Entry eleven

June 14, 2012

It was twelve days ago that I had my last flight, lucky I don’t consider this trip a Para Gliding holiday, rather a holiday with some Para Gliding. Yesterday we, Grey, Alex myself and two guys from Switzerland, came back from a two day trip up the valley. Three years ago a massive landslide came down into the valley about 15Km from Karimabad that not only blocked the Karakoram Highway but also the Hunza river. It took one year for the water to reach the top of the dam and to form a lake that is now 35Km long, drowning several villages and isolating others that are now only accessible by boat.

To get to the lake we walked, got a ride on a tractor and stood on the back of a Jeep

Alex had to sit on the front of the Jeep to play counter balance

The village of Attabad stood formerly on the slope that gave way to gravity and a hundred houses disappeared in the disaster together with all the fields surrounding them. As if the people here don’t have a hard enough time already they now have to put up with a lake blocking the main north south connection. All goods have to be unloaded onto boats that have been trucked in from elsewere, ferried over the lake and reloaded at the other end, adding a huge cost to the transport.

The dam formed by the landslide is more than 100 meters high. A rough track has been cut to access the shoreline.

It is clear that nature has its own way, it has created a beautiful lake in this valley and it was a great excursion to cruse from one end to the other.  The wooden flat-bottomed boats are propelled by two motors mounted on a beam that sticks out over both boards. Each motor has a long drive shaft with a propeller at the end that is lowered into the water once away from the shore. There is no exhaust system so the noise is deafening.

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At the far end of the lake the Ghulkin Glacier reaches all the way down into the valley right to the road. The evidence of the forces of nature are omnipresent, the receding lake level has left a strip of land covered with silt 50cm thick, recent floods have carried tones and tones of sand and boulders down a stream and buried a recently build bridge, the glaciers have only recently receded and have left moraine walls behind, hundreds of meters high. It is an awesome landscape and still humans are channeling water to little green fields in the middle of this chaos, building roads and eking out a living.

hundreds of houses have disapeared under the water. The army has just recently lowered the outflow of the lake by ten meters. In the two years that the land has been under water, a deposit of 50cm of silt has been formed.

At the far end of the lake we took a taxi Van to the town of Pasou which turned out to be less than a village with fortunately a few guesthouses and a general store. Here the valley is wide with the river flowing in an enormous gravel bed. The surrounding mountains are limestone and in the light of the setting sun the clouds lifted to reveal the” fairytale like” juxtaposition of pyramids, turrets and spires that gave us all the desire to fly over and around them. The scale of the place is huge and made me feel small and vulnerable.

On the morning of the second day we went for a walk to try and find a suspension bridge that is strung over the river. Luckily we find out, before we attempt to do a loop walk, that a second bridge has been damaged by the rising lake so we don’t get stuck at the far end. Alex elects to hitch a ride back to the ferry as he has a problem with his knee. To get to the bridge we end up on some seriously narrow ledges with the river raging below us where a faux pas would be certain death. Grey is the wise man and retreats but I follow the Swiss boys and must admit to some sweaty palms. We got through though and found the bridge to be a true work of art. 

The settlement of Pasou with the Hunza river.

Grey found the proper way to reach the bridge over a newly carved out track so we all got to cross the suspension bridge that spans the Hunza river over 200 meters. The tiny planks that serve as steps were tread between the five cables that formed the walkway. Each plank was a step size apart and some were broken…….

We scrambled back up to the Karakoram Highway and caught a ride back to the ferry where we find Alex still waiting for the boat.



The KKH ready to be tar sealed

Limestone mountains looking like fairytail landscape.

scrambeling over a narrow ledge

 The Chinese, who are constructing the KKH have a big interest in this road. Not only is Pakistan a big market, this link to the nearest sea port is a lot shorter than through China itself. No wonder they are in a hurry to get rid of the lake or failing that, dig a tunnel around it.

So today we flew. The cloudbase was not very high and the wind fairly strong which made for turbulent flying conditions. Good to get some time in the air though.

Suspention bridge over the Hunza river.

Entry eleven

10 June

The grumpy cook at our hotel in Chitral in his kitchen. woodfired furnace behind him

It has been a few days since my last entry. We have been on the move, which is a rather exhausting business around here. On the 5^th we traveled in style from Chitral to Mastuje. Glen has left us, as he has to make his millions, so the four of us rented a Jeep for the first 90Km. Local people cram into a Toyota Van with 15 or more or buy a place in a Land cruiser which takes just as many passengers. With only three doors, you have to climb in over the seats and hook your legs behind your ears to fit all in, like a sardine in a can, which I'm sure it would feel if one would role of a bank into the river.

First our guard walked around with an AK 47 but our friends complained and then he changed into civil clothes and a semi automatic pistol hidden in his pants

We are four in the Jeep with all our gear on the roof. Instead of waiting around at the taxi stand till all the seats are filled we got picked up from our little hotel. Our departure turned into quiet a happening as most off the local pilots turned up to farewell us.

Even the Mulleh came out to say goodbye, and to collect some money for the mosque.

Grey happy with his new bag to protect his glider during travel, at least the bag has got speed.

The day before, we were invited to a little ceremony where the local Chitral pilots incorporated their club into the national association. Grey was appointed as our leader and guest of honor and in that role made a little speech to thank everyone for their hospitality and kindness.

Grey is the guest of honer and sits with the new president and secretairy

 It is truly remarkable how unselfish and generous those people have shown themselves to be. It is a humbling feeling to experience such behavior. We in the west can learn a thing or two of those people. The fact that Pakistan gets such bad publicity in the world is all the more painful in this light.

Women are hidden in this society and never on their own. Turning their back while you drive past so you dont see their face.

In Mastuje we spend the night to catch the 5.30am bus to Gilgit the next morning. The first 100 kilometers are over a track in the rocks which often doesn’t allow for more than walking pace speed, great for taking in the views but one gets tired of watching even the most stunning landscape after a while. We had to get out of the bus a few times as the strength of the makeshift bridges was in doubt The rest of the 250Km trip runs over mostly tar sealed road which follows the Ghizer river valley and thus twists and turns its way through the landscape.

Chandur Pass 3400metres the highest pologrounds in the world and the highest pass to cross from Chitral to Gilgit

some of our fellow travelers at a teastop on chandur pass

Alex was been having some problems with his digestive track and had taken some preventive measures to stop the need for frequent stops. Towards the end of the bus ride my guts succumbed to the same fate, luckily we did change busses at a petrol station with bathrooms.

In Gilgit the passengers get dumped at the outskirts of town from where each has to find its way. A few taxies were roaming and one little Suzuki bus had to make two trips to ferry us with all our gear to a Back packer hostel in town.

Less than two months ago the different Muslim factions of the town were at each other’s throat and the streets were running red with blood, now everything looks business as usual, at the surface anyway.

Iv been away from home for a month now and in that time I have only had cold showers. In Rawalpindi it is hot enough to forgo warm water and in Chitral there is no hot water in the little hotel we were staying. Gilgit is a relative warm town and after two days travel I actually looked forward to a cold shower. Imagine my surprise when there appeared to be only hot water. It was nice though and I must have lost track of time, as the others only got cold showers….

To travel to Karimabad we again have the options of cramming in a taxi van or renting one to ourselves. We opt for luxury and Grey and I take a taxi to the bus exchange to organize a Van. This place is outside the irrigated area and with the wind blowing and the sun shining is like a desert. We find a Van for an acceptable price and drive back to town to pick up Dimitry and Alex with the gear. Nothing in this country is easy, it appears that the Van is not allowed into the city center so Grey and I wait at a hotel outside the center while Alex and Dimitry get a taxi to join us.

We now travel on the Karakoram Highway, KKH, which two years ago was an ordeal to travel. The Chinese are widening the road to double lanes and building some tunnels where rock fall and avalanches regularly block the road. They have dug up the whole 75Km between Gilgit and Karimabad and even now, two years later, only half has been completed. It is a great feeling though to zoom along on smooth tar seal at 80Kph. The trip still takes four hours so we arrived late afternoon at the Mulbarry Hotel where we find Brad Sanders, ………

They are preparing to leave the next morning as they are on a limited time schedule and the weather forecast is not great for the coming days.

8^th of June.

The weather is indeed non flyable but good enough for a walk up the gorge behind the village. It is a gorge carved out by the Ultar Glacier which provides all of Karimabad with water for irrigation and drinking. The water is full of extremely fine silt that doesn’t settle if left undisturbed which makes for grey water to shower, wash and drink.

To get the water to the village there are multiple channels that have been carved out in the solid rock, each one a real feat of engineering. We follow one of those channels to the snout of the glacier from where a track leads into a big cirque. This hanging valley was once carved out by the same Ultar glacier. Above this cirque the glacier spills through another gorge but here the glacier still has its full volume and fills the whole gorge. Above the gorge is a big ice plateau that collects all the snow and ice that falls down the 2000meter high walls behind it. We got to the first cirque when the weather started to pack in and the first thunder clap made us turn around.

Our hotel in Karimabad with the Ultar glacier gorge in the back ground. potato poteto, mulbarry mullberry

In the evening we dine at the Hidden Paradise Restaurant, a place that serves traditional Hunza dishes with no frills or pretentions. Good grub!

Unrelated to the food of the evening my guts give up and I have to take some chemical measures to limit the damage. Unfortunately the side effects knock me out for the next 24 hours. Never mind as it was a grey and rainy day.

10^th June.

The day started cloudy with only a small bleu hole down the valley. Hour by hour the conditions improved and against all the negativity about the day from Dimitry, Grey and Alex took the Jeep to the launch area. I still feel a bit feeblish and prefer to conserve my energy for tomorrow.  Grey and Alex get rewarded with a four hour scenic flight around the valley reaching heights of 5500meter. The next days are going to be better!

  

02-06 Entry ten

Iv come to Pakistan with a wish list of flights I would like to do. The “security” situation here in Chitral has limited our possibilities somewhat and therefore we feel that we have done what we can around here, time for a change of scenery.

The last flight on my wish list here is a flight around Tirich Mir, the 7700 meter giant mountain about 30kilometer to the North of here. It looks like it is going to be difficult to do at this stage as there still is too much snow on the ground at higher altitude.

Tirich Mir seems to make its own weather, oftentimes it stands out like a white giant against the bleu morning sky to then wrap it selves in clouds around mid day that will over- develop and dump snow on the higher reaches and rain lower down  that evaporates before reaching the ground.

We woke up to a valley breeze that put us of the idea of an early start. A morning ritual has formed itself whereby one of us walks across the yard to the kitchen to order the days number of boiled eggs, dhal, chapatti and sweet milk tea. When that arrives on our lawn we roll out of bed and eat breakfast in the shade of the big Cedar tree. Most buildings here are build with the provision for vertical expansion so after breakfast one of us will walk up the stairs and have a look at the weather from the roof which gives us a clear view of the sky. If flyable we call our taxi driver, who always seems to be just around the corner, and we pack our gear.

Today we delayed our decision till 11am and then I reluctantly come up as well. I had a nice flight yesterday and lack motivation to fly today. We are here to fly after all so I drag my sorry arse into the Jeep and of we go, minus Alex who is too sick to be persuaded.

We probably mist a good opportunity to get close to Tirich Mir. The clouds develop a lot later than usual which would have allowed us to get a lot closer as the wind in the valley appears to be a localized thing.

As it works out I have a terrible start and almost bomb out. I have to scratch close to the hill below the launch for a long time. I'm wearing all my clothes and drip with perspiration, it seems to take ages before I get some decent lift and then I have to climb up to the others, who are waiting around for me at 5000 meters.  Grey is a little spec in the sky when he surfs up the side of a cloud to 6500 meters, well above cloudbase.

Glen is doing his own thing and flies away from us, Grey, Dimitry and I go on the big glide over deep narrow valleys onto a ridge that runs up all the way to Tirich Mir. Booming thermals make us puppets on stings at the mercy of the power of Mother Nature. I think it all got a bit too much for Grey as he comes over the radio and says he is bailing towards Booni. I lose sight of Dimitry and get hovered up further towards cloudbase. The cold is extreme and even with oxygen my hands go numb. Instead of holding the break handles I have to put my wrists trough them and push down with my arms as I cant hold them with my fingers.

The view into Afghanistan is beautiful, from this altitude I'm looking down over a sea of snow capped mountains with some really big ones in the distance, if only there was no borders and no Taliban….

One of the reasons I want to come to this side of the mountain is to try and use the updrafts on the windward side to get high enough to fly over the top. Today we started our flight to late and the cloud has formed around the mountain and the cloud base is too low. At 6700 I turn of my oxygen supply for a moment to see how I will feel. It doesn’t take long for the discomfort to set in and in panic I have a hard time pushing the” on” button with my senseless gloved fingers.  I must not be quiet acclimatized yet or maybe turning of my oxygen supply is not such a good idea……

 I go up a wee bit more and then decide that this is not the day I shall fly over the top. A long glide downwind takes me back to lower altitude and the feeling comes back in my hands. I make a half baked attempt to turn the flight into a triangle but this high altitude stuff has taken its toll and I fly back to Chitral city.

Grey has changed his plan and has flown back to town as well and lands some time before me on the polo grounds. I come over with lots of height and do a few wingovers and spirals which detract most of the spectators of the polo practice game to look at the bird in the sky.

Iv never had to deal with so many spectators standing so close around me. I don’t know if I could have coped without Grey’s help. He folded the glider while I got out of my gear. I flee up the steps of the grandstand but even there the crowd follows me and stands so close, I can hardly move. I wonder what goes through the mind of those people, what do they think of us and our antics.

Some people insist to carry our gear back to the hotel and on the way the procession slowly dwindles to a few, which stay behind at the gate of the hotel.

Check the track on Leonardo.

  http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/615521

 Making the crossing over the steep deep valleys onto the snowy spur on the left hand side of the picture that runs all the way tothe base of Tirich Mir, in the center of the picture.

Looking straight down into the steep valleys during the crossing

Looking deep into Afghanistan over a sea of snow capped mountains

The clouds have formed around the mountain. Tirich mir to the left, Booni in the distance on the right

After a few non-flyable days, which coincided with me being down with a head cold, we had a very enjoyable flight yesterday. Nice thermals, cloud base at 5500 meters and no wind to speak of.

Alex is the next one to get my cold so he should really not be flying and Glen is lacking motivation. The first flies for a few hours and then gives up and the second slides of the hill and lands. We don’t want to end up with big retrieve drives so we opt for a triangle flight. Due to the restrictions imposed on us we can’t fly much further to the south, which limits our scope somewhat. From our launch above the town we cross the valley to the East. From the valley floor one can’t see past the steep scee slopes as they rise too abruptly. Behind them however lays a chain of mountains with some 5500 meter peaks. The rock is mainly limestone with some metamorphic mixed in. There are some beautiful vertical walls that drop down for hundreds of meters, spines that lead the thermals to the main ridge and summits that would not be too difficult to climb. To the south the chain tapers off to the valley floor after about thirty kilometers, which is as far as we are allowed to go. To the North is our usual route to Booni where the chain culminates in the bulk of Booni Zoom Mountain before dropping down to the valley at Mastuje.

I fly without oxygen today as I don’t expect to go super high. My nose is still half blocked anyway so it wouldn’t really work having a cannula up my nostrils. Above 5000 meters my hands get very cold though and even the soles of my feed, which are pointing into the airflow, get ice cold. During glides I tap my hands against the harness to get the blood flowing again but the glides are usually not long enough to get the circulation going again. A bit of oxygen would thin the blood and make it flow easier to the extremities.

The flight turns into a five hour scenic ride that ends on the cliffs behind the launch site. It is 4pm when I climb out over the limestone peaks and in the slanting afternoon light the snow covered pinnacles look like giant mushrooms.

I glide back to the valley and into the warm air. It looks like the polo ground has been flooded so I land on the new bypass under construction. I land in a cloud of dust that gets amplified by the dozens of spectators that come rushing in from all sides. I made a bit of a show off my decent with wingovers and spiral dives so I only have myself to blame for the number of spectators this time.

Grey, Dimitry and I have big grins on our faces, this was beautiful flying, Alex is happy to but is too sick to have fully enjoyed it and Glen is his quiet self.

View from near the highest point on the ridge

The track of the flight;

http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/615276