‘Thrill factor’: How 1 Leavenworth man jumps off cliffs and survives

LEAVENWORTH — Armond DuBuque, owner of Leavenworth Paragliding, was 34 when he started paragliding in 2005. Before then, he and his buddy were frequently snowkiting, or kite skiing, in and around the Waterville Plateau area.

Snowkiting uses wind propulsion to ride on skis or a snowboard while holding on to a specially designed kite.

“And one time we were sitting there with no wind,” DuBuque said. “We both had what’s called a speed wing, which is a very small kind of paraglider, it’s not the one you go up into thermals with. It’s just one that you launch off the side of the mountain and fly really fast and close.”

Skydivemag.com describes speed flying as “gliding down a slope or mountain… the goal of speed flying can be to constantly swoop the mountain.”

“We started playing around with that (speed wing),” DuBuque said, “on some of the little wide open hills on the plateau, like in the hayfields. And it started there basically. That was in winter, like in February, and as I started getting little flights with that and having fun; and just as spring came, it was then that I just decided I’d start paragliding.”

The months of September and October have “good thermal, but it’s winding down at this point. You still can have thermic flights… but you’re not going to get as high as in the spring or in the middle of summer. It just takes a day without too strong a wind.”

‘Thrill factor’

DuBuque refers to the “thrill factor” that happens “when you are learning,” but continues throughout “the entire flight, no matter how high or what you are flying over. As you progress, the thrill factor really varies according to the terrain and conditions.”

He receives a boost from his sport. “It’s inspiration. There’s really no better way to get to see the entire mountain range from above. You don’t have to stop at the top (of mountain tops). You get to go thousands of feet over. It’s pretty rewarding when you can cover the amount of ground it would take you weeks and weeks to hike, and to do it in a one day flight.”

In preparation for every flight, DuBuque stressed how you must “pay attention to the weather and, definitely, to make sure that you are flying on the right days. Otherwise, you’d wish you were on the ground.”

“Smart pilots will definitely follow the weather,” he added. “They’re not just gonna go for it on any random day and hope for the best. You have a good idea what the weather is going to do.”

Launch sites

There are a handful of launch sites he flies from, including Raptor Ridge near Leavenworth, as well as “Tumwater Mountain… Perch Mountain, Tibbets and this thing, called Dog Walk, it’s just outside of Cashmere out of the park. People fly off Mission Ridge and Chelan Butte,” DuBuque said.

A CNN website noted that a number of paragliders have jumped from various points on Mt. Everest, but only one, Pierre Carter from South Africa did it legally in May 2022. “He could not take off from the peak of Everest. Instead, he could depart from no higher than 8,000 meters (26,000 feet), so he chose to take off from the South Col,” the website stated. A “col” is the lowest point on a mountain ridge between two peaks.

DuBuque said the conditions in India and Himalayas make for “really good paragliding. Those guys are getting up to 26,000 feet and stuff.”

What about Washington state? “You’re not getting above 13,000 feet too often. But it happens. I’ve been maybe 17,000 feet. You’re not supposed to break above 18,000 feet,” he said.

DuBuque added the sport is rewarding, regardless of the height. “It’s one of the best ways to experience God’s creation,” he said. “You can launch off the side of the mountain, get up into a thermal, and get up to like 12,000 or 13,000 and just fly over a 100 miles worth of mountain ranges and end up back where you were like seven hours later. It’s hard to beat.”

‘Thermals’

According to DuBuque, it’s the “thermals” that get you “into really amazing places. You’re in contact with the mountain, which is cool. But you don’t get to go any higher than the summit. It’s something special, flying with eagles and hawks and you’re flying near the clouds when there are clouds.”

The technique to get into that thermal, he said, is “all subject to the air that you’re flying in, right? And it changes quickly. Tailwind. Headwind. Or, you’re in a lift or a sink.

“So what we do,” he continued, “we get as high as we can in the thermal and then we’ll be looking for where we think we want to find the next thermal and we’ll go on a glide to it. Clouds mark the tops of most thermals. They’re like cotton balls, or popcorn, and that’s always the top of the thermal.”

‘Bubble’

Thermals, DuBuque said, “created as the sun heats the ground, and you get what’s basically is a warm bubble of air forming on the ground. Then as that bubble of air gets big enough, it will finally release and rise upward. Think of how a Lava lamp works. The air has surface tension like water, and the air actually moves like water. Obviously, not the same viscosity, but it has a fluid dynamic to it.”

But how do the surrounding terrain, hills and mountains affect the thermals?

When the bubble of air “stays connected to the terrain and kind of slides up a hill somewhere, or moves downwind, until it hits what is called a trigger,” he said. “A trigger can be a creek, a fence line, a treeline and any difference between a greenfield and a brown field, or a point on a mountain, a rock or tower.”

He used mountain terrain as an example of where conditions can create a trigger.

“So in the mountains, it’s a little more obvious because if you were to take all the mountain terrain and turn it upside down and spray it with a misting sprayer, the water collects along the ridges and drips off of the points.

“Turn all that back right side up and the thermals, then, will track up the sides of the mountains and release off the summits,” he continued. “Thermals are created by the uneven heating of the earth. Also, cumulus clouds are tell-tale signs of thermals. You get up high enough to a cloud base and you just go cloud to cloud. If you are low and you’re following like mountain ridge lines, you’re just following the terrain. So if you’re somewhere in between, you’re having to look at both.”

Relying on experience to make those calls begins with the right training, DuBuque said.

“When you get into training, you basically learn a pre-flight check and check everything, because in every flight you can get complacent as you get more time in the sport and that will bite you if you brush over things and forget about it,” he said. “If you’re new to the sport, you can become overly confident and you think you’re a lot better than you are and they call that intermediate syndrome. Being humble is a better perspective.”

A close call

Early on in his paragliding, DuBuque made a “bad decision” that led to a crash that “ended up not too big a deal.”

“I got into turbulent air and right before I touched down, my wing had collapsed. I wasn’t free-falling out of the sky. It was more like a controlled crash. I came out of the sky from 15 or maybe 20 feet. It was a situation where I voluntarily let myself down. I just cracked some wrists, probably, and that was about it. It could have been way worse.”