A few years ago a small group of good pilot friends and I attempted a long vol-biv line from southern Utah to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We had a professional film crew with us to document the effort in hopes of creating a movie that would show the non-flying world that paragliding was a lot more exciting and demanding than it looked from the ground.
During the shoot we stopped in to interview Bill Belcourt, a mentor and legend to most North American-based pilots and that talk to this day has some of the most insightful wisdom related to flying I’ve ever heard. (You can listen to the complete interview on the Cloudbase Mayhem podcast, it is the very first episode).
The mission itself was a complete flop, the weather was atrocious and what limited flying we did get was always bookended by proper summer thunderstorms and rain. But the short film 500 Miles to Nowhere was a big success – it ended up leading to my recent films produced by Red Bull across the Canadian Rockies (The Rockies Traverse) and the Alaska Range (North of Known), and it remains one of the most-watched paragliding films ever created because I think it captured the possibilities of what could be done by paraglider.
One of Belcourt’s lines in the opener of the movie is, “You’re trying to realise your own potential in a place where no one sees, and no one cares…there’s a purity in that.”
This one sentence describes perfectly what is so magical about flying, and why once it’s in our blood we can never give it up.
Sure, there is a tiny bit of glory (quickly forgotten) for those who get on the podium at a Paragliding World Cup, or for big media/sufferfests like the Red Bull X-Alps, but for the most part what’s so amazing about flying is that it all takes place without a single witness. The only company we have in the air is the beating of our own hearts and the intense ticker tape of thoughts running through our minds. Many of the guests I have on the podcast were there at the very origins of paragliding (and some at the origins of hang gliding). It’s obvious from their tales that the sport has come a long way, but it’s also obvious that we have still only barely tapped the potential.
It was only just a few years ago that a 200km flight was a big deal. Now 300km FAI triangles are done every season, and down-wind flights of 400km+ are done with regularity for those pilots willing to put in the travel and time. But while distance is the stuff that grabs the headlines, what I’m more excited about is the potential to use our wings to accomplish objectives that require self-sufficiency, fitness, planning, effort, training, gumption and skill to pull off.
Wing and equipment manufacturers have answered the call of producing lighter and lighter gear with more and more safety and performance. With the advent of single-surface wings massive alpine-style mountaineering objectives are now on the table, and super-light XC gear that pilots use in the X-Alps are now available to everyone, and have plenty of storage for multi-day bivvy assaults.
We now have the tools to dream up the absurd but then actually go and pull it off! If you are a pilot by definition you are imaginative, you’re doing something that really shouldn’t be possible and of course wasn’t until very recently in human history. Add that imagination to a good dose of commitment and you’ve got the makings of a grand adventure. There are DEEP, virgin lines in mountain ranges around the world that hold as much promise as being the first to the South Pole or the first to climb Everest. These lines are plentiful, seductive and of course potentially dangerous.
Some lines are risky because of human conflict; others because of dicey terrain; and all are plagued by our flying nemesis – unpredictable weather. But flip the coin and behold the promise of the unknown! And that makes them irresistible.
Flying is different things to different people. We all chase the sky for reasons that are as numerous and as unique as we are. My guess is that we all fly at least to some extent because we’re searching for our own potential. Flying gives us a window into what’s just beyond our reach.
There’s a lot I love about this sport but I love this aspect most of all – the unknown.
