More than 55 years ago, the first climbers reached the summit of Mt. Everest, the highest peak on the planet. Earlier this month, another milestone was reached when the first people to skydive at Mt. Everest soared in front of the mountain. Westport resident Alan Walton was a participant.
"The jump wasn't all that difficult," said 72-year-old Walton. "Getting there was the problem."
Walton, chairman of the Oxford Bioscience Corp., had been skydiving since he was 57. He first got the notion of skydiving as a professor when a student told him it was of the most terrifying experiences he had even been through.
The trip was organized by High & Wild, a U.K.-based company dedicated to providing "adventure holidays," according to its Web site.
Walton got a call from the founder, Nigel Gifford, who asked if he was interested. He certainly was, but as Walton said, the jump was the easy part.
A plane couldn't simply be taken from Katmandu, the capital of Nepal, and then drop the divers off from the top of the mountain. From Katmandu, Walton had to a take a plane to Lukla Airport, which could be considered more of an airstrip rather than an airport. It's known as one of the most dangerous airports in the world because of weather around Mt. Everest. "If you saw it, you'd say, 'My god, nobody in their right mind would ever land here,' " Walton said. The next flight after his return crashed on Oct. 8 and killed 18 people. Only the pilot survived. Walton and the other clients were now 9,000 feet above sea level. In total, 32 people paid around $24,000 for the experience. Still, the jump couldn't begin just yet. Some of the other jumpers were unaccustomed to the thin air, so they suffered severe altitude sickness. Some of the symptoms include nausea, dehydration and fatigue. Walton was accustomed to high altitudes since he had been to Mt. Kilimanjaro. Also, being in the sky seems like a natural fit for Walton, who used to fly in the British Royal Air Force Reserves and has taken up piloting jet fighters as a hobby. As many of the jumpers suffered from altitude sickness, they spent a few days getting acclimated and trekking in the high altitudes. Conditions were rough, especially when nauseous. The drop zone is where the plane with the jumpers would take off. Walton explained that 150 sherpas spent a month creating an 1,100-foot landing strip nearly 13,000 feet above sea level. With such a small margin of error for piloting the aircraft, weather conditions had to be perfect to take off. Unfortunately, they often weren't ideal and this delayed the jumps. "The weather was the biggest factor," Walton said. "It was misty nearly every day." Eventually there was a break in the poor weather, so a group of several jumpers were able to get on the small Swiss Pilatus aircraft. The trio jumped at about 29,000 feet. Walton wasn't able to go just yet. Unfortunately, the weather never totally cleared up so Walton couldn't jump from the same height as the first group. After four days at the drop zone, he was able to do a low-level tandem skydive on Oct. His jump was 8,000 feet compared to the 17,000 foot drop the first group went through. "The surrounding views are spectacular when the weather was clear," he said. "When the sun came out it was breathtaking, even on a low-level jump." Walton was disappointed that he didn't get to do the jump he set out for, so he is contemplating trying again next year. "I don't know if at 73 I'll be in good enough shape," he said. For now, he is slated to go much higher than Mt. Everest. Walton was one of the first people signed up to go into space through Virgin Galactic. The company is still working on the technology, but the first flight, which has already been delayed, is planned for 2010. Alan Walton said that not all of his vacations are quite as epic. "In between doing crazy things I go on a couple cruises," he said. "I also do old people things like [playing] bridge."
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