High over the Hindu Kush |
Chitral Pakistan Update 30.5.12
Well I have finally found a way to host a blog (spot adventures is off line at the moment so I created this one) so I can fill you in with events, and there have been
many!, here in Chitral. We (as in Alex from OZ, Glen and Rob from NZ
and Dmitry from Russia) arrived by plane from Islamabad on the 16th.
We were very lucky indeed to get this flight in as there hadn't been
a flight to Chitral for the previous 10 days much to the
disappointment of Rob and Alex who had arrived a week early then we
had. The flight first landed at Peshawar to pick passengers and then
onwards up and over the high Lowari Pass into Chitral Valley, Chitral
town lies at the head of its valley and the airport only allows one
shot at the runway. There is no room for error, fortunately we landed
safely to be greeted by the friendly airport manager who amazingly
gave us permission to land our paragliders on the runway and the
local paragliding pilots who kindly gave us a lift into town and our
guesthouse, the Chinar Inn. The Chinar tree is famous in Chitral, a
huge and mighty tree that lives for many centuries.
Shai Mosque Chitral with Trichmir in the background |
Meeting with Farhad discussing our dilemma |
The team (LR) Dmitry, Rob, Alex, Grey, Glen |
Dmitry and Glen at the Summer Palace TO |
We managed a couple of days flying in
the Chitral township, cloud base was low and it was windy. It was
beginning to look as if we might have arrived too early in the
season. Then on the third day of flying we managed to get away for
our first big flight to the town of Booni to the north. Rob and I
managed the 60 km flight, Alex landed in the village before Booni and
Glen and Dmitry landed back in Chitral.
Rob and I were treated like royalty by
the local Booni pilots. Turns out that most of them funny enough are
related to the royal Chitral family anyway. First Barber(famous here
for getting sucked up from launch into a serious CuNim and landing
20+ kms away) and Mughtasim met us at the local football grounds and
loaded us onto their motorcycles back into town for refreshments. We
ended up staying with Musafar, the president of the Booni club, in
his lovely home where we were fed and watered.
Shai Quila Fort |
The rain returned again for three days
24-26th. There wasn't so much to do in the rain, walking, talking,
playing cards, eating, sleeping the days drifted by. On the 25th
we went saw a local polo match in honour of the newly crowned King of
Chitral. We unfortunately missed his coronation that morning but
amazingly Rob and I along with some of the locals (Zahid, Gullam,
Sajid and others) had a chance to take tea in the palace/fort with
the new King the following day. The new king. King Mullik, is aged
28, graduate LLB and MBA (USA). His father had died unexpectedly last
year and so it is his turn to be the King of Chitral valley. Rob and
I were delighted to be given a grand tour through the fort. The fort
dates back to the 1300s and is filled with an amazing collection of
historic pieces. The photos, documents and paintings are incredible.
Main Street Chitral |
Sadly I didn't see any photos of
Younghusband, but there was much to take in, including photos of
Prince Phillip visiting, correspondence with the ruler of India
during Partition, 1947, and many more photos that I knew captured
important events. The fort dates back to the 1300s so there is plenty
of history. Both Rob and I were privileged to see this fort from the
inside as it is usually not open to visitors.
On the 27th the weather
cleared and we were flying again. This time we set a goal of landing
at Zani Pass, where we had previously taken off from. We were
intending to vol bivouac (fly sleep). It was a great flight back
toward Booni but this time we travelled along the west side of the
valley passing Trichmir (7778m), an incredible mountain massif
covered in snow and ice. What a sight as we passed by. Amazingly
four of us landed together high at Zani Pass. Glen elected to land at
Booni \(as he didn't have a sleeping bag). It was a beautiful starry
night wrapped up tightly to keep warm. Rob boiled some water so we
had a hot drink and with a small amount of food that we had brought
we had dinner.
Waking up early to the sunrise on top
of a high pass was sureal. For a moment I didn't know where I was
thinking this was a dream. We had breakfast of sorts and slowly
walked up to the takeoff in preparation for flying. Glen and the
local pilots from Booni came up, but their vehicle broke down so they
launched from a lower site. What would the day bring as we launched
our wings?
The decision was made to fly as far
east as was possible following the road to Gilgit. Cloudbase was
better with it rising to above 5000m but with mountains higher it
would be a matter of climbing up out of valleys and crosiing where
possible into other valley systems. Three of us , Rob and Alex and
myself, flew over the \Shandur pass east for another 30 km before
landing at Teru, a small village which fortunately had a guesthouse.
Dmitry and Glen elected to fly back towards Chitral. Teru village is
incredibly high in the nountains at 3200m. It is completely isolated
in the winter and extremely remote in the summer months. A single
Natco bus plies past on its way from Gilgit to Mastuj daily, other
than that there is hardly any traffic on the dirt road.
We were faced with a dilemma; a
grueling two day return to Chitral by bus/jeep/van OR a hike up the
valley to a high point to try and fly back. It was a no brainer, we
organised porters for the morning and after a good night's sleep we
were up and hiking at 8 am the next day. We found a suitable spot to
take off at 3700m after an hour and half. It was going to be touch
and go, with one shot to catch a thermal otherwise it was going to be
the bus in the after noon, not something we wanted that's for sure.
Rob with goat? on TO at Teru |
so if you want to have a look at these
three flights in 3d on Google Earth click this link to Leonardo and
select the flight and then click the Google Earth icon to see the
tracks...select the last one on the 29.5.12 if you haven't much time.
If
you want to see my SPOT shared page which gives you a real-time
update of my track (if I'm flying) then visit
,
password is findhammy....(the track stays on the page for 7 days)
So I hope you've enjoyed my story for
the past two weeks. We are staying in Chitral until the 7th
and then heading east to Yasin Valley for a few days and then on to
Karimabad in Hunza valley. I'll try and do another blog soon with
what's been happening politically here in my next update....hope you
are all happy and well....cheers Grey
Nice one daddio
ReplyDelete