Posted Monday, November 15, 2004; 21:00 HKT
If a headlong run down a Himalayan mountainside doesn't snap your brain out of its work-numbed funk, then being lifted skyward by a paraglider will certainly do the trick. And when your whoop of exhilaration is answered by the shriek of an eagle or a falcon just ahead of you, well, all your cares melt away and the world is reduced to a cool rush of air, a dazzling view of glaciated peaks, and the sheer joy of being able to soar with birds of prey.

Over millenniums, eagles, hawks and other birds have perfected their ability to sense thermals—pockets of warm air eddying up from the earth's surface that allow them to coast with very little effort. Paragliders can catch rides on these same currents, hopping from thermal to thermal and covering hundreds of kilometers in a single day. But without a raptor's sharply honed sense for the gravity-defying updrafts, humans are beholden to chance. Until now. In a marvelous example of humankind working with nature, Scott Mason, of the Himalayan Hawk Conservancy in Pokhara, Nepal, has taught his birds to hunt the elusive thermals and lead him to them. The result is an experience like no other. "Flying with the birds is the closest you could ever come to feeling like you are one of them," Mason observes. "It takes you to another level of understanding. The rest of the world simply disappears." If this doesn't clear out your mental cobwebs, nothing will.

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October 11, 2004	July 26 - August 2, 2004	April 26, 2004