So I went paragliding at Grouse last week. Or more accurately, I was securely fastened to the pilot’s apparatus as he flew us down from the peak. Meaning that I pretty much just went along for the ride. Now, as cool a ride as it was, I want to ensure that I am appropriately understating my involvement in the actual flight. As the passenger, your responsibility is to run like hell off the side of a mountain. For about five seconds. After that it’s a fairly peaceful flight and you don’t have to do anything but enjoy the ride.

Like a dream

The experience was very similar to a flying dream. Very free. Just floating around. Would have been better without the helmet though. To really let your hair fly. But the flight was great. Invigorating. The flexibility in movement seems unlimited, and in fact, mid-flight after doing a few wide cycles at pretty much sustained elevation, I asked the pilot (picture) how long he could keep these cycles going. He said, “All day. You just ride the air currents like a bird.” But as just a one-time paying customer, your hypothetically endless flight is cut to about 15 minutes. It’s a great 15 minutes, but still feels short; 25 minutes would have been about perfect.

And my business-related observations for this little paragliding operation are not confined to the flight duration. In fact these observations are the real reason for writing this piece. You see, shortly after landing I mentioned to the pilot how many people at the peak of the mountain were poking around the unattended trailer and asking questions out loud. “Hey Honey, do you want to try this?” Followed by the inevitable, “How much is it?” This was my initial point: there is no information up there. No sign, no prices, no flight times, no phone number, no nothin’. You have to picture the scene. It’s a warm day. A steady stream of wide-eyed tourists who’ve just come up the chair from just having watched the 2 captive bears, take the peak chair to a very small taped off cleared area. They are hungry for something to happen. But there is absolutely nothing to do up there and more than that, nowhere to really go. Seriously. There’s a just first aid guy sitting around and there’s also this paragliding trailer.^[1] And there’s a view. But the trailer is the only thing within reach that wold have the potential to hold any interest whatsoever. But it doesn’t (picture and picture Note the garbage bag hanging off the door. Real professional, guys). You’ve got a captive audience, you’re the only show in town, the only activity at the peak in summer, people have taken a ten minute chair lift ride to get up there and yet, the attitude is ‘whatever.’ So then this is how it goes down: folks wander over to the mountain edge where the sign says “PARAGLIDERS ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT,” they typically make some crack about how crazy that would be, then they look over at the pathetic trailer. It’s the only thing up there. So they look at it. They are intrigued, but it’s lame. And there’s nobody there to answer questions or book flights. So in the face of a total information void, they quickly lose interest and head directly back down on the chair. As a result, this paragliding operation is making absolutely no “on the spot” business.

I know because I had an hour to observe. I arrived early to watch the 1:00 take-offs, so that I’d have a better sense of what I was getting myself into for my 2:00. I had a whole hour to observe this repeating charade: people wondering exactly what paragliding is, wondering how much it costs, hanging around for something to happen, wondering if they can be a part of it, get bored, and take the chair back down.

So in my post-flight chat with the pilot, it quickly became obvious that the pilot was just a pilot and not responsible for running the business. If I had to guess, I’d say this guy would have already made a lot of common sense suggestions to the boss that hadn’t been put into effect. It’s just obvious. How hard would it be to put up a sign with prices? Or to run a video on a big screen TV that shows folks how exciting it is. This is basic stuff.

The pilot told me that they hadn’t had a fully booked day all summer. All summer! Unbelievable. What are we talking about here? I’m guessing two pilots, 6 to 8 time slots each per day, so what, 12 to 16 flights? You can’t book 12 flights on a warm August Saturday in Vancouver? Something’s wrong. So then what’s in the way? Why is this little business not exploiting their place as the only tourist paragliding destination that also happens to be attached to a major tourist destination, i.e. Grouse Mountain. My money is that it comes down to the personality of the owner.

This phenomenon reminds me of the resistance of the pathetic restauarant owners in Kitchen Nightmares who just refuse to take the free advice of the most successful chef on Earth to improve their stale and failing little eatery. They stand in his way and will do anything to resist change. Weird. It’s pride. Or the power of the inertia. A body at rest tends to stay at rest.

The resistance

This resistance fascinates me. I first observed it years ago in chatting with people about their relationships. The stubbornness and inflexibility and obstinate refusal to pay heed to decent reason. People are going to do what they are going to do. Advice is sought not for helpful objective perspective on a personal issue, but instead to justify one’s own predetermined course of action. Obviously I can’t be certain about complexities and subtleties of a little paragliding venture on Grouse Mountain. I know nothing about the owner. But the pattern fits the trend. What surprises me is that Grouse Mountain Resorts will inevitably be associated with this little company. The average tourist does not assume that the two are distinct entities. So it surprises me that The Mountain hasn’t surveyed the situation and made some suggestions to “First Flight Paragliding” to make the top of the peak experience seem less like taking a jerky chair ride to see a hotdog vendor and in the process improving the faith that potential customers would have in the flight.

I have a feeling that competition will eventually take its toll on the operation though: the now expanded zip-line is a lot cheaper and presumably feels more like a legitimately organized attraction. As fun as the ride itself was, and as cool as my pilot was, First Flight feels pretty amateurish. And expensive. So what kind of impression is that leaving on the average visitor? That’s a terrible combination. A few simple moves to provide tourists with some info and the potential to snare them while they’re doing nothing at the peak could increase the number of flights and likely allow the cost per flight to be more in line with the zipline.

1. ^ There are four gals receiving tourists as they get off the chairlift. What a joke that was. You have this foreign gal with a very stong accent and all she would have to do is tell the tourists as they reach the top to keep moving their legs as they step out of the moving chair so that it doesn’t nail them in the ass as they walk away. Instead, it was a total gong show. She didn’t effectively communicate to most people how important is was for them to actually walk away briskly down the ramp as opposed to say, kind of strolling and enjoying the view. So then the other gals kept having to come to the rescue by stopping the entire chairlift just so that ma and pa slow-poke didn’t get a bench in the ass. Stop and go chairlift ride for everybody.