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 5th.
 |
| 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment