Last year we joined the dreaded “second-home” brigade and bought a holiday / potential retirement apartment in a village called Seeg at the foot of the Bavarian Alps. Seeg was the first place I lived when I moved to Germany in 1991 and worked for the local paragliding manufacturer, Firebird Sky Sports. As a wide-eyed, paragliding-obsessed young chap in my early 20s I immersed myself in the local scene and quickly fell in love with the area. The mountains, the people, the amiable beer culture and the general warm welcome I was given, made it easy. My wife, Ariane, grew up just down the road in a similar landscape so it made sense for us to set up our weekend retreat here over 30 years later.

After a period of much faffing around with builders, tradesmen, lawyers and councils we have now “finished” the apartment and are spending our first two-week holiday here in the late Alpine summer. I have been keeping a close eye on the weather and hoping that we can go paragliding a bit when we are here. Our local flying mountain (“Hausberg” in German) is close by above the village of Pfronten and another reason why we chose this spot. I had a couple of good flights there last week on my own and was looking forward to sharing the experience with two of my flying buddies – Ariane and Nils (my neighbour). Things didn’t quite turn out as expected. We experienced the best and worst of Bavaria in just a few hours.

The day started well. After checking the weather, I decided we should try to fly at another smaller mountain called the Buchenberg. It has a chairlift to launch, a nice starting area and looked to be better suited to the expected westerly wind than our normal choice, the Breitenberg. As the conditions were expected to be better later in the day we went to a local lake, the Illasbergsee, with Nils and his family to have a swim and cool off. The place was pretty busy (it’s high season and it was baking hot) but we found a good place to set up for a couple of hours of sweaty sunbathing and cool swimming. At 2pm Nils, Ariane and I headed off to fly.

We all have passes which cover most of the local chairlifts. These are so-called point-cards (Punktekarte) which you can top up at your convenience and then you just need to scan them when getting onto the lift. It saves having to queue each time at the payment window you want to go up. I normally just walk through the gate and get on the lift. Then I fly, land and go home. But yesterday I thought I’d be extra careful and asked to buy 3 landing cards (Landekarten) at the lift station. These cards are not expensive (3 Euros) and the funds are used to pay the farmer to mow the landing field and generally look after it. It’s a good cause and I’m happy to pay it. However, I hadn’t reckoned with the “jobsworth” lift employee who said he’d be happy to sell me a landing card if I could produce a green training card for the Buchenberg (grüneEinweisungskarte). I was surprised that there was a special requirement for this mountain because of all the places we fly, this has the largest, flattest landing field and best take-off. I’ve also been flying there for well over 30 years so you could say I knew my way around. I did quickly consider the “I was flying here when you were still in nappies” option but decided against it as I recognised the look in his eye. It’s a particular look favoured by any employee or civil servant who has just realised they wield a little power in the current situation and is not going to compromise because “them’s the rules”. Now, I am not always known for my patience and have frequently embarrassed my daughters by being grumpy when being served slowly or badly, but I decided I was not in a hurry and it wasn’t worth the hassle. I asked where I could get a green training card and was directed to the paragliding school based at another lift in the next village (the Tegelberg, for those in the know). There were two places there that could help us.

We stopped at the first place, which was a landing-field hut and “hang-out” for tandem pilots and locals. I now belong to the older generation of paraglider pilots and didn’t know anyone there and saw that this was the spot for the younger generation. A white guy with dreadlocks was in charge, reggae music played in the background (two warning signs there already). He quickly decided we weren’t worth the trouble and directed us across the car-park to the flying school. So we trekked over the school and were met by a helpful, but slightly frustrated guy, Andy who informed us that there were a total of 6 different locations that could hand out the cards, but nobody could be bothered and he was the last stop. Anyway, we filled out some forms, he checked our licences and insurance and gave us a two-sentence safety speech and finished off by stamping our freshly issued green training passes. They love their stamps here. Lots of people are sad about the digital revolution because it takes away the stamping ritual – the ultimate power-trip for people like the above-mentioned lift employee. I sympathised with Andy and left 5 Euros for the “Kaffeekasse” (coffee-jar) for which he was charmingly grateful.

We then drove back to the Buchenberg, proudly waved our green passes for our friend at the lift and bought three landing cards. I think he was surprised that we had actually gone and done the paperwork, remained polite and were now being good citizens by buying landing cards. I got a feeling he felt slightly guilty, but that might just be wishful thinking. We then jumped on the chair lift and rode up to launch full of anticipation as the sun beat down and other paraglider pilots circled above us. Unfortunately, when we got up there the wind was wrong. That’s the frustration of outdoor sports I suppose. We left a cool alpine lake to spend most of the afternoon satisfying a pointless bureaucracy and when we finally get where we want to be, the weather’s off. Little did we know that things were only going to get worse.

The wind was a little strong, not quite the right direction and very gusty. People were flying but you could tell that the air was turbulent and the conditions were not suitable for weekend pilots like Ariane and Nils (and me these days). I decided we should wait until things calm down which they usually do as the afternoon turns into evening. Another young chap on launch wasn’t so patient and wandered over to the unofficial launch which was better suited to the wind direction on that day. We saw him launch, climb rapidly and then lose half the wing as it folded down in turbulence (an asymmetric collapse in paragliding jargon). Usually, with the right pilot reaction, these collapses pop out quickly and you can fly on normally. In this case, the pilot didn’t react immediately and when the collapsed side re-opened he swung sideways and the other side folded. This put him into a steep downwards turn towards the tall fur trees just below launch.

We didn’t see him hit any trees, just disappear behind the horizon from where we were sitting. The top of the hill was packed with tourists, but nobody seemed to react. We ran over and asked if anyone had seen the glider reappear behind the trees. Maybe he had recovered and could just fly out. But nobody had seen anything and assumed he’d crashed into the trees. Somebody said they thought someone else had called the mountain rescue services. I immediately started to walk down the steep (but not dangerous) slope to a chorus of people shouting that I shouldn’t bother! Better to wait for the rescue services! I ignored the gawping idiots and walked down – asking Ariane to stay up top so I could call her as soon as I found anything and she could guide the rescue services. Another chap ignored his wife, who was shouting that he shouldn’t go and help, and joined me in the search for our missing pilot.

We found him quite quickly, as he was calling for help. He was no more than a hundred yards below the launch. He had flown into a tall tree, slid down the trunk and was lying on his back on a steep slope with his head downhill. He was clearly in shock and the first thing he said was that his back hurt and he couldn’t feel his legs. He was sure he was paralysed. I told him that his legs were in fact both moving around so he adjusted his story to say he couldn’t feel his feet. We didn’t want to move him so we put some support under his head and gave him something to drink. I called Ariane and she was able to direct the rescue services to the exact spot. Nils came down and helped stabilise the unlucky pilot’s position. An emergency doctor was flown in by the helicopter and after about 45 minutes our patient was in good hands, as the experts performed various tests and administered medication. He was put in an inflatable splint/stretcher and helicoptered off to a specialist clinic in Murnau just a short flight away. The paramedics thought he had probably some spinal “trauma” but hopefully no breaks.

It turns out that the only person who had called the emergency services was the pilot himself. He had his phone on a chord around his neck and was smart enough to call them immediately. Ariane called them again and we were able to confirm the exact location and give a rough appraisal of his condition. None of the gawping tourists on top had called, but just assumed somebody must have. I didn’t witness it, but by all accounts, Ariane gave them all a well-deserved mouthful. She’s quite small but can be quite scary when she’s fired up. They certainly deserved it.

Afterwards we all had to give police statements and ended up missing our chance to fly. The conditions had become perfect, but it didn’t feel right to fly after all the drama. We didn’t save a life, but I think we helped speed up the rescue process and made the wait for the crashed pilot a little more bearable. I was very impressed by the mountain rescue services. They were organized, calm and extremely professional. You just knew he was in good hands.

We pilots like to think that nothing will happen to us. We are more careful and more sensible than the ones who crash. But, as with any outdoor sport, accidents can happen. It made me think. I hope if I do go down that it’s in Germany with excellent rescue services. And I also hope that if anybody sees me go down, they come to check on me. There were other pilots on launch who also didn’t react. When I started paragliding, there were less of us and I always felt a loose camaraderie when I arrived at launch. Lately I seem to be the only one saying hello to everyone and feel that people are more insular, almost to the degree that they regard other pilots with suspicion. Probably thinking about how many kilometres they can post on the various paragliding tracking websites, rather than socialising with strangers. Maybe it’s a consequence of our technological world, maybe it’s covid or maybe I’m just getting older and nostalgic. In any case, it feels like we’ve lost something which even the most spectacular alpine views can’t make up for. It makes you think.

Until next time, Matthew.

P.S. A few days later, Ariane and I took a late lift up and had the mountain almost to ourselves for a lovely evening flight. And a few weeks after that a group of my best old friends joined me for some walking in those mountains. In both cases, the company was more important than the view. Nice to know there’s some of us left!