I have always loved getting my feet off the ground. I managed to find ways to do it that were relatively inexpensive. But that is harder to do these days. I never have flown a traditional type of glider... so they use audible variometers as well! I did not know that. It sounds like a lot of fun.
The person who designed my homebuilt ultralight airplane used to take his up in Colorado and shut the engine down and then use it as a glider. It is a very interesting design with a full cantilever wing and much less drag than other ultralight aircraft from the time period.
When I was into hang gliding seriously, we used to have a buddy who came along who was in his 70s. He was terribly pilot and a menace. Much of the time at the best places in Western Washington and Oregon everyone is sharing the same ridge lift. So, you have to keep your eyes on everything going on around you to avoid midair collisions. Fortunately, in this type of situation most people are flying slowly and a minor bump is often not super serious. But this guy had at several minor midair collisions (an oxymoron it would seem) that I knew of. By the grace of God everyone walked away but people tried to stay a long way away from him.
I am a little worried that I might be reaching an age where I am not as capable of flying safely in a skein of hang gliders. Plus, when I was younger I bent a down tube around one of my arms and my arm didn't break... it wasn't even all that sore. So, I am afraid that my hang-gliding days might be behind me. Of course, modern double surface hang gliders are vastly superior to the designs we used in the 1980s and 1990s