Topping Out is a one-person paragliding operation based in Chilliwack, British Columbia — flying tandem across the Fraser Valley and its tributaries (Chilliwack River Valley, Miracle Valley in Mission, and beyond), where the Coast Mountains end and the North Cascades begin.
I was born and raised in Chilliwack, right in the middle of the valley this operation is named after. The pull of wind has been with me since I was a kid — it started with kites that just kept getting bigger, until eventually they were big enough to start dragging me around.
About fifteen years ago that progression turned into kiteboarding. Ten years after that, I picked up paragliding as the natural complement: when it's not windy enough to kite, it's often perfect to fly, and when the wind is strong enough to shut down flying, it's prime kiteboarding weather. The two sports complement each other well.
When I took my first tandem paragliding flight in 2021, the balance shifted. Paragliding has been my dominant passion ever since — a continuum of learning that seems to have no end. Reading the invisible movement of air. Using the currents it carries to climb for hours above the valley floor, to travel great distances, all without a motor. You can spend a lifetime chasing what the sky does, and still turn up to launch learning something new.
Topping Out exists so I can share that — because every flight I lead is a flight I'd want to be on myself.
The name lives in two worlds. In construction — my primary trade; I own and run a construction company — topping out is the moment a building reaches its highest point: the last element placed at the top of the structure, whether that's a beam on a wood frame, the final slab poured on a high-rise, or the ridge of a roof framed in place. It's the point you've been climbing toward, and traditionally a reason to celebrate.
In paragliding, topping out means something adjacent: climbing to the maximum altitude the day's conditions will allow. On a good day that's cloudbase — the flat grey underside of the cumulus clouds that puff up over the mountains as the sun heats the ground, lift forms, and rising air cools until it condenses into cloud. Those puffy cumulus clouds are a paraglider's dream — they mark exactly where the lift is strongest. Climbing until you touch them is one of the best feelings in free flight.
Naming the operation after both felt right. I spend my working weeks topping out buildings, and my days off topping out thermals.
A tandem is the easiest way to find out whether paragliding is for you. You don't need any training, any gear, or any experience with the sport. You run a few steps on launch, sit back into the harness, and you're flying.
For some guests, that's the first and only flight they'll ever take, and that's fine — they learn a thing or two about paragliding, and get to enjoy the view. For others, it's the first flight of a lifelong obsession, and I can point them toward the next steps. Either way, you'll have been in the sky.
Topping Out operates under the national framework of the Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association of Canada. Here's what that means in practice.
HPAC Tandem Pilot in good standing, operating under HPAC's national standards for recreational and commercial tandem flight.
Covered by HPAC's membership-wide third-party liability insurance, as required for commercial operation in Canada.
Current certification in Standard First-Aid with CPR-C, with regular refreshers — because the ability to help matters more than the piece of paper.
Flying is a sport with real risks. Nothing can eliminate those risks entirely — but a current, insured, actively-flying tandem pilot is the floor, not the ceiling, of what I owe you on every flight.
Mt. Woodside — our bread-and-butter — is one of the more reliable sites in the region, flyable from spring through fall whenever the weather cooperates. Rainy days, strong winds, and north-wind (outflow) days all shut things down, so flying is seasonal and condition-dependent, but when it comes together, it really comes together. Bridal Falls, thirty minutes east, sits beneath Mt. Cheam and gives us a different valley to work with when conditions call for it.
Beyond that: the Coast Mountains to the north, the North Cascades to the south, and the Fraser River threading between them. Flying here means flying between two mountain systems — something you can see with your own eyes from altitude in a way no map or photo captures.
More about the sites
Introductory tandems run $300 CAD per flight — 7 to 30 minutes of airtime depending on conditions, plus the ride up to launch. Rated pilots looking for in-air coaching: different conversation, same booking form.
