Paragliding is kind of like that, like, that super hot girlfriend, you know what I mean? You're so psyched about her, you know, and she's so, you know, she's so hot and amazing, and you're just like, oh, I just want to spend so much time with her, and you know what I mean? And, like, climbing's become more like, you know, like, where that, eventually that hot girlfriend, if she's actually an awesome person, eventually you, like, fall in love with her, and you get married, and you have this, like, long-term relationship, and it's, you know, obviously it's not going to be like, oh my god, we just have to bang 24-7, you know what I mean? I mean, it's going to become like, it's going to become like, oh, a couple times a week is enough, and like, you know, but the love is deeper.
Some funny words from Cedar Wright, he was on last week's podcast, if you missed that one, go ahead and grab it, it's really excellent. Welcome to the Cloudbase Mayhem, another episode of the Mayhem, where I deconstruct excellence in human flight, try to get the best pilots in the world on here, whether they be hang gliders, paragliders, what have you, and find out what makes them great. This show is... This is fantastic, it's with my great mentor and friend, Nate Scales, we sat down at the house here, and did it once, and realized my recorder was all screwed up, and it was a real honor to do it again, because he has just got the most amazing stories. We get into all kinds of fantastic stuff here, his one really sketchy reserve toss in the valley, his long history of comps, and flying with guys like Robbie Whittall, and Chris Santacroce, and Othar Lawrence.
And a lot of legends over the years, we talk about his 2007 ex-Alps campaign, and a whole bunch of other stuff. I think you're going to really enjoy this talk, and without further ado, Nate Scales.
Hi Gaff, how's it going? Great man, how are you? Good. Good to have you on the show, I've been really excited about doing this for a long time, and let's just jump right into it. You have a pretty interesting and long history in paragliding, can we start at the beginning? Yeah, I started...
In the spring of 1991, I was working in a ski shop in Sun Valley, Idaho.
A guy came into the shop and asked one of the guys I was working with if he wanted to try paragliding, and the guy said, no, no, not at all. And I was listening to the conversation, and I said, I'd really like to learn paragliding. Your hand up. And he said, okay, and he took me down to the park in town. And he showed me what a paraglider was, at that point it was a rock climbing harness and an 11-cell glider, and we practiced an inflation, and the next day we walked up Timber Gulch, about 400 feet, and he launched me off the hill three times, and the day after that we went up Greenhorn Gulch, which was about 1,200 feet, and I flew down and he said, now you know everything about paragliding.
I know, you should go to Salt Lake City where they know a little bit more. You tapped his potential. Yeah, I tapped his knowledge, but from the first moment, I was so excited. That first day I went into, after flying, my roommate worked at Atkinson's, and we went into, I went into Atkinson's, and he was a checker, and across the store I just screamed,
I flew, and flew!
So I was pretty... Pretty immediately hooked at the very beginning. Right, and then
you, you were saying you moved to Salt Lake like the next day? Yeah, so the next day I
went to Salt Lake to see if I could get more of this paragliding. I bought the glider off of my instructor. What was the name of the glider? Condor SP-11. An 11-cell glider, that's awesome. Because it had 11 cells. The last good cross country flight I had in the way. Wood River Valley this summer, hitchhiking home, I started talking to the driver, and it was his glider that I had bought, Vance Hanawald. Unbelievable, 25 years later. 25 years later, I meet the dude. Wow, that's amazing. So I went to Salt Lake, there were people flying at the point, it was nothing like it is now, but, you know, every day somebody would come out to fly, and I thought, this is, this is awesome.
It was like Santa Croce around then?
Totally. Really? Yeah. He was my first friend. Right. He was charging as hard or harder then than he is now. He was the man, you know, was and still is the man. It was pretty fun. Yeah. Nobody believed he would, he would live. He was 18 or 19. He lived in an RV, and he did exactly what he wanted, and nothing but what he wanted. Right. And there was another school there. Fred and Claudia Stockwell, and I went to them, and they were looking for an instructor, and I said, well, I think that I would be a really good person to be an instructor, because I've just learned, and I understand what all these people are going through.
And I've got three days. But they agreed to give me a job and a place to live, and I came back, and I, that weekend, I moved out of my house here, and I moved into Utah and made... I'm paragliding my life. So I moved down there that first summer. I taught for them. I lived with them. I flew every day. And that summer, instead of there being a Superfinal, there was the World Cup final. It was the last event of the year, and that year, it was in the Owens Valley. So in the Owens, I saw cross country done proper, and I was trying to go to college at that time. So I went back to Salt Lake. Salt Lake, and went to the University of Utah, and flew around.
There was a lot more cross country going on with hang gliders at that point in the game. So I learned to fly hang gliders, and went down to Flagstaff, and driving through Flagstaff, there was a magnificent sky. And then driving into Flagstaff, I saw there was a college, so I went to school in Flagstaff for a while, thinking that I could learn to fly cross country. And go to college. Did poorly at both of those for a little while. And then, somewhere during that time, I had the good fortune to meet Robbie Whittall. Legend. Yeah. And Othar was around then, and I... God, that must have been like 93 or 94.
Robbie moved to the States. I moved back to Sun Valley. Othar moved to Sun Valley. And we had... That was really... That was really fortunate, because it was just... It was right after Robbie's crest, you know? He'd just... He'd become the first person to win the Hang Gliding World Championships, and the Paragliding World Championships, and he was really good. He was designing gliders for gin.
For a while, he was... He then transferred to Firebird. I went and worked with him at Firebird for a spring. That was really fun, and it was... Where was that? That was... It was in the Tegelberg in Germany. You know, so... Did you fly quite a bit in the Alps, then? No. No, uh-oh. We flew the Tegelberg a little bit, and we flew a site in Austria called Bach. Okay. That I'm sure people know of, but I have a picture of it in my mind. I bet it looks nothing like I remember. Yeah. Because it was just after Robbie's crest. We would do a lot of flying. We never flew cross country. Huh.
We lived in Sun Valley, and we never flew cross country in Sun Valley. I mean, it's something that... I got to hang out with Othar again this summer, and we were talking about it for a while. We never flew cross country here. Wow. We
went all over... It just wasn't on your radar. You just didn't know?
And it was big, and it was scary, and we were with Robbie, and he didn't want to spend the day flying cross country, so we would go fly, and then we'd land and do something else. And so, you know, he taught us about comp flying, and he took us around and showed us how to have a good time, and it just kind of progressed, you know, and I kept coming back to Sun Valley, and I was aware that it was good, and... But
not from a cross country standpoint. It was more just... It was a cool place. It was a cool place. You could fly paragliders. And the hang gliders were flying cross country.
No way. We used to have hangies here. Yeah. I always forget that. You know, Chris... Chris Kastner flew from Greenhorn to Smiley Creek on the day of his wedding, like, 40 miles, and it was, like, the coolest thing anybody had ever done in his hang glider, so we were... We knew that it could happen, but we weren't doing it. Hmm. And then Hansa started coming here to fly tandems, and in the usual Hansa way, he started pushing it, and we became aware that cross country was possible. Was this late 90s?
Yeah. This must have been mid-90s. Mid-90s, okay. 96, 97, 98. And we started flying cross country, and then we started seeing, and we started learning, and it started getting better. And now, after 20 years, it is so fascinating, because now we're learning. I mean, I feel like maybe just this year, I think Farmer gets all the credit for it, can't fly roads. Yeah. We have to fly over the mountains, because that's where all the lift is, and holy shit, if we're just learning this now in 20 years, imagine what we can learn in the next 10,
20 years. It's magnificent.
Yeah. Yeah. And so, let's rewind, because we're going to talk a lot about the Wood River Valley, because this place is badass, but rewind a bit to, like, so, you know, you saw across, cross country, you got super into it, you came back to Sun Valley.
When did it all start clicking for you, in terms of, like, when did the distance stuff start happening, and how, like, I know comps have been a big part of your history, and, you know, is that more recently, or is that, was that happening all back then, because you saw the World Cup, like, right off the bat. Yeah. I pretty
quickly realized that competitions were fun. Mm-hmm. Super fun. Mm-hmm. You know, I... I didn't know then, now, how much I know that you learn at a contest. I've used this quote before, but they've got to be, they're these super smart people, you know, that can figure out how to fly cross country, but they're crazy enough that they're willing to fly cross country. It's a really good combination of people that are crazy enough to jump off the side of a hill, and smart enough to get a paraglider. Safely to the ground, two, three, four, five, six, seven hours later. And give me some names.
Who was around back then? Ah, let's see, Urs Hari was there on the brand new Adele Superspace. Okay. In a full, like, downhill ski suit, because we didn't have pods then. Yeah. Let's see, from the U.S., John Bouchard was good. Santa was good. Bobby... Bob Schick from Salt Lake City was good. Robbie Whittall was there. And Olivier, the designer from... Niviuk? From Niviuk was there. No way. He was like an 18 or 19-year-old kid. Awesome. I got to hang out with him, but to see people doing it proper was so awesome, and so fun, and they were good, and they weren't scared, and competitive enough that, you know, they want to push each other.
You know, I think, I think in the U.S., we're really lucky that it used to be super competitive. When I first learned to fly, there was, there was two, it was fascinating, there was two camps. There was the Adele camp of Greg Smith and Robbie Whittall and Dave Bridges and Othar and myself, and then there was the John Yates. John Yates' pro-design camp of Josh Cohn, Zach Hoisington, and, and it was pretty funny. At that point, it, it wasn't, it wasn't friendly.
If you saw one of the other guys on the side of the road... Really? You would drive right on by, give them the bird, throw a beer in their head, no problem.
You know? Really?
Yeah. It was interesting. Well, I think of paragliding as just this incredibly, you know, the, the, everybody's really concerned about everyone and, and everybody's helping each other out and... Not even a little bit back
then. Wow, so different. Um, you know, and so we've seen that morph a lot, but the competitions were always fun. You know, there's no, there's no other group of people I know that want to get together and go hard for a week, you know, charge. There's, there's no waiting. Mm-hmm. You know? Everybody knows the truck goes up the hill at nine, the window opens at noon, the starts at one, there, there's no dicking around. And so, for me, the, the competitions were really, really fun. Um, it was a good place to go. It was... And
a great
place to learn. Yeah, a great place to learn. I, because I had Robbie as a mentor, I, I learned to fly pretty well and in those beginning contests, I, I did well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We had a camera. I love this. And I, I took more bad pictures than anybody. I, I could have won several contests if, if I hadn't taken pictures of my thumb, of my knee, pulled out the camera and watched all the batteries just rain to the ground, pulled out the camera, took the picture, let go of the camera and watched the knot that I had tied come untied in the camera. Just fall. Just fall away. It was, it was so soul crushing, but, and where, where, where, where have you flown comps?
You know, we used to have contests in Telluride and Aspen and Chelan. God, the good old days. Oh man. It was so... If anybody's out there, please run contests in Colorado. Please. Oh, it was so, it is such spectacular flying. In 96, I graduated college and that winter. I went to World Cup, I went to the World Cup in Brazil, was magnificent, was fun. It was a party. The flying was good. The food was good. The music was good. The girls were good. Everything was good. And then we went to Venezuela and it was really, really bad. The flying was bad. The food was bad. The hotel was bad.
And the memories, everything there was really bad. And then from there I went to Europe and worked. I worked for and with Robbie, who was the chief designer at Firebird at that time. And so I got to learn about trimming gliders with him. You know, he would test the gliders and then when all the testing was done, I was the inexperienced guy to see what would happen when they released the gliders to the masses. Okay. So that was... You were the masses. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was really fun. Yeah. I got to learn a lot. I got to learn a lot. I
got to fly
all over Europe. I got to hang out with Robbie. I got to be at Firebird. Yeah. That was really neat. And this was kind of when Robbie's was... What year? Was that kind of his... Was that when he was winning everything? That was 97. So that was after his heyday. Okay. You know, I think in 98 was when he introduced the serial class. He was still good. And if... You know, at that point... Yeah. Yeah. Anything he wanted to win, he could. Yeah. But he had way more important things than winning on his mind at that point. Right. Okay. And then I liked the Wood River Valley in the summer, so I came back here.
And so here then, is that Hansa, Othar, or is that that time frame?
Yeah. Yeah. So 97, 98, Othar was here. I mean, a lot of people don't realize that I think the Wood River Valley has probably had more national champions. Yeah. Than anywhere else. Othar was national champion when he lived here. Dave Bridges was two times national champion when he lived here. Farmer was national champion when he lived here. But I don't know of any other flying site, maybe with Josh, all of Josh's wins, but he doesn't have a home site. Yeah. Right. Yeah. In 2007, I got to go to the ex-Alps in Europe, and that was magnificent. It's... Tell me about the ex-Alps. That...
The ex-Alps was wild. It was cool. It was... Because you were there with Hansa. Yeah. Is that his first? No. That was both of our first... Both of your first. Yeah. My first time. My only time. His first time. Yeah. And at that point, it was a really different race. Yeah. It was an adventure more than a race. Mm-hmm. You had guys like Urs Locher, who did it in sandals. Yeah. You know, and he got to the end, and he was so disappointed that it was over, because all he wanted to do was fly home.
Alex Hofer won that year. He won the ex-Alps in a harness that he had won World Cup races in.
So we had... It wasn't exactly the technological... No. We had the lightest weight
gear, but it wasn't anything like today. Yeah.
I mean, my harness was heavy, and I was like nine. Yeah. It was crazy. It's just, you're carrying nothing now. Nothing. It was
such... And I went in such a different way than like you went this year. Mm-hmm. My supporter was my wife. We had a year-and-a-half-old baby in the car.
And somewhere along the line, I thought it would be a good idea to bring my dad to be the babysitter, but my year-and-a-half-old kid hated my dad at that point in her life. Yeah. My dad smoked cigarettes. My wife hates smoking. His temper is like this long. He would scream at people. My wife was furious. I would leave in the morning, and they would go to the nearest pool for the day.
Yeah, a little bit different, I think. She would come and look for me in the afternoon or evening to see if I needed some help. She would bring me some food. She didn't have a cell phone. We didn't have radios. Quite often, she would call the Red Bull organization and ask where I was.
Okay, just for hilarity's sake, you've got to tell me about walking into Grimmelwald.
So... God, these are some pretty funny stories. It was the middle of the race, and I had hyped up the Grimmsel. The night before, taken
off on the... It's important to tell everybody, too, that this was before we had the mandatory rest. You guys could go as much as you wanted to go whenever you wanted to go, right? Yeah. Yeah.
All night long. So I'd had... I'd gotten some information to get up to the top of the Grimmsel the night before. The pass before the Grimmsel. There's the Grimmsel and the Furka. Furka. Yeah. So I'd gotten some good information that if I walked on the train tracks... I wouldn't have to do the switchbacks that the road goes up. Well, the reason the train tracks are so flat is because it goes to a tunnel. And you're not allowed to use tunnels in the XLs. So at like 2 in the morning, I get to the tunnel, and I'm like, holy shit. I have like 3,000 feet to walk up a dewy, wet, steep, grassy slope to get to the camper. So I had a big night that night.
Yeah. I got up to the pass, slept for maybe an hour, got up in the morning. I did not want to walk down the Furka and then up the Grimmsel again to get in because we had to go to the Eiger that year. Oh, okay. Yeah. So I walked down onto the boulder field. I was on this massive boulder field. It was pretty much unlaunchable. But it was for sure that I was going to launch. There was no question about it. And there was two old Swiss couples, and I speak no Swiss German, and they spoke no English. But I was able to communicate, okay, if you guys could hold my glider up, I can jump across the tops of the boulders.
And I jumped across the tops of the boulders and soared in the morning. Didn't go down. Made it across the Furka and down into... Into the valley there going towards... That's a nasty valley, towards Interlaken. Yes, exactly. There's a nice town there. Lots of big power lines everywhere. Power lines and lakes and nasty. So I landed. I shouldn't have landed. And I walked all day. And I walked up into Fyrst, and I was coming over. This is now the next day. I've been walking for a day and a half, and it's hot. And I'm tired. And I come into Grindelwald, and it's Swiss Independence Day.
And who the Swiss have ever claimed independence from, I don't know. But it was rad because I'm coming over the pass, and I'm walking down into Grindelwald. And there's a full moon coming up over the Eiger. And there's fireworks going off everywhere. And it was one of those cool ex-Alps moments. And I get into town, and it's like 2.30. And the bars are getting out. And I'm not unpleasant, but I'm exhausted. You're smashed. Yeah, you're smashed. And this pack of like four dudes comes out. And they see me, and they come over, and they can tell that I'm different. And they start talking to me, and then they start picking on me.
And they start pushing me. And I've got my pole on. And I've got my glider bag on. And I just drop my poles. And I'm like, come on, fuckers. Let's go. Me and all of you right now. I have nothing to lose. You kick the shit out of me, and I'm out of this fucking race. Let's fucking go. And they looked at me like I was the craziest person they had ever seen. Which you were. And they walked with me for like 100 yards. And that was the end of it. And it was the last. They were impressed. Yeah. It was the only time since the seventh grade, the closest I've ever come to getting in a fight.
I love it. I love it. It was my one exit out of the race. It
was interesting. You know, when we were going through all the training and stuff and talking about the X-Alps, you know, I talked about it endlessly with you to get advice and stuff this winter. It was such a different. Your experience was so much different than Will Gad's. You know, when I did the Rocky Suburbs with Will, every day he said, don't. Don't do it. Don't go do it. Don't go. He hated it. Yeah. He hated
that race. And I would say to anybody that has any interest in the possibility of the adventure to do it. I just thought it was the most terrific thing
I've ever done. It was incredible. There's
only one way to get to that place, you know. Exactly.
You will get to that place. Yeah.
And there's no shortcuts. Yeah. You know, and that place is magnificent. You just have to do it. It was magnificent. Magnificent.
Let's rewind a little bit. I want to talk about, you know, of course, your big flight here and we'll fast forward to that. But accidents, you had a massive blowout here that I want to hear about because that's pretty terrific. And then have you ever been hurt? No. I've broken a wrist.
Okay.
I've hurt my knee a little bit in Aspen crashing once. But no. Knock on wood. Uh-oh.
Yeah. And you had, tell me about your blowout here. You've only thrown once. Yeah. Okay. What about your reserve?
It was on the R10 at the beginning of the two-liner. It was that first year of the R10. And it was a north day here in Sun Valley, which we've learned is a little bit bumpy.
And it was post-frontal, which makes it a little bit windy and bumpy. And I was flying north. I'd left the Wood River Valley and I was in the Sawtooth Valley and I was trying to get up to Stanley.
And the area had burned the year before. You were over the white clouds. Yeah. I was on the white cloud side of the valley and the area had burned. And I flew back in and it was a super strong day. You know, it was middle of summer. It was post-frontal. And it was really strong. And I found the thermal. And I was turning left. And I was trying to core the thermal. And I just kept getting the first turn I got bumped out of the core. And so I elongated my circle a little bit, you know, and adjusted it. And the second turn I got pushed out of the core again. And so I adjusted my circle.
It
was a
ripper. It was a really strong climb. Yeah. Super-duper strong climb, you know. I mean, the surrounding air was going up at, like, I had eight on my averager. Cool. And when I'd hit the core, you know, even for those three or four seconds on my 15-second averager, it could bump it up to 12. Cool. Screamer. Yeah. It was really, really strong. And the third time I adjusted and I buried the break, you know, so that hoping I could stay in the core. And I'm sure I spun it a little bit. Yeah. And it broke back. And it shot really hard because it shot the energy of the spin and coming out of the corner or out of the core.
And it shot super hard.
You were probably spinning the same way as the, yeah, okay.
Yeah. You know, so I'm coming out to the left. And I spun it left. And the thermal was going behind me right. And it shot super hard. So hard that it pulled my break knot up into the pulley. Holy shit. And just stuck. And so I fell through and swung through. And it broke back behind me because I was in really strong air. And it surged again. And because my knot was stuck in the pulley. I couldn't input. And I didn't think to grab the bees. And it collapsed out in front of me.
And I fell through. And it shot. Now we're on the third shoot thing. And it went way out in front of me. And then it just propellered. And as it propellered. Out in front. Out in front. As it propellered, the lines just started going. And I was like. They were breaking. Yeah. Holy shit. Lines were just popping. Because those lines were so small. And there was so much tension as it's propellering out in front of me. And I was like. I don't have that move. So I threw my rescue. And for any of you who's thrown your rescue. This is going to sound dumb. But that second of deployment is forever.
Yeah. And I've always heard. You need to grab your bridle. But I don't know what kind of harness these people have. So I'm reaching behind
my head.
Trying to grab the bridle. And the glider is going batshit crazy out in front of me. And the forest that I'm over is burned out from the year before. And I was high. Just a bunch
of steaks.
Yeah. You know. I was probably at 12 when the episode started. And you know. I probably threw it above 11. Yeah. A long time. Yeah. To look down. But by the grace of God. I came down. And I'm not even religious. In this area. The size of like a two car garage. That had no nothing. Oh my God. On the side of the hill. And I landed soft as could be. Reserves work. Reserves work. Yeah. And walked out. Probably walked for four hours to the road. And the first car that passed me. Once I got to a road. Drove me.
Unbelievable. And so. What was the aftermath of that like? Like if you.
Did that change anything for you? Did it freak you out? Or have you been through. These are maybe two different questions. Have you been through a time where it's been like. Yeah. I'm not into this right now. Yeah. For sure.
So to answer that question. Because I've spent a lot of time thinking about this lately.
I
think that what we do. And what we do in paragliders is push it.
And that's what we enjoy doing. And it's super duper fun.
But the risk is massive. You know.
I think it's kind of fucked up. Because the more I think about it. The reward is. Is inconsequential. You know. So. So. But yeah. There are times when I feel. What?
The reward is inconsequential. So the reward is not enough to justify the risk that we're taking. Or it is. It is. It
is. But what is the reward? You know. The reward is that smile at the end of the day. You know. The reward is being at cloud base on the Idaho Montana border. And knowing that you're the only person in the sky for a hundred miles. Um. You know. What is that reward beneficial to humanity? Ah. Okay. I see what you're saying. No. But. But it's pretty special. Is it maybe what I live for? I'm unfortunately afraid. Um. So. Yeah. Did that make me step back a little bit at that point? Have there been times where I've stepped back massively?
Um. And that's a pretty personal thing. Yeah. And. And I. You know. I. I think it's really hard. I think as. As beginners. People.
They don't have the timeframe. Or the patience. And. And the risk is really big. Um. And then as intermediates. They still don't have the. The timeframe. Or the patience. And I. I think I'm really lucky that I've played this game for a little while now. And when it. When it feels good. God. It is so good. And if it doesn't feel good. You know. I'm not smart enough to. To say that always. But I think that I. I'm aware to stop and say. Hey. Today's not my day. You know. It's. I. I'm not on like I need to be. To do the things I want to do. Is
that. We're. We're getting a little bit ahead of where I wanted to be. But I. I want to hear this anyway. Is that. One of the reasons you've. You know. You were. You. You've. You know. Flew an R-11. You've been flying ice peaks. You've been flying comp wings for a long time. And. We love flying comp wings. They're different. They're a different animal. But this year. You. You. You backed way off. You were flying a mentor in the beginning of the season. And now you're flying a Triton. You know. I don't think you've flown a B or a C in probably. What? A decade? Yeah. Yeah. More. More. Fifteen years. Fifteen years. Is that part of it? Is that. Is it because.
Are you just. Have you just decided you want to be more safe? Or. Have you decided. It's just.
What have you decided? Why? Because they are different gliders. They're
different animals. They
are different gliders.
Um. You know. When Russ Ogden came here. For the last World Cup. And gave his talk. We were all on. You know. Comp gliders. Myself included.
Which by the way. I'm going to cut in here. There. That talk. For all of you who are interested. Is on. Uh. My website. Cloudbasedmaham.com. It's a 45 minute video. I just. Got super lucky to turn a camera on that day. It is amazing. It's. A must watch. So check it out. If you want to. It's fantastic.
And he started. He talked a lot about these gliders. You know. Comp gliders. And. And how on your game you have to be to fly a comp glider. And I. Our comp gliders. Paragliding. Is dangerous. Are comp gliders any more dangerous. Maybe a little bit. But for the level. You know. I'm a middle age. Middle class. White guy. I've got two kids. And a wife. I would like to go paragliding every day. But it doesn't happen.
So I. I think to stack the odds in my favor. I am a little bit safer. Flying. A. Certified. Glider. You know. And do I think. A certified glider. As opposed to a comp glider. You know. I. I think. I think today's comp gliders. Are. Super. Duper. Hot. Um. Everybody I know. Who's flown a comp glider this year. Has crashed them. You know. Or thrown a rescue. Or. Or come down hard. Is that bad? No. You know. It's back to that. Risk and reward. That we were talking about earlier.
For those people. The. The risk. Is worth the reward. You know. And. Like our local pilot. Mitch. Who flies paragliders. All. Year. Round. He does. Acro. He does. Tandem. He. Every day. That's flyable. He's flying a paraglider. Do I think it's. Suitable for Mitch. To fly an R-11. I really do. Um. You know. But I. I'm not that guy. When I see. People. When I hear people. mention about comp gliders I I really think that's inappropriate because I think for people like mitch um and I don't definitely don't mean to put words in his mouth here and
The guys that are pushing it on the World Cup, they are looking for that highest level of performance. They are looking for the cutting edge. They don't want an ENB glider, um, you know, they're not—that's not gonna fulfill them with what they're looking for. So, I, I think to limit it is crazy, because I think that most of the people that are doing the limiting are way more dangerous on their ENB glider because they're not as current or aware of the the conditions, the circumstances, and the glider as the people that choose to fly hot gliders.
You know, those gliders have a whole different
and wanted to, what were doing, you know, how are those guys flying so far on ENBs? And now this year, flying an ENC glider, I, my own personal conclusion, and it might be wrong, is that yeah, the flying in Europe is different.
Do I invite those people that are doing huge flights on ENBs over here and show us how to do it? Yes, please, we would love to have you here and
I think you can do here all and having a little bit more feel, a little bit more reach to look for strong bits of air and I, you know, I feel that I fly in the world. I have decision I could this year
so
transitioning from your big flight three years ago, 199 miles deep into Montana, which will talk about what
Are your your goals changed, you know, back then?
That that happened on a great day, and that probably didn't wasn't your plan when you
launched off back also because you're scaling things back with the wing. I understand you, you still things back a bit because you're, you're getting the hours you're
feeling I my goal my dream day when you went to Europe and farmer was going to Texas was that some day at the beginning of July I would get the Idaho record back, farmer would get the world's record, and you would make it to the raft in Monaco. That be pretty good, so
No, yeah, I want to
No, I... I think if anything, now that I'm 42, I'm like, "Holy shit, I'm a middle-age white guy." The next step after middle-age white guy is old white guy, and my goals are bigger and more than ever before. I... I hope that I have a little bit of experience now so that I choose to push those goals on the right day. Um, you know, when the conditions are appropriate. Um, no, I know my goals, years, and it seems to like, you're as passionate as you've ever been, if not more so. Yeah, I'm hungry as ever, you know. I do, I...
Don't know, so this is, this something that I think people ask me all the time, like, what you know? And I've got a fraction of the experience in the years that you do, and farmer does, and nick does, and but I keep, I been asked, I was asked this morning, you know, how are still so fired up about this? Talk about that, because it's just like I find that we're participating in something that there is, the learning curve is still just
It's so steep, it's so phenomenal. I mean,
The more we learn in this game, I feel like the more we become aware that we can learn you.
like I
was talking about
learning he
He's doing it so much better than we are; it makes it so fun. You know what? We were just at the beginning of the
learning, no, we're just learning about gliding, and I feel, I feel like I'm just learning how to use a speed bar really effectively. I mean, you know, the art, art...
of paragliding is now coming out the subtleties
the beauty of it, you know, is something that keeps... I like mountains. I think I like mountains more than anything.
About paragliding, there's still the whole alpine interaction that is limitless, and I, I really believe that after 20 years, I'm just learning to fly a paraglider. Yeah, yeah.
We're, we're, we're just starting out, it seems like. Yeah, you know, it's like the—it's like the beginning of something really special. The gliders are getting
So good, you know? And and the hand of it on the other side of that coin, having now done it for a while, when I do sink out, you know, which happens on the day you guys flew to Montana in the contest this summer.
It still stings. It's kind of like getting kicked in balls, but it's all right. It doesn't, it doesn't bother me, it doesn't bump me out, you know it? I maybe it's fatalistic, but it happens to everybody, yeah. And so you just
come
back for more, and and like everything in life, we probably we learn quicker from our failures than we do from our successes. Sure, and so you know
It's taken me A of failures and and there's A more to come, but that's that's where we're learning and that's all right, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, been
At this, since '91, it's probably hard to even remember this, but what would you have told your 50-hour self, or your '91—I can't do the math—your 20-year-old self, 25-year-old self, you know, when you were starting out? What would you have
told nothing good comes fast. If get hurt, this game is no fun. The consequences are really big; they're really sudden, you know, if
if can live to
fly, no, but really aggressive, you know. I been flying for four, five months, and I to the world cup in the Owens Valley, and I wanted to be like those guys, and I saw somebody die there, and I was like, "Oh my god." But now, having been in this game for A while, you know, be, be patient. If it's not good, don't go paragliding. Scary paragliding sucks, you know. There, there A lot of good days, but you have to wait for, you know, it's, it's now September, like fourth or fifth, and we had almost no good flying in August, and that's okay, you know. Yeah, it A
total bummer
I
Don't believe anybody got hurt or no rescue tosses, but you know, last month a of people got really scared trying to push it and
Scared is, in a lot of ways, just as bad as getting hurt, you know? It's pretty hard to that head back.
yeah
you know and
Wait, there's time to push it, you know? And I'm definitely not saying don't push it, but push it when it makes sense, you know? Most importantly, push it when you feel good, you know? When you're aware and you're on it, yeah? You know, there, you're on it. And you're not all this safety talk lately, how we need to make this safer. I know if we can make it safer, and I think that a of the fun of our sport is that the focus that's required, you know? Everything else we do, everything else I do during the day, I'm spacing out and I started something and then I buzz off to do something else and I'm day dreaming of something
But the reason for me paragliding is so fun is because I'm all in, you know? It, I don't have a of bandwidth, but
to do that, because I know if I make bad decisions, I could get hurt or die, and that is
I mean, to sound dumb, but that's big part of the fun of it, you know? That is that focus, that clarity—your quote from the Sierra Safari, yeah. People spend a long time trying to, to meditate and to present, and we just—I just take off and shit's okay. Yeah, I don't have mortgage problems and work problems and and phone calls that I need to return. I need to go paragliding, and it's going to be good.
very cool
This one of things I to ask you, if there been like turning points, you know, when look back at the last 20 some odd years of flying paragliders, have there been moments or mentors or times where things have been like, I'm at the next level, this is an I'm, this is something. Was it the big flight to Montana? Was that where
There times where you been like, "Wow, I've kind of got this in A," you, I figured something out. No, I think like we were talking
About earlier, the the more I learn, the more I see that we can learn, um, and no, I don't feel like we're very good yet, yeah, um...
so has that
Been some mentors, yeah. Um, Robbie Whittall, you know, was a really good mentor. Um, my first instructor, Claudia Stockwell, she, uh, she gave me some good advice: um, put all of your flying stuff away before you get fucked up after flying.
forgotten that
um
you know, O thar was A really good mentor and pushing it that hansa
Hansa's a really good mentor. I think having you here has really helped, you know I
Don't for a time, it's always been me here, mm, you know, and I had Hansa come and that was fun, and I learned A from Hansa, um, and then, well, I mean, in the beginning it was it Robbie and he came through and then he left, and Othar came through and he left and learned A from him, and then Farmer came and still here, and and now I'm really starting to learn from Farmer. That's taken a long time, um, you know, now that you are here, you have a different outlook on it, and I, I've learned A from watching you fly, um...
No, you know, A bell court.
Maybe he's all of our mentor, you
know he's teaching us about style.
Yeah, which is maybe in our sport where there's, there's no real rewards. That is, that's the best thing we can have.
This mentor, that guy has more style than anybody, you know? That, that style is endless and inspiring and and really, really cool. Um, yeah, you know, I
yeah the
people pushing it all the time, I think, are just dumb fox, but people that can push it on good days and do cool things are
You know, we're at the tip of the iceberg.
Cody almost flew to Jackson the other day. Is so exciting to see that kind of stuff, that is really cool. When we were driving down to start 500 miles of nowhere, we were, you as we often do, talking about accidents, and this has been A
big year that like, you know, it's, it, yeah, it's dangerous and it's risky and, but it's fun. And what else are gonna do with yourself? Do we belabor this point too much in our sport? Yeah.
I still think that, and it's terrible to see friends get hurt.
um
It's terrible to see friends get hurt unnecessarily. I
You know, no other sport I do people get so worked up about other people getting hurt. Pick up a skateboarding magazine, and it doesn't talk about
broken legs
pick
and the avalanche awareness group, those people there on the forefront, and and even that with A more people backcountry skiing than the numbers of
deaths per year in the world. I think that is going to grow the sport, you know, climbing
climbing. I believe the American Alpine Journal does an annual accident summary; that would be something if, if the magazine wanted to do that, you know. And since we did 500 miles to nowhere, there's, there's accident reports in the magazine anymore. There's, there's accident column that I recently read.
You know, and again, it's talking about safety, but
We're jumping off the side of a hill on modified beds sheets.
not kid ourselves that it's gonna be safe. Let's appreciate it and enjoy it and try and get good at it and give respect to the people who are better than us at it. Um, let's learn from our mistakes. You, I've been lucky, I haven't been hurt yet.
Is it coming, probably? But I think I have be honest that it's, it's out there, you know? In my do, I believe that I'm better than everybody else that's been hurt? No, you know, I've been lucky. Yeah, is it better to be lucky than good? Yeah,
Sure, I want to put that in perspective with where we live, with the Wood River Valley. I believe the world record's gonna go down here.
I'm pretty psyched about living here in a place that could happen. You're about the most excited person in this valley to be in this valley, but tell me about flying here. What's so special about it?
I think we're
Pretty lucky, because you know we've got the interface of the desert and the mountains, so we have the hot, dry desert and we have the alpine
you know, in in the little contest that we're surrounded by mountain
There's roads in the valleys.
There's places to land everywhere this summer. This spring, I went to Washington and to B.C. to go flying, and it's terrifying because everything is forest and there's nowhere to land. And around here, we can land anywhere, so it makes it pretty comfortable to commit to where you need to go. To maybe you're gonna have a hour walk, but so what? When you get to the road, hitch hiking works for sure. Somebody's gonna pick you up.
it's strong I
Think alpine paragliding. I would like to invite you to come to River Valley. That's what we want. Come check it out. I think, I think July is the best time of year.
and I, you know, I think I think that's we're gonna learn and, you know, like, like everything there's to me. The beauty of Wood River Valley is that there's nobody here, you know? There's our club has 20 people in A
ten of those people we alone totally
You know, you're so... let's let's end it on your big flight.
What was... what was... was on your multiple questions here? You know, a few weeks before you did that, Matt flew 193 miles, 186, 186. You flew 193, or you flew 198? Okay, so when Matt did that, I was in
europe and
That another realm was that part of it. And then, you know, in terms of just inspiring you, also, was it—were you, you know, did you set off, set out that spring to be like, "I'm going 200 miles this year," or "I'm going to fly deep into Montana this year"? Was that—that was always on your radar? It had been for years, or was that something that just happened? And what was required to
for the
steps. Things I have to be the head space. I'm really lucky; my wife is really supportive, you know, so
I try to be A scene, and especially in the spring, I really try to be A husband so that we have A, you know, I, I need to have A good home, you know, and make that A good scene, and that makes it, that makes it really easy for me to be all in. And every day I go to the hill, I'm going as far I to fly as far as I possibly can, you know that
I love the fact that we go do something and somebody asked me,
You, you, you get to go a bit crazy, and you're by yourself, and nobody thinks you're weird for me. They do. I
don't know
So yeah, I got my home life was in A order, and and she's super supportive, and she understands completely, and she really, she really inspires me, and
motivates me and
So I was, you know, I was ready to fly cross country as far as possible
You know, and the flight was magnificent. I think I had forty mile stretch in Montana on the side of a cloud street between fourteen and seventeen, where if I got too low, I just would duck under the clouds, and I too high, I just work out to the left and just leave and just glide. And at the end of the day, I was in new country, what I now know is the tobacco roots, but I was gliding into the mountain range and it was like six o'clock in the evening, and I had a pretty funny thought in my head. I was like, "Man, Evil Knievel jumps over the canyons, but I'm gonna jump over a fucking mountain range."
watch this
and I just glided deep into the range, and I got a nice climb up over the range in the evening light and had a super sweet glide and flew out and I landed in a field
and A lady in A pickup truck drove out you know like 50 year old lady and she said you're not going to here are you and said good god Ma'am. I hope not
and she said, "What are doing?" and I tried to explain that I had flown my paraglider there from Sun Valley, and because I wasn't camping there, she was elated, and she drove me into town in the Three Forks, and I called my mom, like you do when you land, and I told her I was in Three Forks, and she said, "Oh, hon, there's the nicest hotel there."
and I said, "Oh, Mom, I'm all right. You know, I sleep outside tonight." And I up with Mom, and about a minute later, I didn't know, but standing in front of the hotel, and a lady walks out of the hotel with a glass of champagne and says, "Son, your mom got you a room." No way.
So that was really cool, and then I went in and I had dinner on my mom and spent the night in this cool old railway hotel, and I called my good friend and ski partner Christian Nickham, who's got an airplane, and I said, "Hey Christian, I'm I'm in Montana." And he said, "I'm on my way." And the next morning he was there nine o'clock in the morning, and we got to fly the whole route in reverse, yeah.
yeah
Yeah, yeah, well, that next summer we got pretty close. We were on the Madison River there that day, yeah, that pretty exciting. Well, cool, Nate, I
Really appreciate your to myself and a whole bunch of other people over the years. If enjoyed the podcast, as always, in the following the footsteps of one of my favorite podcast with Dan Carlin, Hardcore History, all we asked for is a bucket show goes a way. So guys have all been really generous with your donations. I appreciate very much; it keeps me going with this. I'm gonna do it anyway, I love it. I think it's just fantastic bringing this knowledge to the flying world. Hope you enjoy it; if you did, please feel free to share it with your friends and family, and see you next time on the podcast. Cheers.