By NICK SOWARDS
At the Point of the Mountain, looking down on the countless number of I-15 commuters, sits a playground that is unlike any other in Utah.
This playground has no monkey bars, jungle gyms or slides; nor is it filled with dozens of laughing and screaming children.
It is a playground for grown-ups, where the sky is the limit and the 'big kids' who play there rarely spend time on the ground.
These paraglider pilots, driven by their love for flight and disdain for boundaries, have banded together to create one of the most unique sporting cultures in Utah, turning an ordinary mountainside into a Mecca for the sport of paragliding.
'It's a really diverse group of people that do it, from the extremes sports addicts to the older, more mature scientific type of people,' said Steve Mayer, who has been paragliding for 11 years and operates the Cloud 9 Soaring Center, a paragliding school and shop in Draper.
Mayer, 35, got his first taste of flight at the Point in 1993, after his interest was sparked by seeing paragliders at a ski resort in Aspen, Colo. He was instantly hooked.
'It was unlike anything I had ever done, and I had been an athlete, doing all kinds of crazy stuff my whole life,' Mayer said. 'It's truly what I imagine being a bird is like.'
Having made thousands of flights from the Point, Mayer's face is one of the most familiar among local pilots. He has also had a major role in training the majority of pilots who fly from the Point, witnessing first-hand the unique group of participants.
'The cool thing is watching these cultures interact with each other,' Mayer said. 'Attorneys here in Salt Lake City that wear a coat and tie - they throw on a flight suit over it in the morning and go paragliding and take off their tie and high-five the ski bum that lives in the back of his van.'
According to Mayer, along with San Diego and Seattle, the Point of the Mountain is the premiere location in the country for paragliding. The history of flight at the Point goes way back to the '20s, when the location was used to test out ultra-light homemade hang gliders. In the '50s, the Air Force also used the Point to test gliders.
The reliable wind which channels through the area has made the Point the most consistent location in the country for paragliding. In the morning, wind from Utah Valley flows north to Salt Lake, and then reverses itself in the evening, making it possible for pilots to launch from both sides of the mountain.
In addition, pilots can drive right up to the launch site without having to hike to the top, as is the case with many other paragliding locations. Depending on wind conditions, paragliders can stay in the air for 40 minutes or four hours, often stopping only for bathroom breaks.
Two major factors allow pilots to stay in the air for so long. First, a paragliding canopy takes pilots nine feet forward for every foot they drop, as opposed to a normal parachute, which simply slows down a person's freefall. Second, pilots utilize winds that come up the face of the slope, lifting them higher and higher, reaching thousands of feet into the atmosphere. This is called ridge soaring.
All these elements combined allow pilots to fly 300 days out of the year at the Point, drawing experts and beginners from all over the world. Mike Steen, a 21-year-old student at Western Michigan University, comes to Draper every year to fly the summer away teaching paragliding lessons. Steen said the Point is perfect for teaching first-timers.
'The angle of the slope so closely matches the angle that our wings fly at, so we can safely teach someone without having to have them 80 feet in the air,' Steen said.
Steen comes from a family of aeronautical pilots, so paragliding seemed like a natural endeavor for him. Steen said the strong bond between paraglider pilots is shared all over the world.
'I've shown up in Spain ... not knowing anyone, found a paraglider pilot - someone who shares that same passion - and you've got a place to stay, somebody to show you around,' Steen said. 'It's a lot of free spirits. It's the same tribe of people you see into surfing and that type of people.'
That bond which Steen found with pilots in Spain is certainly evident among local pilots at the Point. Michelle McCullough, a 23-year-old legal assistant in Salt Lake City, actually moved into a home right next to the launch site so she could indulge in her paragliding passion two to three times a day and spend time with her friends who also fly.
'Everyone out here is my family and we all spend every minute of our lives together,' she said.
On a typical weekend evening during the spring season, the scene at the Point might look like this: dozens of pilots soaring majestically through the air, their colorful parachutes fading into little specks. Several more pilots strap on their harnesses and get ready to launch while discussing the wind conditions. Others gently land near the same spot they took off, give each other a high-five and reflect on their flight with a glimmer in their eye like a kid who just pulled a radical trick on his bike for the first time. Scattered around the launch point are numerous bystanders, curious to finally get a look at those people they've seen out their car window so many times.
Willy Zep, a retired pediatrician from St. Louis, came to the Point in early April to learn how to paraglide. A month and a half later, he is still yet to leave. In his 50's, Zep is older than the average pilot, but found no difficulty fitting in with the crowd. He said the bond between pilots is due to the unique nature of the sport itself.
'Camaraderie is very deep in this sport because people really support each other to do something that is, in a certain way, not natural for humans,' Zep said.
Unnatural as it may be for humans, the thrill of flight is exactly what unites this diverse group of pilots and keeps them coming back to the Point, day in and day out.
Eleven years since his first experience, the excitement of flight is yet to fade for Mayer.
'I remember looking out at I-15 and seeing all the cars on their way to work, and me just smiling and going 'wow, I'm flying,'' he said. 'I still feel that way. I love looking down on traffic and feeling like I'm in a different place.'