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!
