In April 1999, John Silvester arrived in western Nepal with cameraman Al Hughes to attempt the first-ever vol-bivouac crossing of western Nepal. With a tandem glider for transport and the remote, hostile Himalayan peaks as company. The first part of the diary was published in Cross Country edition 66. Here you can see day two in a award winning Quicktime mpeg video. Go video ->

Truth testing is the essence of a glider review. Taking the manufacturer’s promises and testing them against the reality of a hostile sky, that sort of thing. So when FreeX announced they had ‘A Champion’s Wing’, I had no choice but to take their Oxygen M to PWC Slovenia to win gold, struggle to raise [...]