Rock formations too fragile to stand, yet too ancient to fall, point heavenwards from a desert immortalised on screen as the classic American landscape. Monument Valley IS the West, the Frontier, truly a final, unflown outpost. Othar Lawrence leads the Red Bull Air Force Huckspedition across the border. Published in Cross Country magazine in 2004
Try to conjure up a picture of wild American landscapes and the picture most likely to appear in the mind’s eye is one of Monument Valley. A forest of freestanding red rock towers spearing into the sky with the almost Martian landscape of the empty red desert far below.
Monument Valley Park is on an “Indian Reservation” or part of the Navajo Nation, which means it’s a semi-autonomous area where the locals speak their mother tongue first and English only to outsiders. To truly understand Monument Valley you have to appreciate that while it defines the American landscape it’s not exactly America either.
About ten years ago I drove through Monument Valley with Hannes Arch, and knew immediately that I had to fly there. I’ve flown all over the world, but never in a place where the rock and sky combined in such a striking way. From the ground the formations are mind-blowing, but what would they look like from the air?
However, the Navajo Nation is, understandably, very strict about any type of activity on their land. Flying, climbing and anything “recreational” is basically prohibited, so I filed the idea of flying there under “Dreams, Unlikely.”
Flying dreams have a habit of refusing to go away. So, last year I began organising the project and eventually, after months of work, finally held in my hand the many permits allowing us to go fly Monument Valley.
With the paperwork completed, I called up the North American Red Bull Air Force: Chris Santacroce (PG & UL), Chris Muller (HG & PG), Will Gadd (PG & Climbing), myself (BASE & PG), Charles Bryan (BASE & skydive), Shane McConkey (BASE), Miles Daisher (BASE), plus Dominique Steffen and Ueli Gegenschatz from the Red Bull Acro Team. We were going flying in Monument!
After four months’ of planning, time and expense we arrived: a full team of five cameramen, a helicopter, an ultralight and ten dudes just itching to fly. However, when Will Gadd did his early scouting of the Park on the first morning, we were told our permits had been revoked and were banished for the meantime to an area just outside the official boundaries of the Park on the private property of Goulding’s Lodge and spent the first couple of days testing the limits of the ultralight.
The ultralight could take up Dominique with his paraglider in a d-bag, plus a cameraman, and tow a hang glider. We were able to put some awesome flights together near and over Monument Valley, synchronizing the paraglider and hang glider flights.
Chris Muller said he’d never had the opportunity to do aerobatics on a hang glider next to a paraglider before but felt totally comfortable with Dominique and was able to link up really well. Dominique didn’t know what was more fun – D-bagging out of the ultralight 15 times or flying next to the awesome rock walls!
With the help of our new D-bag, specifically designed for ultralight deployments and with a little trial and error, Dominique was able to get consistent openings even with the ultralight travelling at high speed. He did however experience a few interesting gyrations with risers tangled behind his head!
At one point we used the highway as the landing strip for the ultralight, making sure to look both ways before landing of course. We decided it would be great fun to load a BASE jumper into the ultralight, take off into oncoming traffic and release the BASE jumper a hundred metres above ground. It was hard to say if the people driving their cars were impressed, but it certainly got us fired up.
After a week of flying through, off and above the red sandstone desert, we still hadn’t been able to do anything in Monument Valley itself. Will pulled out all the stops and went on an epic negotiation binge with four sets of Navajo government officials.
It paid off. They gave us permission to access the Monument’s most impressive formation: The Totem Pole, 125 metres high and 8 metres wide, a prize nobody had legally claimed in over ten years!
As Will started climbing up the tower, a local Navajo tribesman sang out a rhythmic chant entreating the gods to keep us safe, galvanizing the last reserves of our energy.
It’s one thing to hear this music on the radio, but out in the cold desert morning, the sound joins with the wind bracing you with the power of this amazing place. We felt priviledged to be at this sacred monument with the full blessing of the Navajo.
By day’s end we’d logged 15 BASE jumps, numerous hang and paraglider flights, and a near-free climbing ascent of the tower. Will said he’d never seen anything as wild as a base jumper falling past him as he climbed hard moves!
Not one day went by where we didn’t do some sort of “first”, but that’s not why we were there. The pictures help, but nothing can truly do justice to what it felt like flying there. As a man I’m not supposed to be good at talking about my feelings, but it is the emotion as much as the action that I’m going to remember most about the Huckspedition.
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