I tried paragliding for a while a couple of years ago. Gave it up partly because of the expense. I was renting gear during my lessons - at the time, the gear purchase and lessons cost about $5,000.
I've seen people glide off of Baker and land at the helipad at the ranger station - highly illegal, but they considered the fines part of the expense involved. I met them later and they said they had done Adams also, and were planning a couple of others.
A couple of disadvantages of this are that the conditions have to be perfect to take flight, and if they aren't, well, you just carried a 40 lb. kite (in addition to your gear) to the summit, and you get to carry it back down. Finding and making it to your intended landing zone can be a problem - I don't know how many places there are to land near the volcanos, excluding private property and power lines and roads with 60 mph vehicles.
Some advantages - two days up; 45 minutes down. That's about it.
Personally, I preferred skydiving. Better rush, and you go up in an airplane instead of lugging your gear to a hilltop.
[ 08-06-2002, 01:18 PM: Message edited by: lizard brain ]