But not a nice one…a huge potentially unstable one that is growing daily after a major landslide, just 10km north of the flying site in Karimabad. Miracuously, only 19 people have been reported dead, but for them and their village this is a major disaster…look at the precariousness of the situation at http://pamirtimes.net/

It appears the lake has another 82 vertical metres to grow before the spillage point…and if the new dam wall is unstable it will be a huge volume of water that could engulf the valley down stream.Already villages are becoming submerged in the new lake. I really feel for the people of Hunza, and hope the water can be released before it becomes much higher.

and this is it coming down onto the KKH…photo first published by PAMIR TIMES…and found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/2010/01/100129_hunza_landslide_pic_rh.shtml   along with many others…the dam wall looks alot more than 83m to me,knowing how big the terrain really is…and there was a village up there…this is so bad.

HUNZA LANDSLIDE  2

 much more info and video files updated almost daily at http://pamirtimes.net/

The monsoonal affect finally vanished punctually on the 8th of October.

It was time for the local people to bring in the harvest, and everywhere hay was being made,and piled high for the coming winter. The flying conditions were classic Bir, and each day on landing the LZ became a little bigger and easier as the grass was continued to be cut by hand.

On the 20th October an even bigger day arrived, and 6 of us set off over the back to Barot, then further back to the main Dhaludar mountains, a 5000m chain that links Dharamsala to Manali.

There was Jules and Debu, Jim and Eddie, Wolfgang, Mike and myself, racing along this awesome ridge at 5300m, glorying in the majesty, shouting at the wind. The Solang landing at the end of the Manali valley came along too soon, and Jules and me crossed the Rotang, continuing to Keylong in the big snowies, a site that Bob Drury and Ulric Jessop had pioneered in the last few years.

Jim took lots of photos, and i will upload them when i find a usb port! They will speak volumes compared to my words.So now there are 3 ‘routes’ to Manali, the high route, the low route and the SUPER HIGHWAY, flown by Julien robinson, Mike Laengle, Debu Chandery, Jim Mallinson, Eddie Colfox, Wolfgang and me on the 20th october 2009…Bir is truly Brilliant!

What can you say about the Xalps except respect.

Respect for the pilots, respect for the supporters, respect for the organizers who have the sheer balls to host the event in the first place.

I started following it this week because Hugh asked me for some knowlegable  words for a news report.

I totally failed him, but did become hooked, and started wondering what made this race so special, creating a vibe far higher than the PWC.

The obvious reason could be the massive physical element, the dreaded walking day after day… but indirectly.

If there is the least chance of it being flyable, then you are going to fly, not only because it might be faster, but because it is easier by miles than plodding along the valleys, trying to work out the route on the map, getting lost and knackered.

In the air things are simpler, everything laid out below you, passing effortlessly by.

Except for the conditions.

This is what makes it so special, almost unique.

Flying in conditions that a normal meet director would never condone.

When the only other option is to pack up all your kit and start carrying it, the desire to get airbourne is very much higher

And this is where the xalps comes close to a remote bivvy trip, where there are only footpaths, and no roads. You end up flying even on bad days, right to the very end, till the thunder is sounding almost overhead, and the gust front is racing along to meet you as you spiral out the sky. On trips like that you truly live the flying, become as one with it, dancing between the land and the sky, day after day.

So my knowlegable words Hugh?

I really don’t have them.All I do know is that if pilots that I know personally like Ogi and Julien are looking pretty average at the moment, then average is a very good thing to be. Ogi’s won pwc tasks and finished the last xalps, getting all the way to that hallowed ocean before the 48hr deadline, whilst Julien has made some of the hardest,boldest, and most beautiful flights on the planet…and is on his 2^nd xalps.

This is one hell of a difficult race

PS…As I speak Christian is still flying whilst Alex is walking …and the gap that Hofer had almost closed is opening up again before him.

Power to the sky!

Congrats to all of you…such a good trip.

didnt you just want to keep going and follow luc all the way to kathmandu!

Yesterday I flew!
Alone.
The first time in a month.
The first time since last Friday.

Soared up from low,
my middle aged body skimming snow for 2000 ft,
before becoming adolescent at the small summit,
and laying down tracks in 50m power slides,
thrilling to the energy of my wing.

My sadness and latent anger,
brewing all week,
was lost on the wind,
and as I watched a snow storm coming in from the sea,
huge curtains of snow falling earthwards,
I thought of you Phillipe,
with Julien,and me,
flying through the snow virga at 20000ft in Hunza.

And as I smiled, and glided in towards the snow veils falling,
a big female peregrine came up from below and joined me just 10m away.
One had never flown so close before, and she stayed with me for 5 minutes,
before catching a climb and disappearing.

The snow fell thicker.
It was going to catch me.
So I looked inland, deeper into the mountains wondering if I could run away cross country.
And just as I decided no, a powerfull shape dived down past my wingtip,
then glided off into the mountains.

I followed,
certain I had seen a red bandana,
happy for the first time that week.

You wont be forgot,
and will continue to inspire for a long long time to come.

Bon voyage.

The shortest day has gone, and from here on in for us pilots in the northern hemisphere it can only get better.This year,for the first time ever,I offered a sacrifice,torching an old glider on my favorite take-off , hoping for a better summer next year.

I almost burnt one 8 years ago, a brand spanking new one I had got for a friend.It only had one flight on it, but a flight that removed a flying buddy from the sky forever. I should have burnt it, it felt the right thing to do, but somehow got talked out of it, ‘cos it would have caused even more trouble.

So that one the other night was for you jonny…and to placate that global warming god, we want our sun back!

It’s easy to sometimes think that brilliant new flights in exciting ‘exotic’ places are easy to come by.

I certainly do, because I am a dreamer, but the reality of what it sometimes takes to get in the sky and make an epic crossing is brilliantly described by Phillipe Nodet in ‘TAJIKISTAN‘…8 days of wilderness walking just to find a take-off, and thats before you have even started! Those guys are amazing.

But sometimes its not just nature that gets in the way, but one of natures constructs, politics.Below is part of a report I have just written about my travels this summer, and in this bit about China my wing never even came close to getting let out of the bag….

It’s the 16th of June, and its been a whole day  spent at the police station, before we are transported back along the dirt roads to Wensu, a suburb city of Atsu.

The police had requisitioned the translation services of a primary school teacher in Wensu city, who spoke excellent English. From him I was able to learn that the huge articulated trucks that were traveling out of the mountains carried coal, and suddenly it all made sense, this was why the road was so terribly rutted, and why in the middle of absolutely nowhere there were construction gangs building bridges and pouring cement every kilometer or so. One could only guess at the scale of the mining that was taking place at the end of the road, a place that was meant to be a ‘FOREST BIODIVERSITY PROTECTION AREA’ according to our map!

In Wensu we are questioned again, very politely, and it is made clear that to visit the Tien Shan mountains needs official permission, and to visit without this results in a 5000 Y fine, which will be waived this time !

Can I have your passports Sir? You won’t be wanting to leave tonight?

But it was not the threat of fines that persuaded us we should leave China.When we were first ushered into the reception rooms of the large police building, which had many floors and basements, there was a door left open which led to an adjoining room. Through the door we looked face to face with a young Yugur girl, manacled by the wrists and ankles to a heavy steel high chair. We looked at her, cowardly suppressing our rising shouts of indignation, whilst she just blackly stared back, unseeing, not showing any sign of surprise at seeing 2 tall western men who normally created some sort of spectacle. We could only guess that she was sedated.It only took a few seconds before angry shouts were issued, the door was slammed,and we were hurried out to the foyer. I could only wonder what may be happening in other less public rooms in this respectable, high street building, let alone elsewhere.

We took the first available transport back towards Kashgar,not a train this time,but a sleeper bus.This was a mistake, since the train had not been searched once we had boarded, whereas the coach was stopped every 2 hours throughout the night.Often, the passengers were asleep, it was 3 in the morning and dark, so the police would board the bus to wake everyone up, and if a torch shone in ones face was not enough, them a blow to a limb instead was effective. The seething resentment of the passengers, those citizens of the Peoples Republic of China,was clearly evident in those small hours of the morning when they had been rudely awakened, and our western faces were well hidden by the darkness.

Standing in the cold of the desert, scrum queuing with a hundred other people trying to catch the officials attention as one might the barman on a packed Saturday night, whilst simultaneously attempting to avoid the stinging sand of a dust storm, a man starts shouting over the mayhem in a crazy intelligent voice, gaining my attention.

“So how are you enjoying China” he calls ironically…”are they treating you well”.

He takes my passport and pushes it into the policemans hand, and then when I am done, all the seemingly pointless data taken, he walks back with me, through the darkened rows of vehicles, telling me the truth of this ‘place’, saying all the things that we had so far failed to hear.But at 3 in the morning, disorientated, and half expecting to never find the coach that was maybe no longer still here in this desert blackness, I fail to respond, fail to embrace his possible honesty. I feel paranoid about his sincerity, fearful he might be an agent of the state. I am realising what it might be like to be Chinese.

So that was our trip…finished with the wing still in the bag.But I want to go back, so if anyone out there knows how we might get permission, to get to find a take off in what might be the paragliding mecca hidden in the middle of the worlds biggest continent,please let me know.There is no way I want to have an 8 day walk like Phillipe, only to be asked for my passport by a police official and turned away.

What we were missing…flying through terrain like this!

Shispar…May 2008

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CA4G28fM_eI

I had gone out to Pakistan with Alun Hughes the film-maker, to fly in the mighty mountains of the Karakorum with our lightweight Ozone Magnum. Eddie Colfox was with us, flying his Vega 11, as was Brad Sander, on an Ozone Vulcan.

The conditions were not initially great, making our plan of a gradual acclimatization to altitude impossible - we were wanting to go to 7000m + without having the hassles of using supplementary oxygen.
And not only did we want to physiologically acclimatize ! We needed to psychologically get used to this place too. Although Alun was no stranger to icy big mountains, having spent time on the north col of Everest filming, and flying through the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE in western Nepal with me, he was going to need time to adapt to the concept of being catapulted to those scary rarefied heights in less time that it takes most of us to get in the car and go to the supermarket.

But it wasn’t to be.With only one flight under his belt or in his camera, along came a good day that I wasn’t going to waste, and it was full bore to the summits.
I had seen the Shispar col before in 2006, and it was on my list. It was at least 6100m, on the west flank of the beautiful 7611m mountain Shispar Sar. From the Hunza valley its hard to see Shispar, but from the back side, on the north, it’s one of those prominent giants, a mighty candle egging my fragile combustible paraglider in for a closer look. It was as simple as that. You see something that beautiful, and you just want to get as close to it as possible.
But in this case, the only way in, was, as usual, from the sunny south side, up an 18 km glacier, over the high col (the lowest point), then glide round the mountain along the Passu and Batura glaciers, gawking at the spectacular views. Forget it I wont , thanks to Alun who could somehow keep it all together and get it down on film.

The Magic Line…..June 2008

(for me to do this route I had to seize the day, and fly with the magical words of Amy Macdonald ringing out in my ears…”if you really wanted to ,there is nothing left to do…lets start a band”…I heard it all the way)

Mad as it would have seemed at the time, the Shispar col was just a beginning.
I had first seen my magic line in 2000 whilst looking at maps, dreaming of new routes that a paraglider might fly.
It was totally obvious, a massive taunting 130km white line, linking the 2 major places of the Karakorum, Hunza to Skardu.
The first glacier was the Barpu, 25km long, leading up to Spantic ,7027m high. And then, on the other side, the Chogo lungma glacier, a big, high, 40 km long monster, and one that you would be dropping into from the wrong end… the top.
To me, it became the ultimate defined task, a route defined by the landscape, a flight that to ‘not make goal’ was unthinkable.
I tried it twice in 2001, but got almost nowhere, and started to think that my ‘magic line’ was impossible.
I began thinking of the Hispar instead.

As were Phillipe Nodet and Julien Wirtz, who in 2006 droppeded into it from the other end, making a dash towards Hunza.It was inspired, brilliant and audacious flying, pushing forward the frontiers of a crazy crazy game. It upped the limits of what I thought was feasible, and got me looking more closely at the sky.
And then I saw it one evening.
My ‘magic line’ had a mirrored reflection, a transient cloud street that set up late in the day, showing the free ride to Spantic. After that, I reasoned, a very long glide down the Chogo lungma, and I would be back to safety.
But I didn’t calculate for the strong sink caused by the north wind once I had crossed into the lee, or the fresh new snow that had brought down the snowline, giving me much further to glide.

I should have calculated a lot of new things, but thats what happens, we are all still learning, bringing a new piece of information back home at the end of the day. Hopefully !

I shall not forget that flight,ever,it is seared into my mind.

Bir. Oct/Nov 2008

Phew….its time for some enjoyement, back to the green and inhabited valleys of the Indian himalaya.
This autumn, I’m flying with Jim and Eddie of himalayan sky safaris http://himalayanskysafaris.com/
in Bir, where everyday its flyable, everyday its relaxed, soaking up the veiws in this untouched corner of the world. I cant wait to get lots of flying in. To fill up before winter.

And I have been back looking at maps again, starting to dream …. about those valleys over the back…valleys without glaciers…full of welcoming faces.Bring on Bir !

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CA4G28fM_eI