Craig Muhonen's Hang gliding with the TAF

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Picture is of Clint Wolfe, Jim Drew, Bob St Onge, John Dunham, and Craig Muhonen hang gliding down a rainbow in Telluride, Colorado in 1972. Here is an email from Craig Muhonen regarding the history of hang gliding in Telluride: "Here are the names of the original TAF Pilots Original TAF (Telluride Air Force): members: Joe Kray, Dennis Stenslien, Gary Gross, Clint Wolf, Robert St.Once, Greg Henzie, Don Dusatko, Jim Lincoln, Jim Guest, Jeff Campbell, Mitchell Stanfield, David Stanfield, and “captain” Jack Carey. I was lucky enough to be there when Hang Gliding in Telluride got it's start. I watched as my newfound, crazy skier friends, decided to embark on what would be a history making attempt to access a launch site that was outside the ski area boundary on Gold Hill by incorporating the Telluride Air Force. Jeff Campbell and Jim Guest, who were “ski patrollers”, along with Clint Wolfe, Winter Wolfe, new that this new recreational sport would be met with trepidation from the ski area owner Joe Zoline, so they set out to get themselves in order, and explore the “insurance” possibilities they needed to satisfy Joe and let them fly off of Gold Hill, which was only accessible through the ski area by switch back roads or the lift system. They had been practicing “Hang Gliding” at a number of other take off sites, (some at 13,500 feet!) in the area with their new “flex wing hang gliding machines”, and when Clint asked me if I would drive his truck up Black Bear Pass and hike four gliders to the top of Ajax, I said yes, and hell yes. Clint had told me the stories of how they had driven up Tomboy road and launched from Imagine Pass, but also had camped, and then hiked their gliders on the ridge above Savage Basin to the top of Ajax before. What a trek that must have been. A story that I’ll tell here about a 12 year old kid named Hal Brock, who hitch hiked to town and made that same trek by himself, carrying his Hang Glider on his little shoulders. I was sitting on the bench that day, in front of the Flora Dora Saloon, and watched him set the glider up. A crowd had gathered by this time, as we always did to watch Hang Gliders fly, but the wind had changed and Hal wisely folded his glider up and walked back along that tricky ridge to Tomboy and hitched a ride down. He went back to Aspen that day and a week later died when he apparently turned his wing too sharply, and knife-edged to the ground in front of his family. Tragic. We lost a lot of Hang Gliders in those early days because of that defect in those early gliders that made it impossible to recover from “the luff dive”, but the Telluride Air Force Pilots carefully re-rigged their wings to fly much better, and they never lost a sole. The Gold Hill launch site was by far, the best place to launch, and the towns people had watched these guys and their friends, take off and land many times and knew how incredibly exciting it was, so when TAF came out into the town and talked about what they wanted to do, the excitement only grew. When Clint and Jim and Jeff had gathered their information from the town, they looked for an “insurance” company who would underwrite their crazy idea, and they found one, Lloyds of London. They took a serious look at the input from the townspeople, and who these ski patrol “Hang Gliders” were, and the policy that was put together was one of the first of it’s kind. When they brought it to Mr. Zoline, he read it and said, “I accept this, but with one caveat, do not ware your ski patrol jackets when you fly”. Ha.. This was the start of renowned Hang Glider flying at one of the world’s best and trickiest sites. Over the next years Telluriders and spectators alike were given the view of this amazing new sport, and they drew people from all over the world. From, “Luff-divers” to full loops in 10 years, put the TAF and their many pilot friends at the top of the list for the place to come. The. “king post” Hang Glider has gotten a little better since 1981, but those gliders we saw back then were as good as it gets. That’s 40 years ago, think about that. A note here about the Gold Hill launch site. The modern TAF which is now made up, since 1989, of mostly Paragliders (go figure) had their insurance raised so much due to the dangerous nature of flying a light, collapsible canopy, they refused to pay the higher rate and let it lapse. So now all “foot launched” flying from Gold Hill, has been banned forever. What a shame. The Hang Gliders have gotten older now and retired, so that form of flight has greatly diminished, the younger generation has taken to paragliding in huge numbers maybe because it’s so easy to join the “club”, put a back pack on and walk to a launch site, fly their “parachute”, and then land and stuff the “wing” into a laundry basket, throw it in the trunk or put it in the closet. It is a, “badge of courage” to see Hang Gliders pull into a launch site, because you know exactly the sport they loved. Same with long board surfing, you couldn’t miss us. I so wish the Hang Gliding community would get it together again, and take back the skies, especially in Telluride, for it was the best of times when they were over head."