"With no paragliding infrastructure to speak of, the first challenge was to establish a launch and landing. Ben spoke of his struggles to locate a small east-face clearing at around 3000m after endless staring at maps and searching with the drone. The launch he found was makeshift, perched above a cliff face, and no room for error. My first experience of this makeshift launch was made a touch more intimidating as we found ourselves following the footprints of a bear, left in the previous nights snowfall..."