it's all about flying
© Greg Hamerton 2006.
FRESH AIR is published whenever I feel like it.
A bivoauc with a new friend
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Snork
But after a month of staring at my PC monitor, face down, Snork was beginning to believe that Hamerton was a hoax. The days of busting new routes over insane terrain were long gone. Hamerton had settled into the middle age rut, and should have been awarded a rabbit.
After a month of spare ribbing by Snork, I'd had enough. I had to get out there, to find the adventure. I'd show this pig a thing or two about flying.
We headed for Bains Kloof Pass, the closest site on a big mountain range, a simple run when the wind was westerly. Wasn't long before we were cranking up to cloudbase. There's nothing like that feeling of freedom, climbing away from a sinky slope, flying in a flimsy bivvy harness and lightweight gear. Somehow, the less equipment you have and the more exposed you feel, the more you are flying.
We got high, we got low, we scuffled along the foothills in 0.1m/s. Snork swung around and around on his string, distracting me with his antics. I threatened to stuff an Apple iPod into his mouth. He glanced at me with nervous eyes and clung onto the carabiner.
Being on a solo bivouac is an immersive experience. Even a short trip can be special. There's no retrieve, no point of thinking about roads and recovery. It becomes all about the flying.
We passed a great big dam, and crossed over a pass before soaring up the southern face of a big pyramid-shaped peak.
“Boared yet?” I asked Snork.
When he nodded in the breeze, I turned him upside down. His tail went straight, and he didn't give me any more snout.
We sank out after a few hours, and landed about 5km from the next mountain chain. If we were quick, we might just make it up the mountain again before sunset. The wind was still as good as ever.
The climb was tough through the thorny bush, especially since Snork weighed down the top of the pack and grabbed hold of any passing bushes he could reach. He can be a real swine.
Then we were flying again, gliding along with the setting sun brushing the ridge and the eagles banking overhead. I popped Snork into my jacket, just in case. He is still a piglet, after all.
We had ProNutro and water for supper. Not the world's best cuisine, but light weight is essential for enjoying a bivvy, and when you're hungry enough, you'll eat anything. Snork turned his back on me.
“Would you prefer bacon?” I asked.
He rolled quickly away into the grass.
A piglet's view of
the bivvy tent
That night we slept under the stars. You can make quite a good tent out of a paraglider with a few pegs and hiking poles. I had my flight suit to keep me warm, and my harness as my pillow. Maybe my partner would hog the blankets, but that was okay. He was a long long way from home.
I drifted off to sleep, and dreamed of flying over the far horizon in the morning.
Some time in the dead of night, the sound of a baboon close by had me sitting bolt upright.
“Bah! Ook, Bah! Ook,” it shouted into the dark.
How close is that thing? I wondered.
I strained to hear, but every small movement made the glider crinkle.
“You're crackling!” I hissed at Snork. He looked at me with wide eyes.
We counted the slow seconds in silence. Then, “Bah! Ook.” That was closer, wasn't it?
“Boh. Who?” A second baboon, further away.
“Bah! OOK!” replied the closer one. I shrank against the tent pole, and pulled the whole thing down in a rustling jostling tangle of lines and glider fabric.
We burrowed our way out of the collapsed tent, and stood shivering in the cold, dark night. The baboons were coming! The baboons were coming! But we couldn't see which way to run. Had they heard us? Should we just stay still?
The night dragged on, with the baboons calling around us in the dark, getting closer, getting further away, until at last, they moved off, out of range, and the night was still again.
We flopped onto the glider and rolled into it, making a pancake. Given that I slept in my socks, and Snork hadn't washed for weeks, we made quite an unsavoury pancake filling. We dozed off, dreaming of food.
When the wind turned the next day, we flew back home. I'd done almost 30km of walking and 150km of flying in two days. Nothing great by X-Alps standards, but I'd walked the walk, and made a pig fly.
At the next club meeting, I passed Snork on to the next worthy pilot. I would miss the little guy - in trying to take him on a wild adventure, I'd really appreciated how rare a thing it is we do. Pigs might fly, we say, meaning something totally unlikely and unattainable. Yet there we were, high over the African wilderness. It's just as remarkable that humans can fly, if you think about it.
When I got home last night there was an email from Snork. He must have been bouncing around on someone else's keyboard.
> Pilots are a special breed. All the rest are trotters.
If pigs could fly, where would they go? The bivvy route.
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Fly high, fly far
Greg Hamerton
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