Zen of Hike and Fly

by KINGA MASZTALERZ

She's flown across the Dolomites and spent a month bivy flying in the Himalayas. Next stop: the Redbull X-Alps! Kinga checks in with USHPA Pilot on what it's all about.

There is an old Chinese story about a wise peasant. His son was the apple of his eye, and he owned a fine horse that everyone admired. One day the horse escaped from his grounds and disappeared. The villagers came to him one by one and said, “You are such an unlucky man. It is such bad luck that your horse escaped.” The peasant responded, “Maybe it’s bad; maybe it’s good. Who knows?”

Kinga doing what Kinga does

The next day the stallion returned, followed by 12 wild horses. When neighbors visited the peasant again, offering congratulations on his good luck, he replied, “Maybe it’s good; maybe it’s bad. Who knows?” The next day, while his son was attempting to train one of the wild horses, he fell down and broke his leg. Once more everyone came with their condolences: “It’s terrible—such bad luck.” Again, he replied, “Maybe it’s bad; maybe it’s good. Who knows?”

A few days passed. As the peasant’s poor son limped around the village, the emperor’s army entered the village and announced that a war was starting and they were enrolling all the young men of the village. However, they left the peasant’s son, since he had a broken leg. Everyone was extremely jealous of the peasant. They talked about his sheer good luck, while the old man just muttered: “Maybe it’s good; maybe it’s bad. Who knows? “ In the modern world, we can control so many factors of everyday life that if anything adversely affects our plans, we easily get anxious or upset. The weather, sickness, a broken-down car, other people’s behavior—so many factors are beyond our control. Since we can do nothing about them, we need to stay calm and centered, as the old Chinese peasant advised, even though that’s easier said than done.

Last season, I had a number of opportunities to practice this calm Zen approach to events I couldn’t control. This doesn’t mean I was sitting on my hands waiting for fortune to turn around. What I could control was my attitude, effort, and actions, and this made a world of a difference. I realized then that controlling these behaviors could actually turn bad luck into some beautiful adventures.

I planned to participate in three hike-and-fly competitions in Europe in the summer of 2018. The first, Bornes To Fly, is a 2.5-day race in May, starting and finishing in Talloires next to Annecy Lake. A closed-circuit route is announced only 30 minutes before the start, so if you aren’t local and don’t know the area by heart, there is no time to prepare. Of course, that makes the race easier for locals and harder for tourists.

At this race, I made a couple of mistakes—the worst being landing low and on the wrong side of the lake on a first day, forcing me to complete a long hike to goal. This had nothing to do with luck; it was the result of my “complete lack of imagination,” as my awesome supporter Sebastien stated. I finished 20th out of 46 and was praised as a first woman, which wasn’t too hard to achieve, since I was the only woman participating. I learned that I should try to “use” other pilots more, which is difficult for someone who usually flies alone and is not used to following others. However, the race was great fun and a nice warm-up before two longer events: St Hil AirTour in June and Dolomiti Superfly at the end of August.

St Hil AirTour, a weeklong race with start and finish in Saint Hilaire, is in a spot famous for the huge costume festival, Coupe Icare, in September. For me, it’s a very special place filled with memories, as I lived there for a few months and flew my first +100km from there. I couldn’t wait to go back and race in a fun hike-and-fly event. Every year, I spend the whole European summer living in an old camper van. It slowly and surely rolled through the Alps without any problems…until the day before the start of St Hil AirTour. That’s, unfortunately, when a clutch in my van broke, and, even though it required a cheap, easy repair, I didn’t have enough time to participate in a race. Bad luck. We spent a few days searching for a new clutch and following AirTour on live tracking. I was very upset not to be there. On the other side it was raining nonstop for four or five days, so my wonderful team of Chris and Sébastien started joking that the good old van chose a perfect time to break down. When we finally managed to repair the van, we celebrated with a bottle of champagne and an immediate check of the weather. Since it looked like a big day in South Tiroso, we spontaneously went 550 km, all the way from Maurienne in France to Antholz in Italy. And the very next day, I flew a 215km triangle from Grente and, even more important, helped a pilot who threw his reserve and went down in high alpine terrain. Maybe it was good after all. The following weeks passed with our driving through the Alps, taking beautiful flights, and enjoying some spontaneous vol-bivouacs. Then, Dolomiti Superfly time approached. A few days before the start of the race, I lost my phone, after which DHL lost a phone I had bought online. Finally my friend Carmelo lent me his old phone at the very last moment, so I could participate in the race. Consequently, I spent the last night before the race downloading all the musthave apps. In the morning, I woke up with a fever, sore throat and runny nose. Talk about bad luck! I decided to participate anyway; I just couldn’t give up the idea of racing in the Dolomites. If you have ever seen these stunning mountains, you surely understand. Even though I knew I couldn’t compete as I would like to, I felt I could still have fun in the mountains and test my body’s limits. The first day, because of the strong wind from the north, most of the competitors chose to hike all the way from Levico to Canazei on the road, around the mountains. A few of us decided to climb up and fly over. I’m always keen (sometimes too keen) to try to fly in borderline conditions, so, obviously, I was in the second group. We completed four hours of hiking, where we were rewarded with a beautiful high-alpine takeoff and turbulent flying with a strong headwind. It was all as expected, but at some point, I got really confused in the air (maybe because of my cold and fever?) and followed another pilot who chose a bad line. We both ended up in a little bowl-valley with only one good, obvious landing field. As we were heading towards landing, I imagined a nice obvious landing approach, but at the very last minute, the other pilot turned right downwind and straight into me!

I ran away to the right, and we both hit the ground hard on a small clearing, with his glider going onto a fence. I helped him with his wing, which was OK, but then I discovered my harness was ripped. Later, we hiked together and talked for many hours. He admitted that he had panicked and, despite our having taken off and flying together all the way, he simply didn’t see me on his right. Also, he couldn’t explain why he turned downwind just a few meters above the ground. Now, in addition to my cold, I had a slight whiplash, headache and ripped harness. Bad luck again, I guess. We kept hiking the road until evening, when my supporter Chris suggested climbing a 2450m mountain on our way and trying to fly from it the next morning. Chris and I knew the mountain from a little vol-biv we had done a few weeks earlier, and we liked the idea. In the evening Chris did a great job of feeding me, massaging my whiplashed back and repairing my harness. Unfortunately, I coughed all night, preventing everyone from getting any sleep. The next day we climbed for three hours to the top of the mountain, where the wind was still coming from the north, very stable, giving us another good flight. I landed on a small field, while using almost every meter of altitude on a glide, then hit the road and hiked another 40 km. At some point, I checked the map and saw that the borrowed phone had stopped working. When Carmelo passed by, he took the phone to be repaired, and local service fought with it till 2:00 a.m., after which the phone was supposed to work. Chris and I didn’t sleep at all again, because of my coughing. Actually, I spent the night in a sitting position to make it easier to breathe. The next morning I started hiking with stops for coughing, while Chris tried to download apps to the repaired phone. After two hours, we realized this bloody phone still wasn’t working

and without it, we didn’t have access to any contact. It was against the rules to progress without it. I also felt bad at this point and started thinking if I kept pushing my body, I might hurt myself. We decided to pull out. It was a hard decision to make, as within three to five hours I could have been in the air in the heart of Dolomites, on the best day of the week, and finally able to make some decent progress. However, even though I had pushed myself—my body, and my mind—sometimes the universe simply doesn’t cooperate. Bad luck. We took a cheap room, and I spent a week in bed with a fever and chills. It was awful, but also fascinating, to see how for the previous three days my mind had kept my body composed. I was suffering and feeling nasty, but still was able to fly and hike the mountains with a backpack. However, once my body decided it was time to rest, I fell to pieces, spent a few days in delirium, and was only able to flounder

from my bed to the bathroom. A week later, I was on top of it. But the weather turned bad, and Chris had to return to New Zealand. Finally the weather looked good for the next few days. Even though I was still coughing like an old tractor, my European season was coming to a definitive end, and the mountains were calling. So off I went. I decided to follow the Dolomiti Superfly route this time alone, carrying my camping gear with 17 kg, not 8 kg, on my back and with no time or distance pressure. I symbolically started at 10 a.m. on Saturday, same time as the race two weeks earlier, hiked to the Vetriolo takeoff, and with very low cloudbase, flew east and squeezed myself into the valley leading north. I spent a night at Passo Manghen in a little cave hosting a colorful shrine, so I was cozily protected from cold and evil forces. The following day the forecast looked

good, with a slight southern flow and decent cloudbase. I hiked four hours to the pass, which seemed to be a perfect takeoff, but seeing it from a distance, I already knew it was a mistake: clouds building over a rocky ridge on the south completely shaded over my pass and the whole Moena Valley leading to the north, where I wanted to go. I sat there for some time and assured myself that the only thing I could do from there was to take off with a light backwind and glide down into the valley as far as I could. If it were a race, that would be the right thing to do, followed maybe by hitting the road or climbing some mountain on the north side of the ridge for the afternoon flight. However, it wasn’t a race. I was there to enjoy the autumn Dolomites. So I decided to take a scenic trail around to Monte Cermis, where I wanted to take off the next day. After a few hours of hiking through rocky, demanding terrain, I had a thing or two to say about this decision, as my body still felt weak after illness. I was suffering a bit under my backpack, with perfect cumulus clouds forming above my head all the way over the Dolomites, while I was stuck on the ground with no possible takeoffs. I

even got a bit annoyed with my poor decisions and, again, bad luck, and then I met an older tourist setting up a tent next to the trail. He was beaming, so “ecstatic to be here in these stunning mountains on such a beautiful afternoon.” This humbled me. It can be so easy to lose perspective. So easy to

underestimate what we have. Later I learned that my dear friend had a very bad accident during a takeoff that day. She broke her leg, arm, and nose and bruised her self-confidence, which might take a long time to heal. Meanwhile, I was able to hike and enjoy these stunning mountains while thinking about my bad luck... I spent an incredibly picturesque night in the mountains and the next day flew from Monte Cermis all the way to Monte Cristallo, through the heart of Dolomites, with breathtaking views and big clouds chasing me. I do nothing but fly in various mountains for six or seven months a year, so I’m a bit spoiled. But this flight was so beautiful it was almost hurting me somewhere inside. On the next day, I felt really tired, so I decided to take a shuttle to Monte Piana. I easily convinced myself that when I’m in a civilized area with facilities, I should use them. But I was “punished” immediately with an incredibly stable day, so I glided out and moved to Tre Cime massif. And, oh, boy! those mountains are gorgeous. I just sat in the sun staring at the golden mountains bathing in afternoon light, lost in time. When I realized how late it was,

I paced to the pass to glide toward Val Pusteria. The sun was already setting, so I knew I had just a few minutes before the evening katabatic flow would make a tight rocky takeoff impossible to launch. I screwed up my first takeoff as the lines got hooked on the rocks. The second try got off with a cravat, but I knew I had no time left, so I flew out. I

wasn’t able to open the knotted cravat, so I glided as far as I could, weight shifting and landing smoothly on a tiny clearing, with wind already going down the valley. It was one of those flights you don’t put on XContest, but which shows you’re becoming a pilot you’ve always aspired to be.

Sesto was a waypoint of Dolomiti Superfly, so I went there... and immediately regretted it. It’s an extremely touristic place with no place to sleep, even if I had wanted to spend 100€ on a room (which I did not). Everything was full. I spent an awful night sliding on a slope and woke up completely wet from condensation, because, in trying

to hide, I didn’t set up my tarp. From here the autumn really kicked in, and conditions became extremely stable. Then the rains came. After some flying and a lot of hiking, I arrived in Feltre and decided I was done. So I simply took a bus back to Levico to retrieve my van. There is no story about breaking records or covering massive distance here. It’s just that this trip, playing in the autumn Dolomites, alone and without pressure, was such bliss, such a beautiful way to end this European season. I don’t think I would have done it if I had satisfied myself during Dolomiti Superfly. Some other cool things would have happened, I’m sure, but this solo vol-bivouac has engraved in my heart priceless memories I wouldn’t trade for anything else. It was so good, after all. This European season was beautiful. Even if I didn’t have much luck with hike-and-fly races, I applied for another one. In October, I went to the Indian Himalayas, where I cruised with vultures and hung out with local shepherds. And when I returned to Bir from a little vol-bivouac, I learned that I had qualified for Red Bull X-Alp 2019. Awesome! I mean, it is good, isn’t it? Or is it bad? Let’s wait and see.