Joburg paraglider and climber Pierre Carter was weak and feverish when he became the first person to legally fly off Mount Everest in Nepal this week. A virus was not going to stop Carter on his Seven Summits, Seven Flights quest to paraglide off the highest peaks on each continent.
“The doctor didn’t know what I had, but I could hold my food down by the time I got to Camp 4 on the South Col (7,900m),” says Carter, who took meds to stop the vomiting and control his fever. Like most Everest climbers, he was using supplemental oxygen above about 7,000m and this made all the difference, he said in an interview on Wednesday.
Carter made his historic flight on Sunday May 15, which dawned crisp and blue on the world’s highest peak. But by early morning the clouds were rolling in below, forcing the 55-year-old adventurer to choose between climbing to the 8,849m summit with the rest of his team or flying off Everest. The historic flight won out.
“When I wanted to take off, the wind was picking up. I thought it would rip me off my feet but after I pulled it up, we (his glider is his companion in the skies) had to run on the snowy slope for about 30m and gradually went over the edge.
“I had heavy snow boots and it is quite hard to run at 8,000m. It was unbelievable exertion and I thought I was going to pass out,” says Carter. “When she took off and flew, I was relieved.
“At base camp I hit a very strong wind. After that I was sinking quickly and I landed at the first village after base camp, called Gorak Shep. Coming in at 30km/h in big boots was hard,” says Carter, whose flight from 8,000m to 5,200m took only 20 minutes. To trek that on land usually takes days.
The extreme athlete — who pushes the limits more in a year than most people do in a lifetime — said he was ecstatic after his flight.
It was unbelievable exertion and I thought I was going to pass out.
— SA paraglider and climber Pierre Carter
“I cannot find the words,” he said, sounding dazed. Then again, he’s not a man of many words, though he’s got a wild sense of humour.
Asian Trekking MD Dawa Stevens Sherpa initially told Carter it would be impossible to get a permit to fly off Everest, but this changed when the minister responsible changed.
“The permits were signed and I became the first person to ever legally fly off Everest. I was not allowed to go higher than 8,000m,” he says.
Before he made his landmark flight, Carter had to return to the capital of Nepal, Kathmandu, to get a back injury treated.
On Thursday, May 12 he left base camp to climb through the spectacular and dangerous Khumbu Icefall to reach Camp 1. He found it spectacular and “not as scary” as he thought it would be, crossing crevasses on shaky, double ladders and looking up to see cornices towering above him, ready to crash down.
But by Friday, May 13, when his team started the push to the summit from Camp 2, Carter was direly ill and struggling to climb. Falling back into the slower group, he kept moving, and by Sunday on oxygen he felt strong enough to fly.
Three parties have flown off Everest before him, one solo pilot from France and two tandem teams — one of them from Nepal — but none of those flights were authorised by the Nepalese government.
Carter started paragliding in 1988 and is an elite pilot. He has represented SA at world championships and in the Red Bull X-Alps flying and running competition across the Alps in Europe.
In 2005, his dream to climb/fly the Seven Summits — often accompanied by friends — became a reality when he flew off Mount Elbrus in Russia, Europe’s highest peak.
He has so far climbed six peaks and flown off five: Aconcagua (South America), Kilimanjaro (Africa), Carstensz Pyramid (Papua New Guinea)/Adolilongi/Kosciuszko (Australia).
But North America may prove impossible. US officials confiscated his glider when he climbed Denali, in Alaska, in 2017. Antarctica’s Mount Vinson is next in line and Carter can’t wait to get there, maybe even this December.
Meanwhile, this week, trekking down the Everest Base Camp trail on his own, he is recovering in the less icy conditions at Namche Bazaar and revelling in his unforgettable flight. He says in wonder: “We flew right along the cliffs of the North Face of Everest and all the way round to the Northeast Col, on the Tibetan side, over to base camp.”
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