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Clips from John and Alan's film, "From Nowhere to the Middle of Nowhere." |
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Paragliding K2
12:38 p.m. EDT Jul 11, 2003
As the Karakorum season approaches, AdventureWeather in cooperation with ExplorersWeb gets many requests for the free weather service it provides. This past spring we received an e-mail for the weather from a guy named John Silvester, for 2004; he told us he was going to paraglide K2 – not from the summit, but up to the summit.
How could something like this be possible…how could a paraglider find any purchase in such thin air?
John and a few others think it's possible, and year from now they are going to head over to the Karakorum attempting to soar as high as K2’s summit and as near to it as they can. Silvester is no stranger to Himalayan paragliding - In 1999 he went on a journey through Western Tibet via paraglider along with filmmaker Alun Hughes.
The two traveled around, taking off and landing in remote villages. This trip was a continuation of a previous trip of a similar nature in India. With Alan attached to John’s Tandem rig, the duo rose above 5000m. Later on John made another trip into Pakistan and soared above the 7000m mark. This upcoming K2 trip will hopefully be another leap, higher and higher into our atmosphere.
Quite often, when one thinks of paragliding, visions of ski resorts in the Alps with a serene, picturesque, and relaxing glide come to mind. This isn’t the case in John’s previous Himalayan and Karakorum trips. While there are days of relaxed gliding, risks are ever present. From sinking air, to violent thunderstorms, to crash landings, and landing in places that are difficult to get out of – high altitude, cross-country paragliding is a true adventure.
ExplorersWeb put together some clips of John and Alun’s award winning film about their Himalayan adventure, “From Nowhere to the middle of Nowhere.” If you though being a passenger in an automobile was sometimes scary, you haven’t seen anything yet!
An ExplorersWeb interview with a hopeful K2 paraglider, John Silvester: (terms are defined at the bottom of the page.)
ExWeb: John, so how did you get started paragliding?
John: We were trying for a big wall in Pakistan in 1987, to climb it. And we were going to a back to it in 1988 and we thought it would be quite neat to try and jump off the top and paraglide.
ExWeb: And had you ever paraglided before that?
John: No we were just going to go over there and try and do it.
ExWeb: So did you actually learn over there in Pakistan, or before leaving?
John: No, No, before leaving.
ExWeb: Did you take classes to learn?
John” No, back in those days you just start doing it and teaching yourself. I used to climb a lot in Chamonix and France and that was an area where it started to develop.
ExWeb: And now you’re involved full time in paragliding?
John: Yeah, that’s what I do, I don’t really climb at all anymore
ExWeb: Are you an instructor?
John: I am, but I don’t instruct
ExWeb: So what do you do for a living?
John: Just fly, get sponsored, go on trips, take photographs, write articles, that kind of stuff.
ExWeb: We had read that you used to compete in paragliding, do you still?
John: No, I stopped in 1996
ExWeb: Ok, so now onto this expedition to K2 that you’ve planned for next year. How did the idea of trying to soar in a paraglider up to the summit of K2 come about?
John: Well when I stopped competing, the next season I went out to the Himalayas to fly across India. I had been climbing in the Himalayas before and I could see that a paraglider could be used for some really good adventures.
We flew across India, 500km, one spring, so that worked. We only went up to 4000m, quite a low altitude. The next trip I went up into the mountains of the Karakorum, because it has drier air, and that’s when we started getting into the high altitudes. That was in 2001. We got to 7500m, and from there we could see K2 in the distance.
It was then that we realized we can glide a much higher mountain.
ExWeb: Were you tandem at the time?
John: No, we were soloing.
ExWeb: How high do you think you can go?
John: The thermals on K2 will get you to 8000m. After that, if you want to get higher up, you have to use what is called dynamic air. This is just literally wind, compressing against the face of the mountain and being deflected. Strangely, when you take off very low, you use dynamic wind to start soaring and then you catch the thermals. That’s when you get massive height, and then when the thermals run out, you go back to dynamic wind again.
And this is a very new area; no one has really done dynamic winds above the thermals. So, I am sure we can get up to 8000m, but the last section, the last 800m is the unknown. Whether we can actually summit, we don’t know.
ExWeb: When you mean summit, does that imply flying over the summit, touching down?
John: Yeah yeah, it’s possible.
ExWeb: Do you even think it’s possible to touch down when you’re up there?
John: It’s possible, but I’m not interested [laughs all around.] As a mountaineer, you’d love to stand up there, but it’s not going to be very feasible. And then you have a real problem - taking off again. Yeah, I think it’s a recipe for death basically. It would be a great idea though.
ExWeb: Maybe if you can drag a foot or something, I wonder if that would go in the books as a K2 summit?
John: It’s very interesting. They’d write you off to some clinic if you did something like that!
To be honest, though, it feels just as valid (as climbing). You are using the topography to gain lift. So it’s not like you are randomly flying in the air. You have to use the mountain and the slopes. All of its features create the lift that gets you climbing. To be honest, it feels much the same.
ExWeb: How is acclimatization going to work? Are planning on using oxygen?
John: We want to try and not use oxygen. I think it is going to be feasible not to use oxygen.
ExWeb: So how high previous to the flight are you going to have to acclimatize?
John: Yeah , this is a problem, isn’t it. Because when you’re mountaineering you’re fixing ropes so you naturally have to acclimatize. We might me walking up to 5000m to take off, but we are going to have to work very hard for acclimatizing higher.
ExWeb: How did you feel when you were up at 7500m previously?
John: You feel great, you know this is dangerous, but you feel great because you’re not doing anything aerobic. When you’re changing films and cameras you start hyperventilating because it’s stressful, it’s cold and you’re trying not to drop things.
When you’re flying and bucking around in strong air it’s quite hard not to drop things. So you hyperventilate, because you’re really concentrating and you’re quite stressed.
But when you’re flying, you’re just sitting there and pulling strings. So it’s pretty relaxing sometimes.
The worry is that you have to make quick decisions because you are flying along at 50km. That’s the reason really to use oxygen.
ExWeb: You mean so have the mental capacity to make the quick decisions?
John: That’s basically the climber thing, you’re aware that your at altitude, but you’re fucking stupid basically, so if you’re flying you have to be aware of what’s going on. I see that as a danger of not using oxygen.
ExWeb: Is there any special equipment you have to bring with you, a bigger wing for instance?
John: No, just a standard wing.
ExWeb: What happens if you get up there and it’s just blowing on the top of the mountain? Will this greatly affect you?
John:Yes, but if its just a little strong on top, it wouldn’t be as hard for us already being in the air as it would trying to tack off the summit, like Zeb and Claire on Everest. You get this compression on the face when the wind gets crushed against it. It really increases its velocity at the top. We can be 300m away from it and we won’t have that problem. So in some ways we are making it easier for ourselves trying to fly up rather than fly from the summit.
I can imagine situations where we can quite happily fly a few hundreds meters away from the face, but wouldn’t consider taking off from the summit because it would be too dangerous.
ExWeb: Where do you plan to take off from?
John: Probably about 4500m I’ve seen some photographs of some sections that look very good for take off. It’ll be a location about 18 to 20 km away.
ExWeb: Why did you choose K2, why not Everest?
John: I think the meteorology is better there. Quite often the winds are less strong on K2 and the air masses are dryer. The Everest region is very open into Tibet, whereas K2, because you have the Pamirs curling around, you are kind of at a right angle corner. I reckon it’s better.
ExWeb: So having all those mountains around creates a better environment for lift?
John: It does in a way, yeah, basically because it so dry. The air is dry, so it goes higher, so we get a better cloud base. On Everest the monsoon season is much much stronger because it is closer to the ocean. And also where the rivers come around through Tibet, they sort of curl around that section around Everest. That allows wet air to come in the same way.
K2 should be the best spot in the entire world to get very very high flight. From what I’ve found out from flying in Hunza we got the best flying out of anywhere so far and it’s only 120 km away.
ExWeb: What’s the biggest factor then to the success of this?
John: On the ground it has to do with Valley winds, how strong they are. Effectively it’s having the right weather window. I’m pretty certain we’ll make 8000m, but it’s whether we make 8000m near the summit or 3k away that’s in question. So, for the right weather window, you’d probably need a 30km north wind at 8000m.
ExWeb: You’ve climbed before – in your opinion, in terms of safety, do you feel safer on the side of the mountain or up in the air.
John: [Laughs] – It depends what you got with you. It depends. I think in the sky actually. Because if you keep flying and you aren’t going to land, you can fly yourself out of problems usually. If you crash you’re limited because you don’t have much equipment with you though.
ExWeb: What has been your scariest encounter?
John: The scariest time was when I flew across West Nepal tandem with the cameraman. We were effectively getting a big thunderstorm coming in, we were in a very remote area on the side of a 7000m mountain, and we had to cross that mountain.
And we didn’t know what was on the other side of it, so it was just to climb as close to the dangerous storm clouds as you could and then glide over the back hoping you can cross two valleys and get to a populated area. That was the scariest.
ExWeb: Are you going to be tandem or solo for K2?
John: Tandem, because we will be filming.
ExWeb: Can’t you just use a helmet mounted camera?
John: You can, you can get shots like that, but it’s just not easy when you are also trying to keep the wing in lift. It also helps if you happen to be a professional filmmaker…which I’m not.
ExWeb: Why are you so passionate about paragliding so much what draws you to it?
No idea really, it’s got the same buzz as climbing. It’s the exploring I guess. That’s what’s better about paragliding in the Himalayas for me versus climbing in the Himalayas.
You’re very focused when you’re climbing and it’s a lot of grunt to go a very short distance up a mountain. Generally it’s hard work and you quite often don’t make the summit, so you’ve put all your energy for two months into one mountain, you fail, come back down and you’ve only seen one valley.
With flying, even when you are unsuccessful and don’t make your objective you still possibly have flown 100km and seen 5 different valleys. And also, you see lots more people. You land in a village and stay for three days, take off land in another village. From valley to valley, the culture and people totally change.
The way they look, their cultures, even the way they cut their staircases are different. It’s just that you see so much more when you fly. It’s a complete adventure. You travel a long distance, and it’s quite easy too, you know, as you get older it’s quite nice.
ExWeb: Your expedition is a year away, how much more do you have to do before this comes to fruition?
John: Well we’ve got a good team sorted. So really it’s raising the finance to pay for it. We know it’s feasible; we’ve done all the background work. I have also been really lucky in knowing a guy, David Hamilton, who does treks to the area. And this year he’s going to go out and get a lot more data for us that will be bloody helpful.
ExWeb: Great then! Good luck and keep us posted!
John: Thanks a lot, take care!
Lingo:
Thermals: A rising current of warm air, paragliders can use these to gain altitude.
Wing:Another word for a paraglider.
Dynamic air: Wind, compressed against the face of the mountain and deflected. Paragliders can use this to gain altitude as well
Images courtesy of John Silvester – “From Nowhere to the middle of nowhere.” can be purchased on John’s site.
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