CASPER — Kevin Christopherson once set three world distance hang gliding records, landed in a pasture of fighting bulls in Venezuela and has launched himself from Whiskey Peak in Wyoming to land in five surrounding states.
Those are just some of the places his passion for hang gliding has taken him.
Now 63, Christopherson will still take off from Casper Mountain when the wind is right and land at his home in Casper.
The leader of his family owned trucking firm and chairman of the Natrona County Schools Board of Education continues to have a passion for hang gliding and going far.
“To me flying is absolute freedom, especially in hang gliders,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “When you get 4,000 to 5,000 feet above the ground and get in a strong thermal that’s going up over 1,000 feet a minute, you can literally see the ground dropping away.
“And flying with eagles, you know I have all sorts of stories of flying with birds of prey, especially the big eagles. They accept you like you are another bird.”
A Casper native, Christopherson said a couple of years after graduating from Kelly Walsh High School in 1980, he saw an ad in the local paper that offered a hang glider for sale.
He bought it.
Then an attempt to fly it off a 200-foot hill in the city nearly killed him, so he hung up the glider.
Later that year on a camping trip he fell out of a tree and ruptured his spleen, requiring a hospital stay and pints of blood.
While there in the hospital bed, he thought about his desire to fly hang gliders. He considered how his crash didn’t hurt him as much as the fall from tree did and mulled what he did wrong on his first flight.
Once healed from his fall he tried hang gliding again.
“I waited until it had snowed like a foot and half so I would have some padding when I crashed and went up and ran off the same hill.” He said. “This time, instead of pushing out and stalling it, I pulled it back and raced to the bottom and that worked.”
Now inspired, he wanted to fly more.
“I ended up finding a local hang glider pilot that knew what he was doing and bought a good wing from him, and he was supposed to teach me, but I couldn’t wait for him,” Christopherson said. “I went out and taught myself. So, I am a completely self-taught hang glider pilot, and I got pretty good at it pretty fast.”
Rookie Of The Year
In just his second year of flying with a gliding partner, Christopherson said he started entering competitions.
He did well enough to qualify for the U.S. Nationals in California, placing second in the sporting class for non-professionals and was named Rookie of the Year.
Christopherson said he also learned that flying the cross-country competition that involved trying to soar as far as you could was something he really enjoyed.
The next few years involved more competitions and the discovery of a special mountain about 70 miles southwest of Casper and just north of Bairoil called Whiskey Peak, 9,225 feet above sea level.
Kevin Christopherson still enjoys flying off Casper Mountain and landing at his home. (Courtesy Kevin Christopherson) 
Kevin Christopherson has taught hang gliding to many students over the years. (Courtesy Kevin Christopherson) 
Hang gliders are assembled for a competition and day of soaring. (Courtesy Kevin Christopherson) 
Kevin Christopherson in his younger days was among the world’s best hang glider pilots for distance. Hang Gliding Magazine featured Kevin Christopherson on its cover in October 1989. (Courtesy Kevin Christopherson)
Whiskey Peak
“I was the first person to ever fly off of that. And I started figuring out it would be a really good place to fly cross-country from and possibly set world records from,” he said. “Prior to that, the world record was in California where there were no tailwinds, but there were strong thermals.
“I was doing the math in my head, and I figured I could get 200 miles off of Whiskey Peak in about half the time it would take them to get 200 miles because I would have a really good tailwind.”
In 1987, he flew off the mountain and set an unofficial world record ¬ and he knew he could fly farther.
Then the following winter he got invited to fly in a three-week competition in Venezuela. He characterizes that experience as life-changing and something that removed fear from his life.
“I was always afraid of talking to people. I had speech problems when I was a kid. I was afraid of everything, had anxiety,” he said. “Down there, I couldn’t speak the language and would land out and have to spend the night out, and I just have a lot of stories of terrifying things that happened in Venezuela.”
For instance, on his first day in the country on a practice flight, he tried landing in what he thought from the air looked like a nice green field. It turned out to be 15-foot-high sugarcane.
His glider got stuck in the tops and his feet weren’t on the ground and bugs were all the plants. He had to roll his glider out.
Night In Jail
On his second day when the competition started, he flew 40 miles, landed in a field and was immediately mobbed by 80-90 kids.
He worked his way out of the field and learned an army truck was supposed to retrieve them. When the truck arrived, he and the other pilot were told they would have to wait until the truck completed a 200-kilometer trip.
They would be picked up at 3 a.m. the next morning. So, they spent the night in a jail cell at the police station for their own protection.
“It was Mardi Gras there and they told us that it wouldn’t be safe on the streets,” Christopherson said.
When they were picked up, his glider was shoved against the exhaust pipe of the truck, which melted a big hole in it. He thought that was the end of his flying until a friend offered to lend him another glider similar to the one he flew.
The next day they flew, he saw competitors land at the side of a lake and he determined to cross the lake to beat their distance. He was unaware there was no easy way back across the lake and landed in a farm field full of black cattle.
The rancher came running at him, yelling in Spanish.
“He was like, ‘Hurry up, get your glider out of the field,’” Christopherson said. “It was a field of fighting bulls I landed in.”
He ended up having to leave his borrowed glider at the farm and was escorted to the lake in darkness by the farmer, who armed himself in case they ran into some “banditos.” After a wait, a man with a small boat showed up, asked for some money, and offered to take him back across the lake.
“In the middle of the lake with the guy that was running the boat and a bunch of drunk fishermen I thought, ‘Man, this is how Americans disappear in Venezuela,’” he said.
After arriving at his motel at 3 a.m., an hour later he hired a local Venezuela man to help him go back and retrieve the glider from the farm. He said the “kid” that he hired showed no fear, talking their way through locked gates and helped him get the glider back by noon.
‘I Wasn’t Afraid Anymore’
After that experience, not much rattled Christopherson.
“With just that type of adversity, by the time I got back to America, I just had one experience after another, things that I never imagined that I could live through or do,” he said. “When I landed, I got down and kissed the ground because this was America and everybody spoke English.
“And I wasn’t afraid anymore. Just three weeks in Venezuela changed me and turned me into a world-class pilot.”
Right, the Casper-Star Tribune covered Kevin Christopherson’s world record flights in 1988 and 1989. (Newspapers.com) 
Kevin Christopherson penned an account of his record-breaking flight for Hang Gliding Magazine in October 1989. (Cowboy State Daily Staff)
Record After Record
In June 1988, he and friend went to Whiskey Peak and launched. He said the winds were coming from the south and he ended up flying over the Rattlesnake Mountains, Kaycee, up by Sheridan and across to Busbee, Montana.
The flight set an official world record of 222 miles. He had the paperwork and instruments to prove it.
That record only stood for a short time because the previous record-holder claimed it back.
“So, I didn’t get much publicity or anything after that first flight, but I knew I could do more,” Christopherson said.
On June 28, 1989, he again flew off Whiskey Peak, this time soaring into South Dakota and setting a record of about 246 miles.
Later that summer on Aug. 2, Christopherson said he flew with good winds for 287 miles up to Kyle, South Dakota. He averaged 46 mph and spent nine hours in the air.
“It was an amazing, amazing flight,” he said. “That was the last year of setting records for me, because later on that year in October my dad was killed in a personal airplane crash and I had to take over our trucking company, and I didn’t have time for both of them.”
Hang gliding took a back seat as he led the family business, got married and built a house.
Eventually, he started flying again. He taught hang gliding and weight-shift motorized ultra-light trikes. Christopherson said he also taught his three children the sport.
Still Flying
His passion for flying also include a Cessna 182 turbocharged aircraft and a sailplane, but hang gliders remain his favorite way to soar.
In the Big Horn Mountains one year, the normal take-off spot facing Sheridan during a competition had bad wind conditions, so he and the others went to the other side facing Lowell. He took off and ended up in Billings, Montana.
“I think I am the only person that has ever done that,” he said.
But Whiskey Peak has always be his home base. From there, he’s made it into Montana and South Dakota for his records, but also into Utah, Colorado and Nebraska.
“So, I have flown into every state that pretty much surrounds Wyoming except for Idaho, and I don’t know how you would get across going that direction to the mountains,” he said. “I’ve never even come close. The wind just doesn’t blow that way.”
Christopherson said he plans to keep flying as long as he can, even if his record-setting days may be past.
His last launch off Whiskey Peak was about four years ago. He characterizes his skills as not advanced enough now to ensure safety for any long flights.
His world distance records have long since been eclipsed, as will happen over time and with advances in technology and design. The current record now is nearly 475 miles, set in 2012, according to Guinness World Records.
Don’t be surprised, however, if you look up anywhere around Casper and see Christopherson gliding overhead.
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
