A8 THE SPOKESMAN • TUESDAY, AUGUST 9, 2022
Sports+Outdoors
Paraglider Ari DeLashmutt
flies after taking off from Pine
Mountain in Central Oregon
July 27, on his way to break-
ing an Oregon state record for
distance traveled in a single
flight.
Ben Horton/Submitted photo
More
Information
The full 25-minute
interview with
DeLashmutt can be
found on The
Bulletin’s YouTube
channel and at
bendbulletin.com/
sports.
ARI
AIR
in the
To learn more
about
paragliding,
DeLashmutt hosts
a podcast on the
sport called Ari in
the Air. He also has
instructional videos
on his YouTube
channel under the
same name.
Redmond’s Ari DeLashmutt sets
state paragliding distance record
BY BRIAN RATHBONE
CO Media Group
A
t 11:46 a.m. on July
27, Ari DeLashmutt
took flight in his
Ozone Zeno paraglider
from Pine Mountain, Cen-
tral Oregon’s popular para-
gliding spot. He climbed
to 9,000 feet in the air,
crossed into Christmas Val-
ley, then to Summer Valley,
then flew across the entire
Warner Mountain Range
in Southern Oregon and
Northern California.
When he finally landed 65
miles south of Alturas, Califor-
nia, on U.S. Highway 395 nine
hours after takeoff, he had trav-
eled 230 miles — breaking Rea-
vis Sutphin-Gray’s June 2018
Oregon state record of 198.2
miles for a single flight.
According to the unofficial
USA Paragliding distance records,
the 33-year-old DeLashmutt’s
state-record flight ranks in the top
five in the country.
“It is the pinnacle of adven-
ture,” said DeLashmutt, known
online as Ari in the Air. “The
size and the scope of the game
that we are playing — it is hard
for me to explain that. Literally,
I crossed multiple mountain
ranges. I went from the center of
Oregon and down very far into
California.”
Paragliding is an adventure
sport in which the pilot is har-
nessed into a canopy-like para-
Ben Horton/Submitted photo
Paraglider Ari DeLashmutt prepares to take off from Pine Mountain
in Central Oregon July 27, on his way to breaking an Oregon state record
for distance traveled.
chute and uses the wind and air
pressure to fly and maneuver.
What makes breaking the re-
cord so special is that so many
variables have to fall into place.
On DeLashmutt’s July 27 flight,
they all fell into place for him to
smash the record by 32 miles.
“I have to work with nature,”
he said. “I have to forecast the
right day, then once the day
comes, I have to work with the
day. I have to fly the weather. I
have to fly the environment.
“I have to fly the landscape. I
have to fly the sky that day.”
The game that cross-country
paragliders are playing while
in the air, DeLashmutt said, is
a game of chess that can some-
times be deadly. During last
week’s flight, he reached 16,500
feet of altitude in a “bed sheet
with nylon strings.” Through-
out the flight, there is no time to
eat, go to the bathroom, or take
a break while thousands of feet
in the air.
There are multiple layers to
having a successful flight. The
first layer is handling the glider
— making it turn left and right,
up and down. Then there is the
challenge of flying the correct
route to land at the right loca-
tion. One miscalculation can
land a paraglider in the middle
of nowhere.
“My brain is doing these
complex probabilities,”
DeLashmutt said. “Based on
where the thermal is going to
be, based on the direction of the
sun, the direction of the wind,
shape of terrain, size and shape
of the cloud.”
While all those calculations
are happening throughout the
flight, the final challenge is to
make a concerted effort to enjoy
the views from above, he said.
“I’m trying my best to take in
what I am doing,” DeLashmutt
said. “And just try and come
back to being present and ob-
servant and grateful that I have
the opportunity and skills and
equipment and experience to al-
low for this kind of thing.”
ROCKET SHIP RIDE
Born in Bend and raised in
Redmond, DeLashmutt was
bitten by the adventure bug at
a young age when he was ski-
ing off cliffs and trees with his
two brothers. The former pro-
fessional freestyle skier did his
first backflip at Mount Bachelor
when he was12. Then he got
into highlining — slacklining
between cliffs hundreds of feet
above the ground — to scratch
the adventure itch.
But paragliding is a new ad-
venture for DeLashmutt, who
discovered it in 2015 while
shooting a stunt with Bend
filmmaker Wes Coughlin. The
stunt included two paragliders
— DeLashmutt was a passenger
in a tandem paraglider — and a
base jumper. The base jumper
launched off a rope swing be-
Ben Horton/Submitted photo
Paraglider Ari DeLashmutt prepares to take off from Pine Mountain
in Central Oregon July 27, on his way to breaking an Oregon state record
for distance traveled.
tween the two paragliders, then
fell 1,000 feet before deploying
his parachute.
It was the first time
DeLashmutt had been in a para-
glider, and he was hooked. A
few short months later, after
filming the stunt, DeLashmutt
was on the Oregon Coast learn-
ing to paraglide. Since starting,
he teaches the art of paragliding
and has flown in 15 countries
on five continents.
“It has been a rocket ship
ride in paragliding ever since
it instantly took over my life,”
DeLashmutt said. “It has excited
me in really profound ways.”
█
Reporter: 541-383-0307,
brathbone@bendbulletin.com
ANGLING REOPENS
Good steelhead returns on Lower Deschutes
Spokesman staff report
Improved conditions in Ore-
gon fisheries this year will allow
salmon, steelhead, trout, and
bass fishing to open Aug. 15
on the lower Deschutes River,
according to a release from Or-
egon Department of Fish and
Wildlife.
Fishing will open under nor-
mal permanent regulations on
the Deschutes from Moody
Rapids upstream to Pelton
Dam, thanks to improved sum-
mer steelhead returns.
Following last year’s critically
low returns in steelhead — fish
that would have spawned in
spring 2022 — ODFW an-
nounced a new Deschutes River
steelhead fishery plan to take
conservation action during low
returns.
The plan closes the lower De-
schutes River fishery until pas-
sage thresholds at Bonneville
Dam are met to assure ODFW
managers that the sport fishery
will not have population im-
pacts.
In May, the department an-
nounced that the usual sum-
mertime steelhead fishing sea-
son on the Deschutes would
be closed from June 1 to Aug.
15 due to the new plan. Early
returns of A-run steelhead —
steelhead that spend less time
in the ocean — are sufficient to
warrant re-opening on the De-
schutes to angling on Aug. 15,
according to an ODFW release.
The department needed to
surpass 9,900 unmarked steel-
head over Bonneville Dam
during the month of July to
open the fishery on Aug. 15 to
get above conservation con-
cern levels, according to Jason
Seals, district fish biologist with
ODFW.
Seals added that the depart-
ment is expecting modest re-
turns based on run projections
to the Deschutes “but within
abundance levels that the fish-
ery won’t have population im-
pact.”
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