The forecast for today was not that great, so after arriving at launch I decided to have a Chai with some friends, rather than heading straight to launch. Although as I was finishing my tea, someone else in the Cafe exclaimed that the first people were climbing away. After quickly heading up to launch and getting ready to fly, I took off and was soon at 3300m and ready to cross into the back. I had no firm plan for the day, but as the conditions seemed to be good, I decided to head up towards the glacier with an FAI triangle in mind. However as the conditions had not been forecast to be that good I had not done any specific planning on how to optimise the route to achieve a 100km triangle. The conditions over the back were good, however the base was lower and the climbs were less reliable than they had been on the previous few days, the main ridge at the back was also pretty windy. Once I had reestablished myself at base I decided that I had gone far enough and then headed east. Read the full article…

Having had a very successful bivi at Shaggy Dog above Manali, I was keen to do another bivi over the back, but this time on the ridge descending to the south from Shirar ra Tibba, which is a really long ridge full of excellent sites to camp. Three popular areas are Fungni Mata Lake, Bear Dog and Horse Lake. My plan was either Fungni Mata Lake or Horse Lake, depending on how I felt when I arrived. My plan had actually been to do this the day before, but I paid the price for launching early as while we were fighting the persistent inversion, high cloud came in which really made it difficult to stay up. Some people managed, but many pilots, unfortunately including myself didn’t. When I landed back in Bir I had to decide if I was going to rush and head back up to try again, or chill out for the rest of the day. Given the conditions, I decided to chill out for the rest of the day as I was still feeling a bit tired from the previous few days. Day 1: Sightseeing tour to. Read the full article…

With an excellent forecast for the next few days I hatched a plan to head over the big mountains behind the main ridge at Bir-Billing to sleep at the head of the Kullu Valley near Manali and the Rohtang Pass. Due to the good forecast, we headed up to launch a bit earlier than normal, and the atmosphere was really buzzing with lots of people looking forward to the great conditions and loaded with all of the VolBiv equipment for the next few days. Day 1 – XC Distance: 63km, Highest Altitude: 5500m Unfortunately after launching the conditions were very slow, and it took an hour to get up to 3300m above the peak above launch. This felt very low to be heading over into the back – but with the hope that the conditions would be less stable I made the jump anyway, with the knowledge that others had managed to climb away. After a long glide to a spur without any other pilots on I was feeling very low and had some concern when I didn’t immediately find lift, I really didn’t want to bomb out here. Thankfully. Read the full article…

With the weather finally having improved, it was time to head over the back and towards the bigger mountains for the first time of the trip. I quickly climbed up to 3500m above launch and decided this was still too low to make the jump for the first time this trip, so headed along the ridge bit where I climbed to 4000m. From this altitude it was easy to make the glide across and I arrived very high, unfortunately the cloud was already building. Once established on the first mountain I took in the scenery and enjoyed a nice climb up to cloudbase at 4400m, before taking an atmospheric route back towards Dharamshala via the back ridge. This route kept me nice and high until above big face, but then the cloud base started dropping rapidly on the front ridge. At times I had to intentionally lose height in order to get under a cloud in front of me! The flying was fairly intimidating, flying close to cloud a lot of the time, sometimes over cloud in front which was lower than I was. Other than one col just before. Read the full article…

While the real draw for me to Bir is the ability to fly in the big mountains over the back, it is possible on almost every day to have a good flight along the front ridge. It really is amazing what conditions you can keep flying in in Bir. This blog post is about my flights along the front ridge during my tip. Day 1 – Afternoon overdevelopment and caution After a long day of travelling, and overnight taxi, I slept very well in the hotel before waking up feeling remarkably refreshed. The forecast for the first part of the trip had lots of room for improvement, but for the first few days that was definitely ok as it enabled me to take a few days to settle in and get used to flying here again. I was expecting to suffer with airsickness on the first day, as this is often the case when I am tired, however I felt good on launch and felt good in the air. The cloudbase was low on the first day, and it was forecast to overdevelop, so I had not planned to go. Read the full article…