Portfolio - Special Edition Switzerland

I thought it was a practice run. But suddenly my Nikes lift from the grass, and I’m in the sky, gliding in thermals of warm air and floating above the snaking crystal blue Aare River and the terra-cotta rooftops of Interlaken. To my right are Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau mountains, glistening like freshly- powdered bundt cakes. To my left is the cerulean blue Thunersee, arguably the most serene and surreal of Switzerland’s 1,500 lakes. Supporting me from behind is Florian, a tall blonde Swiss tandem pilot from Skywings who’s using a selfie stick to film the entire flight casually. Moments before liftoff, Florian and I were standing in a green meadow on Beatenberg, a 15-minute drive up the mountain from my Interlaken hotel. After exiting the Skywings van, I got butterflies in my stomach and started stalling. I explain to Florian, a seasoned paraglider and Base Jumper, about my recent knee injury and studying his blue eyes carefully for the slightest sign of hesitation. While I’m excited to paraglide, I’m nervous and secretly wish Florian would say something overly cautious like, “It’s too risky”. But he’d heard all the excuses before. Chickening out at the last minute seemed like less and less of a possibility. The more I explain my gimp knee or call attention to a menacing-looking cloud or freak gust of wind; the quicker Florian unpacked the gear. “Our weather window is closing,” he says humorlessly. One minute, he was furiously buckling me into a series of flimsy nylon straps, and then next we are running down the hillside together in what I thought was a practice run. We take flight, my legs spinning in the air like a cartoon. It’s a good thing considering the cliff edge we’re running towards is a 1,500-metre-feet drop to the valley. Interlaken, a two-hour train ride from Zurich, is a prime summer hub for mountain excursions. While I’ve prided myself on visiting all 26 cantons of Switzerland, including multiple visits to 33 Special Edition Switzerland