52 days, 750 miles and two new records.
In the summer of 2018, Benjamin Jordan paraglided peak to peak from Montana to Prince George and was the first person to fly over Jasper’s Endless Chain Ridge.
And a documentary about his flight has just been released online.
“I am still living it right now, every day, telling the story and getting this new film out there,” said Jordan, who lives near Nelson, BC.
“It was an incredible privilege to have done all of that and something I really wanted to do for a long time. It took so long to build up the skills and trust in myself.”
Jordan, 38, is Canada’s only professional paraglider pilot. He picked up the sport in his early 20s and has spent the last decade “slowly growing and chasing bigger and bigger dreams”.
“This one was always on the distant horizon, flying the length of the Canadian Rockies,” he said.
And a couple of years ago Jordan met a man called Stewart Midwinter who had worked in Jasper in the 1970s.
Midwinter was an avid paraglider until a major accident left him unable to walk just a few years before Jasper started to allow the extreme sport, in 2015, and flying the Endless Chain had always been his dream.
Midwinter helped Jordan along his route by providing weather forecasts through satellite communication when Jordan’s cell phone was out of service.
Apart from those messages, Jordan was completely unsupported.
He set off from Montana and started flying peak to peak, stopping on mountaintops and sometimes waiting for days at a time for the right weather conditions to fly again.
Days in, he made it to Jasper National Park, the only park in Canada that permits paragliding.
“Flying over Jasper was really amazing,” said Jordan.
“I realized in that moment I was not just living my dream, or Stewart’s, but hundreds of pilots.
“I was overwhelmed by a sense of privilege to be the one to be the first one to fly across Jasper National Park entirely.
“It is such a beautiful place.”
Jordan said weather conditions were good over Jasper and he was flying high and could see everything “like I was in outer space”.
He said: “Over the Endless Chain I was so happy, I was like, ‘This is for you, Stewart,’ and my phone, which had no reception for weeks, got one bar.
“I sent him a text and shared that moment of emotion with him - it was part of realizing that dream that has been a dream for 40 years for him.
“I really shared and respected that as awesome as it was to do this, it felt important to do this on his behalf.”
At the end of the Endless Chain, Jordan landed on snow on Cleavis Peak, stayed the night, then flew all the way to Jasper.
“It was such an amazing feeling,” said Jordan.
“I love Jasper and the feeling there - that was really significant to me.”
Jordan filmed his trip, from his perspective and Midwinter’s and has turned it into a documentary.
“He was so important because he was the inspiration for the journey but also represents the concept that anything can happen at any given moment,” said Jordan.
The 58-minutes long film, The Endless Chain, and 60 minutes of extras are available at www.theendlesschain.com/.
