Entry 17

July7th

Shandur pass looking east

The setting for the Shandur Polo festival is quiet surreal. At 3500 meters it certainly is the highest polo game in the world, where both humans and horses suffer the sparser oxygen. The Pass itself is a big open, flat bottomed valley with some lakes. During this festival, which is held over three days, the teams of different villages from the two neighboring provinces of Gilgit and Chitral have it out with each other. It is “free” polo which means there are very little rules and it certainly is not the sedate kind of polo you may have seen played by the British royals.

 On the otherwise barren hill sides a huge tent city sprouts up with a bazaar with shops and restaurants. Animals get brought in alive and get slaughtered there and then.

The rivalry between the two provinces doesn’t stop by the polo, disputes about who owns the polo grounds and who pays for what seem to flare up every year. On the first day one of the matches got boycotted as there was a perception that Gilgit had more VIP seats than Chitral. With thousands of spectators in both camps the emotions can run high very quickly, even at that altitude.

Training in the morning

On the second day the situation arose that the game finished in a draw. With the situation unchanged after the extended playtime, the first goal would be the golden goal. By this time both the players and the horses were exhausted. When Gilgit finally scored the golden goal there was wild celebrations. Ten minutes later the judges announced that the goal was disallowed on some technicality. Gilgit and Chitraly players went for each other and soon chairs were flying and a riot followed. Some police commander gave the order to shoot in the air and people dived for cover. Then someone came on the PR system to say that there was Para Gliders in the air and please don’t shoot in the air! I was two kilometers away from all this lazing around the camp and all I heard was the gun shots which sounded like some uncoordinated gun salute to me.

The runner with the ball, lancing the ball at mid field and hitting it in the air while going at full speed

No rules, you dont need to be aiming for the ball to swing your mallet

On the third and final day the commentator tried to down play the events of the previous day by saying that there was a century old rivalry between the two provinces and that skirmishes like that were nothing to worry about……..

Landing trike

Para trike

The horsemanship in this game is phenomenal, to ride a horse at full speed and at the same time whack a ball with a long stick with another 11 horses in the field running around, sure is an exciting sight.

Al fresco breakfast

miracle kitchen

Al fresco ........

The PAFF, Pakistan association for free flight, had organized a camp for us with catering. Great breakfast and dinner was produced from the little kitchen tent where two gas burners somehow cooked food for 20 people.

On the day of the finals we all walked up a few hundred meters above the valley floor to do a flight into the stadium. It is now a tradition that one Pilot hands over the ball to a high official to start the game, which gives Para Gliding the needed exposure in the media. Grey and I elected to launch last  and try and fly back East to Gilgit or further. After two days of rest I was ready to face the challenges of the sky again, which turned out to be a lot more sedate this time, not less challenging though with some very tricky wind changes, convergences, snow showers and a low save from the bottom of a narrow canyon.

Highest Crapet card game in the world, Grey lost again.

Near the end of the day the weather over developed in front of us and we were forced to look for a Bivi spot. After trying to land on a ridge with visible water and firewood but very turbulent conditions we decided to cross the valley and try and make it to the camp we had used previously with Alex. Arriving a few hundred meters below the summit we had to work quite hard to get back up in the last thermals of the day. It was a sweet feeling to make it back there and with the firewood still in place we were able to have a nice fire in windless conditions. Before dark we played the highest Crapet card game in the world and then turned in for the night.

The next day we flew back to Karimabad the same way we had done ten days earlier and arrived there early afternoon. The flying conditions were great and climbing out above Karimabad I got surprised by a couple of vultures that joined me in the thermal. At some stage I had one on each wingtip, a magic moment but over before I could pull out my camera.

Entry 16

02 july

The summer is advancing and it is getting hotter. This means that lower down in the valley it is getting stable and the thermals are starting to work later. As I always seem to launch first I also did today and, paid the price. Launching from the usual place I grabbed a small cycle and soon lost height, flying to the other side of the gorge info the thermal oven didn’t work and soon I was circling over the village in some small bubbles. I knew eight pilots were watching me with particular attention as we were all geared up to go on a two day bivi flight. I teased them and myself for a while maintaining height but then had to surrender to gravity and defeat and landed on the cemetery. Brad organized the driver to come and pick me up but when Alex dropped out shortly after, I decided to give up on the day. Lugging my gear up the hill in the afternoon heat didn’t appeal to me as there was no guaranty to get away on the second go. Grey managed to climb out and maintain a while and then landed somewhere high to wait for better conditions. In the end Brad, Adrian, Daniel and Julian all launched after 2pm and got to a bivi spot about 30km away from Karimabad. Grey flew again and tried to join them but missed the top landing and slid of the hill in catabatic conditions to land 600meters below them on a little shelve with no water or firewood.

Alex holiday was coming to an end. As he had all his luggage in Yasin he still had to go there to pick it up and then get on the bus for a twenty two hour drive back to Islamabad.

July 3th.

Not willing to repeat yesterdays experience I climb to a higher launch site and start later. The thermals are pumping and I'm at cruising altitude in now time.  The flight is on a milk run on the west side of the valley till I get to Chalt where I have to go deeper and find a place to land. This late in the day it is impossible to cross the pass I crossed a few days ago and with Brads insiders information I decide to land on the Chalt ridge. At 4000 meters some beautiful grassy meadows still had some small snow fields on them for water and some Juniper trees could provide me with fire wood.

Glaciers spilling of Rakaposhe

I cruised around for a while, soaking up the view of Rakaposhe with its many glaciers creeping down on all sides and of the scenery to the west were green meadows had a backdrop of snowy peaks.

I decided on a grassy slope, facing the sun, for my landing spot, only to change my mind at the last second as I saw that the snow field above it had drenched the area with melt water. I glided a little to the right and landed, missing the only other human being on the mountain, by meters.  I didn’t see him till the last moment but he must have been following my progress for a while, I was definitely more surprised than him.

Shepherd, complete with 1960's transistor radio

I fly wearing a balaclava, ski goggles and the oxygen canula up my nose, so I look a bit like an extra terrestrial  when I land. I make a point of ripping that all off first, before I say hello to anyone who happens to be there, just in case they would feel threatened.  This guy just stood there with a happy smile on his face and could not wait to shake my hand. In rudimentary English we talked about his cows, milk and paragliding and I had to come to his home to drink some. It was a most idyllic spot, with the snow just gone the grass was fresh and green with lots of spring flowers in it and the late afternoon slanting light gave it all a warm glow. I packed up and while the shepherd continued on his way to count his cows, I walked up the hill and over a small pass to a place I had spotted from the air.

Bivi with a view

A little rock apron surrounded by some Juniper, with a magnificent view of Rakaposhe was going to be my first class seat to see the sunset and then the rise of the full moon. Other than the plaintive calls from some Yak a distance away, there was not a sound to be heard.

After an early dinner the shadow slowly crept out of the valley and up the slopes of Rakaposhe. When the last of the sunlight faded from the 7770meter summit, the full moon rose between Mt Diran and Rakaposhe in a sky that went from black to pink going from East to West. I went shutter happy with my little camera, regretting not having a proper camera on this occasion.

Of all the spectacular things I have seen on this trip, this was the one that left the deepest impression and the most joy and although I was there on my own I just spoke out loud about the awesome beauty of the moment.

Moonrise

The moonlight was bright enough to read a book and a few times I woke up during the night thinking that it was early morning. I left the milk to the shepherd as his village or home looked too far down the hill. The next morning I cooked my breakfast of instant noodles and porridge and whiled the time away sitting on my eagles nest. The first vultures appeared on the morning thermals to signal me to get ready and find a place to launch.

I walked up the hill for half an hour to get to the eastern aspect of the ridge and launched into nice thermals. After climbing nicely at first it soon became clear that it was not as good as I first thought and I saw myself glide down to the village of Chalt at the bottom of the valley. After a full circle of the ridge I had slept on, I climbed up again in front of my start point and decided on a plan B. It looked like the Pass, I had flown through in the opposite direction a few days earlier, was not going to be obtainable this day so I opted for a more westerly route towards Gilgit and then up the Ghizer river valley. I got maximum height and then aimed for a narrow snow saddle to access the Naltar Valley, a tracking route into the Iskomen valley with beautiful bleu lakes and big stands of fir trees.

Even with maximum height I only just scraped through the little snow Pass, getting whacked by some local lee side effect. A bit of desperate scratching followed to get back to a comfortable altitude and then I worked my way to the mouth of the Naltar and a shortcut into the Ghizer. From there on it was textbook flying , climb, glide, climb, glide all the way to the mouth of the Yasin valley where I let my guard down and got surprised by the wind coming down the valley which drilled me all the way to the ground right next to the bridge. From there I could call Manzoor, our driver, who had followed Brad and Adrian and Julian and Daniel on the same flight the day before, to come and pick me up.

Grey had made it to the Iskomen Bivi spot the day before and had landed in Yasin, next to our hosts place a few hours before me. That evening we had a meal together to celebrate some personal best for a few of us. Adrian is a newish pilot that has never flown in real mountains and is having the time of his life, realizing that flying ‘back home’ is going to be a boring flatland experience.

July 5^th.

Daniel coming back from the death

Two flying days in a row seems to be what I can deal with comfortably and then a rest day to recharge the batteries, my own and those of my instruments.  I did fly five out of six days with the one bomb out day in Karimabad. The rest day consisted of taking Daniel to the hospital for a checkup as he was the only one to have a bad reaction to our meal together and suffered a bad case of food poisoning. While Daniel got an IV, Grey got roped into yet another” Guest de Honeur” appearance, this time at the local schools cultural show, which turned out to be more of a Tupperware party. Thanks Grey! for doing your duty for New Zealand…….

The Shandur Pass Polo festival is coming up and we as foreign pilots, are invited, all expenses paid. Brad, Adrian and Julian left in the morning to try and fly the 75km to the Pass or possibly more to Bouni. They got to about the 50km mark and then flew into a headwind, which decked Brad and made Adrian decide to land. Julian stayed high, looked down and turned around and flew all the way back to Yasin with a nice tailwind.

http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/637160     

http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/637180    

 Entry 15 July 17^th

It is hot! It is hot, I'm alive and uninjured. Something we cant say of all of us. Unfortunately one of the Scottish pilots has had a difficult landing and has broken his ankle and pelvis. In his misfortune he was lucky enough to be spotted by some Sheppard’s and was evacuated to the nearest hospital before nightfall.

My latest Blog entry was on the 25^th of June from Skardu , the gateway to the big mountains of the Karakorum; K2, Masherbrum and other eight thousand meter peaks.

Sunset in a dust storm at skardu

Misunderstanding with the hairdresser. Leave 2 centemeter, dont leave 2 milimeter! Didnt need shampoo for the rest of the trip.

 We didn’t get to fly in the Skardu area, the weather being cloudy and windy. Grey and I had planned to link in with a Chinese expedition, lead by one of our Pakistani friends, to walk to the base camp of Spantec  Mountain  and fly back down. However, Grey got an allergic reaction to something he had eaten and felt very sorry for himself and I was getting fairly run down with my continuing irregular stools.

Indus valley near Skardu with sand dunes on the horizon

 Skardu lies on the south bank of the Indus River which flows there through a kilometers wide valley. The Indus transports tons and tons of sediment in its waters, part of which get deposited in some surreal looking dunes. The almost daily dust storms that get whipped up by the valley breeze traveling up the Indus gorge sculpt these dunes in beautiful shapes.

Alex in his natural environment

The wind blasting out of the Indus gorge at 50kph

   With the weather situation better further to the west we decided to try our luck in that direction. The seven hour ride through the Indus Gorge left me in awe of both Mother Nature and of the humans that inhabit these parts.  The gorge is part of the collision between the Indian continent and the Eurasian plate. For a hundred kilometers the valley bottom is not wider than the riverbed, with the walls often rising vertically. The road is carved in the walls or build on dry stacked rocks and often not wider than one car.

tricky traffic

The road carved into the valley walls

 All one sees is rock, river and sky with occasionally a green patch of irrigated valley wall. The side valleys all seem to be hidden from view as are the cedar forests and snowy peaks above. But there is thousands of people that live in this area, working the small irrigated fields in the main valley or the lush side valleys. Above the barren walls of the Indus are summer grazing grounds where thousands of goats and sheep get fattened on the sparse vegetation.

During the ride I must have eaten something unhealthy, as I got awfully sick the night we spent in Gilgit. Things came out of all orifices at once, which made for quiet a messy bathroom. Fainting and then waking up with my face on the concrete floor with creepy crawlies right up my nose is an experience I could have done without. I felt better next day and in the afternoon we completed our journey to Yasin Valley and our pre booked government guesthouse. It was a typical example of a beautiful surrounding being spoiled by an uninterested lot of employees. The place was run down and the food was less then basic, even the stern words of our driver couldn’t move them into gear.

Yasin valley

 Two years ago we spend some time in this valley and stayed with the local policeman who is a far relative of our friend Farhad from Chitral. It didn’t take long for the news about the farhangies  to reach our friend the policeman, who promptly came around to invite us to his place to stay.

The weather was indeed better this far to the west and the next day, the 29^th, we all three had a great flight to the head of the Yasin valley and landed next to the house of our host.

Darkot at the head of the valley with a beautifull glacier curving down

http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/637185

 Manzoor, our driver, brought our luggage around from the guest house and with him as an interpreter we made clear that we had the intention to stay for at least eight days. That didn’t seem to be a problem and after that we dismissed our driver, friend and guide as he was going to be more useful to our friends in Karimabad.

Our new abode came with cherry trees and rose garden and Adil, our host, would bring us food and drinks and organize taxi and porters for us. Fantastic hospitality for which we were happy to put up with some awkward situations due to the language barrier.

After our flight we got invited to the finals of the valley soccer tournament. Grey got whisked away on the motorbike to be the guest of honor. After the game he got introduced as the famous soccer player from New Zealand and was forced to give a speech. Unfortunately I had left after the first half as a dust storm was sandblasting the whole crowd and specially the grand stand with dignitaries, which was facing into the wind. Our famous soccer player felt a bit used and embarrassed. 

June 30^th.

It looked like we were into a period of good weather as the day presented itself as another cracker one. We decided to take all our bivi gear and to try and fly to Karimabad,  120km to the east. The access to the launch site is an hour and half up a reasonable slope to gain 500 meters. The weather was definitely getting warmer and the walks more strenuous, even with the porters carrying most of our gear.  My bag with glider, harness, bivi bag, sleeping bag, food, stove and clothing must have been close to 25kg, for which I happily paid 6 NZ dollars to be carried up by one of the locals.

The porters relaxing after an hours work

As usual we flew miles apart but made it all three over the first dividing saddle between the Yasin valley and the Iskomen valley, at 4500 meters not a real obstacle but still tricky as the surrounding ground is fairly high too and the valleys on both sides a good 20km long. We all made the big crossing over the Iskomen valley and tried to find a way over the saddle that would lead us into the Hunza valley and Karimabad. Some serious over development made the terrain ahead invisible and when Grey came on the radio, singing and incoherent, we knew it was time to find a bivi spot for our hypoxic friend . I found a big, round, grassy spur with some patches of snow on the west side of the valley with great launch potential for the next day. Alex managed to convince Grey to follow him and after some confusion about which spur I was on we all landed in the same spot. 

The Pass to cross into the Hunza valley

It was the perfect camping spot with snow for water and Junipers for firewood, at 4000meters I was affright it would be a cold night but with the warmer weather it got hardly below freezing.

a perfect bivi spot

Grey contemplating life.

Dinner time

The catabatic flow got very strong and kept us from lighting a fire, so we cooked on our gas stoves. The night sky was full of stars and later a waxing moon lit up the mountains. At 4.30am the sun came over the horizon and lit up a partly cloudy sky that later turned a steal blue. We passed the morning watching the vultures glide by and enjoying the great vista from our vantage point. Cumulus development was slow and we didn’t launch till 11am by which time the sky developed very fast and we had to hurry to get in position to cross the second pass. Just after the crossing my Vario Batteries went flat so the last 30km were flown in silence with only my GPS to give me an idea about rising or sinking. It felt great to fly into Karimabad, what an awesome feeling it must have been for Brad Sanders to fly the whole 200plus kilometers in one go and then land back with his friends a few years back!
http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/637183
I didnt have my GPS trac on for the flight from Yasin to Iskomen.......