Hang Gliding and Paragliding Volume 44 / Issue 2: February 2014 | Page 42

ridges that are northern Chile, with their dunes and dry
riverbeds, mining holes and stray cacti, soaring buzzards
and an endless supply of sand.
I was flying a new wing this tour, having virtually worn
out my sturdy orange-and-blue wing. This one was green
and blue, looking like eagles’ eyes, making me happy when I
looked up at it.
I started ticking off distance on my GPS: 20 kilometers,
then 40, then 60. Dare we hope to make that elusive 100?
At midday the thermals got stronger. We paused to let the
vans check a difficult crossing; the winds were our friend,
and we flew around the point without issue.
I was now into new territory. Our guides, Ken
Hudonjorgensen, Luis Rosenkjer, and Todd Weigand, were
above, behind, below, and ahead of us, checking for lift and
ensuring a safe line through tricky sections. The ridge got
lower, making a loss of altitude more likely to put us on the
deck. The wind got stronger, forcing us to stay farther away
from the venturi winds on the ridge-tops. We didn't care.
We got high, higher than we had been all day, and carried
on, at three thousand feet above the ocean. By then we were

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HANG GLIDING & PARAGLIDING MAGAZINE

just five small wings in a big sky. I tried to keep everyone in
sight and stay high.
At this point I knew nothing was going to stop me from
reaching the goal—a beach landing in front of my hotel,
and the longest XC flight of my life. But the graveyard—a
section that has put so many pilots on the ground it has a
name, a life of its own—still beckoned. I started over it high,
with plenty of altitude. Or so I thought. Sink, then more
sink. Crap. Time for full speed bar; the sand dunes that can
save me are still far away.
I hit the dunes with barely seven hundred feet of altitude.
The changeable winds rip up the slope and bounce me
around. At one point, I have my feet out ready to land; I'm
that close to the ground. I don't dare go away from the hill
or I'll sink out completely. Slowly, slowly, I start working my
way back up the hillside. The others wait for me, confident
that I'll make it back up.
Jim and I are the only tour participants left flying. The
three guides flying with us have gotten us this far, and the
end is almost in sight. Both of us get a ripping thermal and
climb thousands of feet higher in a minute or two. Then we