12-27-07
Happy Holidays from Pokhara Nepal
Here's what I've been up to since Pakistan. Overland to India with 4 gliders (2 being carried for other people) to arrive in India and see if I still could enjoy flying at conditions somewhat less spectacular than Pakistan! The result, flying does it for me, still turns me on even in areas that I'm familar with, have flown before and the thermals are slower and cloudbase lower. As always the other pilots can be a big part of the flying experience and I shared some great flights with others, doing a birthday Bivy flight with some new friends on the way to Dharmasala (Brad birthday boy from Australia was living in Canada along with Jim from Canada, Morgan from US, running into a friend from 2 years ago in Dharmsala (Dave Weber from WEMT course in CA) then to return a couple days later and share a tandem with him, meeting John Silvester and sharing our mutual love and respect for the people and flying in Pakistan, catching up with friends and hearing about their summers while proclaiming myself the ambassador for flying in Pakistan and getting a lot of people interested (I hope!) These are just a few highlights from the top of my head as I write this.

The fall season was pretty good for flying this year in Bir and although October sounded like it was better I managed to snag one good day in November and pop over the back to Manali. A day similar to others I've had in during autumn conditions with very few clouds a weak inversion and high base. Realized how much the time in Pakistan has taught me as I stayed warm and very relaxed getting to 5500 meters and taking the high road to Manali. Actually didn't go all the way to Manali as I had an errand to run in Naggar, at the home of Ajay and Vinay. Remember the Honda I bought for Michael when we did our motorcyle trip around Ladakh in August? Well turns out my plan of keeping that and selling my Enfield wasn't going to work due to it's shorter wheelbase and lack of luggage rack for carrying a ton of gear so I asked Ajay to help me sell it. If anyones been pissed off traveling through India and getting cheated by the local well I hope you've also had the pleasure to experience some of the really great Indians that are all over as well. I picked up my money enjoyed the hospitality on Ajays family and a very refreshing visit with a sober Vinay then made a run to Manali to look for a used Enfield for Brad (from the birthday bivy flight from here on to be known as Dingo), with the money I now had I found a suitable bike for Dingo and returned to Bir. you see Dingo has just taken a year holiday from the restaurant business and upon finding out I was traveling with glider on motorcycle was immediately hooked by the idea. So now the story is 2 Brad's on Enfields both traveling with tandem and solo gliders on their way to Pokhara, oh and get this we just happen to have matching gloves. 5 days later we've arrived, haha if only it were that simple, getting separated a couple times, Dingos bike having the top end off 3 times, Dingo getting charged by wild elephant, I was actually pretty suprised we did make it. For anyone who hasn't done it traveling by bike is amazing frusterating, fucking scary and absolutely memorable, do it and you won't forget it.

So that's it for now, look for my next post to hear about my experience teaching and getting involved in Parahawking, I've been having some amazing flights with birds recently..

9 day push

I know I've said this before and so you might get tired of hearing it or you might not believe me but I've just had the most incredible flying of my life. I think some senses might have been permanently overloaded I may not be able to experience the world the same again. I do know that I still have the ability to appreciate how lucky I am, how fortunate to have these opportunities and to have such an incredible Father. I really feel blessed and so fortunate to be alive, to be here in Pakistan, and to be a pilot.

So first the numbers, 9 consecutive days flown from October 11th to 19th. 5 tandems with my Dad for 8 hrs added to 4 solo flights makes 25 hrs airtime. During the tandems I worked on my high wind launch technique while my Dad worked on protecting himself as we were dragged around the hill! No, he has a great attitude and our launches have gotten much smoother. We treated them as instructional tandems and covered a good flight briefing before each flight considering weather and flight hazards. During the flight I was able to explain some theory of flight, how to control the wing, how to thermal and how to make cross country decisions. It was nice to have him fly part of the time so I could warm my hands up, I would fold my hands under my arms and just occasionally shout, "Control the pitch, Damn it!" He was able to experience the sensation I am so enthralled with of hooking a strong thermal and watching the ground fall away below us as the mountains and glaciers reveal themselves when we climb above the ridge line. And quite a view we had as one flight we reached 5400 meters and another 5650! That higher flight he experienced some hypoxia and we had to end the flight early but once we were coming in to land he recovered with no problems. We also covered frontal and assemetric collapse recovery and spiral entry and exit. More than a learning experience it was an incredible time that we shared, one day he commented, "I am beginning to understand why you like it here so much" and now he knows that no matter how much we can try to explain to other people what this is like it just cannot be understood until it is experienced.

And as for my experience? Well like so many times in the past few months I feel I have had something happen that is just absolutely unreal and beyond description.
On the 16th of October I flew around the Tirich Mir mountain. This is a 7708 meter mountain and at my highest during the flight I was 7300 (Almost 24,000 feet). What was interesting was to be well over 6000 but having so much rock and ice around me that I felt like I needed another thermal in a hurry! I was able to pick a day with very little wind, 4 previous attempts I was turned back before being able to work around to the west side due to strong wind or cloud development, because of the nature of the flight and the light wind that day I don't actually think it was that technically challenging but for a couple hours it was quite commiting. The photo on this post is from the East side of Tirich mir after completing the circuit, I flew from left to right around the opposite side finishing above launch to take the picture then glide back to town. I am the first pilot to complete this circuit but that has more to do with the fact I've the only pilot who's flown here in good conditions rather than my skills. Now I've been joined by 2 very experienced Swiss pilots who are both completely impressed with this site and Pakistan in general. Flying with other pilots and having something other than myself or the mountains to take pictures of has been great.

From reading this you could get the impression that paragliding in big mountains is my life and defines me, for me it is still just a great way to live, I do focus on some goals like getting up and going flying but all that happens on the way, who I meet and spend time with, what I've learned about the culture here and what I've learned about myself is really the true benefit of the experience. And here in Pakistan the interactions with locals and travel in the country is as interesting as the flying.

As my Dad was leaving yesterday he was already planning a return trip, so am I for next Spring/Summer. I'm curious how much interest I can generate between now and then and I have wonderful visions of sharing these flights with other pilots and seeing what really good pilots can do with this place! So... Who's coming??

Past Present and Future

Well, what to even say? I spent August in Ladakh with a great friend (Michael) who I hadn't done anything with in almost 4 years. We motorcyled around some unreal scenery and spent some time on foot as well. With barely a pause after he left I returned on my own to Pakistan sharing the joy of flight with my tandem glider (locals and foreigners). Now I'm traveling with my Dad and a French friend (Freddy) who I met here in July. Weather is crap and fall is fast approaching but for sure some good days are coming and you know what that means. For the future I will return through India and to Nepal to continue flying and try to take it to the next level. Desire to return to the US is non-existant so I'll be using my paragliding skills to try and earn some money.

Thank you all for your support and interest in my stories, pictures and videos, it's just a matter of getting some time and energy into posting more because there is still much to show and tell!

Big Time Fun in Booni

July 28th 2007
Currently in Islamabad writing a summary of flying in late June and July. This is going to be hard, what highlights do I choose and what stories do I try to tell? It has been, to say the least, epic and transformative. I realize that my lack of practice with the written word does not serve me very well for this grand task!

Here goes- After a few great flights in the Hunza valley the weather warmed up and flying slowed down. Fernando returned to Spain to work for the summer and in a last minute decision I bought his Ozone Vulcan from him. For a week I was looking at a gorgeous sky, little high puffy clouds, not much wind and great potential. So I was a little confused by the fact that I was on the ground after 10 minutes sweating and cursing in all my warm clothes! I moved on to Nanga Parbat and the Fairy Meadows flying site. My timing was a little off as cloudbase was low and again in 2 flights I didn't find much lift, I had added up 9 flights in a row all bombing out! I was a little confused by the conditions and disappointed in my flying ability with weak conditions. I made the long jeep trip crossing back over Shandur Pass to check out the flying site Fernando and I had found in June near the town of Booni. At the time we both knew the site had potential but maybe not how much. My first day flying I then realized, the site is on a 30km long ridge at 3800 meters between a 7000+ meter range and a 6000+ meter range. The ridge catches morning sun and starts working early so taking off at 11am it wasn't a question of finding lift but rather where to go with all the options! The first day was a 3 hour exploratory flight crossing the 15km valley easily and landing near my hotel in the town of Booni. After a little study using Google Earth I made a plan to try to fly the following day to Shandur Pass. It would be July 7th and the first day of the famous Shandur Polo Festival, 3 days of intense competion at the highest polo ground in the world. The flight was.. epic. And I think I have to leave it at that, often in trying to capture an amazing experience the words distort it and I rather leave in my memory truer to the experience. I arrived over the pass at 6800 meters and even explored a little to the south before landing near the field between a TV camera van and an anti aircraft gun to the cheers from some surprised Pakistani military. The polo started an hour later about the same time a gust front arrived. The action is fast and furious, in the north of Pakistan they play a no rules style of polo. What exactly does no rules mean? Well if if the ball goes through the goal posts that’s a point. Beyond that anything goes; a player could say, use their polo club to hit the ball, or if he felt so inclined use it instead to hit another player in the head. There is no referee and no time outs or stoppage of play other than halftime. In the first 15 minutes of play I saw one horse and rider crash over a baracade, the horse was able to stand but was removed from play, the rider and later a second rider were removed from the field on stretchers. I was surprised to note that there seemed to be no stoppage of play. Later the wind was blowing over 40 miles an hour and a light rain was falling, most of the spectactors were leaving to seek shelter and I thought for sure the game would be postponed or canceled but it continued to the end. And this was day one of the tournament!
The second day I met a dozen Pakistani paragliders from Islamabad and as well a crazy French pilot named Freddy. On the third day the program was for all the paragliders to fly early and land in or near the field before the final match was to start. The assignment I was given at the last moment was to land in the center of the field first and hold up a polo ball to show the crowd, kind of symbolically bringing it from the moutain. Well good enough I thought, it managed to come off really smoothly with time for a few wingovers and spirals and several of us pilots landing about the same time to a cheering crowd.
After the tournament Freddy and I spent a week in Booni each having some of the best flights of our lives. This site is fucking amazing, it should be rated one of the top 10 best sites in the world! Ok bold statement but come out and have a look for yourself! I am looking foreward to returning with more pilots, it’s going to be cool to see what a good group of pilots can do from this site. I have no doubt so long as the weather is flyable no one who comes to Booni will not be disappointed. I guess the big surprise was that the best flying of the trip was in mid July. Consistant days, not much wind and very little overdevelopment. I made a personal best having a 5hr 15 minute flight then a couple days later flying for 6hrs 40 minutes. Out of 7 flights from Booni I would say 6 rate in my top 10 all time most memorable flights! I just can’t say enough about the flying here. I was able to explore the flying over high mountains and glaciers while most of the time being an easy glide out to a safe area. Several times I soared up close to some impressive mountains at 6000 meters with very smooth air. Also the area itself if really interesting with super friendly locals and a very untouristed, relaxed vibe.
Freddy and I gave back a little flying advice to two novice locals in the Chitral area, it gave us a great way to get to know the culture a little better. Now I’m getting to know some of the locals in Islamabad a little better as I wait to get the visa I’ll need for re-entry in September. I need a little time off flying but am already looking foreward to the fall trip here.

Here is an inflight site guide to Booni- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibgKpLlNBPY

And here is a little bit of soaring above town-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRby_foAZ9s

I’ve added a few pictures to my Fliker site and also made a google group for foreign pilots interested to share information about Pakistan flying. I’ve put some Google Earth track logs of my flights up on the google group click here(remember to use the date feature to show different days because these are all my flights from these areas) compare Hunza and Booni and see what you like better!

Hunza Valley

Well it got a bit windy, then it got rainy, then it got better. Fernando and I came to Karimabad in the Hunza Valley. We were dumbstruck by the enormity of the mountains here. The last week it's been flyable. It seems unreal to me what can be done with some fabric and strings, sometimes when flying I can't believe what I'm doing. Just in case anyone is concerned I feel I am making good decisions, flying with a margin of safety especially in new areas. So that being said have a look at the pictures on my photo site under Hunza. There seems to be a difference between my pressure sensitive altimiter and GPS elevation, because the difference gets bigger the higher I get I tend to trust my GPS more, that being said my GPS read over 7000 meters yesterday! My technique to deal with the lack of oxygen is to hyperventilate and hold my breath at about 5000 meters then hop into a 7 meter per second thermal, pop up to cloudbase, take a few photos and go on glide, I recover quite well after a few minutes at 5000 again. Enjoy the photos!

Chitral Pakistan

Some of you have been waiting to hear about Pakistan, wait no more. And I say this not to be dramatic or romantic, though if it comes out sounding romantic or dramatic I don't mind because I mean to be factual and at the same time move you. I feel as everything that has happened in my life has prepared me to reach and react to this point and time in my life. Here- Chitral Pakistan, Now- no other moment but this. I could not have handled it before, that is why I hadn't come, It had to be now, any year earlier I wouldn't have had the flying skills to deal safely with this area, any year earlier I would have been preoccupied with thoughts of work or relationships in my life. One year ago I looked through a guidebook for Pakistan and had seen a track log someone posted on the internet of a flight near Nanga Parbat, this sparked my interest. Looking back I can see how everything since then prepared me to be here, now. Thank god I missed comming to India in the fall because it was a wash. Lucky I didn't decide to get into smokejumping this year because I would have missed this. Anyway enough enough enough, Fuck expecations, and realize that because this is going to create some for you; this is the most amazing place I've ever been. And now the words come hard because how do I back up a statement like that? The people, the history, the diversity, the godamn mountains! The experiences are a bit hard to describe, everything sounds so much cheaper when it comes out in words, in my head the feelings are.. intense.

Good, anyway now I've built it up a little too much for you, perhaps I've peaked your interest? I had a very clear idea the other day during a flight, well two really, one was that I have forgiven all who I have have perceived to have wronged me, I wish them success and happiness in life. The second is that I will bring more people to fly here, either directly on a tour or by sharing information about it so you can travel independently. Yesterday I made a website, it took only a couple hours so it is not by any means professional, but I need to get the word out now while there is time to plan for September October. I think getting people to come on a tour will require word of mouth from you my friends who I've met over the years and traveled with. The logistics are very easy and I've made some helpful well connected local contacts. I'm sure I can provide I good product, that is to provide logistical support to get to an amazing place and connect travelers to the local culture for an amazing experience beyond just the flying. What I'm not sure about is if I can get anyone to sign up! Please help by sharing this with anyone who may be interested. Check out the webpage at http://paraglidepak.blogspot.com/

I guess I haven't talked about the flying at all, I've put some more pictures on my fliker site under Chitral that should give an idea. In 2 midday flights I found the flying to require a lot of attention, because it's so dry thermals are strong but multiple cores and turbulence require a lot of attention to stay with. There is more sink around compared to recent flying in Bir, as well I found different winds at altitude. Getting over 5000 meters was pretty straightforward on both flights, one flight I gained over 6000, the valley floor is 1500 meters. The biggest XC I managed was a 40km out and back. Fernando and I found a new launch two hours up valley from Chitral near a village called Booni. It is at 3800 meters and has a lot of potential however bad weather made for just a top to bottom flight for us. In 3 weeks we've flown only 5 days with several others being flyable but the last 2 weeks unstable weather has meant unflyable days. Many locals say the weather is unusual this year, more rain and clouds than normal. I expect the fall to be a bit more stable than the spring and hopefully less turbulance but still high cloudbase. People have flown over 7000 in late October from the Hunza Valley so Chitral should be the same.

So who's going to be here in the Fall!?

My Video

Well here I am going all high tech, I found a program to stitch photos together and also put a video together to show on youtube. Enjoy...

A Season to Remember- Bir, India Spring 2007

I write this as the cloud cover has given a little relief to the heat and given a break to the epic flying conditions. A moment to catch my breath and catch up before the next phase of this incredible trip begins. I can easily say the last 2 and a half weeks I've had the best flying of my life. This has also been the most enjoyable of my 4 visits to this flying site. I'm staying at a new guesthouse just outside of the Tibetian colony, far enough away that for once barking dogs don't wake me every night but close enough that the Emaho cafe or landing field are a 5 min walk. A great location with tea gardens on one side and a Tibetian monastary on the other. As always in the spring there are fewer pilots here than in the Fall the eagles are migrating west in groups up to 50 and the vultures are friendly as ever. About 22 pilots this season and oddly enough 5 have shaved heads and gotees, I trimmed my beard to a goatee but didn't have the courage to shave my head! Most of the Pilots I actually know from previous trips here. But about the flying!- a little summary of the highlights in April the 17th I flew my biggest distance making Dharmsala and back in under 4 hrs, 20th climbed 1000 meters in a cloud for a unique experience getting to see my silloutte with rainbow around it(called a glory), 21st made a bigger distance and better time to Dharmsala (90km), 24th flying high and close to the main spine of the Dhaula Dhar range(4400 meters). 26th Bir to Manali in less than 4hrs taking the low route(5275 meters). 27th local bus back to Bir 7hrs. 28th Bir to Manali taking the High route! (5282 meters) 30th Dharmsala and back in 3hrs 30min. I have track logs and can send them if any pilots are interested, it's a .kml file that can be opened with google earth. The high route flight to Manali is the highest most technical flight I've done, it's interesting to be over 5100 meters thinking I might not be high enough to make the glide I was on! Needless to say there is no where I'd rather be than here doing what I'm doing. Kind of a funny story, the same day I went to Manali I had crossed to the back with another pilot, thinking we might make the flight together, however he decided to go west and stayed close to the main ridge as base was high. Flying 20km west of Dharamsala to the end of Dhaula Dhar ridge he turned and was returning to the East when he took a collapse at 3700 meters, upon reopening he had a cravate and started to spiral, the ground was very close so he threw his reserve and landed on a snowfield at 3600 meters! He put his reserve back in the container, scraped out a platform to stand on, set up his glider and took off after an hour and half of working. Continuing the flight back to Bir he completed his best distance of 130 km averaging 25km/hr including pit stop!! Not to be outdone a new american pilot with very little experience got caught in some unfamilar conditions and decided his best option was to fly to the valley behind takeoff and land near Bharot, local transport and hiking back to Bir was an all night ordeal arriving at 5am! My friends were happy for my great flight but it just goes to show this has not only been a memorable season for me. And now I'll try to post some pictures to my photo site then I get packed and leave to Pakistan with my Spanish friend Fernando. More updates to come but I don't know when.

On The Road

Early April
To experience Western Nepal and Northern India by motorcycle is beyond description, the facts are this; 6 days riding one day 2 hrs the rest between 10 and 12. Lots of breaks and traveling at speeds around 20 to 70km/h usually about 50 that's 30mph, pretty slow. 2 days I spent in Bardia National Park in nepal where I saw tons of tiger tracks lots of deer monkey and several Rhino, totally uncrowded park and great experience.

I should really try to describe how it felt to drive those roads and see how the world lives. Most of the land I passed through was Agricultural, in Western nepal all the work is done by hand, currently it is the wheat harvest so everywhere the fields were active with people cutting threshing and carrying. Sometimes the threshing is done by ox trampling and sometimes by an old woman with a stick, can you imagine? It's like vistiting a museum "And the Taru people of Nepal used to build there houses with sticks, grass and mud, they plowed their fields with Ox and..." no wait, they still do! Crossing into India 2 obvious changes, people don't smile as easily as in Nepal and modernization exists along side with the primitive. It is possible to see a harvester in one field and people cutting crops by hand in the next. The disparities of wealth are much more apparent, in Western Nepal everyone seems to equally have nothing where in India some people have and others don't. It was hard to keep my eyes open and keep seeing without judging, so much is mind blowing mind boggling, so much suffering so much hardship. Everything seems to be overloaded and overworked. Well I stop there it is just beyond my powers of description, I would reccomend it to anyone, highly memorable and thought provoking. I was not able to take many pictures for fear of creating the illusion that I could capture the experience!

http://www.parahawking.com/main/gallery.html

4-5-07
Escape From Lakeside
There are now only a handful of pilots here in Pokhara, weather has gone for flying XC and I've heard reports of good flying conditions in India so quick better make a blog entry pack up and get moving! Last week I needed to return to Katmandu to get my visa for Pakistan, decided to put in a new cylinder and piston in the Bullet while I was at it, actually that was decided for me. I stayed a little longer because an impromtue SIV was organized by friends here, 5 of us threw our reserves over the lake and only paid $3 for it as we had the local kids do the retrieve! And oh yeah I bought a tandem! Scott was daring enough to be my passenger for 2 flights, the second landing a little short (see pictures). Now I've progressed to giving Nepali's who can't afford to pay a chance to fly for free, a really cool experience for me. Speaking of Scott Mason check out what he's doing with the birds this year on his Parahawking website. He's working with an Egyptian Vulture for the first time who he has just trained to land on his head, you gotta see the pictures! click here. Maybe he'll get a little video on YouTube, it's priceless. For anyone who I haven't told my great claim to fame is that there is a raptor named after me and this year it continues to be the star performer in Scott's Parahawking courses. As for social going's on Nadine and Lopsong just got married! This provided an excuse for everyone to get together during which time I kept reflecting on how many amazing people this sport has allowed me to meet. That night at Maya Devi and the next at the Moondance restaurant I kept thinking that whatever mistakes I have made in life the one thing beyond reproach is the company I keep and how lucky I feel to be surround by such a good group of people. Until we meet again you will all be in my heart, cheers my friends, to us!

What to say about Pokhara? Full of characters, there are some amazing stories just getting to know the people who paraglide and travel the world to do it. Coming back here is always a time warp, so much has happened in my life since I last left here yet it feels like I haven't been gone. Time is most pronounced with the kids, friends baby's now walking and talking makes me admit some time must have passed somewhere! And really so much has changed in my life the last year. Flying familar cross country routes makes me realize the transformation I've made as a pilot the last 4 years. Some ways I feel I've learned so much and other times I feel I've stagnated and not challenged myself. Getting back on my 350 Enfield motorcyle feels great, I am looking foreward to more time on the road. I've added more photos and have even figured out a way to put my GPS track logs on Google Earth, but haven't found a place to put that file so you can open it.

Meditation

3-14-2007
I'm sitting in my room in Pokhara Nepal trying to figure out what to say about the last 2 weeks, I think pages could be written without my experience and what I've learned, instead how bout I try to sum in up in a paragraph in my concise hit the main points way? OK, so I spent 10 days in a Vipassana meditation course in Kathmandu, 9 days I didn't speak or make eye contact with the other 70 participants (half men half women, 15 westerners the rest Nepalis). The day started at 4am and ended at 9:30 with over 10 hours of sitting meditation broken by eating and rest periods. Difficult? Yes. Valuable? Yes. What did I learn? Simply the nature of all the problems in my life, but not in an abstract philosophical way but in a very real this is true for me because I can observe it kind of way. First and foremost this technique is not associated with any organized religion, it is the way the Buddha became enlightened but does not promote or disallow any other beliefs. The basic idea is this, 1-Don't Sin 2- Do Good Things 3- Examine Yourself. And in examining myself what did I learn? That my unhappiness is self imposed by either being attached to impermanent pleasant things or having aversion to the same impermanent unpleasant ones. Unwanted things happen in life and wanted things do not happen but by not understanding this reality of life I expect the opposite, I want things to go my way and when they don't I create suffering where it didn't exist before. I hope this is clear. This basic idea is something I believed to be true before but through sitting with eyes closed and using the tools of breath and sensation coupled with observation I came to understand this reality is a much more clear way. If your interested check more about Vipassana at www.dhamma.org

South America to Asia

2-24-07
Sitting in the San Francisco airport I realize a lot has happened that I could write about. I also realize that if I haven't written about it yet I probably won't get time in the near future either! So here is the condensed version. Tania met me in El Bolson the end of December, the end of January we left together and traveled by bus to Colombia. On the way we stopped for a couple nights in Santiago Chile and visited friends of hers from Colombia. Then we hung out for a week on a beach in the north of Peru with Cari Freemont, a friend of mine from work. I finished my South America trip by visiting Cali Colombia for 10 days. A brief history here, I met Tania more than 10 years ago in Denver, we didn't get to know each other until the fall of 2002 when we started dating, we separated in the spring of 2003 and did not see each other until December 2005 when she came to Nepal and we lived together for 6 weeks. Again we separated until she came to Patagonia this December! Tania grew up in Cali Colombia and it was amazing to have her as a guide and get to meet her family. My spanish is really not very good so to have someone who was fluent in Spanish and English was very insightful, so much I wouldn't have understood or misinterpreted she opened my eyes to. Another really cool connection was meeting my friend Ryan K. in Cali. He is a friend from the first year I was in Durango, Colorado in 1998. I met him in Lima Peru just days after arriving in South America last Fall. He's been traveling around Peru and Colombia since I've been in Argentina and it was really cool to connect with him as I left the continent.

I just spent 3 days in San Francisco, my dad came out for a day on his way to a friends wedding in New York, well I guess that's a little out of the way! My mom and Ken made it back early from a month work/vacation trip to Australia so we could connect. 2 nights I talked with my sister using Skype with video, once with my Dad and once with my Mom. What a cool experience as I learned a little about her current work in a hospital for the treatment and prevention of HIV in Cameron Africa.

Allright well that and looking at my pictures on Flicker should get you up to date with what I've done up to now. And so what about the present? Well right now I'm in the Los Angeles airport waiting for my flight to Delhi!

And for the future? From Delhi I'll make my way to Nepal and begin a paragliding trip working west through the Himalayas. I plan to travel by motorcycle and fly familiar sites and find new ones as I work my way west, eventually flying in Pakistan sometime in May and June. All is subject to change but that is the idea now!

Still Here

Still in El Bolson, short summary- not one flyable day from December 8th to the 25th! Lots of rain and wind. The best place I could be to just chill out, which is what I wanted. Learned of a movie that a local pilot here is trying to make about the Andean Condor and what a paraglider pilot can learn from them. The condors can live 60 years and fly the same routes learned from their parents in search of food, often 200km per day! A couple good XC days came in January and as always I was ready, flew in a group 2 days, once making it quite close to getting the epic El Bolson to Bariloche flight. Martin was the only pilot to make it that day and said it was the most technical flight he´s ever had. Very memorable flight for me. I´ve considered buying land here but have not done the work to look around, also the market has gone up considerably in last few years and summer is not the time to get the best price. I guess I´ll be around for a little longer as I seem not to be able to leave!