Dreams like hazelnuts

Squirrels store their hazelnuts in secret, and get them out at the right moment. Tom Salamonsen’s dream of bivouac flying in Norway was a bit like that. The tour was already planned in his head, the only thing missing was the right moment. July should be the time. Tom got his hazelnuts out and made his dream of flying through the Norwegian Femundsmarka National Park come true, along with Mikael Benjamin Ulstrup.

We’d had a very hot summer; stable temperatures and lots of wind,” remembered Tom. Opportunities for thermal flying were in short supply, but for Trysil, a small village near the Femundsmarka National Park, the forecast looked more promising. It lies in south-east Norway, surrounded by mighty forests, the setting for Norwegian folk tales, a place on the edge of the world. Bears are not unusual, reindeer and elks the most common inhabitants. Setting up and taking off is tedious; hitchhiking back a nightmare. If you want to fly cross country here you should be sure of yourself. The two Norwegians wanted to find out for themselves, and decided to begin their bivouac adventure, far from civilisation. They laid out their wings and lifted off one after the other. Trysilfjellet is the name of this take-off, right by the Trysil hamlet, and they floated away into the world of fairy stories.

Round and round circled the two Omega XAlps 3s into the sky. The higher they got the more extensive became the wilderness beneath them: as the distance from the ground increased, so the isolation became ever more tangible, somehow you could feel it. “We flew together, awestruck by the sight. The freedom a paraglider gives you is impossible to describe,” enthused Tom. They battled their way northwards along cloud streets, until, hours later, the bivouac clearing came into sight; a place where people are rarely seen – the middle of nowhere. The pair landed in a mosaic of mossy marshland, variously coloured delicate green, rich brown, and deep blue; a landscape of such beauty that words are inadequate. “A sea of colour bid us welcome, and we clearly felt the warmth of the sun. To the west lay the Femunden lake – the landscape beyond was perfectly mirrored in its calm and clear water”, remembers Tom. Minute by minute it got gently colder until finally – very slowly – the yellow globe disappeared behind the horizon.

Naturally, they would have liked to have stayed longer, to have further enjoyed the wilderness, the stillness of the morning. But the wind was due to freshen up during the day. The risk of not being able to take off was too high – the distance to the next road too far. Tom and Mikael set off, flying further to the north. Time was no longer a factor, only living in the moment mattered. Both were enraptured by this wilderness and the prospect of exploring it ever further with the lightness of a paraglider: to soar through the air for ever.