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This article focuses on the paragliding flight across the Grand Canyon by Will Gadd, who became the first person to accomplish the feat."I have a lot of flying dreams," says Will Gadd, "and this is as close as I can come in real life." For the last 10 years Gadd, who is 37 and lives in Canmore, Alberta, high in the Canadian Rockies, has devoted himself mostly to adventure paragliding; on Sept. 7 he became the first person to paraglide across the Grand Canyon. Gadd's adventure began 15 miles southwest of the canyon's South Rim. Maneuvering to find thermals, currents of rising air, he had ascended to about 17,000 feet by the time he reached the canyon's edge and went into his glide, during which he flew eight or nine feet forward for every foot of descent. A friend, Chris Santacroce, flew a motorized hang glider to act as a spotter in case Gadd went down. After a scare just past the North Rim--the thick, wooded Kaibab National Forest made landing tricky--Gadd touched down in a meadow off Route 67, the Grand Canyon Scenic Highway.