“Get ready! Ten… nine…”

Six months ago I’d never heard of Speedwings, I was totally obsessed with climbing and had no time for any other disciplines. My life revolved around continually preparing for the next climbing mission: training, researching, training, researching. But then, abruptly, a unexpected spanner was tossed into the works: training, researching, training, injured. I had over-trained and paid the price, sustaining serious tendon damage to my right hand. I knew instantly it was going to take more than just a few months to recover. Initially I panicked, wondering what I would do without climbing in my life. That concern quickly evolved into something different: “what can I do now that I’m not climbing?” It was a subtle, but significant, change of mentality. Rather than feeling lost, I actually felt liberated. I could do anything I wanted!

I flirted with different ideas. Surfing, kayaking, slacklining. But my mind kept drifting back to the mountains. I need to be in the mountains. And then it came to me: I’d train in a sport that could be combined with mountaineering, a sport that would complement it, or even enhance it. The main drawback of climbing is that you spend all your time fighting gravity and never truly exploiting all the hard earned elevation that you’ve gained. I was going to remedy that, and the answer was Speedflying. I had absolutely no experience whatsoever in any aviation sports, but that didn’t matter. I had a vision and I was going to make it happen.

“… eight… seven… six…”

After convincing my brother Niall to take up the sport too, we set about planning an expedition in which we would combine Alpinism and Speedflying. Alpine climbing, using crampons and ice axes, wouldn’t be hampered by my injury and would allow us to launch our Speedwings on skis; a safer and more practical option than foot launching. The Speedwings themselves weigh only 2.5kgs so could be stuffed into the bottom of our sacks without encumbering us whilst climbing. Our criteria for the trip was that we wanted to travel to somewhere truly remote. Somewhere that would require an exciting and adventurous approach; somewhere where it wasn’t possible to purchase a destination guide before heading off. After weeks of researching we found our perfect destination in the form of a secluded valley in the Eastern mountain range of Greenland. Detailed maps don’t exist of the area, but satellite imagery showed steep-sided peaks rising thousands of feet above sweeping white and blue glaciers. Perfect! Now we just had to figure out how to get there.