Article - Solang Valley High

Looking down the slope, I could see the tiny figures of the people who’d opted for the short flight. Their parachutes were spread out behind them like saris drying out on a dhobi ghat. Their pilots were connecting the rigging lines to the tandem harnesses they’d use for paragliding. My family was somewhere down there but at that distance I couldn’t distinguish them from the ant-like figures milling around.

I’d opted for the medium flight that could extend anywhere from seven to ten minutes. This required taking off from a higher altitude. A sturdy, shaggy hill pony had taken me up most of the way. Despite the smelly animal’s sure-footed way over the narrow mountain trail, I’d been apprehensive of falling off; especially when it balked midway up. The guide had encouraged me to whack its sides with my legs and that seemed to work.

I had no wish to share the fate of the late Superman actor Christopher Reeve, who ended up a quadriplegic after a fall from a horse. Luckily, that didn’t happen. Not this time out. I scrambled up the remaining distance, trying to avoid stepping in pony droppings en route.

Now, I waited for my pilot to make it up the slope with the tandem rig that would take us paragliding. A plump lady in black salwar-kameez was the first to sail off into the wild blue yonder. A group of cool young things were next off, gaudy in their colorful Adidas-Nike-Reebok sports regalia. They had two juniors, not-quite-teenagers-yet, recording everything on their cell phone cameras. Hip feats of derring-do, now showing on Facebook and YouTube…

I admired the verdant alpine scenery of deodars and rhododendrons while I waited patiently for my pilot. The Solang Valley lay spread out beneath me in all its lush green Himalayan grandeur, snow-clad peaks and all. From that distance, the garish tourist kitsch, the detritus of snack packaging, foil wrappers, discarded cigarette packs and paper plates wasn’t visible. The sour tang of diesel fumes didn’t reach up to the heights either. The cool, clear mountain air was like breathable champagne. Why are the Swiss able to keep their mountains so clean, despite hordes of tourists, while we can’t?

Diverted by the spectacle of an unwilling boy being cajoled onwards by his father, I missed the arrival of my pilot. He didn’t miss me though, having registered my presence in the queue of people booking their flights. My pilot had brought along two helpers who buckled me into the parasailing rig. This resembled a cross between a rucksack and a hammock chair. They then attached the rigging lines that connected me to the chute. I strapped on the helmet they handed me and was good to go.

My pilot for the flight buckled himself to the back of the tandem rig, attaching the steering handles and lines he’d use to control the chute in flight. A sudden gust of wind inflated our shared chute, but also threw up a plume of choking dust. I was grateful for the sunglasses that shielded my eyes and did my best not to breathe in the ochre cloud. The helpers supported me upright, while ensuring the parachute risers were widely spread and not tangled.

I commenced running head down, on my pilot’s command. I’d anticipated a lengthy take-off run based on observation of other previous flights, but after taking barely two steps, we unexpectedly lurched up skywards. We seemed to hang undecided for a moment and then the chute caught another gust of wind and whisked us onwards. From pounding the hard-packed dirt of the launch area, my sports shoe-shod feet were suddenly suspended in the sky. I remembered to keep my legs straight, at a 90-degree angle to my torso, as previously instructed.

We were up and aloft, at last. The heart-stopping moment of launch was followed by a feeling of giddy euphoria, the adrenalin rush that comes with flight. There was an immersive aspect to the experience, a direct connect with the elements keeping us airborne. The slipstream slapped at my clothes and roared in my ears. Most people’s experience of flying is of sitting on upholstered seats within a pressurized metal tube, insulated from the environment outside. The whole effect is not so very different from being a passenger in an air-conditioned bus.

We soared above the valley on high, riding the thermals. Then my pilot banked, the chute tilted and we seemed to drop sharply. We stabilized and flew levelly for some time before the pilot repeated the process. It was very like the sudden fall you experience on a roller coaster, but on this ride there were no climbs, just dips and dives.

I later realized, after the flight was over, that such was the strength of the winds supporting the chute, we could have overshot the Landing Zone and possibly flown all the way onwards to Manali.  My pilot was deliberately bleeding off our forward speed and descending in a series of banking turns to take us right down to the LZ. We barely missed the spire on the roof of a building fringing the drop area and some Zorb balls as we came in to land.

My pilot yelled at a bystander who ducked just in time to avoid the rubber soles of my shoes impacting his head, as we descended among the crowd of people in the staging area.

There was a sudden jolt and I landed hard on the seat of my cargo trousers, my pilot crouched upright over me. Helping hands then unbuckled me from the rig and set me upright. I turned to thank my pilot and his assistants, but they had already melted into the crowds. It seemed paragliding flights were heavily booked during the tourist season and there was a long queue of would-be aviators in waiting.