Hi all. Im back in internet country but the connection is still to slow to send pictures. enjoy reding our adventures of the last ten days or so.26 June. The day took a sad turn, literally. Grey, Mukrim and Farhad went to the launch area at the summer palace where Farhad took off first. For some reason he flew away from the launch initiated a right hand turn and did a 355 degree turn into the hill. He took the impact with his right hand side and broke his shoulder and wrist. All the pilots of the valley were in town for a club meeting so he got plenty of support. It is sad and frightening to see the state of the local hospital. It is filthy and run down and will make me try harder to stay out of it. Grey and Mukrim did the rescue and were exhausted, a glide down into the valley is all they could manage.
27 June. It is Sunday today and there is not enough people to fill up a taxi. We are stuck in Chitral for one more day. The conditions are wearing us down. Our diet is not complete with all dairy products and fresh vegetables missing. The quality of the air in this town is not that great either with the burning of garbage and wood smoke. We have all had infected air ways and the usual stomach problems.
28 June. It took hours to fill up a taxi so that we had to wait in the taxi stand to hold our place. In the morning we missed out on an earlier taxi because we didn’t stay around. It gets unbearable hot and it is two o’clock before we get going. We pay for an extra seat so we have more room and we don’t have to wait any longer to fill up the car. The cushioning on my bud has worn a bid thin over the last five weeks and the five hours drive from Chitral to Mastuj is taking its toll on my derrière. The temporary bridge that we have crossed twice, since we have been in Chitral, is no longer. I didn’t get the full story but it either collapsed or washed away. It means an extra 15Km drive to the next bridge which in these parts means another hours drive. We check in in one of the guesthouses and go to the police station to write down our detail. We also find out that next days bus is totally booked out so that we have an extra day in this village. Our room has a garden court yard with some cherry trees laden with fruit which just happen to be ripe at the moment…..
In the evening I feel feverish and hit the sack early. We are in rural Pakistan here and we are meeting a different level of society. Here the young people want to leave. The economic situation is near hopeless and the administration is corrupt. It is tough to tell them the truth, there is very little chance that they will ever be able to get a visa or afford a plane ticket. Who M I to tell them to stay here and fight the system from within. I knew it already but questions like this emphasise again how lucky Im to have been born in Europe.
June 29. Just as well the bus was full. A days rest before we do the next 7 hours to the Yasin Valley is probably not a bad idea. I spent the day lounging around in the garden and go for a walk around the place. Im not feeling that great, which must have an impact on the way I see things. The place looks in decline with lots of the irrigation channels in disrepair and houses abandoned. It is still a green oasis in an environment of barren rock and the cherries tasted good.
June 30. The bus leaves at 6am so we are up nice and early. The ride takes us over the chandur pass, famous for its highest polo ground in the world, and then down into the valley that leads all the way to Gilgit. Iv taken my sleeping bag to sit on so the ride is a little more comfortable but I should have taken my earplugs as well. The chitraly music is very repetitive and monotonous to our ears and it is way to loud in the bus.
Grey has been doing the social networking and when he mentioned to Farhad that we intended to go to Yasin he got the address of some relative that has a summer house there. We got of the bus in Gupis and after a few phone calls we are in a taxi and on our way to the father of the chief of justice of Gilgit. We leave the narrow valley behind and the most spectacular landscape reveals it selves once the valley opens up. Snow covered peaks and rugged crags all around and the whole valley lush and green. It looks like Para Gliding heaven to me. The taxi drops us off at a walled property and stepping through the gate we enter a beautiful garden with roses and cherry trees laden with fruit. Nobody speaks more then a few words of English so the situation is a bid awkward at first but a grand child is summoned from somewhere to be our interpreter and things get organised. Bowls of cherries appear, thee gets served and introductions are made. It appears that we are staying with the father of the chief justice for one night and that we will move to his sons place tomorrow once that one has arrived from Gilgit. Im totally out of it, the bacteria are playing havoc with my guts and I have no energy left. A visit to the doctor next morning gets organised for me and I sleep away the rest of the afternoon. Were we with the descendants of the Chitraly royal family before, now we are with the descendants of the royal family of Varshigoom now called Jasin. There is some great flying potential here, the only thing is that there is no roads up the sides of the valley so to reach any take off we will have to walk. Iv gotten to weak to spent that kind of energy but Grey and Mukrim scout out some potential launch and landing sites.
July 1. In the morning a taxi gets organised and I get taken to the local hospital to have a consultation with the GP. I wile away the day in the vicinity of the bathroom and Grey and Mukrim go for some walks around the place. In the afternoon the chief justice arrives and a car get organised to take us to his house. He speaks perfectly English and we learn a great deal about the history of the valley. All rulers lost their power in the seventies when Bhuto declared that all people should be governed by democratic government, al the kingdoms got abolisched. The royals got banned from their lands and deported elsewhere. Now they are back but” apparently” have not much to say anymore in local government. In the valley alone there is some 1400 descendants of the royal family which, Im sure, must create quiet a power house in the local government. In the family summer residence we get a big room with en suite bathroom, tiled and clean, alas no hot water as the boiler is broken. Apart from the awkwardness that we are guests that have invited themselves and that the host doesn’t want anything in return, things are good. We get fed and anything we need gets organised.
July 2. The medication seems to work and my appetite has returned. I still feel very weak though and need a few more days to recuperate. Grey and Mukrim get picked up by the taxi at 9.30 and drive to the bottom of the hill. Our host has organised a few porters to carry their bags up the mountain. At noon I see them launch from about 400 metres above the valley floor and soon they climb to cloud base. Mukrim lands near the house in the riverbed after two hours and Grey flies a 60km tri angle and lands after 4 hours near the house we had stayed the first night. I borrow a bicycle and ride the 5km or so to where Grey is. By the time I arrive he has just finished packing and we get ushered into the walled family compound, away from the huge crowd that has gathered. Inside we sit in the traditional family room which is a rectangle with a square in the middle, formed by for carved wooden pillars. This is the place where the whole family lives in the winter. The men sleep on one side of the square and the women on the other. Inside the square is a stone cooking platform with a hole in the ceiling right above it for the smoke to escape.
The ceiling is made of poplar beams laid in a diamond pattern three or four layers deep.
It must get pretty cosy in the winter as in this family alone there are 8 adults, 16 grand children and the grand parents.
Food gets brought out for us and then thee and cherries. Grey shows his photos to all and he is the man. A taxi get organised for him and I cycle back home. People around here are not used to seeing foreigners especially not on a bicycle so I get a lot of attention on the way. That may also be because the kids in the compound have decorated me with roses so I look a bid like a dandy on a bike.
Grey’s flying stories are of massive 7000 metre high mountains and glaciers and many valley’s, I will have to be better tomorrow!
July 3. This time it is Mukrim who stays behind. He has been neglecting a cold and the last two nights he has been coughing his lungs out. We have banished him to the insolating cell so he can cough as much as he likes without keeping us awake. This morning he is feeling to weak. Im not yet back to my former self, which a few people much be happy about, but with a strong local boy carrying my bag up the hill, I can manage the flying. We make good time and before 11am we are on a spot about 500metres above the valley. Thermals are coming trough constantly and the sky is already filled with big cumulus. We promise each other to stay together and explore one of the side valleys to try and get close to one of the 7000metre peaks. However the sky gods have another idea in mind. After Take off, Grey finds a good thermal that takes him a few hundred metres above the launch site. When I Launch the sun disappears behind a cloud and it takes me a lot longer to get away. By the time Im up, Grey has sunk out low. We repeat this for the next hour till I have had enough. The wind is a lot stronger today and the shear level where the thermals meet the wind is not a nice place to be. Even though this shear level is at 4700metres we climb trough it often enough. When we get below 4000 it feels like we are getting low, the valley still 1500metres lower but the immensity of the landscape distorts all perspective. Our radio communications are not very professional and with those big gloves on not easy either. I decide to fly my own flight and cross the main valley to the windward side of the mountains. By now this is also the sunny side and the thermals are strong at some stage my Vario shows a constant 10 metres per second. I fly the length of the valley to Darkot where the glider decides to do its own thing and folds itself up, changes its mind, opens up again and throws in a little pirouette before giving me back the control. All this pretty much out of the bleu in a few seconds and to close to the summit of a 6000 metres peak to feel comfortable. And to think that I had just put away my video camera, bummer, would have made some interesting footage…… The cloud base has risen to 6000 metres like yesterday but with the stronger west wind the flying is not as good. After 4 hours I have had enough and glide to the landing field. The people have asked us to land near their house again and Grey has already gathered a big crowd with his landing. I have plenty of height to burn so I throw in a few spirals and wing overs and the crowd goes nuts. Grey is doing the crowd control and gets everybody to the side of the landing field before I land. When I touch down there must have been two hundred kids and adults running towards me and I land to a spontaneous applause. I get just enough time to bunch up my glider and swing it over my shoulder before they reach me. I walk straight into the walled compound and the door closes behind me leaving all the onlookers behind for Grey. The rest is a repeat of yesterdays, Cherries, delicious food and green thee and the smiles of 16 grand children and a grandpa to top it all of.
July 4. Today was set aside as a rest day for Grey and Mukrim which was perfect timing. It was windy and overcast in the morning so flying was not possible. Grey needs to go and see a doctor for the same reason as me and Mukrim is still coughing away. It is Sunday so Grey will have to wait till tomorrow before he will be able to go further then a few steps away from the toilet. We pass the day doing absolutely nothing and wonder how we manage. Somehow time passes and we are not part of it. Breakfast, lunch and dinner get served on time and we don’t have to think about anything. Yesterday we heard rumours and today we got confirmation that the one big event of the year, the Shandur polo festival, has been cancelled. The two provinces cant agree on who is responsible for the event and are disputing the boundaries of the province. It is a political game with the people the big losers. Very sad.
July 6. Shajjad from Islamabad still seems to think that there is going to be some sort of event at Shandur pass so he is driving up with his bus and 25 pilots. They have been asked to put up an air show and fly into the festival grounds. I had decided long ago that it is not going to be my sort of scene so I had decided to move on to Karimabad. However, after our little outing today I have decided to stay in this valley for a few more days. We hired a taxi and drove to the head of the valley. We took plenty of photos and even watching them now, just having been there, they don’t reflect what we just witnessed. The valley ends in a sort of enormous amphitheatre formed by 6000 metre high mountains. The summits are draped in fluted snow fields that end in big hanging glaciers. Further down the main glaciers collect all the falling ice and snake down to the valley like giant high ways. Around the village the fields are an emerald green and the sky was dark bleu. Its all on such a huge scale and such a intense, unspoiled beauty that it is hard to describe. The whole area so asks to be explored from the air that I cant leave this place without having a go at it. Again the people are very friendly and on my walk I had to refuse their offers for cups of thee several times or risk blowing up my bladder.
June 7. This morning Im going it alone. Grey and Mukrim are leaving for Chandur at lunch time, so I take the taxi to the bottom of the hill by myself. The conditions look great and again we start walking to late. I think this site is on early in the morning and a good launch time would be 10.30. When we walk up, yes Im using a porter again, the thermals come trough strong but by the time Im ready to take off the sun has gone to the side of the hill and thermals are less frequent. It is so bad that I almost bomb out and I have to pull all the tricks out of the bag to stay in the air. The house thermal is not working and it is not soar able. I try my luck further away from the hill and find something to get me back to take off height but then I lose it. I go for drastic measures and fly across a valley onto some scree slopes that are baking in the sun. It is still not convincing and it takes a lot of manoeuvring to work my way up high enough to cross the main valley and finally hit the good stuff. When you only get one shot at the day and you have to walk two hours to get to the launch site there sure is a good incentive to try a bid harder.
From then on it all becomes easy and the next hour to reach the head of the valley is a walk in the park. It looks very feasible to fly close up to those awesome glaciers that we saw yesterday during our excursion by road. Now I just have to make the right choice, or I go wide and follow the sunny sides of the mountains or I go straight across onto these massive walls of ice and hope for some dynamic lift. Small thermal clouds are actually forming on the shady side of the mountain and I decide for the direct route. What a totally awesome spectacle. There is no way to describe it. Im flying over miles and miles of ice and Im thermaling up on some lift generated by the few rocks that are not covered by snow. I glide along the entire north face of this mountain towards a saddle that I arrive just a bid to low at to see what is on the other side. I have not the faintest idea of the lay of the land on the other side and have to make up my route while Im there. I find some lift at the far end of the saddle and get enough height to glide back and get a look over to the other side. I have two seconds to make up my mind whether to go across this pass or not. In those two seconds I see a massive wall of ice, a glacier at the bottom of the valley and a rock face at the sunny side and way down a river that seems to flow to the south. I pop over and immediately regret it. The rocks are not that high above the glacier and the lift generated by them is very broken. The bag of tricks is being called on for the second time today and the prospect of a 3 day walk out keeps me fighting. It works and the reward for this act of, well’ you decide, act of bravery? is a flight to the summit of this 6500metre high monster of ice and rock called Tuy mountain. I get to the sunny side which has more exposed rock and easily thermal to the top. From this altitude the topography of the area is clear and I can see my way back home. It is only 2.30 and I have a “What now” moment. What do you do after such a spectacle? I decide to put the Chandur pass into the “Go To” on my GPS and find that it is only 82km away. I make good progress for the first 15km but then it gets more cloudy ahead. With many more mountains to cross and a totally unknown lay of the land I decide that I have pushed my luck enough for today and head for home. I only have to fly out of this one valley for 15km and I will be home where the cherries and green thee are waiting for me. I cant figure out what is going on with the air. I hid massive sink and headwind, then get propelled up in erratic thermals to fall out of the sky again with a tail wind. The prospect of a landing in this narrow valley looms and the walk out would be a total bummer. I skim the mountain side to catch as many bubbles as I can and slowly get to the mouth of the valley with a sigh of relief. I go on final glide, clear the last power lines with one metre to spare and touch down at the far end of the landing field. My approach was so low that nobody saw me coming and for the first time there are no hordes of kids to deal with. What a totally awesome day!
July 7. I have decided that today is going to be my last day in this piece of heaven. There is much more flying to be done but I somehow don’t need any more. Also I feel that we have stayed with these people for long enough and shouldn’t abuse their hospitality. When Grey and Mukrim left for Chandur I moved back to the house where we spent the first night. The guy that runs the show here is the village police man and the cousin of the chief justice. A guy with quite a bid of status and today was the day that he wanted to show off his European visitor to the village. He speaks hardly any English but goes out of his way to help us. We walked up to the place where the old fort used to be. In the 16th century the sikks came from what is now India and invaded Yasin. A big battle was fought around the fort and thousands of people died. Not much is left of the structure but it still is a great spot with a dominating view over the valley. On our way back we stop by the one hotel in the village to find a group of people that have just finished a 5 day tracking from Chitral to Yasin. The surreal thing is that they are watching the world cup soccer semi final between Uruguay and Holland on TV. Iv been away from the Netherlands long enough to feel impartial but it is still great to see them win. Once back home, after lunch and a siesta I find out that the grand father is not as healthy as he looks. They were going to put him in the same taxi bus as me tomorrow morning to take him to Gilgit.I doubt he would survive the ride. I can afford to pay a private taxi for both of us and it is a way to thank them for their hospitality, I also will not need to be on the side of the road at 5am tomorrow morning to wait for the taxi bus…….
July 8. A transit day today but what a spectacular drive from Gupis to Gilgit. The phandar river turnes into a big volume of water that at times get compressed into a narrow gorge and thunders down rapids. The small green irrigated islands of cultivated fields contrast sharply with the barren rock all around. It is a lot warmer in this valley and by the time we get to Gilgit it is outright hot. I check in into one of the better hotels in Gilgit and enjoy the first non Pakistani meal in 7 weeks. Chicken sweet and sour never tasted that good. I also have a proper bath room and enjoy my first real shower with warm water in seven weeks as well. Till now it has been mainly buckets of cold water and the occasional cold shower. It is such a handicap to know about all those luxury things like hot showers and different types of food. Without the knowledge of existence of those things the yearning for them would not be there and acceptance of conditions or situations not an issue. I sometimes wonder how different life would have been if I wouldn’t have known about sex….
Anyway, where was I. After a late lunch a great shower and a bid of world cup on TV I venture out in the late afternoon heat to find a place to fill up my Oxygen bottle and buy some supplies for the bus trip to Karimabad tomorrow. Again the people are supper helpful and in no time I find the person that supplies the whole area with Oxygen. As the bottle in his shop doesn’t give enough pressure he takes me to his store room where he has hundreds of cylinders. My connector doesn’t quiet fit on his bottles so he fits another one on my setup and away I go. With a full bottle I can have a go at the altitude record or, failing that, at least stay warm above 6000 metres for an hour or two. Rakaposhi with its 7788 metres is visible from Gilgit and Karimabad is right at its base.