Alive

It was a blustery fall day at the Oregon coast. The air brisk, unstable, scud clouds and microbursts, ripped by the wind, filled the sky. Ancil and I decided to fly our paragliders during a relative lull in the weather off the the rocky cliffs over looking a wild pacific ocean hundreds of feet below. Ancient fir and spruce trees in the ocean mist as we flew lifting air in near silence, exactly as birds.

After awhile I had a feeling things were about to change for the worse weather-wise and so headed to the beach to land. I was within 50 feet of landing when a microburst, hidden behind the hills, opened up and the wind increased dramatically. I stopped descending, followed by no forward progress. Then I started being blown back, up the hillside, and fast. Soon I was 300 feet up moving backwards. As the air hit the trees and contours of the hills it became turbulent. I tucked my wing tips in deeply in order to improve my sink rate and stability but suffered a 40% collapse of the wing anyway. I recovered only to be hit again with another partial collapse. As I travelled backwards all I saw was huge trees, hills, and valleys where the air flow could only get worse. I made the decision to land in a tree. As it turned out I chose a 400 year old spruce tree - 200 feet tall. I landed in it’s canopy some 14 stories up - the strings of my paraglider caught in the branches.

I was high, very high. And I was far from any branches or tree trunks, dangling in mid air. I tried swinging to branches and was met with cracking as the strings of my glider broke branches and popped loose, jerking my harness. The ensuing fall, if it were to occur, would be all the way to the ground with nothing to break it.

I deployed my reserve parachute, attempting to throw it to branches and pull myself in to climb down. Too far. A coastguard rescue helicopter showed up but deemed a rescue too dangerous, fearful of what the prop wash would do to my glider. No one could climb the tree I was in - it was too large - it’s first branches 60 feet up.

The hours passed. It got dark. It rained and it was cold. The wind gusted and the trees swayed. Stark shadows streamed amidst the branches and beyond as a ground light, so far below, tried to pierce the canopy. It was otherworldly and only increased my sense of isolation.

One by one my gilder’s strings popped loose, my harness shuddered, until I was down to 4 on the right and 5 on the left from dozens. I withdrew into myself. Time crawled. As the wind gusted, the tree branches swayed, cracked, and popped I thought that I was likely to die.

It is a strange calm that befalls one moments before a violent death - an intense awareness of ones life, the loneliness of death, the experience almost religious, especially if you survive. I think such moments are akin in some small way to the feeling a medieval Japanese warlord determined to commit harakiri - Seppuku - must have felt if by some miracle he survived. The mind set, the certainty of death by his own hand, muscles tightening with the blade. The final quick inward sinking of the knife - but instead of searing pain, eyes closed, he feels the iron grip of his witness on his arm stopping him at the last possible second. His arms trembling in effort to continue to plunge the knife, struggling against this sudden restraint until at last his eyes opened, the struggle stopped, and he realized in great surprise and awe - he was still alive. To come back from such a moment must have been to be reborn.

My savior was a professional old growth tree climber brought in for the rescue. And I was saved. For eight hours I was unsure I would survive and then it was over - my feet safely touched the forest floor. It was the single most meaningful moment of my life as regards mortality and it was transcendental.

I’m glad I have the courage to fly. I’m glad I have the self respect to behave calmly in a crisis. I’m glad I have the self awareness to have experienced timeless moments of purity. I’m sorry I had to ask for help, but I am forever grateful.

And I am alive.