ADVENTURE
Paragliding the Eiger Penny Hearn
my luck was in. We met Benny, one of the pilots, on his way home. Benny, it turned out, was an elite Swiss orienteer who was not orienteering this year as he has had knee surgery. He had even been in Australia in the early 80’s assisting with the juniors in NSW. What an auspicious start. It was arranged. I booked for 4.30pm the next day when the thermals are good. That night back at dinner I canvassed for some other intrepid orienteers. Is it that I am not a good salesman or are orienteers glued to the ground? Tony from England was my only starter. After a day of general sightseeing Tony and I (and Mary Enter who came for moral support) duly met Benny and Alan, our two pilots, at the base of the cable car. We rode up three stages to arrive at the top of the ski slope at about 3000 metres and a magnificent view of the snow capped mountains surrounding a beautiful green valley with the town of Grindelwald below. Benny and Alan said “just go and have a sit down for a while as the wind is not from the right direction, we may have to lift off from a different site”. After about ten minutes they came back to say get ready, the wind may come around to the right direction and we need to be ready for the right moment. Benny laid the paraglider sail out on the ground on a grassy (steepish) slope below the trig point, strapped us both into our harnesses, gave me some last minute instructions and we waited for the wind to shift. Only then did I get nervous. There were four tandem paragliders ready to go.
Four weeks of orienteering in Austria around Salzburg and Wiener Neustadt, near Vienna, at the World Masters, then a week on the Tour O Swiss followed by the Swiss O Week around Zermatt, at the Base of the Matterhorn. I thought things couldn’t get much better. We had some fantastic events, met people from all over the world, travelled through some magnificent alpine passes etc, etc, but more was to come.
A
RRIVING in Grindelwald late afternoon after a spectacular bus ride the first thing I did was open our hotel window. What a sight! Paragliders in brilliant colour floating in the sunshine right there in front of me. I decided I needed an adrenaline pump. “That’s what I am going to do tomorrow on our ‘rest day’.” An hour or so later, encouraged by John Sheahan (but not to fly himself), we wandered over to check out the options. The information office had just closed but
Suddenly I was told to run. Well, it was more like a drunken stagger, as the wind filled the chute from a slightly different direction but quicker than I ever imagined we were suddenly in mid-air soaring above the mountains. What a magnificent feeling. Free as a bird. What were those ant-like creatures below there? See that slope over there, that’s where we were orienteering yesterday, it doesn’t look that intricate. What about that snow at eye level over the other side of the valley, that’s where there was a snow slide yesterday. I can see the train line. Is that our hotel down there? What a buzz. When I gained confidence to let go I tried to take a video but found out later that I hadn’t pressed the record button. I did take a couple of still photos but Benny had a camera on a telescopic pole so I can really prove that I did it. He even gave me the ‘controls’ and I was impressed by how inherently stable the paraglider is. Much safer than a hang glider and able to pick up thermals and ascend unlike say a parachute. After many circuits and soaring in thermals, 25 minutes later we started to come in to land and I could recognize Jenny and John Sheahan waiting amongst the ‘ants’. We began to descend and my instructions were to stand up on landing. I don’t know why but it seemed much more sensible to sit so I can’t say it was the most gracious landing but we were down. Reality again - oh well, there’s always more orienteering to follow.
OCTOBER 2006 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER 35
