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June 12. Bleu sky again and the taxi driver is late picking us up. Once on the launch site it is clear that we have wasted a few hours of flying time. The thermals are ripping through and the sky fills rapidly with puffies. It is Saturday so we have spectators. Dimitry gets dragged on launch and ends up in Mukrims glider doing some damage to his competition lines. We all take of and get hovered up to 5000 metres in now time .I don’t get the time to put my feet in the stirrup till I get to cloud base. Im in a hurry so I lead the way crossing the Chitral valley. The first part of the flight is going to be a repeat of the flight of two days ago so I fly straight to the thermal points I remember. The clouds are forming on the mountain range one valley back from our previous flight so I cross over into the next valley and fly from thermal to thermal, not bothering to climb out to cloud base. The thermals are very strong and entering them is like riding a wild bull. Several times my glider collapses and opens with a bang so loud, I have to look up to see if it hasn’t exploded. I get eight meters a second sustained climbs and Grey goes two better with 10 meters a second, averaged out over 10 seconds. On the glides I get time to adjust my gloves and to take in the scenery but over all it is rather intents flying. The views are spectacular. From our vantage point it is hard to get a grip on the scale of things. The valleys are at 1500 to 2000 metres altitude and when we get below 4000metres we feel that we are getting low. The valley is about 40km long and ends in a glaciated saddle at an altitude of about 5500 metres, We fly over the saddle into another valley that runs east for about 20km. At this stage Im flying with Dimitry, Grey is about 10km behind us and Mukrim has gone down to land in Chitral to repair his broken line. I cross the saddle with 150metres to spare and have to choose between the left and the right side of the valley. I choose left and get totally drilled. I drop like a brick and see a premature end to my flight looming together with a monster walk out through this desolate rock strewn desert. I manage to cross over to the south side and soar some little ridges on the 40km plus wind that is blowing down the valley. I jump from ridge to ridge flying back wards in dynamic air mixed with the occasional thermal. Then the valley floor drops away sharply where it connects with the next valley system. I stay very close to the true right hand side of the valley and find the life saving thermal that takes me all the way to 6200 metres and safety. Dimitry came over the saddle and chose the right side and flew straight into a thermal that kept him well above 4500 metre. He joined me in my life saving thermal and together we spiralled upwards. Then he glides of towards Mastuj with bad stomach cramps and ends his flight there. Now I look down on the Shandur pass and into the Ghizer valley that runs all the way to Gilgit. For the first time I get an impression of the scale of the landscape. Im at 6200 meters, some 2000 metres higher than Mt Blanc, but here Im soaring around the summits. The snow covered peaks dominate the view in all directions as far as the eye can see and the valleys, far below, are coloured by a patchwork of bright green irrigated fields surrounded by endless acres of barren rock. It is about 3 in the afternoon and I should have another 4 hours to fly the 200km to Gilgit. I try to raise Grey on the radio but get no reply. I don’t know if he made it over the pass so now it is each one for him self. With a light tail wind Im doing 45 to 50kmh and make good progress. The sky ahead is over developing but there is still enough sunshine on the ground to provide a climb every 10 km or so. Then Grey comes through on the radio. He has had a similar experience as me, coming over the pass, and is some 30km behind me. The kilometres tick away and Im getting in a rhythm of sorts, climbing, gliding, climbing, gliding. Every time I get over 5000 metres I turn on my Oxygen system to get a little squirt of gas with every breath. Its effect is almost instant and most noticeable in the fact that my hands and feet warm up again. At the 120km point the cloud cover increases and the climbs become more difficult. Grey comes back on the radio saying he is going to land. I push on another 10 km and then I fly into a headwind and strong sink. All of a sudden the ridges have rotor and I sink below 3500metres. Ahead the valley becomes narrow and it looks like the potential landing spots are far and few between. I try to get Grey on the radio to tell him that Im turning back to join him but I get no reply. At 130km I turn around and soar the cliffs in the valley breeze to maximize my return distance. I can see the poplar trees slowly swaying in the wind and my GPS indicates a 15kmh tailwind. I line up a nice green field and hover upwind for several minutes to check for gusts and power lines. It’s a real spider web down there but the wind is constant. My hovering has attracted the attention of everyone in the village and I land on the road in frond of the usual crowd. I pack quickly with the help of the English speaking local and Im ready just as a Jeep drives up. I get a ride on the roof and leave the stunned villagers behind. I hope Grey has kept his radio on so I will not drive past him. Every few minutes I try to raise him but get no reply. Then I come around a corner in the valley and my radio jumps to life. I tell Grey Im on a Jeep and instantly he sais that he can see me. I expect to see him on the ground but he is nowhere to be seen. He urges me to stop the car so I do. The car leaves and Im in front of a little shop on a empty road in the middle of nowhere. Grey is not answering my calls anymore and for a moment I start to question my sanity. Did I really talk to him? Why is he not answering? I climb the ladder that is standing against the shop wall and try again. A flustered Grey comes on the radio. He has just landed flying back wards and has taken a tumble. He was still flying when I came around the corner and he saw me on the roof of the Jeep. All is well and after a few minutes I walk into his welcoming crowd. While Grey packs his gear I stop every vehicle that is going back up the valley to get a ride to the nearest place to spent the night. Not that there is a lot of traffic though. The third car is a taxi, actually going in the opposite direction but for the price of a bus ticket from Islamabad to Chitral he will take us 10km up the road. We are tired and don’t fancy getting stuck where we are, so we pay the 500 rupees. The Lake view hotel in Phander is just perfect for us. Situated on a high point above the lake we have a great view over the valley. The public bus passes the next day at 2 o’clock to take us on the 5 hour ride to Mastuj where we spent another night and then take a taxi Jeep back to our hotel in Chitral. Cross country flying here is a test of endurance. We decide that our next flights are going to be tri angles or out and returns to cut out the retrieve drive.

June 15. We wake up to a grey sky. Dimitry is in a bad way with the squirts so we all have another day to recover. With a copy of Dimitries computer programmes we figure out a way to download Greys track logs and the day is spent eating, washing, sleeping and a few hours on the internet. It’s a tough life! Have I told you yet how delicious the Mangos are around here? We eat kilos of the fruits and are now officially addicted to Mango shakes.

June 16 Mukrim has been away for 4 days now without news and we are starting to ask ourselves what can be the matter. Im of the opinion that there is nothing we can do and going to the police would only complicate matters for us. These mountains are so vast and rugged, a search is totally futile. We have demanded the opinion of the local pilots on of which has connections with the police. We have decided to formally sound the alarm on Sunday when he will have been away for a week. It is another non flyable day so Grey and Dimitry go to the hot pools a few hours drive from chitral. I need some time on my own away from every body so I stay at home.