Fly Site- Sirkot, Nepal

View of the grounds and the round house at Sirkot.

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Sirkot is the sort of flying destination that only an ambitious daydreamer would concoct, the sort of place I don't think anyone could have imagined success for twenty years ago when paragliding was an odd fringe sport. The proprietor here is the famed Babu Sunowar Sherpa, who made a big splash several years ago with his summit-to-sea expedition in which he and a partner flew, cycled, and kayaked their way from the summit of Everest to the mouth of the Ganges, without the assistance of big sponsors or logistics teams.

Located several hours Southwest of Pokhara by Jeep, this is not a place you'll be able to find with public transportation or possibly even with a good map. Your best option is to contact Blue Sky Paragliding in Pokhara who regularly arranges trips there. It may also be possible to collaborate beforehand with other pilots through the “Paragliding Nepal” group on Facebook.

Jeep ride en route to launch.

At Sirkot a regal-looking roundhouse perched scenically along a terraced ridge serves as a lodge for the nearby launch that is the preferred starting point for an appx. 40 km XC flight back to Pokhara. Both the views and food here are great! A tail wind reliably nudges flight paths towards Pokhara, and a series of four ridges perpendicular to the route provides lift for crossing the valleys in between.

One should not attempt to fly from Sirkot without receiving a briefing from a local pilot/guide who will introduce you to the logistics of this somewhat remote area. If you don't have XC ambitions, of course you can still fly here, but the area is remote and is not as conducive to the kind of independence that pilots can enjoy in the outlying areas of Sarangkot. From Sirkot there a number of pre-set LZ's that you can be picked up from by Jeep should your long-distance plans for the day not pan out.

On glide towards Pokhara...! I didn't make it.  Bummer.

Hazards: The usual precautions regarding rotor and developing weather apply. Here in the more rural areas of Nepal there is an additional hazard less common around Pokhara: wires, good lord, the wires. Electricity is distributed in a sort of spider-web arrangement from small generative sources in these areas, and one may encounter electrical lines strung high across valleys where it makes no sense for electrical lines to be. Always assume that there are wires strung across the otherwise appealing folds of the mountains where you would normally go to seek lift.

Also, I witnessed an accident at launch here in which a newer pilot was blown behind the ridge to a hard landing within a minute or so after launch. It was totally unnecessary and pilot error, but it should be noted here that the ridge is indeed steep and and narrow.

Hope you like daal bhaat, I sure do!

Opinion: As lovely as my trip to Sirkot was, it also so ended up being somewhat unexpectedly my most expensive several days in Nepal. For this reason I am hesitant to recommend it as a destination unless you have a serious desire to attempt the XC flight back to Pokhara. While I understand the reasons behind the relatively high costs, I remain opposed to the idea of daily fees for airspace usage and supervision- not my cup of chiya masala. Were there facilities at launch to maintain that would be one thing, but there are decidedly not. Here's my tally for three days and two nights:

• Food (daal bhaat): 250 Rs per meal (x5 meals total $12.50 US )
• 1st day Supervision fee for instructor/guide (one-time, mandatory): 30 Euro ($40.00 US)
• Airspace usage fee: 10 Euro per day (x2, $25.00 US)
• Jeep transport one way to/from Sirkot: 1000 Rs (x2, $20.00 US)
• Jeep transport from LZ back to Sirkot: 500 Rs (x2, $10.00 US)
• Camping fee: 400 Rs/night (x2, $8.00 US). Rooms available for appx. $12.00 US/night.

I recall forking over somewhere around $120.00 all together for my several day trip to Sirkot, in contrast to Pokhara where I was able to live very comfortably for between $5.00 - $10.00 per day for all food, lodging, and transport. The time I spent flying around Sirkot was amazing and well worth the trip. Undoubtedly a similar trip almost anywhere else in the world would cost five times what I spent.

I'm glad I went, but I can't say I'm inspired to go again.  Good luck and fly safe!

Fly Site- Sarangkot, Pokhara, Nepal

Mid-air selfie.

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Perhaps the best way to introduce Sarangot to a visiting solo pilot is with a cliché: here you'll find the good, the bad and the ugly. The good here is truly great, though I'll confess it took me a day or two to see past the bad and enjoy myself. I'll forgo going in to detail here about logistics, meteorology, or routes as I sometimes do because many others already have: simply Google “Paragliding Nepal” or “Sarangkot” to find a plethora of information. Here it is my aim to help you make the decision, “Is this the kind of place I'd like to visit for paragliding?” Speaking for myself, I learned more, set more personal records, and met more new friends here in a month than I would have almost anywhere else. Highlights included taking a three-day SIV course and also making a successful circuit of The Green Wall, a relatively easy XC loop of about 35 km that begins and ends at Sarangkot. There may be a few issues on the ground with Sarangkot, but once up in the air all is well!

En route to one of three landing zones spaced conveniently along the edge of Phewa Tal.

The Good: The setting is spectacular: as a backdrop for some of the most consistent and friendliest flying conditions anywhere in the world are a jaw-dropping six-thousand meters of rock and ice to the North, and Phewa Tal to the South, a large lake well-situated for those aspiring to practice acro and SIV. The geography and climate inspires XC routes limited only by the imagination, and pilots regularly achieve 100 km triangle flights from here in peak flying season (January-March). One can learn from some of the best pilots in the world who visit often for extended periods, and a regular community of both local and ex-pat pilots exists to welcome anyone who is serious and respectful about flying here. There is something for every level of ambition from ridge-soaring to regularly scheduled SIV courses to XC expeditions.

Evening briefing for SIV course with David Arrufat of Blue Sky Paragliding.

If you're looking for a place to start making sense of the scene make your way to the North Lakeside area of Pokhara. Here you'll find several of the more long-established paragliding booking offices including Blue Sky, Frontiers, and Sunrise. Sunrise sells a fold-up map with various XC routes and other useful information for flying in the area. Pop in to one of the the offices and if someone has a moment they should be able to line you out. In this area also it is possible to share taxi or jeep rides up to launch at Sarangkot between the hours of approximately 9:00 am and 12:00 pm- just look for anyone wandering around with an over-sized backpack. (The time of day may vary some with season.) Outside of these hours you may have some difficulty in finding other pilots to share costs with. The ride is approximately 25 minutes and about 700 rupees ($7.00 U.S.).

There are also several hiking routes up to Sarangkot, which I personally made regular use of! Hiking time would be about 1.5 to 3.0 hours. The trail beginning in Khapaudi just outside of Pokhara is my favorite one. Follow the shore of Phewa Tal headed out of North Lakeside, and after 2 km look for for the turn-off with the sign that says “This Way to Sarangot” with an arrow. After appx 0.75 km there is a turnoff on to a trail up in to the brush. If you can find this, the way is obvious from here, it's all up! It is not well marked but is well-trodden.

Be prepared to mobbed by people demanding to help fold your wing, or give one chocolate, or one rupee, one pen, etc.  Obviously most Nepalis find such behavior distasteful so don't let such pestering leave you with a bad taste in your mouth.  Disarm them with your amazing charm and talent, like my ability to juggle for three seconds!

The Bad: Perhaps nowhere else will you find a place where the sport of paragliding has been so thoroughly commercialized and overexploited. No less than twenty businesses operate to take tourists on tandem flights, and rumor had it that twenty more had applied for permits for the following year. At the main launch and in the nearby house thermal you should be comfortable with the idea of flying in a gaggle. Same rules apply here as anywhere else: circle in the same direction as everyone else, and always, always be scanning for traffic in 360 degrees.

Upon my first visit to the main launch area at Sarangkot I watched slack-jawed as I witnessed the kind of missteps and trespasses occur every fifteen minutes that would go down in history for bad launch juju nearly anywhere else. It as if all the pilots crowding their way to the front thought they were in a mosh pit... Before getting your equipment out the first time I recommend just observing take-offs at launch for at least an hour to see what sort of crowd you'll be flying with. See my earlier entry about Pokhara for a longer rant, but let it be said that one should proceed with extra caution to guard themselves against actions of other pilots here, particularly in your first days. I had never flown in real crowds before coming here and it took me a few days to get used to the idea of starting out in a gaggle. In summary, you will not be the first visitor to have discovered this flying Shangri-La.

On Cloud Ten- one step above Cloud Nine.

The Ugly: The amazing flying here appears to cultivate a level of peril in equal proportion. There are various unattractive aspects of flying here that should not be overlooked, though nor should they deter anyone from the idea of coming to this great place.

Reports of injuries, fatalities, and near-misses were spoken of a bit too regularly for my comfort around Sarangkot. Perhaps this is merely a result of the large number of people who fly here, but in general I found an attitude towards safety a bit more casual than I have witnessed in other renowned flying areas of the world, of which I have visited several. Bottom line: don't let it rub off on you.

When I visited during February and March 2014, a commission of local aviation and free-flight officials that may or may not be a sort of mafia had just elected to totally prohibit all beginner pilot classes. Perhaps this is an attempt to mandate better safety by removing less-experienced pilots from the crowds, or perhaps it is part of an effort to stifle potential future competition for already-employed tandem pilots.

If you dare step outside your hotel on the day of Holi in mid-March, be prepared to be assaulted with color...

There is officially a fee of approximately $50 U.S. that is to be paid for your permit to fly in Nepal to the C.A.A.N. (Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal), to be renewed every two weeks. That comes out to around $1200 per year if one were to maintain their permit in Nepal year-round, an impressive extortion compared to my yearly $75 USHPA registration back home in the US. There are several uniformed officials manning the launch area as well as one checkpoint on the road up who are said to occasionally check permits, though I never met anyone who had it happen to them. I recommend acquiring your permit initially when you arrive, carrying it with you, and I'll leave the decision up to you if you think it's necessary to renew it should your flying plans last longer than two weeks. Acquiring your permit requires that you show the following:

1. Proof of membership in the national paragliding organization of your country.
2. Proof of insurance covering paragliding activities.
3. Your passport, as well as one extra passport-sized photo (easily acquired in Pokhara).

I got my permit from the Blue Sky office in North Lakeside, though I believe almost any paragliding office can help you with this process.

I hope that the future is bright for this place and to return someday soon!

Head to the landing zone at the far West side of the lake to practice your ground handling, truly a great spot!

Bandipur, Nepal

Bandipur, Nepal with Himalayas in the background.

Above launch at Bandipur, I've finally begun to clear the haze inversion that lies constantly like a dark ghost across every otherwise beautiful vista of the country. I'm the lone glider in the sky today, the only pilot in this little town actually, which is not really ideal- it's always good to have second opinions and extra eyes to assess conditions and plans when it comes to flying- but I couldn't resist on a day like this. From up here above the messy chessboard of a valley below I can make out distant snows on the Himalayas. Hawks circle lazily below to show me where lift is to be found, the air is smooth, the threatening clouds still distant on the horizon. A hilltop Buddhist temple at the end of the ridge I am soaring over has a little boy who waves enthusiastically each time I pass every ten minutes or so. Or maybe he's throwing rocks at me. I'm pretty sure I did see a rock, the punk.

After forty-five minutes or so of easy soaring the cumulus in the distance start looking a little too-cumulonimbus-y for my tastes, and I decide it's time to come down for a landing before the powerful clouds approach any closer. The conditions have grown stronger by now and it takes me a good twenty minutes of big-ears and wing-overs to come in for a landing. Several times I descend but am blasted back up in to the sky just before touch-down. When I finally slide in to a gentle stop in the small field centered along the ridge my heart is pounding and sweat rolls off my forehead. I check the wind, gusting to 35 kph now.

"You take me fly?"

Still hooked in to my heap of lines and material, two little girls maybe ten and eleven appear out of the brush. They are sporting large rusty khukuri knives and sandals and pink t-shirts with American cartoon characters. They set down the heavy loads of brush they have been collecting, wood for cooking fuel no doubt, to come investigate this thing that fell from the sky. I'm by no means the first paraglider to appear here- for perhaps the last ten years or so there has been an occasional trickle of pilots visiting Bandipur, a small ridge-top village with a fly site that would be considered spectacular anywhere else except when compared to nearby Sarangkot, one of the world's most spectacular, popular, and busiest launches. But it's still not quite any everyday occurrence that pilots show up here so surely they are curious. I'm relieved that I'm not immediately harangued for coins and chocolates- the girls are either well-behaved or still unspoiled by tourists handing out incentives to pose for photographs. They stare and chatter among themselves. I unhook myself from the harness and exchange a few words of rudimentary Nepali then pass them my hand-held wind gauge to play with while I'm folding up my equipment, which they button-press with gusto.

I decide to wait around for a while to see if flying conditions improve. The girls leave their work behind for a moment to play, fashioning flattened water bottles to bare feet like mini-skis to slide down the grassy slope, the rings of cellophane labels for bindings. Here like everywhere in Nepal there's plenty of empty bottles strewn around on the ground- centralized trash collection is not an institution anywhere except perhaps the most upscale areas of large cities- so I flatten two more bottles and join in myself. I am heavy compared to the girls though and do not slide so smoothly over the grass. They are still watching me carefully so I perform a few dramatic trips and somersaults in my attempts to ski. Everyone cracks up, my work here is done.

Landing fee receipt for which I paid one time when I landed in the village in the valley down below Bandipur.  I think the writing translates as. "Hey, we've got rich people falling out of the sky, why not?"

After some practice they've got skiing down pretty good. They slide all the way down to the bottom of the slope with arms extended like plane wings. They turn around and point at me and circle their wings a few more times before running back up the hill. They must have seen me take off a while ago so they know you have to build up a little speed just before launch. They spread their wings as they have seen me do, their imaginations taking flight.

After a half an hour or so they are back to work and dive in to the brush to search for anything not yet reduced to stumps. I don't have a big knife with me but I attempt to help by breaking off smaller branches to add to their pile. They seem charmed by my efforts.

As I'm returning to the field with a load of brush a well-dressed family apparently out for a sightseeing picnic is up at the launch. I add my brush to the pile and they come over to investigate. There is a young man about my age in fancy sunglasses and slicked hair, his wife in heels that somehow must have managed the steep and rocky trail up here, a son and a daughter in tow. The young man's English is quite good, he says he is home for a few weeks from working in construction Saudi Arabia where he has gone to seek the attractive wages of a few hundred dollars per month. He wants to know how much my paraglider costs, and how much money do I make per year. I give him a low-ball estimate on both numbers and he slaps his forehead in hilarity. And how long I am here in Bandipur? I tell him I'm not sure. But I can stay here for as long as I want, he says, right? Who cares about time when you've got money?

I grimace back at him politely and decide to go back to helping the girls collect firewood. When I return with another load the family is gone, and the girls arrange their loads in tight bundles. One of them failed to bring enough rope for the job and I watch her collect an armful of tall grass and expertly weave it in to several meters of strong twine in just a few minutes. They arrange the loads on their backs supported by a tump-line across the forehead and head downhill back to town with a wave and namaste.

I am left up top alone with a sunset and too much time on my hands.