An Unexpected Picnic

June 16^th, 2012

I’ve been trying to max out my paragliding experience in Bir as it is a world class site so I should take advantage of it while I’m here.  So today was like one of my many other “work days” - I got up around 8am, checked the weather and after fuelling up with some breakfast I hopped in a taxi with some other solo pilots to head up to launch.  Lately I’ve had some amazing flights up by the big snow capped mountains and so my confidence in the air has been steadily growing…but today I received a bit of a reality check.

Two other solo pilots, Thomas from Switzerland and Ron (originally from the US and then the UK), were with me and we all took off around the same time.  I followed Ron towards the peak back behind launch.  Just recently Ron and I shared a fantastic flight together by the summit of Mill’s Peak so I decided to follow Ron today as he sometimes ventures to places I wouldn’t normally go and that’s been part of my game of late.  I was less than a kilometre behind him and a couple of hundred meters lower as I saw him hook into a nice thermal near the peak and blast up above it.  As I cruised over to that spot I could not locate that thermal…sink, sink, sink…  Hmm, where was it?  I turned to the right, heading east along the back rim hoping to find some lift.  Nope.  I ridge soared just above a big saddle shaped grassy patch in the forest for 3-4 minutes while praying to the thermal gods.  “C’mon, just give me that one bump!”  I could hear a few dogs frantically barking at me from below and could see many sheep lying about near the local shepherd’s rudimentary shelter covered with blue plastic.  Looking forward all I could see were trees covering all of the land down the snaking valley.  I was only 2-300 meters above launch and 3 kilometres back from it so a glide out in this oncoming wind didn’t seem like a good idea…I’ll end up landing in a tree somewhere I’m sure.  “Stay above this emergency landing field Dave and wait patiently for some lift.”  Well, it never arrived…

Flying towards the peak behind launch (the tree covered one...not the snow capped mountain way in the background:

I landed safely in the field with my biggest concern being the 4-5 dogs barking at me from 50 meters away.  How much do they love their flock?  Do they think I’m a serious sheep-napper that has descended from the skies in a sneak attack?  Thankfully no, they kept their distance but that didn’t prevent me from picking up a few small rocks for defence as I began hiking out after packing up my wing.  I’m glad I didn’t have to use them.

Flying above my "emergency landing zone":

Safely down on the ground:

Although I did get close to some rocks:

The walk along the ridgeline had some beautiful views of the valley to the north (which is somewhat remote…takes about a day to get out of there if you land out).  I decided that I would take this opportunity to hike up to the top peak of the ridge behind the Billing launch…might as well; I’m pretty close to it already.  I startled a shepherd lying in the grass trying to fix some problem with his beedie cigarette.  In my minimal Hindi I tried to ascertain the easiest way up to the peak and then back to a dirt road I could see lower down but did not glean any earth shattering information from him, he seemed more interested in returning to his smoke and relaxation.

My goal: the peak on the right:

< span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The valley to the north:

I am a man who stares at goats: 

The last push to the summit:

Within an hour I reached the peak and much to my surprise, I was not the only one there.  Eleven local teenage girls, 16 to 18 years old, were in the midst of a picnic!  I dropped my paraglider backpack and walked over to introduce myself.  They were from a small village called Baragaran which we could see down in the valley to the north and one of them quickly offered me a chapatti with some veg sabji.  Well thank you very much!  I hadn’t anticipated to be hiking as much as I had today and all I had were some oatmeal cookies (which I later offered to them for dessert). 

The girls at the summit:

Posing with one of the less shy ones:

Their English was about as good as my Hindi but we were able to fumble our way through some discourse.  I pointed out to them the clearing where I had landed and that two of my friends were still in the air just as Ron came flying overhead.  I had heard Thomas trying unsuccessfully to talk to Ron on the radio earlier so I assumed that his batteries were dead.  I quickly told the girls to yell out Ron’s name to get his attention on my command:  “Ek, do, teen (1,2,3)…RON!!!”  But our effort was in vain as he was quite high up and also upwind from us.  I did find out later that Ron had seen us up there, but didn’t realize it was me.

The girls passing around my cookies:

My goodbye waves:

After the lovely impromptu picnic (at least for me), I sussed out where I could launch from.  The main peak certainly wasn’t an option but there was a lower peak about a hundred meters away.  I bid farewell to the girls and hiked down to check it out.  It was steep enough in some spots and there was a narrow rocky gorge that could work but there was a plethora of rocks, boulders and small grabby bushes just waiting to snag my paraglider lines.  The girls had walked over to the area and were interested in seeing me take off and in the end some of them volunteered to help out by holding up my wing.  I have to admire their dedication as over the course of the next hour I reset up my wing in three different locations and had a handful of aborted launches.  Unfortunately during one of those aborts a line on my wing broke…my first one in 10 years of flying!  It was the outer left line, not a load bearing one and I decided that it would be okay to fly regardless.

Looking back at where I landed...it's the small grassy patch on the ridge in the middle of the picture:

Looking back at the young women on the top peak:

Looking for my "runway":

My first launch spot...not a good choice, too many rocks:

My helpers waiting patiently:

By this time I was drenched in sweat and I could tell the girls were ready to see me off and begin their hike back to their village.  We waited and waited for a cycle of wind to come up the hill and finally when one did I popped up the wing to their gleeful cheers.  I spun around to face forward and was quickly lifted up just as I stepped on a small boulder.  The right side of my wing folded inwards and the cheers from the young women immediately ceased as they must have feared the worst.  I wasn’t as concerned as the paraglider was still flying and I leaned to the left as I pumped the wingtip out and then once again heard the cheers from below.  I rocketed up, hardly spending anytime in the narrow gulley and waved as I flew off.

I looked up at the left side of my wing and the tip of it flapped slowly in the wind thanks to the missing line.  Strangely I had to apply a bit of left brake to keep flying straight (odd as I would have thought I would need some right brake as the broken side should have created more drag).  I decided to put on big ears as that made my wing symmetrical.  Big ears is a descent technique yet as I flew straight out towards the valley I climbed up an extra 800 meters and had to boat around for some time before finally landing safely in Bir.

It was definitely a different “workday” than usual…but pleasant nonetheless.  Thanks for the picnic girls!