Cross Country magazine
July 2002
THIS I ONLY READ once back in London. Local pilot and guesthouse owner Andre Savard, gave me a guidebook to Panchgani, by Irina Chelysheva, as I left for Mumbai. Though it has nice pictures it’s barely readable: a muddle of Russian translated into Indian English with suspect content to boot. But this story, about tigers in the valley and tigers in the town, this I knew to be true.
From the balcony of Andre’s home the view looks out across the Krishna River towards Khamelghad hill. The river is dammed here and forms a lake. Upstream, through the haze of India’s near permanent high pressure you can faintly see the radio mast of Mahabeleshwar 14km away, a popular hill station for Mumbaites. This highpoint at 1400m rises above the source of the Krishna. It’s an obvious first step for any cross-country from Panchgani.
It was here that I was trying to get to as on my first day flying I found myself at 1900m over Sydney Point. But it didn’t work, it clouded over and I found myself going down at the head of the valley.
I looked around, I was in a dusty field next to a dusty track a long way from any jeep stop. A few women who’d been washing saris in the pools beside the river stopped and stared, half amused.
Suddenly a cloud of dust appeared, a white jeep pulled up and an old man in a white doti jumped out.
"Namaskar!” he exclaimed, pressing his hands together and laughing.
“Namaskar!” I exclaimed back.
“Ap aha ja rake?” – where are you going? –
“Panchgani” I said.
“Then come walk with me,” said the man.
The jeep sped off, leaving me to follow my new guide as he told me with his eyes and his hands how he had been on the hill attending to a small shrine when he turned and saw me fly past. He had raced down the hill on his 70 year-old legs to find me and shake my hand. You could tell that although he’d never seen a canopy before, he loved it already. Here was a man born to fly.
It was from him that I learnt about the tigers. As a young man under the Raj, Nari Ari Pujari had been a tracker in the army. In this very valley he’d taken “Char Wagh!” – Four tigers! – The skins were sent to Delhi, the claws to Pune to be made into necklaces. That was before the war and since then he said, waving his arm at the stunted trees and dusty fields, “Too many people”. He meant the jungle has become firewood and the river has been castrated by the dam: centuries old temple carvings sit piled under trees, rescued from the rising flood but now just a jumble of stone.
As we walked we talked; although he had no English and I had no Marathi. We spoke about flying, about tigers, about the British in India and the changing environment He sang songs and fed me and made me laugh going uphill..
Late in the afternoon when we eventually came to the dam where a solitary bus sat at the road-head he waved me off and wished me good luck. The bus jerked and we thumped into the ruts. I couldn’t believe it, I hadn’t just flown to the source of the Krishna, it felt like I’d flown into the heart of India.
****
Four days later, on New Years Eve and we had a plan. Panchgani hadn’t seen an XC team like this since… well, never. Sumit Nurpuri, India’s red baron; Electric Rajesh, so called because of the power line incident; Claudia Wuersch the Swiss arrow; and myself.
We’d all had magic air the night before. Restitution had seen us tip-toeing on each other’s wing tips above the tablelands, dancing our way across the ghat. The day before, Sumit and I had our butts kicked in the roughest lee-side thermals before crossing the Krishna, climbing out off Khamelghad and getting kicked out into the valley at Wasole. Meanwhile Claudia had got to 2650m and flown to Mahabelshwar and back.
The time was right for a serious XC plan: Get up, get to Sydney Point, turn down wind and boot it as a team.
It was 3pm by the time we could launch. From TO I’d seen Rajesh climb out on an old P40 with no vario and hurtle past me towards Sydney Point. I drifted along the ridge and joined Claudia in a scrappy thing. She took it and then soared off to the Tableland. In front I saw Sumit going down, I joined him out front and we climbed out in a solid 2ms thermal.
Shit… this was going pretty high. Suddenly our plan was coming together. I got to 2500m and sat there, happy to drift but aware of the lateness in the day. Visibility was no more than 5km through the haze, clamped to the ground like a rubber sheet. I knew I’d have to move very soon but was just drifting, getting my bearings over this mapless terrain.
I was searching for the radio mast but instead I saw Sumit’s blue Octane making scratchy looking circles below me and about 2km in front. Boot it! I got in there at his height and soon we were spiralling up together in a 4ms.
The plateau here is around 1300m and we were in there at 2000m. Mahabeleshwar sits on top of this plateau before the land drops off into a valley. Valleys and tabletops then give way westwards to pinnacles and ridges and this is where we wanted to go.
Climbing above Sumit I could see Claudia scudding in below, her red Carbon looking real small against the forest down there – back in tiger country.
It slowed and Sumit and I bumped into the inversion at 2800m and then briefly crept through it. We were at the top of the dust and it was a surreal experience. Everything was brown. I couldn’t see anywhere except directly below me. The top of the dust rose and fell in little peaks and waves. Small puffs like dirt clouds stood out against the mile high blue sky, rolling and craning their way across India. I struggled to take photos, lost it and sinking back down into the fug we could only turn and head downwind.
Finally I could see the tower. We headed right for it and over it. I’d hoped for a beep, a thermal even, but nothing. Too much jungle, too many trees. The glide had to stretch a wee bit more so we could lob off into the lee of the plateau.
I looked for Sumit. He’d turned cross wind to the sunny side of another valley. Hopefully we’d meet up again at 2800m. It was full bar as I followed a stream that turned into a waterfall, cascading off the plateau. Easing round the edge of the cliffs onto the sunny nose I was holding my breath, waiting for the bite. Yi fucking Pee! It worked.
I looked back to the valley and saw Sumit way low. It hadn’t worked for him. I scratched slowly up, praying for him but finally lost him: he wasn’t getting up from there. Suddenly I saw Claudia doing the same, scratching low over a village. Jesus! She must have been doing some flying to get that far that low. Later, she told us she had hit literally the tops of the trees with her boots as she’d flown off the plateau – Cool, we all said.
In front were valleys and ridges, stacked like fences to jump. Slowly I climbed to 2500m. All those calculations you do – 2.5 sink, 2500m high, 3km away – I was doing them: Flat out, pointing my toes, sucking in my stomach, clocking up the options, being a hero, when Ping! – The speed bar snapped. Still, I was heading downwind, hands up, losing little height, gliding across closed valleys with steep rock, sharp spurs, tiny villages tucked beneath the shadows of cliffs and mountaintops. Beyond this, turning south the hills gradually opened out into broader valleys, shallower hills. The landing fields I wanted looked a long way off, especially over these trees, but the air was buoyant and the tailwind strong.
It was 5.30pm on New Years Eve. I was 42km straight line from take off and had flown right across the Sayhadris to land at 30m above sea level. Coconut palms were dotted among the villages, it was hotter, the people were broader and more circumspect. It would take 19 hours to get home via the police station, a hotel and the 150km winding mountain roads. Happy New Year I said to myself.
****
The wind turned west. Our final days were spent doing 20km runs out to the Satara Road across broad open valleys along roads with traffic and easy two-hour retrieves. Then it was over, time caught us all and our crack XC team split up to Mumbai, Delhi, Goa and London. It was back in London that I opened Chelysheva’s book for the first time. And although her language is mangled it made me laugh because she says it better, I think, than anyone: “In the conclusion I dare to give you one advise – if you sometimes happen to discuss with your family members where to go for a trip – either to Himalays, Ooti or some other mountains – do not be in a hurry to plan such long and tiresome routs. Come to Panchgani and you will never regret it.”
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