Paragliding filmmaker Alun Hughes tells Ed Ewing what it’s like to fly tandem with John Silvester in the Karakoram
How many non flyers do you know who’d strap themselves to John Silvester’s tandem and head off into the remote Himalayas to make a film? It’s total commitment in one of the most dangerous places to fly a paraglider; one mistake by Silvester means you’re not going home.
Yet, for Alun Hughes, a 60-year-old Welshman, this isn’t even the first time he’s joined Silvester on one of his cutting edge Himalayan adventures – the first time was a decade ago, when the pair set off on an epic multiday vol bivouac adventure through the wilds of west Nepal and made the cult film From Nowhere to the Middle of Nowhere.
Alun Hughes
Now, a decade later “but none the wiser” Hughes has teamed up with ‘Silv’ again, this time for a high altitude adventure deep into Pakistan’s Karakoram mountains to cross never-before-flown terrain and open up a new extreme altitude cross country route.
Alun Hughes has been making adventure films for the past 20 years. A “climber really” he was there at the birth of ‘extreme’, “before it was a brand” and documented adventures in rock climbing and kayaking. Alun’s climbing film portfolio is extensive and includes Stone Monkey, a groundbreaking movie that won accolades around the world and starred British climbing legend Jonny Dawes and a young Cross Country magazine editor Bob Drury tackling some of Britain’s most difficult rock climbs.
Inspired by the antics of close friend John Silvester in the Himalayas in the late 1990s, Alun turned his focus on paragliding and joined Silv on his tandem to make From Nowhere to the Middle of Nowhere. A well known figure in the Welsh adventure film scene Alun has always been involved in more mainstream TV work working for BBC Wales and Welsh language channel S4C, more recently making adventure travel and wildlife films. However, over the summer of 2008 he decided to take a break from TV work and document a month of extreme paragliding in the Karakoram with high altitude maestro and old friend John Silvester.
The result is their second film together, the Birdman of the Karakoram, which has already won the ‘Human Endeavour’ prize at the Coupe Icare and is now making the rounds of mountain film festivals around the world – it’s on show at Banff this week (5 Nov). We spoke to Alun by phone at his home in North Wales just before he flew to Banff.
Alun, congratulations on an amazing film.
It turned out good didn’t it? It’s just being able to get those sort of pictures, and it’s just so impressive if you can get up there, and John can get up there.
The last 20 minutes is just insane, when you are scratching up over that col. How high was that col? About 6,500 m according to John. We didn’t have a GPS, John doesn’t like techno things, so we can’t follow it.
John flies without a GPS?
Yes, he doesn’t like them, he doesn’t bother. He just has a map on his lap and fairly good local knowledge. That’s what he’s used to … I was carrying a satellite phone, in case of emergency.
When did you go?
Last Spring. The whole trip was just over a month for me – all of May. It’s debatable when the best weather is, but anywhere between April and July is good. It was the first time in the Karakoram for me – it’s really spectacular.
How much flying did you get?
We had particularly bad weather for the whole thing. That year was bad. And that was why I didn’t acclimatise. We just had two short flights and then I was at 20,000 ft. We thought we’d get high a lot, but just didn’t get the weather for it.
What about John?
I just don’t get it with John because down here he’s asthmatic. But then up there he was OK. But it was the motion sickness that got me, but the altitude made it worse [In the film Alun suffers a lot as a tandem passenger]. Maybe John can cope with it mentally better than I could.
"The motion sickness gets me ..."
He seems to be completely at home
That’s the thing. He is. From the previous flights I know I have my limits, like a normal person, but John can just go further and remain in control when things get nasty. He’s just a different animal.
The more insane the situation becomes the more he enjoys it…
Yes, he enjoys the challenges, it’s that simple. He really enjoys being out there. And when things get a bit tight he’s still logical and cool about it and can still make decisions. If he thinks it can work he will make it work.
You flew with John a decade ago, but since then have been working in more mainstream TV. What made you go back to adventure film making?
Every now and then I think it’s healthy when you’re doing a steady job to do something that you really want to do yourself. That excites you. And that’s why. Just to do something we wanted to do. We didn’t have a budget at all. And the result is the Birdman of Karakoram.
Also, John and I live pretty close, we’re friends, I’m very aware of what he’s been doing and I just thought one day ‘I’d love to do something’.
On our Facebook site Wicus Willemse asked: ‘The flying in Nowhere and Birdman looks extreme and totally committing. Were there any points where you felt you were pushing things too far? Did you ever feel like telling John to stop or turn back?’
Before going out on Nowhere I was worried I would be doing that. But my main worry was that I would actually chicken out or scream at him and spoil the trip. There were times I wanted to turn back but I kept those feelings to myself and put my faith in John. I never felt out of control, but half the time I was closing my eyes anyway from the sickness. We never got out of control, John was well in control. But then when you are flying so fast so close to the face it is so easy to snag the glider on the mountain.
Alun and John high above the Karakoram
In the film it’s clear you are really close to these enormous mountain faces.
It would have been fantastic to have a camera far away to show that. There is a shot of us going into the mountain and underneath these huge overhangs. This huge cliff going over our heads. From far away that overhang is nothing, it’s not even a feature on the mountainside. The scale is very hard to grasp.
Bob Johnson on Facebook asked about the scale of things. He said: ‘Like many others I struggle to get true scale on rock faces when you get in close, so in effect you are not sure just how close you are. With the scale of the ridges you were flying how do you know just how close you are without dragging the wing tip though the snow?’
You’ve got this awareness, like you’re driving – John is very aware of where the wingtip is. And that wingtip is a couple of metres away from the snow sometimes. Nice smooth air and you can calculate but if there’s any turbulence you have to allow a little bit more room.
In Nepal John hadn’t flown a tandem for a while and we were scratching on our first day, and we had to go really close and the end of a wingtip snagged a tree. We didn’t catapult into the face and it just released immediately but that’s why I’m nervous, because John is not that used to flying the tandem.
Do you fly yourself?
In the very early days I flew. I got to intermediate standard. I did a few small cross countries but I’m very much a beginner. I never really got into it – I like it, I like flying but I’m much more interested in filming it somehow.
So what are the difficulties of making a film like this?
Keep it simple really. If you have a good strong character and a good story and it’s the real deal – there are no shots from other places – then it just seems to work. He’s Joe Cool, I’m scared stiff. People enjoy my reactions – there’s a comedy value there. The thing works. If you did have all sorts of cameras and cutaways, it would be a different film. This is real raw adventure and I think people appreciate that. There’s no hype. This is one of the best guys in the world and how does he do it? The only way to know is to go with him. Luckily people find it entertaining.
How cold was it?
Very cold. When we were beating up that face John had to make that work and I think forget about his body really and just got totally into it, and when we got over the other side he had hot aches and said his feet were pretty frozen. We could have flown back to Hunza, but maybe that’s why we went down. Had we thought early enough, maybe we could have done, but John was so cold he wanted to carry on at a lower level.
Will you go back?
Yes. We’re thinking of going back next year. We’d like to get very high on Rakaposhi. Nobody’s been to 8,000 m. It could be possible.
Would you take oxygen for that?
Well climbers don’t do that. John says if climbers can climb and walk at that altitude surely we can sit down and pull a few strings at that altitude. Rakaposhi is 7,788 m – if you can get your shadow over the top of Rakaposhi and you’ve got a GPS, then you could tick it. It’s easy to get high on the right day, but then it depends where you are and it’s unknown airspace if you like at that height – you reach a different weather.
And what next for Birdman, will it get onto TV?
We hope so. For me the real test is whether it gets broadcast. If it did then I’d be very very happy. We’re trying to sell this one and get a commission for the next one as well.
You can listen to the podcast of the interview here, or buy Birdman of the Karakoram from www.xcshop.com now. Watch the trailer below:
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November 19th, 2009 at 3:05 am
Nice one Alun! The movie is very enjoyable. Ummmm. Have you considered motion sickness tablets?
December 29th, 2009 at 8:48 am
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