Entry six
May 22. It
is done. Some of us got our first proper cross country flight in Pakistan. The day looked very much like a copy of the
previous one, which was not great but we are here to fly so up to take off we
went.
The early morning sky is blue every morning
but with the first heat of the sun the cloud grows so rapidly that it over
develops by 10am. Yesterday was no exception and as we were getting ready a big
cloud threw its shadow over the launch site. Alex and Grey threw themselves of
the hill with the famous last words of “better a little airtime then no
airtime” and glided out of the shaded area and got rewarded with a nice climb.
Dimitry scratched close to the hill and worked his way all the way to the
valley floor. I unclip from my harness and get out of my five layers of warm
clothes to wait and see. With the sun gone the true wind blew trough from
behind so that a slight feeling of envy creeps over me as Grey and Alex make
the long glide over the valley and start climbing out on the other side. Envy
turns into discomfort when it starts to rain. Glen and I bunch up our gliders
and pass the time trying to spot the others.
I pick up the rubbish that is spread over the
launch area and try to educate our guard about the effect of plastic. They
laugh when I show them the picture of a tar stained lung on their packet of
cigarettes and I may just be wasting my breath trying to get them to pick up
their rubbish.
An hour
after Grey and Alex left, the sun breaks through and Glen and I are of. Glen
tries his luck in the same spot where Grey and Alex got their climb and gets a
slow thermal that doesn’t give him enough height to cross the valley. He tries
anyway and fails and finishes his day in agony, watching me cross the valley
and scratch my way up on the other side.
I have launched an hour after the first ones
and I spent another hour trying to get to cloudbase. I finally succeed and turn
down wind just when the sky over develops again and the valley disappears in
the shade. The cloudbase rises to 5000meters and I'm on my way to Booni, 60km
to the north. I have done this flight a few times before so I know where to go
and with a 20km tailwind I'm covering ground rapidly. The others have been and
gone and I can’t raise them on the radio, as usual I fly by myself again. Then
Alex comes through on the radio. He has never been in mountains bigger then
sand dunes and being an Aussi chickens out when ahead of him the clouds become
a dark shade of black. He has lost contact with Grey and doesn’t actually know
where Booni is in the landscape. He makes the right decision to land in a safe
place and catches a taxi back to Chitral. I fly on and play with the dark shade
of black clouds and manage to stay out of them most of the time.
There still is an awful lot of snow on the
mountains and flying along the summits at 5000 meter I realize that big cross
country flights will probably have to wait till later in the season as the risk
of ending up landing in the snow is still too big. The glide over the middle of
the valley to dodge the worst of the over developed sky is uneventful and just
when the landing field of Booni comes into view, Grey comes in on the radio. He
is about to land and with the knowledge that he hasn’t flown past Booni I add a
few kilometers to my track log just to get the distance of the day. The usual
crowd gathers but also two of the local pilots show up on their motorbikes. The
gliders get folded for us and then we get a ride into the village on the back
of their bikes.
This is how it should be, not more than ten
steps out of the car on the launch site and less than ten after landing! It is
all a bit surreal, one moment I'm flying at 5000meters surrounded by awesome
mountains and the next I'm sitting in a computer shop sipping tea and having to
decide which of the local pilots I'm going to give the honor to be out host.
When that is decided we walk through this Garden of Eden, which is Booni, to
Musaffar’s house where we will have a place to sleep for the night and a dinner
to eat and good company to share.
This
morning we got up early as Baber, Meuchtasin and Musaffar, three of the local
pilots, have organized a Jeep to take us to their local launch site.
The weather looks good and we drive up
to launch through irrigated fields and little hamlets. As we climb up we experience the spring in
reverse, the fruit trees in the valley are already bearing small fruit whereas
high up they are still in flower. The four wheel drive track climbs up to a
pass from where it continues further to give access to higher summer grazing
pastures. Our road gets blocked by a remnant of winter snow just under the pass
at 12000 ft. It is 10 o’clock when we launch into a over developing sky with
cumulus that are getting ripped apart by strong wind aloft. We do a little
promo video for the local club to tell the world what a great spot this is. And
it is, Brad Sanders did his record flight from here a few years ago and Thomas
Dorlodot broke that same record from here last year.
Today there
will be no record broken though, after flying back and forth over the pass a
few times I glide out over the valley back towards Booni where I spent an hour
in light lift circling over town before I land on the polo ground. Grey joins
me there and after entertaining the local youth with our presents we walk back
to the taxi stand where we hop on a minibus back to Chitral.
It is great
experiencing the hospitality of the locals again and although Booni is a small
village without paved roads and few basic facilities it is a beautiful place.
With so much greenery, flowing irrigating channels everywhere and the big bulk
of the snow capped Booni Zoom mountain as a backdrop I already look forward to
the next time we land here.
Check out
the track log on Google earth. http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/610193
Spectators at the launch site.
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