been a game changer! The device is a giant battery + inverter. In addition to regular 120v plugs, it has a 240v 30A output just like a regular generator, letting us plug it into a transfer switch and thus connect it to our home's electrical panel. The EcoFlow allowed us to keep most of our circuits running: fridge, microwave, lights, various electronics, etc; we could even run our water heater, though we kept that to a minimum (but boy, was the hot shower nice!). When needed (e.g., for our water pump or the water heater), it could output a huge burst of power -- way higher than what our EV's 120v 15A circuit could have. But the best thing was that we could replenish the EcoFlow's power from our electric vehicle, since -- except during bursts -- our baseline electric needs were on average significantly smaller than what the EV could provide.

The EcoFlow Delta Pro Ultra, connecting to our home via a 240V plug, and being simultaneously charged from the EV via a standard120V outlet. This specific moment is when our booster pump is running, hence it's outputting nearly 3000W. During regular non-burst moments, our electric needs were ~500W per hour.

By itself, with liberal usage of all the circuits we wanted, the fully-charged EcoFlow could power our home for 8-10 hours. So with the car (whose battery capacity is ~13x of the EcoFlow) feeding it, it could easily give us 4+ days. Moreover, because the EcoFlow is separate from the car, I knew I could leave it powering the home while I myself left to run some errands and help my parents; knowing that, once I get back, I can quickly replenish it!

The EV charging the EcoFlow. Note that the actual amount of time remaining would be significantly higher than the stated 16 hours, since -- once the EcoFlow is charged up -- the car would need to only "trickle"-charge it.

You may ask: what happens a few days later, once the EV capacity is mostly eaten up? Well, the electric vehicle is a giant battery pack on wheels! To test the concept, and because I had used up some of the EV's capacity by driving, I took a trip to the charging station last night. The Electrify America app showed me that the nearest station (Redmond Ridge) was operational, just like I expected: even though our own rural home was without power, of course the more densely-populated areas and businesses were restored. I drove there around 9pm in the evening; had no waiting time; plugged the EV into a DC fast charger; went inside the adjacent QFC to get sushi; got back into the car to eat it; and was amazed to see that even in those 15-20 minutes, the car had gone from 40% to 80%! Just like that, we would be good to go for a few more days! The process was so easy that I took another celebratory hot shower, feeling like I could afford the extravagance, since bringing home a "full tank" of electricity was really a non-issue.

Charging the EV9 at an ElectrifyAmerica location, to bring back home a "full tank" of electricity.

Compared to our previous setup -- of dragging out a portable generator, trying to get the dang thing to start, choosing only the truly critical circuits (both because we wanted to use as little propane as possible, and because I didn't want to damage lights and electronics with fluctuating power), and hearing and smelling it outside -- my new setup felt revolutionary. I realize that it's not a true apples-to-apples comparison: there are of course excellent [and expensive] whole-house generators that DO provide consistent power and have a giant propane tank to fuel them. BUT, I didn't want to spend some $15k on an excellent system that I only use a couple times per year, and that is fundamentally not environmentally friendly. Whereas with my system, I was able to spend just a fraction of the cost on the whole-house battery (~$5k for the EcoFlow Delta Pro Ultra), and invest the rest into a shiny new electric vehicle that I use and enjoy every day!

I cannot overemphasize how happy I am with this system; and how surprised I am that I haven't seen others do this. It worked flawlessly for us for two days, until our grid power was restored. If folks have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. I have no affiliation with either Kia or EcoFlow; I just am thrilled to see my setup work, and imagine that others could benefit from realizing that something like this is possible. 

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P.S.: It turns out that with EcoFlow, since I'm an existing owner, there’s a referral program whereby you could could get a 5% discount via this "refer a friend" link (though not sure if it stacks on top of the Black Friday deals): https://www.ecoflow.com/us/referral-rewards?inviteCode=AXCXRJAF

Colombia Paragliding, January 2024

I have just returned from a paragliding trip to Colombia – and what a special trip it was! 9 days of flying (flying every single day!) for a total of nearly 20 hours of airtime, setting several personal bests (longest flight both by time and distance; reaching the highest altitude to date) and acquiring new skills and experiences (flying to cloudbase, flying near/into the wispy parts of clouds, landing in random fields scouted from the air, and having the right setup for long flights).

My brother was already in Colombia, and my mom and I joined him there. I would fly solo, while my mom would fly tandem with him (except on one of the days where I flew tandem with Ariel instead, so that he could narrate his thought process through the sky).

We stayed in a beautiful villa in Santa Elena, a 20-minute ride from the landing zone, with another 20 minutes by Jeep from there to the launch. Most days looked as follows:

1. Eat breakfast
2. Take a taxi to the landing zone
3. Take a jeep to the launch
4. Take off, find a thermal, and climb up to cloud level.
5. Determine where the next thermal might be, and glide to that. Keep going for an hour or two or three.
6. Eventually land either at the landing zone, or in some random farm field, and figure out a way to get back.
7. Swim at the pool (we had our own pool at the villa, and it was awesome!)
8. Dinner
9. Rinse and repeat

The Colombia clouds were wonderful, a land of puffy marshmallow-like animal shapes. I was initially fearful of the clouds, having heard of the dreaded "cloud suck"; but I gradually figured out central clouds are to cross-country flying, and how it's possible to avoid getting sucked up by maintaining the proper angle to the cloud. The clouds became a welcome altitude refill station, and also just really beautiful things to fly through on the edges. It was of course pivotal to be aware of any other pilots in the area and make sure you were the only one in the vicinity – and there were hundreds of pilots in the air – and to also have a compass and the techniques for getting down. But with those prerequisites fulfilled, the clouds were fantastic.

A fun element of flying in Colombia was landing anywhere – the countryside is full of fields, and there's always some mowed-down or recently-sowed field that can be used if needed – and then packing up, walking to the nearest road, and hitching a ride. The walks through the fields were always scenic, and added a dose of adventure.

Some of the days had more adventure to them than others. I always write a flight log after each of my flights; copying a few of the more interesting logs here:

January 12 (Day 5): 1 hour and 7 minutes:

For the second time in as many days, got soaking wet — this time, along with the wing. After waiting 2-3 hours on launch and with only a couple hours of daylight remaining, we finally saw what looked like a good (or at least, workable) window of opportunity. Took off, and was able to soar near launch, but wasn’t really making progress. NW wind was picking up to 10ish mph, blowing away thermals. Decided to ditch the hill and fly south to another one facing directly into NW, which Ariel and our mom were already on at cloudbase. Arrived a 1k feet AGL and immediately started rising, soaring up to near cloudbase. Noticed rain moving in from NE, and also some further in the valley to the West. Right around that time, started feeling mild drizzle, and decided to stop climbing up and instead go to an LZ field. The face kept wanting to soar me up, so did speedbar (but no big ears to have more forward momentum and since wing was starting to get wet). Once I got closer to a good field, and as rain started intensifying, did some quality spirals to about 500 AGL (figured would be good speed and wing loading, and that getting down and wing less soaked in the air was a priority). Had a choice between two fields, a soccer one and a farm field. All other things being equal, would have preferred the grass on the soccer field, but didn’t like that it was narrow into the wind, and surrounded by trees on both ends. Opted for the farm field instead, giving myself clearance in front and behind. Despite visible gusts on vegetation, landing was perfect, albeit completely vertical. Was preparing to get dragged by the wing while on the ground and need to immediately de-power it, but it dropped into a small 1-ft ditch behind the raised planted portion and lay happily there.

Meanwhile, the rain intensified further. I hid the harness into a black compactor bag, figuring to prioritize the harness and the reserve therein. I also hid my flight deck and the front-mount reserve contained therein, though it turned out that it had already got pretty wet during flight, so ultimately decided to repack the reserve back at our villa; a later story. Despite getting caught in the rain, I felt good about my wing-handling and decision-making once I was in the thick of it.

While it lay in the ditch, the wing immediately accumulated a few inches of water and got completely soaked; I imagined I’d soon start seeing fish swim in it. I drained it and moved it to a flat spot, then put into stuff sack with the still-wrapped-in-plastic harness. I walked into the road and towards where Ariel had landed near a church. I almost reached them half-a-mile later, when a car containing my mom and Ariel picked me up, and took us all back to the villa.

At the villa, we got cracking on drying gear. I lay my wing out on the covered wraparound patio. I stuck a bunch of plastic patio chairs under the wing to allow for airflow, and appropriated two of the rooms’ fans to billow the wing. It worked like a charm, and was totally dry by the following morning.

We also had my two reserves to deal with. The harness one was pretty dry, so we let it be. But the front-mount had taken the brunt of the rain’s beating, and was visibly wet. We decided we’d repack it — but only it — the following morning. That way it wouldn’t take all day, and I’d have the “insurance policy” of one professionally-packed-but-maybe-slightly damp reserve, vs one that we packed ourselves but that was guaranteed dry.

The villa — we came to think of it as the “room of requirements” — was ideal for the whole process the following morning. From drying the reserve by draping it over the table and blowing a fan at it; to having a long living/dining/kitchen room for the actual repack; to having a heavy kitchen table for tying into on one end and a convenient cabinet (plus a fork for holding it shut) on the other; to even wine bottles that we used as weights. The repack took about 2 hours total, though I think if we did it again it would have taken half that. Once it was done, we reloaded into the front-mount reserve container and viola, good as new!

That’s the end of that saga, right? Stay tuned for the next installment.

January 13 (Day 6, the next day): 1 hour and 50 minutes:

With my front-mount repacked that morning, we headed to fly, arriving around 3pm and with ambitions to fly for a couple hours before things shut down around 5:30pm. It was the neighboring launch (Jorge’s launch). Ariel took off first, I followed 10 minutes later. Literally three seconds into my flight and some 20-30 ft in the air — as I wiggled to get more comfortable in my harness — the newly-packed white-as-snow reserve flopped out of its container and into my lap. Yikes!

I instinctively grabbed it and tried to find a place to stuff it. I first put it against my chest, but — if I wasn’t holding it with at least one hand — it was precarious there, and it falling out and opening would have been really unfortunate news. I next moved it between my legs, squeezing tight. This worked, freed my hands, and would be sustainable for the 7 minutes it would take to get to the landing zone. I radioed Ariel that I have an emergency, and — all thought of flying for a couple hours forgotten — made a straight-line dash to the landing field. 

I should mention that the day looked PERFECT, and the air was lifty. It seemed a shame to land, figure out what’s wrong with the reserve, take a truck back up, and maybe have a 15-minute extended sledride in the very last of the daylight, if that. I also realized that if the reserve were to stay between my legs, I would almost certainly drop it right before landing, undoing the hour+ of packing it, and possibly getting dragged in the process. Sobered by this thought, I undid the top (non-weight-bearing) chest strap of the harness, exposing a void into which I could stuff the reserve, bound by my lap on the bottom, the empty reserve container in the front, my stomach in the back, and webbing on either side. The only side missing was the top; and in due time I figured out that re-clasping the chest strap would solve that problem for me too. Unorthodox, sure, but no longer an emergency.

During all that time of fiddling with the setup, I was hightailing it to the landing zone. The topography descends fairly steeply there, whereas the air was buoyant and I had lost hardly any height. This was important, because I only dared let go of the brake lines and fiddle with my gear because I knew that I had many many hundreds of feet of clearance beneath me. Now that my reserve no longer risked flipping out — and with still my primary harness reserve attached (most pilots only fly with one), and this one also huckable by undoing just one strap, it occurred to me that maybe I don’t need to land after all. I turned around and came back to the hill and to Ariel. 

The middle portion of the flight was fun but not especially memorable. The Pacifico west wind had picked up, blowing away thermals in the valley, and forcing us to remain near the mountains and their ridge lift. I stayed at launch height for a significant time, but eventually started climbing up and was able to reach cloudbase. Ariel and another glider — and some birds — hung out there for a bit, going in and out of the wispy bits of the cloud. Then, as the day started shutting down, Ariel suggested that we try to glide to Santa Elena (the town where we were staying), or as close as we could to it. Ariel did in fact make it on his higher-performance glider, albeit just barely, to the Santa Elena Siga La Vaca LZ. I did not, but I found a good field and landed there. I could have landed right next to the road, but I was filled with a desire to indeed make it as far as possible, so opted for a 15-minute walk back to the road (admittedly, at the time I didn’t realize it would be 15 minutes: I it turns out that aerial observations sometimes don’t match on-the-ground reality, and there was an overgrown 10-foot-deep creek ravine I would need to cross in order to take a shortcut; I opted for the long way instead). 

Once on the road, I was picked up by a couple motorcyclists who were towing a somewhat rickety trailer. Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and I figured that the odds of both my reserve AND a trailer malfunctioning on the same day were pretty slim. We also weren’t going that fast per se; but next time I’ll be sure to have my helmet handy to don on if I’m walking on a road. (Narrator’s commentary: the lesson didn’t immediately sink in, given that I ended up in the exact same predicament a couple days later. But the day after that, I did keep my helmet, and put it on when being picked up by a motorcyclist). 

After getting home, we figured out what was wrong with how we put in the reserve into the container. I won’t repeat that mistake again. A more general lesson is to shake the bajeezus out of the container after packing a reserve into it, esp if it’s a front-mount, which are a little more fiddly.

January 15 (Day 8): my longest flight ever, 4 hours and 22 minutes!

This was the flight where I really started piecing things together — and also my longest (both by time and distance) and highest-altitude one to date. My mom took a break from flying that day, so this time it was Ariel and me each on our solo wings. I once again set up a pee tube, and it worked without mishap. I also got two Gu energy gel packets from Andy — a game changer! — who cleverly attaches them to his flight deck with Velcro. In my coat pockets were two tiny water bottles. I was preparing for a long haul, and the day delivered!

Ariel launched first while I fiddled with my gear. Once I joined him, we essentially team-flew (mas-minus) the entire day. Ariel was on a higher-performance wing, so would often need to circle back to me, spiral down to me, wingover to me, etc. Still, we flew together, thermalling up to cloudbase and then gliding to the next thermal, over and over again. We used birds, other gliders, and — when all else failed — topographic intuition to find the triggers. We traveled north past the town of Costa Rica, past the land north of it, and probably another mile or two beyond that, before turning around and heading back. Once I got fairly low, but was able to find something workable and get back up to a comfortable altitude. A couple hours in, I sampled the Gu (scrumptious), drank a bit of water, and used the pee tube (though it’s apparently not quite so easy to relax the necessary muscles while flying!). Ariel, not equipped with the latter, top-landed and re-joined me twice over the course of the flight. 

Once back over launch, we were able to get really high, eventually to 9k on the mountain above the launch. There were neat views of the taller mountain ranges beyond the mountains that we were at. We could have stayed longer, but I felt like I’d already gotten a great experience, and I was getting a little tired. We cruised to the mountain north of launch, topped up, and headed due west to Santa Elena. We had plenty of height available, flying directly over our villa, and then circling over to the field northeast of it. I blew off some altitude by doing a few spirals. What a flight!

After packing up, we walked onto the road, where we were picked up by a motorcyclist hauling a triangular-shaped trailer (like one for carrying plywood, windows, etc). Ariel and I hung on either side, laughing uproariously, and were delivered safely to the town square (though I once again re-determined to make sure to have my helmet out when getting onto the road!)

January 16 (Day 9): 2 hours and 42 minutes

A magical flight, and — though it wasn’t the longest — it was in some sense the capstone of the trip and of my progression here. 

We started late, partially because the day looked like it would turn on late anyway, and partially to start packing. We also had a leisurely breakfast at the “Montifiori” cafe (our own name for it), and swam in the pool. Suddenly it was very much time to go, so away we sped.

On launch, there were somewhat thick clouds that were just starting to break apart. Ariel and my mom launched, and I followed right behind. Cloudbase was high and there was an inversion layer, but eventually we made it to the clouds and soared blissfully amidst them for a few minutes. I also munched on another Gu energy gel, drank some water, relaxed sufficiently to use the pee tube (talk about an outhouse with a view!), and generally felt very accomplished. As Ariel correctly pointed out, this trip — among other things — taught me the proper setup for being able to do longer flights elsewhere too. 

As the day started shutting down, with western wind blowing away thermals, I moved from the valley closer to the mountains. I spent the next hour ridge-soaring above launch, porpoising, doing teeny-tiny wingovers, and just enjoying the feel of being in the air. I decided not to try to make it to Santa Elena, but rather to land at the Piedechinche LZ: this would maximize my air time, and also offer me a quick ride back to town. I put on some music (Phantom of the Opera soundtrack in Russian) and had a grand old time in the air. I was the second-to-last wing to land, with the other pilot landing just 15 seconds after me. 

At the LZ, a motorcyclist offered to take be to the Siga La Vaca hotel/restaurant in Santa Elena, where Ariel and my mom were waiting. I’ve never ridden on a motorcycle before — and generally haven’t been a fan — but this was REALLY fun! I had my helmet handy this time (see, all the learnings from the trip were coming together by the end!), and enjoyed the 15-minute ride as a final way of parting with Colombia. 

Paragliding Maneuvers Clinic (aka "SIV clinic")

This past weekend, I did a paragliding maneuvers clinic (aka "SIV clinic"), simulating incidents that can occur during flight, and learning to handle them. The gist is simple: you get towed by a boat over a lake, get to about 2,500ft above the water, release the tow line, and then listen to the instructor (who's watching you from ground level) walk you through maneuvers over the walkie-talkies strapped to your shoulders. In my particular case, the instructor was Matty Senior, a New Zealander with an Australian accent and one of Washington's best pilots. "Alright mate, now we're going to induce a collapse on the left side, so go ahead and pull on the left A risers. Yep, there you go. Now shift right to control the heading, then apply right brake to enter a low-g spiral. Keep applying, keep applying. Well done, mate. Let's do a full 360, then exit the spiral by releasing the brake, then releasing the collapse, and then take that wing's energy into a turn into the same direction to prevent a surge. Nicely done. Now let's do it in the opposite direction."

Ten minutes to tow, then 3-4 minutes of maneuvers (you're inducing collapses, stalls, spirals, and spins, so they burn through altitude pretty fast), then another 5-15 minutes of ridge soaring by the beach if the wind conditions allow... and you're back on the ground, watching the other five people in the group take their turn. Three runs on Saturday, three runs on Sunday – and you've got yourself a weekend SIV clinic. I was reminded of the phrase "long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror," which apparently is a war adage, whereas this was a strictly voluntary activity – and in any case, the boredom wasn't long and the terror wasn't sheer. Never-the-less, there's definitely an interesting rhythm to the SIV exercise...

Matty gave us an excellent hour-long briefing before the start, but by the time we got to the boat, unpacked everything, and got going, I'll admit that I forgot a good chunk of it. Most crucially, I forgot how/when to release the tow line, so my first tow was quite the experience. Relative to normal launching, towing is a weird experience, as you have to keep making course adjustments to keep the tow line taut when the boat turns. I was so focused on watching the boat and making adjustment on my first tow, that it was quite unexpected when I realized that I was about to go into the clouds, which were fairly low that morning. Due to a problem with my radios, I couldn't make out what the boat operator was telling me to do, but I definitely wanted to remain tethered to something as I got engulfed in whiteness all around. I've never been in the clouds before, but I've heard the horror stories of going into the "white room." By remaining tethered, I at least wouldn't be lost flying around in circles or heading into the mountainous terrain nearby (it's very easy to get disoriented, and for the SIV course I didn't have the instruments that I usually fly with), and I wouldn't get sucked higher into the clouds. Engulfed in the dense white fog, I gave a nice pep talk to my wing, and we eventually emerged out the side of the cloud. By that point, the boat had stopped, and I was beginning to overshoot it, and the tow line was tugging awkwardly at me from the wrong angle. The situation didn't feel sustainable, and there were more clouds coming up, so I let go of the brakes, yanked on what I rightly guessed to be the release handle, and was back under my own control right as I heard Matty's voice come quietly on the radio to encourage me to do just that. Matty's voice transmitted louder than the boat driver's, so I was able to execute a few simple maneuvers (collapses and spirals) on that first run – and we corrected the volume issue for the subsequent runs.

Observations and lessons learned:

1. If in doubt, speak up. I thought the volume felt quiet even before takeoff, and should have double-checked that while still on the ground.
   
   
2. Once I got used to it, and when I wasn't going into the clouds, towing was sort of fun – a slightly surreal experience that reminded me of my tandem-passenger experience with my brother (maybe because you don't have control over the direction, and so you're basically there for the ride like a passenger, when the boat is going straight?).
   
   
3. For the types of wings that all of us had (beginner wings, A-s or B-s), that wing just wants to fly. It wants to recover from collapses, it wants to fly straight, and it can recover from just about anything, provided that you have enough ground clearance for it to do its thing. I feel like the SIV really reset my feeling for what bad turbulence is, and what my wing can handle. If there's one thing I learned this weekend, it's that – while its pilot is still a work in progress – my wing is rock solid!
   
   
4. Spirals were intense, especially the first few times (and I'm glad I got to experience them twice before when flying tandem, once with my brother and once with Matty a few months ago). But they were also kind of fun. Apparently, you can remove some of that intensity by doing do a low-g spiral by collapsing the outside portion of the wing. In practice, I'm not sure I could tell the difference (but maybe I would after more revolutions – I was exiting my spirals after a max of 2 revolutions to not burn up too much altitude).
   
   
5. The B-line stall was fun, and felt like doing a pullup on my wing. It felt very mellow. Full stalls, on the other hand, felt like chaos – the wing flapping like crazy overhead. Finding the backfly (tailslide) position was cool, but coming out of it symmetrically wasn't easy. Out of the dozen stalls that I did, on at least two instances I came out spinning, under no control whatsoever – and was basically relying on either the wing to do its thing or for Matty to tell me what to do. Spinning was super disorienting, and I considered throwing the reserve if the spinning wouldn't stop within a few seconds, though I thankfully regained control soon (not sure whether through my efforts or not).
• If I understood it correctly, the trick to doing it right is to release the backfly just a bit (and symmetrically!), while looking up at the wing. At that point the wing will surge forward. Then apply the brakes before the wing surges too far ahead, and again, make sure that everything is symmetric.
• If it's NOT symmetric, you can just re-stall the wing. A stall is a reset button after all, and will stop the spinning. By the time we talked about this after my run, it was time to start other maneuvers so I didn't have a chance to try it out.
• Along the same lines, something that wasn't obvious to me, but that another fellow classmate explained to me: if you're spinning, you want to apply brake to the outside to slow it down. I.e., if you're spinning to the right (clockwise), apply left brake to get that side to slow down, and you won't be spinning anymore! Again, didn't get a chance to practice it, but it seems obvious when put that way.
  
  
6. I did get very good at clearing cravattes, which I got after half my stalls. Pumping the brakes works for small cravattes, but for larger ones I found that the only way I could get them out was by pulling the same-side stabilo line.
• If I understood correctly, the trick to avoiding the cravattes in the first place after a stall is to semi-aggressively pull the brakes after releasing the backfly (or at least to maintain good pressure?). Without enough pressure, the wing tips get tucked under and then require clearing.
  
  
7. I could not get the hang of an asymmetric spiral (though it meant I basically practiced exiting the spiral over and over again). If I understood correctly, the idea was to start with a regular spiral and then weight-shift to the other side while exiting. It sounded like I was a little late with my weight-shift and/or my exit. Matty said that the asymmetric spirals are a great way to build up to wingovers (and, in his mind, are the safer way to approach wingovers), so I would like to learn this eventually... but it may have to wait till I do another SIV.

Though each run of maneuvers was just a handful of minutes, both days felt quite long and I learned a lot – both during my own flying and when watching the others. Driving back from Riffe Lake, I felt nicely satiated. But, writing this report four days later, I'm already excited about doing another SIV (I was initially thinking that I can wait another couple years... but maybe next year?). And I'm looking forward to doing some regular non-maneuver-y flying this weekend.

Thanks, Matty, for the excellent coaching, and to Kevin Stone & Maggie Johnescu for the excellent video footage!

Spreadsheet Adventures: Coloring Fun with Conditional Formatting

They say Isaac Newton invented Calculus while quarantining from the Plague. While my dad hasn't reached that level of quarantine boredom, he's devised a really fun and artistic approach for teaching Excel – and yesterday released the first e-book in his "Spreadsheet Adventures" series.

"Coloring Fun with Conditional Formatting" is a step-by-step guide and puzzle collection. It shows how to create beautiful mathematical patterns in Excel, while building up the reader's familiarity with formulas and conditional formatting. In proofreading my dad's initial draft, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and was blown away by the beauty and unpredictability of some of the patterns. I'm including just a few of the images below.

If this piques your interest, you can purchase the e-book here: https://leanpub.com/spreadsheetadventures/.

More info about the Spreadsheet Adventure series can be found on my dad's website: http://spreadsheetadventures.com. And you can also follow him on the Facebook, where he plans to post weekly puzzles and beautiful pictures at https://facebook.com/spreadsheetadventures.

I hope you enjoy it (and if you can think of someone else who'd benefit from the book, please help spread the word :-)).