Tandem parasailing works by taking an inexperienced flyer and strapping them into a two-person harness with "pilot" who actually knows what he or she is doing and can operate the equipment. It is kind of pricey (130+ euros a shot), so we decided that the kids could go but the adults would stay on the ground this time around.
Weather was good Sunday morning (the key factor is the wind-- has to be a calm day), so we hopped in the car and drove out to G.P. They had their operation set up at the base of the Kreuzeck chairlift to the south of town (big skiing operation in the winter, but the lift still runs in the summer on a limited basis).
We met up with Edith, the leader of the outfit that we'd picked (Aerotaxi) and within only a few minutes she had lined up the "pilots" who would be flying the parasails with our kids. It was not especially difficult to notice the difference between the American way of doing these things (which would have involved lengthy safety lectures, prepayment of all funds, and pages + pages of liability forms to sign) with the European way, which essentially boiled down to "Ok, grab this bag and walk with me to the lift-- you can pay later".
Here are the kids on their way:
On the walk down from the lift we noticed this sign-- a museum devoted to people named Bob?
Photos are kind of mixed up from here on in -- first a sequence of shots taken by Ethan, who brought my camera along for his ride. At the top, getting set up:
Aloft:
Zugspitz, which is just to the east of Kreuzberg (and much bigger -- tallest peak in Germany, even though it doesn't really look like it from this perspective):
A shot of Ethan coming down:
... and landing:
Lydia descending:
Big smiles back on the ground:
It looked like a lot of fun -- I think the next time around I will be very tempted to try it myself!
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