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I am at almost 19,000ft. My wing is unfurled on the snow in front of me catching drifts of thin Andean air flowing over the ridge.
I am at almost 19,000ft. My wing is unfurled on the snow in front of me catching drifts of thin Andean air flowing over the ridge.
Behind it is a cliff heading to the bottom of the southeast face of Artesonraju, the half of which we just climbed. Behind me is another cliff tumbling off the southeast ridge where Rowan and I stand on a slope just barely large enough to lay out our small descent paragliders. It is large enough to launch but certainly not large enough to mess up. Rowan has me on a makeshift belay while I gather my footing and ready to pull up my wing into the wind. It is a belay in the sense that there is a rope attached to me, but makeshift in the sense that we just made this system up. I have never heard of someone launching a paraglider “on belay” before. It is untested but it provides us with a feeling of added safety during the transition from ground to sky in case of a slip during launch. I tug on my risers to bring the wing up, letting my body control the glider in the way it knows how. My mind goes blank. Numb.
The misnomer “adrenaline junky” is often applied to those who do risky sports. Indeed that may be the case if you do them irresponsibly, but any adventure athlete will tell you that stillness of the mind characterizes safety and control. It is an override of the body telling the mind that it is unsafe. And indeed, to perform our best, even perfectly at times, we cannot listen to the mind, only perform with the body. “Flow state” as it is called. An incredibly useful adaptation that can be learned to overcome our fight or flight nervous system response to danger.
It is this that I feel when my wing comes overhead and I turn around to prepare to run off of our icy pedestal into thin air under the support of my nylon aircraf. Or rather, it is precisely what I don’t feel.
Rather than stay in Huaraz, we stayed an hour north in the small town of Yungay where we rented motorcycles to drive the dirt roads to the trailhead instead of organizing with collectivos. I had never ridden a motorcycle before. It felt fairly dangerous but I ran out of gas only once.
Rowan and I had come to Peru with a seemingly simple plan. Explore the Cordillera Blanca for its potential paragliding and climbing, using the paraglider as either a descent tool or a way to arrive deep into the mountains using thermals to turn days worth of approaching in mere hours of flight. While simple in theory, the reality of doing this safely would be a much different undertaking. Unlike in the U.S., there are no weather stations in the Cordillera Blanca to ground-truth and provide data to high resolution weather models. Being in the southern hemisphere there are also many less models to reference for forecasting in the first place. Instead, we would have to build our own models, mentally, of the patterns, strengths, directions and schedule of the winds, ground-truthing our guesses with observations as we hiked, acclimatized and climbed in the range each outing. The only pieces of the puzzle we had were the edges - maps. With satellite imagery and topo maps we could make calculations about where we could land if we launched from certain peaks and dream up ideas for using the terrain and thermals to arrive at basecamps in an hour what would normally take 2-3 days on foot. And so we began our grand puzzle with no picture to reference. We would find out what the picture was with enough time and effort.
The first pieces of the puzzle began falling into place during our acclimatization outings. From the large-scale wind forecast, we knew there was an east wind hitting the range every morning, but we didn’t know how strong it was. From our best guess, this was the movement of the large, wet airmass sitting over the amazon rainforest just to the east of the Cordillera Blanca. Each morning when the sun hits the east faces of the 20,000ft+ mountains, the heated air rises and expands, creating low pressure and drawing in the dense air from the Amazon to replace it. The draw quite literally sucks air from the east as it spills over the passes and onto the peaks of the Cordillera.
We needed to acclimatize, and we also needed to figure out the timing and strength of the east wind to understand if early morning would be a launchable window or not. Two outings would cement our understanding of this weather pattern.
An example of a wind map from windy.com centered on Artesonraju. This screenshot was taken in December, but during Peru's winter dry season in July and August there is a substantial east wind component each morning.
The first came when Rowan was able to launch from the summit of Yannapaccha at 5400m at 8:30am while I nursed a splitting altitude headache on the hike down from basecamp. Early in the morning the clouds are not as high as they are in the afternoon, a fact Rowan had to deal with as he sat on the summit amidst cloud level waiting for a clearing to launch before taking off in a “much stronger than desirable” east wind.
The second data point came during a solo acclimatization hike and fly from the summit of Vicos peak at 5400m, where I found an overcast sky at 8am on the summit and zero wind. The low overcast clouds had shaded out the entire range, cutting off the “draw” effect of the east wind due to lack of solar heating. The still air provided quick relief in the form of a 15 minute flight from the summit to land 200 meters from my stashed motorcycle at the trailhead.
Sorting my lines and launching from Vicos peak, a sub-summit at 5400m elevation below Copa peak (6,188m) in the background.
With both outings we learned similar lessons; we would have to avoid starting our climbs from a traditional high climbing basecamp if we wanted to climb and fly anything technical simply because high camps are typically talus fields at the base of glaciers, aka, un-landable. If we wanted to land at a low camp grassy field, we either needed to start our day from there, or carry a full bivy kit plus wings up and off the climb. Para-alpinism was suddenly heavier than I wanted it to be.
Another data point came on the first day of the trip during a cross-country flight from a local launch we found scouring online maps. What started as an easy flight turned potentially sour fast as I came in to land in the town of Yungay 20km to the south. The wind on the ground was faster than my wing could fly, meaning I was going backwards into a smaller-than-desirable soccer field. I was not so uncertain I would miscalculate the landing and end up tangled on a rooftop or a plethora of other agriculture-related hazards surrounding me. During the last couple critical minutes of descending backwards, my mind switched from a light panic once again to a total calm. A familiar numbness as my body overrode the fight or flight response yet again.
Upon my safe landing I would also find the soccer field was in a police academy, as I was promptly swarmed by curious officers.
During both of these experiences, a directed effort to mute the mind and pause the flow of feelings from the body to the brain had provided safety in the moment. In fact, I was so used to this nervous system pathway re-route from over a decade of climbing and other high-risk sports that I was quite good at it. It was a default headspace, even. But during rest days between outings into the mountains and between many difficult conversations via a budding new relationship, it became abundantly clear that blocking out my feelings was only an advantage in certain contexts. What protected me in the mountains left me helpless, confused, and unpracticed at naming my complex emotions in other facets of my life. In fact, during the most difficult of conversations my actual fight or flight response would turn on, and I would feel my brain simply click off and flatline as it struggled to process an overload of emotions.
Simul-climbing the 55 degree neve of the SE ridge of Artesonraju.
Back on the edge of Artesonraju, however, I was glad to feel the numbness and let my body take over as my wing came steadily overhead and Rowan released the belay holding me to the mountain. I was glad to feel in control as I slid off the southeast ridge into the hands of the wind to take me home. I was glad for an easy escape into the sky to avoid a downclimb and descent I had no energy for. And upon landing at Laguna Paron twelve minutes later, I was most glad to see Rowan’s wing come up and off the mountain, a task he volunteered for without the belay.
The one thing I was not glad about once safe on the ground was the lingering question in the back of my mind. Did we just get away with something? Was that too far? Or did we nail it? I couldn’t decide where the line was for me. In one sense it was a great success in using our paragliders in a meaningful way to teleport from high on a peak to the safety of basecamp in a matter of minutes. On the other hand it felt like a failure because I felt woefully unprepared with enough energy, food, or both to downclimb and slog out of there on foot had the winds not been just right. We had escaped the mountain, yes, but in the process shirked the responsibility we owed to ourselves for our plan not to work. Flight.
After a break from the mountains for a week, we geared up for a final outing to climb Alpamayo’s famous southeast face. We had hoped to skip the 2-3 day approach to basecamp in place of a short 20km thermal flight, and even had some success earlier in the trip finding a suitable launch and scouting a line in the sky through the mountains that could take us to basecamp. On our second attempt, I even got so far as climbing to cloud base in my paraglider at 5700 meters with Alpamayo in sight a short 20km flight away, my harness full with three days of food, bivy gear and climbing gear. Rowan, unable to arrive as high as me to attempt our flight route, had to land early and we therefore abandoned that attempt for the trip. Another piece of the puzzle uncovered at least.
Arriving at cloudbase at 5700m, looking west towards nevado Santa Cruz (6,259m). Our inteded flight path was to fly east from this location along the north-facing sunny ridge on the left end of the frame to arrive at Alpamayo high camp just 20km away. If it worked the flight would take less than two hours.
From the Alpamayo circuit trailhead in Hualcallan, we hired a multeer and a mule to hike our bags up on our second flight attempt after a gruelling hike and bomb out the first day with 70lb bags. We launched from point A into the sunny north-facing ridge, although after some flying I top-landed and re-launched from point B which is a much better launch directly above the strongest thermal coming off of the ridge.
This time we instead slogged into Alpamayo basecamp via the usual route with mules through the Santa Cruz valley, taking notes of the wind speeds and directions through the valley to add into our mental model. Of course we carried our small paragliders as well, hoping to fly from the summit of Alpamayo if conditions aligned; it had only been done for the first time the year before. Soon enough, we were at high camp at 18,000ft, waking up at 11pm to begin our night climb of the French Direct, paragliders in our packs and hopes for light summit winds in our minds.
This time, however, I wanted to be prepared for our plan to fail. Our plan being to either fly from the summit or at least fly down from high camp to basecamp. We carried enough food in case none of the flights were possible and we might need to simply get out the old fashioned way. The extra supplies meant added weight to our packs, but really represented shouldering the responsibility to be self sufficient and not rely on our nylon escape plan. We were starting to learn at least.
At 6:45am we crested the final moves onto the summit ridge of Alpamayo, having enjoyed a long simul climb up the perfect runnel of snow and ice characteristic of the peak. Our first impressions on the summit ridge immediately aligned. The winds were already too strong. The summit ridge was too small. We traversed 50m along the corniced ridge to a flatter spot to re-assess. Maybe a belayed launch would work if the winds died down, but they were seemingly only increasing. It was far above what we considered reasonable to even attempt, but at least we were in agreement. We would not be flying down.
Throughout the trip Rowan and I had learned to trust each other, talking through our ideas of how the wind systems were working, planning outings, and debriefing successes and failures. We knew an exploratory trip like this would lead to some failures, but to us success meant going home in one piece, hoping to have learned something in the process. More importantly though we had to learn to trust ourselves, trust our assessments of the conditions, and trust our motivations. We needed to be exploring the para-alpinism opportunities because we were genuinely curious, not for an extrinsic reason that could cause us to try something that might kill us for clout. The ground-truthing we had been doing all season was really an internal reflection of our motivational process, making sure we could make good decisions for the right reasons. And today, that reason meant abandoning a pipe dream of flying off the summit of Alpamayo. And that was okay.
Luckily upon arrival back to high camp, conditions were perfect for a quick flight back down to basecamp. We could skip the 4000ft descent through talus and broken glacier and instead enjoy a birds eye view of our last climb of the trip.
Rowan enjoying some kiting after flying down from Alpamayo high camp.
Just after launching from Alpamayo high camp. It is a perfect north-facing snow slope ideal for a mid afternoon launch. I was able to thermal up almost 1000ft even on my 16 meter mini wing.
Ground-truthing is not only a useful way to gather data for paragliding, but also an internal process I am learning I need to work on within myself. To check in with myself, with my motivations, with my pains or fears is an act of care I owe to myself. It is the antithesis of fight or flight. It is be and feel. It is the opposite of the numbness that can keep me safe in the mountains, and it is a switch, or rather a dial, I am still learning to tune.
It is said “...land is always in the minds of the flying birds”. Ironically, through flight, I am learning to be grounded.
Thank you to my sponsors for supporting our exploratory vision! We will be back, Peru!
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