Crossing the Golden Gate

This piece of writing of mine was published in the US paragliding magazine (USHPA Pilot). Link to the digital article here. It's about an exhilarating, unusual, magical, absurd day of flying at Mt Tm this spring during which I flew over the Golden Gate.

More typically, we fly the Inner Coast Ranges and the Sierras. There's an excellent article about that from a few years ago here.

The last couple years, I've been focusing on a style of flying called vol-biv (fly-camp en Français), where we fly into the backcountry, camp out, then continue flying through the mountains (or back home) the next day. A write up about that from a few years ago here. A couple months ago, I flew from Vacaville to Redding over a couple days. 

Over the 10 years I've dedicated to this craft, it's become a treasured form of expression in dance with the earth, terrain, atmosphere, weather.

In the article, I do a weird editorial thing of changing tense partway through the piece because I like how it shifts the tone of the narrative. The editor didn't like the switch (fair), but they did allow me to keep it in all present tense in print. They also wanted to include everyone's last names, which I find a bit clunky.

Apparently I missed a few things in my writeup! Jack actually launched first?! And Chris B was behind me for a short section heading south to Muir Beach!

Mount Tamalpais, Friday February 20th, 2026 

Carpooling to launch with Ben and Anna, it didn’t look like the day would live up to possibility… sustained high clouds from the early morning were shading the mountain and suppressing the usual morning cumies that signal a good day. But hype was high—lots of chatter the night before in the site chat meant a dozen plus pilots were headed to launch on a weekday with high expectations… We had just come off of a week of rain in the bay area, and there was promise of cold post frontal magic at Tam. I had been on the job too long the days before and was looking forward to getting outside for some spring flying.

Wind was light over the back when we pulled up to B launch at noon. Nobody was in a rush… Jeremy handed out cookies, Deryk had some awesome stories from flying in Patagonia. Julian Lemoine was in town!

Dan Z and a couple others had chosen A launch, which was wise with the light south winds. He launched first about 12:45, and Enes 15 minutes later, both showing the lift was sustainable. Anna pointed out a trail of short-lived wispies that seemed to be indicating the potential for a cloud street leading north.

Seeing this, Deryk and I geared up and launched about 1:15 into some local puffs up the slope, even though the ridge sock was still indicating light OTB. We pushed out and soon found a climb to 1000m (launch sits at 580m). Dan and Enes were already pushing north along Bolinas ridge and we chased after them… the high cirrus was still intact and shading everything, but the lift was good and the flying was delightful and fast, cumie to cumie.

 

[launching from B launch on Bolinas ridge] 

On a very cold day, Tam can work even when it’s completely shaded out because the relatively warm ocean acts as a reservoir of heat to undergird any bubbles from added solar heating. But because of the microclimate, it’s not common to leave the west ridge of the mountain. The farthest flight, by a few multiples, is an 80km trip Enes made to Napa county in 2023.

We caught up with Dan (Dan let us catch up with him?) and we continued north, enjoying the easy cloud street together. After 15km, the road ahead to the north was looking darker, so Enes cut east at Olema, heading for the potential for extending the flight inland. Dan and Deryk followed. I initially followed too but thought the way to the east looked more dark than I liked… the ridge back south to launch was starting to look sunnier, and I like closing triangles (already it would be a record triangle), so I headed back along the ridge.

I had just come back a week earlier from a few weeks of delicate flying in a wet Colombia and I was feeling tuned up to finding lifty lines. Most of the way back is a delightful no-turn thread through wispy cumulus. By this point, my hands are starting to get very cold despite my mittens and warm layers. I regret not putting hand warmers into my gloves. I shake out my arms below me and better recirculation slowly returns.

I see Anna and Ben headed north 200m below me (they had launched 1:45)… their timing was perfect because it turned out that the high clouds which had deterred us from continuing straight north dissipated shortly afterwards and the route cleared into a perfect cloud street that they rode 65km together all the way to Santa Rosa.

There’s now a blue gap opening between me and launch, and coming back towards the Stinson Beach LZ, I sink down to 200m and start thinking that my flight is likely ending. But low down here there’s a relatively stiff SW on-shore breeze that I use to soar a windward slope for a while until a slow climb comes through that I take back to cloudbase. 

The wind is lighter aloft, maybe 6-10kph, and I continue pushing south against it, thinking to make it to a top landing at A launch in order to complete the triangle and then relaunch to boat around for the rest of the afternoon. But then I find climbs to 1600m above launch and I decide to push south to extend the triangle with the intention of eventually turning around and gliding back to launch.

However, it keeps looking good ahead of me. Short-lived cumies form and decay rapidly like will-o’-the-wisps, tempting me along the way. So I press on.

[caption: Looking south towards San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge from above Mount Tamalpais at 1600m altitude. Short-lived cumies like will-o’-the-wisps, tempting me along the way. Short-lived cumies over Steep Ravine and Muir Beach.]

Soon I have glide to Muir Beach and figure that is a cool enough destination to abandon the triangle for, and it would be easy to thumb a lift back up to Panoramic Hwy for retrieve.

Above Muir Beach, I’m still high and it seems like Rodeo beach is possible… ok, that would be even cooler… I haven’t been there since middle school… let’s try for it!

At about this time, I start looking at the tip of the south tower of the Golden Gate bridge moving relative to the green of Crissy field behind it. It’s still far away, but in my field of view it’s inching down to expose slivers more green as I get closer—that means I will clear it on my current glide. 

[caption: Looking south towards San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge from above Muir Beach at 1300m altitude.]

Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge is a joke that we make on Tam launch sometimes… I think Cooper may be the only one who actually takes it seriously as a possibility (check out his California Line). In any case, I have to credit his “Baker Beach, boys?” echoing in the back of my mind as I glided closer. 

But I’d really like more margin for that kind of crossing and I haven’t had any climb since one to 1300m just past Muir Beach. And there’s a slight headwind impacting my glide ratio.

I figure I’ll keep pushing and see what I encounter, knowing I have plenty of landing options all the way up to the north anchorage of the bridge, and an attempt will be useful for showing what might be possible in the future.

I get an airspace proximity warning alarm from my flight instrument… I hadn't thought to check airspace this direction beforehand... I take a quick closer look and see that SFO Class B goes down to 910m a few kilometers north of the gate. I’m on track to cut that corner closely, so I take a 360 to drop under it just beforehand, figuring I will try to catch another thermal underneath it later, over Hawk Hill.

[caption: Looking south towards San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge from above Rodeo Beach at 900m altitude.]

But there’s only some spotty zeros when I get there, and I decide to push on instead of searching and risking losing altitude. My parallax reading on the south tower still says I’m going to clear it with decent margin on my current glide. 

But the mile wide strait of the Golden Gate is not something to be trifled with… it could easily harbor sink or venturi, despite everything feeling steady at my current altitude. I start to feel a little stressed as I push out over the water. The consequences of messing up here are unbelievably high, both for myself and for the community, and the responsibility of that helps me focus on flying cleanly with presence.

 

There’s a bit of sightseeing GA traffic in the vicinity, but well below me. Gentle swells are rolling into the bay, but the ocean surface shows no indication of wind. I look back at Kirby Beach on the north shore and forward at the tiny strip of sea wall beach west of the bridge’s south anchorage, my two bailouts should something unexpected occur.

[caption: Crossing the Golden Gate in a paraglider, 500m altitude.]

The stress transmutes into a giddy relief as I cross the south tower with about 150m clearance (the tower heights themselves are 230m). I turn on my phone camera and take a jouncy video scored by unintelligible shrieks.

[caption: Crossing the south tower of the Golden Gate Bridge, 400m altitude.]

I cruise over to Crissy Field, elated, make a couple turns for photos, and land safely, barely believing what just happened.

[caption: Looking north at the Golden Gate Bridge from Crissy Field.]

[caption: Landing at Crissy Field. Bill Carpenter.]

I chat a bit with a guy visiting from Maine who captured my landing. Then I lie down on the grass for 15min before packing up, enjoying the high and re-living the day in memory.

The final glide ended up being 10km at 7.8:1. This graphic shows things roughly to-scale. Later, I calculate that the glide from the point where I made the decision to leave the north shore to the south anchorage bailout as about 4:1.

[caption: Elevation graphic of the flight path with a sketch of the Golden Gate Bridge to-scale.]

It was an incredibly lucky day. Both for free flight conditions in general—to have such instability in the airmass combined with such calm wind (both the day before and the day after had strong, gusty winds)—and for this crossing to have worked out as it did in regard to my glide ratio and altitude, and the airspace. Gate crossing aside, the day was easily the most successful day of free flight at Mount Tamalpais in terms of total distance flown by all pilots combined.

[caption: Screenshot of the flight track.]

XContest is the database where paraglider pilots upload tracklogs. This is the link to this flight.