Solo Bivy Jan 20th-22nd 2014

Solo Bivy Jan 20th-22nd 2014

I awoke to find a fog enveloping Lakeside, Pokhara, Nepal.  During my morning run I ascended above the fog to find a Crystal clear sky, it was one of those rare mornings where the air is so clear you could see the glacial details on the Annapurna range.  After a simple breakfast at Sun Welcome I got a call from Amrit, manager at Mountain Flyers, telling me that I had a tandem on the first round.  I work with a great group of pilots, my Coworkers; Tom, Primos, Om and Laxman are generally positive people and help make everyday enjoyable, it is a pleasure to come to work and work with these guys day in and day out.  My job is wonderful, but any job can be good if it cultivates a positive caring community of people.  Inversely even the best job can suck if your surrounded by negative people who poison the mood with bitching, criticizing and whinning.  It is each and everyone one of our responsibilities to bring positive vibes to situations we encounter, if we want the outcomes to be positive.  My passenger was a lovely Nepali woman who was overjoyed to fly, we got above Sarangkot, a good sign for the day, and she loved the roller coaster ride on the way down to landing.

Tom, Primos and I decided to share a taxi up to Sarangkot for some solo flying fun.  Tandems have not been busy lately so I have been packing camping gear in my solo kit, in the hopes that if an interesting night or two out present themselves, I can take advantage.  We were like school children in the taxi up, looking out the windows noticing the day was blue but people were getting high, it looked like it might be a good day to fly deep into the big mountains.  Most days that are good at Sarangkot are too cloudy and shady to get into the big mountains, but this day was looking sunny and blue.  Walking onto takeoff I saw Ivan Ripoll suited up and about to launch, he had a grin on his face due to his excitement to fly the big stuff.  I told him I would try to catch up, unlikely considering his skills, and began to get my shit together.  

After take off it took me three times alternating between the house thermal and Torrie-Panni to get high enough to head to Dicki Dande.  The Sarangkot ridge can be very hard to get off of even when its working well in the mountains, even getting off of the Sarangkot ridge should usually be perceived as a success, the day typically gets easier from there.  At Dicki Dande I found Tom dicking around.  After 20mins we were high enough to work back to the wall and around to the main peak, where we found Stan Radzikowski.  It was hard work to get to peak height, and when Stan dove one bowl further back I followed him.  Stan I and I could'nt make it work any better back there, he worked back to the main wall, while I went another bowl deeper.  That bowl did not work any better, but I kept hearing Nick Greece in my head saying “if in doubt, go DEEPER”.  Soon I was on the last bowl before the terrain swooped back to Annapurna 2.  I spent about an hour on this bowl, gradually getting lower and lower.  Finally I decided to sidehill land in a wide open Buff pasture.  

Night one Camp

While packing up a few men carying bamboo came to greet me and watch me fit my flying and camping equipment into my modest sized backpack.  They looked on amazed as I walked up into the mountains rather then down to the nearby village.  I had been frustrated by my inability to get high during the flight and decided that I would hike to higher terrain for a big flight the next day as opposed to launching low and risk sinking out.  I hiked for about an hour that evening along a well maintained trail through gullies and forrest.  When I came to a three walled shelter I stopped and made camp ready for the night.  After calling Tom and telling him I would not be available for work the next day I started a fire and put on water for dinner.  I had about 2 servings of pasta and 4 servings of dried cream of mushroom soup.  I cooked half the noodles and added some soup for a delicious meal as the sun was setting.  The catabatic air came in cold and I quickly bundled up in my sleeping bag for the night.  With no artificial light around the stars glowed bright.  It was one of those starry skies when you can focus on the space in between the stars and see more stars, then you can look at the space between those stars and find more stars.  I contemplated how looking at a starry sky and looking at a rock wall was a difference of scale and perception.  A rock wall looks solid to us but in fact it is mostly space, and space seems spacious until you can see each and every object in it, then it appears much like a wall.  Physical, emotional, and mental boundaries are often only boundaries because we perceive, and allow, them to be so.  Our reality is subjectively based on our perceptions, and each and everyone of us has different perceptions and therefor a different reality.  Our reality changes based on our body, mind and ego, and taking charge of our reality is in our power.  My friend Florent Rondel puts it well when he says “you are god of your own unreal universe”.  

I awoke before dawn and packed my bag in bright moonlight.  The trail was easy to follow and I made a good pace as the sun rose to another wonderful day.  After a couple of hours the trail I was following broke into many small trails that are used to take bamboo out of the forrest, I had to start bushwacking.  The forrest was dense enough to allow very little sunlight through, and it was rare to see more then 3 meters in my direction of travel.  Combine this with very steep terrain, climbing, and thick bamboo thickets and my space/wall ponderings were about to get a real life test.  I would reach forward and shove my hands into a foliage wall, push out and pull myself and backpack through.  It was slow going, exhausting and it went on for hours.  As I ascended the snow got deeper and deeper reaching a foot deep at the deepest.  I was wearing light weight trail running shoes and ankle socks, so I had to continue to move and keep my heart rate up to avoid numbness and possible frostbite.  When I did reach the forested top of the ridge I mistakingly followed spines off the main ridge twice and had to double back.  My sense of place and direction had been disturbed by the hours spent in a deep dark forrest.

When I found a trail it was like finding a thermal above un-landable terrain, relieving.  I followed the trail to the clearing I had figured was launch-able the evening before, it wasn't launch-able, but I was exhausted.  I was started walking around 5:30am and it was after 1pm.  I had not taken a significant rest or eaten any food, so I made a fire dried my socks and shoes and took a quick nap as my food heated.  The rest and food gave me energy for the final hour and a half of hiking.  Sadly when I got to takeoff the wind was 90 degrees cross and cold catabatic air.  Also the sky had clouded over and snow was falling on the big mountains.  I decided to stay the night under an herders overhang I had passed.  On my way back down to the overhang I heard a massive chunk of glassier avalanche off of Annapurna 2.  I turned to see a humungus cloud of ice and snow rising up over rivers of moving snow, ice and rock.  Powerful shit.  

I turned on my phone but had no service, I then found out my spot did not have enough juice for any messages at all.  Chest tightening anxiety came over me as I realized that I was deep in the wilderness with no one around(I had not seen a human foot print in the snow all day), no one who knew where I was, and there was a chance I would not be able to fly out in the morning.  I used some conscious breathing to get rid of the anxiety and return back to my happy go lucky self, once back to normal I reminded myself that accidents were not allowed, getting hurt was simply something I was not allowed to do.  The anxiety was not a constructive emotion, in fact it was paralyzing, and I feel fortunate that I do not view my moods as things that happen to me but rather things I bring on, and can ward off just as easily.

I slept under the over hang in photo right on night two

I made my bed wedged between a rock and my backpack under the overhang, snow seemed eminent, and made a fire for my second last soup ration.  After soup I curled up in my bag and had a uncomfortable night of some sleep while wedged into the overhang. 

First light showed continued snow on the higher mountains with verga and mamata in the sky all around.  I knew that I had to get off this mountain this morning, or risk days in the cold with very little food.  I hiked to takeoff, my legs trembling with each high step, and found conditions similar to the evening before; light cold 90 degree cross wind.  The take off had about four steps before a cliff like face.  I aborted take off 3 times, each time stoping one step short of the edge.  While setting up for my last attempt a few snowflakes swirled around me.  I committed to a fast aggressive reverse inflation and turned around with 60% of the wing inflated, the rest inflated on my last step before diving off the edge and taking flight.  The feeling of achieving that flight was similar to my first flight on a paraglider, by body was pumping with endorphins and offering me a nice natural high for the buoyant glide back to the outskirts of lakeside.  

I packed up and walked to Sun Welcome as I called Tom and Andy to let them know I was OK.  I got a little deserved shit from friends for having a spot with tracking and not having good batteries in it.  

After breakfast I got a call for a tandem on the first round, back to the grind stone.....

My spot has batteries now.  Here is the URL:

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0Jh6VOd1mdQA1kKUqG6bd0kVCKzR8uMBH