Part II: Local Geography
A Paraglider’s 'Crazy' Attempt to Fly Over the Alaska Range
New topographic maps made from satellite data will help the state monitor—and plan for—its eroding coastlines and melting permafrost.
To understand this story, you have to understand that I’m not crazy. Sure, I’ve had some close calls, but that doesn’t mean I’ve got a death wish. There was that time in Mexico when I got stuffed in a waterfall kayaking a first descent and spent more than five minutes underwater. And there was the time we got knocked down and nearly run over by an ocean freighter sailing in hurricane-force winds and 35-foot seas off Cape Mendocino, California. Ah, and there was that time I landed my paraglider in a river above a heinous waterfall in the Dominican Republic—that was a close call for sure. And I do have to admit to spending a particularly spooky 10 hours swimming in a Pacific atoll filled with sharks after a night dive went terribly wrong. And I really got close that time my kite exploded in a howling gale kitesurfing in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, forcing me to dump my gear and swim for several hours in 50°F water against the wind to make landfall.
But I promise I didn’t do any of these things for the adrenaline rush. And I didn’t do them because I’m careless, or because I didn’t understand the risks. By definition, “adventure” means something is going to go wrong. What I’m guilty of is sometimes pushing too hard. And sometimes I’m probably guilty of dreaming a little too big.
Gavin McClurg paraglides over the Alaska Range
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY JODY MACDONALD
That’s the thing about setting out to pursue your dreams. When you take the leap and pull it off, it sets a precedent. It builds confidence, and because we are human and are inclined to want more, we want more. Young children think that anything is possible because they haven’t been told yet that it isn’t. They don’t fully understand the consequences. Why not jump? Time and school and adults and society and all the other things that shape us inevitably erode our compulsive curiosity and limitless confidence, and we slip into convention.
I tried to fit in; I tried to toe the line. I got a job after university that required me to sometimes wear a tie and sometimes sit in an office. The office didn’t have windows and I was terrible at tying a tie, so I quit and went kayaking instead. I got pretty good at kayaking and started running rivers that were on the difficulty level where one wrong move could lead to serious consequences. After the Mexico episode, I decided I should back off a bit, sail around the world, and take like-minded adventurers kitesurfing instead. Other than the hurricane incident and a few mishaps with reefs and getting stranded on an island and spending a night with sharks, it all went pretty well, and I ended up going around the globe twice over a 13-year span, visiting and in some cases living in some 99 countries along the way.
Somewhere along the way I met a girl. All good stories have a girl. This girl handed me a paraglider and hucked me off a small hill in New Zealand. Which was unfortunate for the girl because the paraglider became my one true love. I began flying everywhere I could. I soared above the Matterhorn in the Alps, woke up encased in ice near Manali in the Himalaya, rode camels to launch in the High Atlas of Morocco, traversed the long, serrated spine of the Canadian Rockies to the U.S. border, and wound up traveling the length of the California Sierras to the Oregon border, perfecting the art of “vol-biv” (French for “fly camp”) along the way. I left sailing and kitesurfing and kayaking and surfing behind because they aren’t as magical as flying. Navigating a piece of flimsy plastic and string across a mountain range, using nothing but invisible thermals and your own skill, is more implausible than the most vivid dreams.
