“Once you have experienced flying, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned to heaven, because there you were and there you will want to go back.”
The phrase attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, who historians swear that he never produced, although he designed several artifacts that, he expected, would allow man to fly with the birds, reproduces perfectly what he feels who has already caught himself in the air, wind in his face and just a candle over his head. And of the means that the human being has developed to get to the birds go out, probably one of the most beautiful and intense is the paragliding flight, or paraglider, as Americans prefer.
The paragliding is a free flight mode in which the candle, similar to a parachute, supports the pilot in the air the time that the wind and the thermal (hot air chains climbing from the heated ground and that lead the flying to many meters high) to allow.
Although it is framed as a radical sport, the paragliding flight is usually smooth, unlike the dizzying parachute descent. But behold, one day some mountaineers have decided to unite the useful to the pleasant and save energy coming from increasingly high mountains using the paragliding. Considering that for most people, the descent after a tiring climb was more dangerous than the rise itself, why not join the two sports in one?
The first mountaineer who registered a high mountain descent-and more than that, from Everest’s summit-was the French climber Jean-Marc Boivin, who jumped in September 1988 from 8,849 meters in direct altitude to camp 2 on a flight of almost 3,000 meters performed in 11 minutes. But the pioneer did not please the Nepalenses authorities, who only legalized the practice in 2022, giving authorization to South African Pierre Carter for the first official jump. This has not reached the summit, taking off from 8,000 meters, but his feat stands out that he arrived further, to the Gorakshep village, 5,164 meters in 20 minutes.
If Everest is the usual star of the party, in mountains around the world, the sport, known as Hike & Fly, or walking and flying, spread, included rustic races and is increasingly present. Its larger event, the Red Bull X-ALPS, will be held between 15 and 27 this month, in a route that crosses the Alps and unites race, climbing and free flight over 1,283 kilometers through the mountains of Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. In this edition, among the 35 athletes classified, a Brazilian will compete for the events: Gabriel Jansen.
With months of exhausting training in Brazil and, three months ago, in Europe, he prepared to face sections of up to 150 kilometers a day, with an average of 4,000 meters of vertical climb and 100 kilometers on foot. “It’s a mix of anxiety and fulfillment,” he said amid the latest preparations for the journey. “It was intense months, preparing me with everything I had, so of course it hits that cold in my belly, but also a confidence of those who did what needed to be done,” he said.
Here in Brazil, the growing community will surely cheer for their colleague across the Atlantic. And one of the Brazilians who will be eyeing the tests will be Leandro “Montoya” Estevam, the first and only mountaineer jumping from the fog, the highest point in Brazil, with 2,995 meters of altitude, and in an environment that challenges even those who only want to go up and down on the two feet, the moist climate and the muddy soil of the Amazonian forest, which makes it difficult to walk, mixed with the wind and fog access to the summit, which name the mountain.
Another who will be eyeing Alps will surely be Ricardo Rui, the Brazilian who jumped from the highest peak to this day, the Ojos del Salado volcano (6,893 meters altitude) in Colombia, and the only to register flight from the summit of this mountain. Well, the local guides warned that it did not take place from the rigorous wind regime. But he went there, jumped and was pleased to fly over the cold crater. Because that’s how you do who knows how to do it.
Unfortunately, one of the pioneers of this sport, Rodrigo Raneri, will not be able to watch the performance of his compatriot. He died in July last year to take off from a K2 slope in Pakistan. But to him, for sure, every paramonerist makes honors. This text, for example, is dedicated to it.
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