The Ride of Your Life
by Josh Sens. American Way Magazine (American Airlines in flight magazine). July 1, 1999

Take a leap of faith off a tall peak and see the San Francisco Bay Area as you've never seen it before!

You take a running leap from a mountaintop, and in the blink of an eye you’re airborne, bucking high up on the currents like a red-tailed hawk. Two thousand feet below, a pine forest stretches down toward the ice-blue ocean. Off on the horizon looms San Francisco’s shimmering skyline and the famed Golden Gate Bridge.

Time was when this breathtaking experience was strictly for the birds - and hang gliders. But thanks to Bodhi Kroll, the airways are now open to anyone with enough nerve.

Kroll runs the San Francisco Hang Gliding Center, the first Bay Area company to offer tandem instructional hang-gliding flights. There’s no spending hours in a classroom. After a brief ten-minute lesson, you’re strapped into a harness alongside your teacher, ready to embark on the ride of your life.

The high-flying adventure starts on Mount Tamalpais, Marin County’s tallest peak, and ends about twenty minutes later with a soft landing on a white-sand beach three miles away. In between, you learn to steer the glider, circle on the thermal, and speed through the downdrafts - all with a bird’s-eye view of San Francisco Bay.