Long time ago I was a passioned high-mountain climber. In 1987, when I was climbing in Tajikistan (probably not possible any more) I had the un-fortune to get hit by high altitude illness at around 6100 meters of altitude. I managed to get down to base camp at 4500 meters on my own. (Took me three days to get down.) From there, they organized a rescue heli to get me out.

The heli took off from our valley by hovering on the ground-effect for a small while, then taking forward speed for about 200 meters fast forward. With this, the pilot managed to get some 30 to 40 meters of altitude. Then he started to circle the valley around, slowly climbing higher and higher. He finally managed to get above the 'entrance' to the valley, I believe it was just below 5000 meters, and get out of the area. Was I glad to get back to Europe?

At the time I knew even less about helis than I do know, but people told me that helis shouldn't even be able to get there. And even less get out of there. (Of course, tajikistani helis were probably not of todays European standards. And that heli wasn't really brand new either. ;-)

Biker-74