Status: 05/24/2022 3:15 p.m
A 55-year-old has launched a paraglider from Mount Everest – becoming the first paraglider to do so legally from the highest mountain in the world. His plan didn’t quite work out.
For the first time, a paraglider has taken off from Mount Everest with permission from the Nepalese authorities. The 55-year-old South African Pierre Carter took off last week with his paraglider at an altitude of almost 8,000 meters and landed following 20 minutes near the settlement of Gorakshep at an altitude of 5,164 meters. Dawa Steven Sherpa from the tour operator Asian Trekking told the AFP news agency.
Not quite from the top
Due to the weather conditions, Carter decided not to climb the other 900 meters to the top of the world’s highest mountain to start his flight from there. Taking off is already more difficult the higher you start. But even so, the flight was “beautiful”, “first above the clouds and then through the clouds and down,” said the enthusiastic climber and paraglider of the AFP.
So far, only three flights from Mount Everest have been registered, but all three took place in Kathmandu without government approval. In 1988, the French alpinist and pilot Jean-Marc Boivin was the first to fly down the mountain with his paraglider.
Attractive for many paragliders
Sherpa is now anticipating more Climb and Fly adventures in the next season following authorities’ resistance was broken.
Many climbers are also paragliders and the idea of climbing and flying down is becoming more and more popular.
For Sherpa, this can initiate a positive trend: the authorities have understood that the offer might boost Nepal’s tourism industry once more, “especially following the corona pandemic,” he added.