Entry 12

18-06

The days keep piling up and I hardly find the time to write a few words. Today was the forth flying day in a row and I'm looking forward to a rest day. On the 15^th Grey, Alex and I flew to Passou, the village we visited on the 12^th and 13^th. Not a very long flight in time and distance but totally awesome in scenery. Actually scenery is not the right word to describe the landscape we flew over. The scale of the mountains and glaciers is superlative with some of those rivers of ice more than 60Km long The mountains around here are all around the 6000meter mark with some reaching over 7000, with the valley floor around 2400 meters that still makes for big mountains.

flying north to Passou. The south end of Attabad lake just visible

The cloudbase has been low so far this season which means that we are trapped within the valley systems rather than being able to fly over the mountains from valley to valley. The high relative humidity makes for early developing cumuli that quickly over develop and therefore limit the distance we can fly.

The north end of Attabad lake right ottom and the fairytale mountain in the right top corner

 We still get some spectacular flights though and the flight to Passou was no exception. In the beginning of the flight we were all together but as Dimitry has no radio we usually loose him on the way. The flight took us over a high ridge running down from Ultar peak to the new lake and then across Ghulkin Glacier and Passou Glacier.

Passou glacier

Passou and Batura Glaciers

Him self with fairytale mountain in the background

Summitof Tupopan Mountain

Batura Glacier once more

The Fairytale mountain that we had been fantasizing about was only a glide away and all three of us got to thermal up the spires and pyramids of Tupopan mountain, with Alex doing merry go rounds around some of the spires to get some good video footage.

  The view over the Batura Glacier was breath taking as was the sight of the Passou and

Ghulkin Glaciers slowly passing by on the glide back to the head of the lake. The wind got stronger sinking down into the valley and, with the rivers of cold air coming down the glaciers, the last couple of hundred meters to the ground were quiet turbulent. I had my eye on the last green field at the snout of the glacier before the landscape turned to a dusty and rocky jumble. The last fifty meters were in vertical descend which almost made me land short and into a yard with some cows and goats. Forward speed increased just in time to make me land on my feet in the middle of the green field. Even here I was able to assemble a gathering of on looking kids and adults that were very helpful packing up my stuff and much amused when I turned my back and had a five minute pee right in front of them.

I had landed a few kilometers away from the head of the lake and with the late afternoon hour I was affright to mis the last boat across the lake. All the hurrying proved in vain as there was not enough passengers to fill a boat anyway. We got a short boat ride to the next village, Gulmit, where we found a hotel for the night.

 The village had a good feel to it and we would have loved to spend some more time there. In the evening Alex and I went for a walk through the narrow streets where we bumped into a very friendly woman that invited us into her home. No adventure without risk so I said yes sure we would love to see her house. We were let through a courtyard into a small hallway were we took of our shoes. From there we entered the main living quarters which had no windows. In the middle was a square area which is used to eat. Around the perimeter on three sides were mattresses and on the forth side was room for storage and a passage to the kitchen. In the living area sat a man that babbled a lot in Urdu. His young son was able to translate a bit and that is how we learned that this man was  blind, fifty years old and married five times. We got served salty tea and white bread and the old man played us a tune on the flute. When is the last time you invited a total stranger into your home for a cup of tea? I find these” golden moments”.

Friendly local woman making us a cup of tea

Near the boat ramp looking back at Tupopan Mountain

16th june.

The early bird gets the worm……… but not the first boat. We got up at 5.30am to have time for breakfast and to be back at the waterfront by 7am. We had to wait another hour before one of the boats picked us up. It was beautiful to see the early morning light creeping over the landscape and a very peaceful atmosphere hung over the lake. At the other end of the lake we got a Jeep for a reasonable price and by 10 am we were back at our hotel to grab a quick bite to eat before driving up to the launch.

Waiting for the boat in the morning the sun slowely glides into the valley

The flying conditions were a copy of the previous day with maybe a little les wind. The launch site is half an hour walk from the road up a steep rocky hillside. The launch site it selves is strewn with big boulders and the ground is bare but for the little line grabbers that seem to grow everywhere.

The north end of Rakaposhe with one of the Glaciers running of Mt Duran on the left

Alex is somewere in the picture. Close up on the face of rakaposhe

Today we decide to have a go at flying around Rakaposhe, a 7700 meter giant glacier covered mountain that dominates the landscape of the Hunza valley. When we got to the critical point where we have to cross the valley and fly onto one of the big spurs that come down from Rakaposhe, the clouds over develop and I end up flying in heavy snow. One moment it snows and the next the whole cloud just disappears and the sun comes out again. In Europe one would not fly in those conditions as the risk of getting sucked up in the clouds would be too real. Here we fly around the dark clouds or wait simply for the cloud to spend it selves.

The circumnavigation will have to wait for another day as the sky on the south side of the mountain really got to dark. Instead we glided along the glacier covered west face at 5000meters, 2.5Km under the summit. The whole flight I fly by myself and although we stay in radio contact it seems impossible to fly together. This is surely a matter of discipline as our Austrian friends stay together throughout their flights.

I glide back to Karimabad and prepare myself for the landing and the swarm of kids that with gather. Just in time I spot the Austrians and decide to work my way up to them.  The reward was one of the most beautiful flying experiences I’ve ever had. We worked our way up in the same thermals, flying along shear walls and over razor sharp ridges with the Ultar Glacier snaking its way down through the gorge more than a thousand meters below us. The late afternoon sun peeped through the clouds and bathed the snow and ice covered walls in a picture perfect light.

Flying with one of the Austrians along the face Hunza peak

Looking down on Ultarglacier with Karimabad far left

Lady Finger

We glided along the base of Lady Finger, a pinnacle of reddish rock that stands out from all the surrounding summits, to leave the Ultar basin and try and get to the sunny side of the ridge.  There the thermals were very strong and catapulted us to the 6000meter cloud base in no time.  With all this height I glided one more time along the vertical walls of Hunza Peak and the high hanging glaciers with huge ice cliffs to then fly out over the valley with 2000meters to spare. 

There are several places we can land but the one nearest to our hotel is in the cemetery. Muslims don’t seem to attach the same value to the death, as most of the graves are not more than a few rocks surrounding a pile of dirt and nobody seems to take offence when you walk straight over them.

It is a tricky landing spot with power lines at one end a sheer drop at another and five antenna towers at a third. I come in a bid high and risk to overshoot the landing and end up in the towers so with a few turns and a lot of flapping I plant myself on the side of a hillock with my glider dropping neatly in a more sophisticated grave, surrounded by wall. Perfect, as the crowd of kids is bigger than ever.