HGFA Skysailor Magazine

SKY SAILOR 35 March | April 2019 I asked if she wanted to start hiking from the start, she happily replied, “Not yet Daddy, you can carry me.” Begrudgingly, I lifted her on top of the tandem rucksack and strapped her legs around my arms using the tandem compression strap, to ensure she couldn’t fall off. As I began the hike, and felt the full weight of equipment plus child combine with the steepness of the trail, I began to realise this wasn’t as easy as I had imagined… The idea of this Daddy-Daughter hike & fly first came to me in October 2017 with the aim to raise money for spinal injury research. I contacted a number of charities in Australia who all loved the concept, but also replied that they couldn’t be involved with a fundraising event which involved lobbing a three-year-old off an Austrian mountain. Disappointed that we couldn’t fundraise, but still excited about the adventure I could share with my daughter, we changed our focus from doing it for charity to doing it for the family. Selfishly, I calculated that the more my daughter Skye could hike, the less I had to carry her. That started our weekly ‘Daddy-Daughter hikes’ – involving hiking and bouldering around the Sydney Harbour foreshore bushland. In time, we pushed our distances out to 6.5km, and she loved being in nature, seeing the lizards, birds and other wildlife. Just before our departure to Europe, she completed two 4km hikes with reasonable vertical gain and I thought myself a genius – she would be able to hike the majority of the way up the mountain in Austria! The mountain we chose is called the Burgstall, and sits at 2606m. (It was one of Hillary’s training mountains in the lead up to his Everest ascent.) Our aim was to start from our amazing accommodation and head directly up a trail to the Starkenburger Hütte, launching at around 2250m. We had just over 5km of distance and 1300 vertical metres to climb. We would try to launch before 0900 to avoid the morning thermals as I would be flying the tandem just inside the weight limit, landing in a small field directly behind our hotel. Twenty-five minutes into the hike, the trail met a forest service road and I put Skye down for her first hiking section. We slowly hiked the road together for the next 20 minutes until we reached the next section of the trail. Skye had decided it was more fun (or more comfortable) to walk rather than be carried, and we began our next section hiking through deep alpine forest. We continued like this for another 15 minutes, looking at wildflowers and listening to cuckoos, until the trail became too steep and technical. At that point I realised that I would be carrying her for the rest of the way and mentally prepared myself for another 3km with the added weight (and the never-ending chit chat and questions, directly into my ear). Our progress immediately slowed and I had to stop every 10 to 15 minutes to rest my back and recover. Anxious that our proposed launch time was approaching, I increased our moving speed and shortened our rest stops. By 0930 we cleared the tree line and could see our proposed launch site, the Hütte at the summit of the mountain, still an agonising 200 vertical metres away. The day had already begun to work and thermals were con- sistently coming up the east face. At 1000 hours, I decided it was too late to make the final push to the top and began looking for a suitable launch spot in our vicinity – after traversing for 150m we found a nice take-off with thermals coming up the face. After getting Skye rugged up warmly and safely secured in her harness, I made final pre- flight checks and connected daddy and daughter together. With the help of my good friend Howie, holding Skye up by her carabiners, we waited for a breeze. We didn’t have to wait long before we noticed a thermal tracking up the grassy slope. It started with a small patch of grass moving and as it came closer, we could see the wildflowers and Skye gets the best views during the hike up Getting closer