Tiger Tales

Into Thin Air

Who’d be crazy enough to paraglide off the peak of Mt Kinabalu? ERIK FEARN offers an account of his leap of faith

PHOTO: ERIK FEARN

It seemed like a good idea at the time: journey to Malaysia’s easternmost state of Sabah, climb the highest mountain in South-East Asia and throw myself off it.

A year after deciding to embark on my ultimate paragliding adventure, I found myself at the top of Mt Kinabalu, peering over the edge of a cliff so high and steep that I couldn’t see through the swirling clouds to the earth 4,000m below. It looked and felt like the edge of the world.

All over Asia that day, people were dragging themselves to work, stuck in traffic jams, wreathed in exhaust smoke. And I was going to leap off a cliff with no bottom in sight.

My assistant was spreading the paraglider canopy out behind me as I slowly strapped myself into the harness. The thin air at this altitude was making my nervous breathing raspy and short. The icy dawn was making my hands numb and stiff.

And yet, as I neared the point of no return, I was suffused with the inner calm of someone who is at peace with his fate: whatever it might be. The sane among you will probably be wondering: “What the hell was he thinking?”

The short answer: at 4,101m, Mt Kinabalu has always been the holy grail of Asian paragliding. I had done my research and found that while a handful of others had glided off the region’s highest peak, no one had bothered to document it properly. So, five years ago in September (around the same time that Tiger Airways took to the skies for the first time), it became my obsession to record what I hoped would be a successful launch and landing, thereby entering the Malaysian record book.

I didn’t have any illusions about my chances. We’re talking about a mountain so monstrous that it creates its own often-severe microclimate. This versus a free-flying paraglider made of little more than cloth and strings. Free-flying without a motor means you are utterly at the mercy of Mother Nature. It means that if you encounter sudden turbulence, high winds or deadly rotor (down-drafts that can collapse your glider), no one can help. However, I was ready to take the risk.

We staggered onto the roof of SouthEast Asia that fateful morning at 6am, just as the sun had turned everything pink. Our focus was the South Peak (pictured on the back of Malaysia’s one ringgit note). The steeply sloping granite face offers an ideal launch pad, providing there is no wind. The problem is that at this altitude, where the air is thinner, it’s more difficult to inflate the glider when you launch. So you have to run harder and farther to make it happen – no easy task on a mountaintop.

So the tough decision was made to run towards an insanely deep drop-off (which we named the “Oh-My-God Drop-off”). The idea was that if the glider hadn’t sufficiently inflated by the time I reached the precipice, it would inflate parachute-like when I went over the edge. In our oxygen-starved state, it made a twisted sort of sense.

The conditions were perfect: no wind and the clouds far below dispersing.

Off in the distance, 11km away, was the Mesilau Golf Course – the landing site.

In the past, I had often visualised myself on top of the mountain, gazing at the world below, taking a deep breath… and running towards the cliff. So when the moment actually arrived, it felt right. No fear, just exhilaration.

After one last deep breath, I started my sprint towards the cliff, the glider putting up resistance as I hauled it into the air behind me. I ran perhaps 20 steps, and just as I leapt into the void, the glider inflated and lifted me up. I was off!

The moment I took that last step over the unforgivingly steep cliff, everything went silky calm, no bumps or turbulence. Clouds swirled up at me from below and the icy morning wind hissed through my helmet, numbing my face.

All I could think was “I’ve done it!”. I turned the glider in a slow arc back towards the mountain and waved at the gaggle of brightly coloured trekkers whose cheers were faintly audible above the wind. Of course, I had to save my jubilation until I had landed safely.

The flight down through the suddenly regrouping monsoonal clouds was a bit unnerving. At one point, I lost sight of the landing zone. Then 30 intense minutes later, it was all over. The truth is, the anticipation and the actual launch were frightening beyond description. The flight down was pleasant and peaceful – a relief. But even as I stood alone, stunned, next to my crumpled glider on the golf course, waiting for the park rangers to come get me, my mind was still up there above the clouds, just a little bit closer to heaven than I had ever hoped to be.

Would I do it again? No. I did it to prove to myself that I could overcome a big personal challenge that pushed me to physical and emotional extremes. And maybe that’s something we should all look for now and then in our lives, which are too often plagued by drudgery and petty stress. Believe me, it makes life brighter and more vivid.

If hurling yourself off the top of Mt Kinabalu is a bit too extreme, here are four other turbo-charged adventures on the Tiger network – over sand dunes, under the sea, up a mountain and off a building:

EXTREME BIKING

Tearing down, up and over giant dunes on a four-wheeled, 300cc all-terrain vehicle is both exciting and terrifying, and there’s no better place to scare yourself silly than the remote outpost of Coral Bay in far northwest Western Australia (a two-hour flight from Perth).

Kim, the owner of Quad Treks, specialises in taking small groups of adventurers on sunset self-drives along the near-endless beaches on either side of Coral Bay – home to some of the biggest sand dunes anywhere, which rise to 150m in places.

Reaching speeds of up to 60kmh, participants explore a mind-blowing 20km of beautiful countryside during an afternoon’s outing. But this sport isn’t about speed, it’s about manoeuverability. Negotiating extreme sand dune slopes demands strength, concentration and nerves of steel. You quickly learn to watch out for the steep, boggy “half-drive/half-slide” drop-offs that defy traction. As for braking, do so and you risk skidding out of control.

Quad-riding in this part of WA is very much an extreme experience and is not for the easily unnerved. But it’s more than a wild ride – it’s a ride in the wild. The reward is a killer sunset and the time of your life.

EXTREME DIVING

Thailand’s Similan Islands Marine Park, 120km west of Phuket, has become a “must-visit” on every serious scuba diver’s “Life List”. Why? The chance to swim with the planet’s biggest sharks.

To most divers, the undisputed queen of the seas is the elusive whale shark. These toothless giants are loners that gracefully cruise the “deep blue” and possess a certain mystique, rising irregularly and only for brief spells to the surface of plankton-rich coastal waters to feed and breed. Sightings are rare but there are a few places you can go to increase your chances, and this marine park – Thailand’s oldest – is one of them.

Aquaholics from across the globe make the pilgrimage here to experience perhaps the most intense interaction with nature imaginable – a swim alongside whale sharks that can grow to more than 12m in length. And yet, lacking teeth, these giants pose little danger to humans and actually seem curious about us.

During the whale shark migration season from November to April, jump onto a liveaboard dive boat for a four- to six-day dive tour. There are no guarantees of whale shark sightings. But seeing one will change your view of humanity’s place in the natural order.

EXTREME HIKING

In Tasmania’s rugged north-west lies the spellbindingly beautiful Cradle Mountain Overland Track, widely considered one of the world’s finest sites for trekking. The full Monty is a five- or six-day day through-hike, starting at Cradle Mountain Park in the north and ending with a ferry-pickup on Lake St Clair some 70km to the south.

What makes an ascent of the mountain itself an extreme hike is not so much its height – a rather modest 1,545m – but that it becomes steeper the higher you go. Up close, the ancient rust-coloured rock is nothing more than a huge pile of boulders, each roughly the size of a sofa. Halfway up, just as the incline starts to sap your determination, you are forced to climb on all fours, pulling yourself over boulders that looked harmless enough from the car park far below.

The ascent/descent of this wild, craggy spire is a full-on 10-hour hike/scramble, and should only be attempted as a day-hike by the very fit. But you guessed it: once at the top, the 100km views across the alpine landscape make it all worthwhile.

EXTREME BUNGEE

What possesses someone to leap earthward from one of the tallest buildings around? Whatever their reasons, thrill-seekers queue up to do just that at AJ Hackett’s Macau Tower Bungy Jump. At 233m, it is the highest jump of its kind in the world.

There’s not much skill involved: just climb onto the platform outside of Macau’s tallest structure, get a final safety briefing while a giant rubber band is clipped to your waist and then... Geronimo! The view from the top over casino-rich Macau is spectacular – for those hardy few who are relaxed enough to look around. Definitely not for the faint-hearted, but guaranteed to put a silly grin on your face for days.