UKC

Earlier this summer, British climber and mountain guide Will Sim and German alpinist Fabi Buhl made the first ascent of a 900 metre route on the west face of Gulmit Tower in the Hunza region of Pakistan, using paragliders to approach their objective and turning a 4-day trek/climb into a few hours of soaring on thermals and using XC flying techniques. Will shared more about the experience...

Climbing a mountain and flying off is a really fun thing to do. It also sometimes makes sense, being fast, efficient and often bypassing other dangerous obstacles in a conventional descent. But flying up a mountain? Or at least flying to the base of the thing so to climb it, that would be really cool, especially in the bigger, more inaccessible mountains of the world. But does it work? 

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That's totally rock and roll -- nice one

This is class. I remember sitting out some weather in a hut and reading an article (by John Bouchard) in a 1970s/1980s AAJ where he said he envisaged the paraglider being used by every alpinist in the future. I looked into learning but couldn't afford to at the time. 

Just found it, here it is:

http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/12198809100/Paragliders...