I still don't know how it happened, but probably I stalled the glider. I was probably trying to turn really narrow turns, and it just didn't work. And I probably just stalled the glider on one side, and bam, I was in the tree. And the glider got stuck in the very, very last high tree before there were no trees anymore. And I was sitting just half a meter above the ground in the harness, and I didn't even hit anything. So I was so incredibly lucky,
just my glider was destroyed. Paul Guschlbauer recounting the third thermal flight he had ever had back in 2005, crashing into the trees. That was not his only crash in his short but pretty incredible career. Paul competed in the 2011 X-Alps and got third place, and in his own admission was a pretty average kind of beginner pilot, really, compared to a lot of the other crowd. But he was a wicked fit, and the weather was bad that season, and that led to all kinds of amazing things, including becoming a Red Bull athlete. And in this episode, we get into some really cool stuff, some great advice, very exciting character. It takes us a little while to kind of get going in this one.
I encourage you to stick with us because a lot of the stuff at the end, I mean, it's all great, but a lot of the stuff at the end, we talk about accidents and progression and how he's training for the next X-Alps in 2017. We talk a lot about the X-Alps in this one, but I think it's very relevant information for anybody who flies. We talk about Chrigel and his magic and a lot of other friends and mentors along the way. So. Without getting into it too much here, without further ado, Paul Guschlbauer.
Mr. Gusselbauer, it is great to finally have you on the CloudBase Mayhem. I'm really excited to talk to you. This has taken us a few weeks to kind of align, but how are things in Austria? Are you home?
Hi, Kevin. Yeah. It took a while that we get together here. I'm happy about that. Yeah, I'm at home, and it's snowing right now, finally.
Finally. You've had kind of a thin year, I guess.
Yeah, so far. I just know from yours. It's snowing like, I don't know, like never before at your place, but here it was almost nothing until now. But now, when I came back from Morocco now, it was snowing a little bit, and now I'm back and I can go ski touring finally.
Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, the gods have been very kind to us this year. I think El Nino is treating this part of the world very well. I was just down in Mexico, and the weather's been quite terrible there. They're having a hard Superfinal going on right now. But you were just in Morocco. Tell me about that trip.
Well, it was more like holiday for me. But, of course, I'm always searching for cool places to fly, so I also took my glider. And I found some cool places, like really cool places to fly at the coast in the south of Morocco, and then, of course, the high atlas. And I'm sure I will go back to Morocco for flying. I'm planning to go there in autumn.
Yeah, it's a really, it's a special place. I lived down, not in Marrakech, Essaouira, Essaouira, right after we got done with the sailing thing and spent some time in the atlas. And, yeah, it's a very cool country. Speaking, so this one, this trip was more for fun, and I know you and Aaron Durogati, we had him on a show a few episodes back. You were doing a Salewa project, I think, in the Canaries, is that right?
Tenerife, I think. I don't know in English, but Tenerife together, it was for Salewa. It was basically just a shooting for the new collection, but we also went flying, and we had a really good time there together. And we, yeah, we were thinking about some projects together as well.
How do you go about that? You know, I was reading your bio earlier, and we'll get into some of your history here in a bit. But how do you go about kind of designing your year around sponsors? Versus your own kind of free flight ambitions, and then, of course, training. I know you don't just compete in the X-Alps, you compete in the Dolomiti Man. I'm not, maybe not saying that right, but in a few other kind of adventure races. But how do you go about kind of planning your year? Well,
there are some, like, how do you say that in English, like fixed appointments I have with a few competitions, for example. That I always want to go to. But basically, my year is, like, free. Like, I can do whatever I want. But in the end, it's always, like, stuffed. Like, it's full. I have no time, I think. And still, for me, the projects are like holidays for me, the projects I do. And the work part is everything else. Like, I organize everything myself. I take care about my sponsors myself. I have nobody working with me. So this is a lot of work, as you probably know.
I think you've been doing this since a lot of years.
And, well, projects come, yeah, just come. You know, like, I see a new country or talk to somebody and he tells me about a cool place. And then I think, okay, this looks good. And, yeah, this is how it works. And in the end, my year is full. Like, so many things to do. And, yeah, get invitations for talks here and there. And it's really cool. When
people ask you what you do, what is your answer? Like, we just had the Christmas holidays. Did you go to any parties where people, you know, didn't know you or didn't know you through the paragliding? How do you answer that question?
Yeah. By now, I'm really saying I'm a professional paragliding pilot, which is kind of funny if you tell people. But, yeah, that's what I say now. But I always also add that I work for Skywalk Paragliders since a lot of years by now. And this is still part of my job. I think between 20 or 30, 40 percent of my work sometimes. And, yeah, the rest is like I'm a Red Bull athlete. And that does projects and flies paraglider. And that's my job.
And when you credit, I read in your bio on the Red Bull website that you credit your father with kind of getting you into this lifestyle. But how did you make the switch? I think you were into biking and bike racing and that kind of thing. But tell me about your dad. And then tell me about how you made the switch to flying. What was kind of the impetus there? What was the attraction?
Yeah. My dad always took me to. Yeah. Well, outside. Like, I spent a lot of time outside with my dad. And he spent a lot of time taking me to the forest. We were running around. And, like, I was always outside. And then he was always into mountain biking. So, for sure, when I was old enough, he took me to mountain biking as well. I had a very, very old bicycle at that time. I think I was. I don't know. Maybe eight years old or maybe younger. I don't know. But there were steep descents. And he's still telling me the story that he said, yeah, I hold you. But in the end, I was driving down myself.
I was riding down myself. And so I was always from a very, very young age. I was outside and with the mountain bike. When I was around, I think, 11 or 12 years old, I remember that I was going. I was going up the highest mountain around Graz, my hometown Graz. It's not really high. It's 1,400 meters or 1,200. I don't know. Well, something like that. And we were going up there. And I was almost as fast as him already. And I said, okay, I'm already quite fast. So maybe I should take part in some races. So he said, okay, yeah, let's look. Let's see how that works. And then I started to take part in mountain bike competitions.
And I was there until I was 19. And every year, I was taking part in 10, 15 races. Very soon, when I was 13, I started to take part in marathons, too. It was only allowed from 16. But I was saying that I was 16 already. I was 13 when I took part. And I was in the Dolomiti Superbike. It's 56 kilometers, I think, and a lot of meters uphill. And yeah, this was really cool for me. I really enjoyed to be in those kind of races and those endurance sports already when I was really young. And then by the time I met more professionals, like people that are training more professional than my father.
I mean, he has a lot of knowledge about training. He's a doctor. And he also is a sports trainer. But he always let me do what I wanted to do, like a lot of feeling in my training. That was always the basis of my training. I never had a trainer or like a coach or something. But I met people who were training a lot. So I spent a lot of time with them. And I got a really, really, really good basis. You say that like this? Yeah. Yeah. So I got better and better. My best result was at this Dolomiti Superbike when I was taking part there the first time. I was, I think, top 15, I think, overall. So this was my best result.
And then, I don't know, I didn't want to do mountain biking anymore, kind of. And the big change was that I went to Mexico for half a year. When I was 19. And I didn't bring a bike. So I was full in training before. And then suddenly I didn't have a bike. But I, of course, I was used to exercise all the time. So I started to run and to climb mountains. And there are high mountains around Mexico City. I was living in Puebla, actually, which is just on the other side from Mexico City. And in between Mexico City and Puebla, there are the Popocatépetl and the Iztaccíhuatl 5,000-meter high peaks.
And I always wanted to climb them. So I started climbing up higher mountains when I was 19. And then I saw some paragliders there. And I thought, okay, this could be cool. But I never thought about starting to fly yet. So I came back. And I didn't want to race bicycles anymore. I was just going for runs. And running on the mountains. Rock climbing a lot with friends. But, like, I don't know. There was no real favorite sport that I had at that time. And then at the university, there was a friend of mine who was, actually, it's Philip Medic, who is now one of the owners of Nova.
And he is the designer of Nova Paragliders now. And he was at the university with me. And he was doing some paragliding grouts. On top, I said, okay, I want to be down before you are down. And he was flying and I was running. So I never won. So I thought, okay, this flying thing is really cool.
Maybe I should try it. And so he gave me a glider. And I started to try paragliding. And this was quite late, actually. It was 2007. So I was already 24. 23 years when I got first in contact with paragliding. Then everything was really fast because I knew him. And he was with Nova. I got into the Nova Juniors team as a paragliding pilot. And with a friend of mine, I made a project which we called Speed Raid. It was in the time when the speed riding was coming up. And we just took a car, like a Volkswagen bus.
And we drove around the Alps. And we climbed the mountains. And we did really kind of crazy things. Like I don't do that anymore that much. But at that time, I was quite ambitious. And probably it was also quite dangerous. So I'm happy that nothing happened. Do
I have that right then that you – so you learned in 2007. So you had been flying for – is it only four years? Before you competed in your first X-Alps. Is that right? And you got third. That's really remarkable.
It's crazy. It was – I think it was autumn 2006. And then in 2007 was my first thermal flight, yeah.
Those first four years then before the X-Alps. Two questions. One was when did the X-Alps kind of get on your radar to do? And then two, how many hours would you say you fly? In a year up until the 2011 X-Alps. Were you flying hundreds and hundreds of hours? Or tell me about your progression through those years.
Okay. First story I have to correct that what I said. It was in autumn 2005 when I started paragliding. And in 2006 was my first like spring time with thermals and stuff like that. Well, yeah. That story is quite funny. Like 2005 was a year. It was a year of Red Bull X-Alps. And when I was in the – when it was summer, I didn't fly paraglider yet. But I saw Red Bull X-Alps. Like I heard of it or I've heard of it already. When I started to fly because of Philip also. He informed me about it that there is this race and stuff. And it was always in the back of my mind that there is this kind of race. And this is like the craziest race.
And I knew that I still have this really good endurance. Like this base of my body is really fit. It was always fit. Like I never stopped to train although I wasn't racing a mountain bike anymore. When I started paragliding, I remember that I told my teacher, well, there is this Red Bull X-Alps. And I think I will take part in this race. And of course, he was like, are you crazy? This will never happen. And all the other students in my course. We're still talking about this when I meet them. It's really funny. Yeah. Then after that, I remember that everything was like when I have an idea, I'm really focusing on it. Like I really start to do it 100%.
And all the people that started paragliding and that were really ambitious, they know that feeling when you can't stop to check the weather and go flying. And for me, in that time, it was crazy. Like I was totally crazy about it. And the good thing was that I was at the university. I had a lot of time. Now I say that time when I was at the university, I didn't go to the university anymore. I learned, well, I studied paragliding in that time. That's what I tell people now. I never finished the university actually. Because, yeah, I studied paragliding. But that was really interesting.
Because then in spring, of course, on my second thermal flight, it was in spring in Graz. And in spring, we often fly when there's a lot of north wind. So we can take off in that hill there, like this 1,400-meter mountain. And then to the south, it's all flat. So you have flat land flying. And I was always going every day, kind of every day going to my paragliding. I had a teacher from the Flugschule Steiermark. And I was always saying, yeah, it's possible to fly today. Is it possible to fly? And he says, yeah, today we go flying. And he is definitely one of the best cross country pilots I know still, this friend of mine and the teacher there. And, of course, when he saw that the conditions are good for cross country flying, he was very ambitious himself.
And he didn't want to take care about a pilot who was doing his second. Thermal flight. But anyway, I said, okay, I come with you. I come with you. Just tell me what I have to do. And I remember that he said, yeah, the only thing he said was, okay, when you take off, you do the thermal. And then the only important thing is just when you get very low, look for a good landing place and decide to land. Don't try to get up when you're really low. That's just for safety. But the rest is okay. So on my second thermal flight. I was flying with that strong north wind. I think almost 60 kilometers into the flatlands.
So I thought, okay, I'm the born cross country pilot. And I was so motivated that on the next day the wind changed. Like it was turning to the south. But there was still this north wind there. But everybody was, again, really motivated to do cross country. And of course, because I was already flying 50 kilometers, I thought, okay, now I know how this works. And I go as well. And I flew a little bit against this north wind. Of course, I didn't have any idea what's happening. And then on one mountain about 20 kilometers to the north, I was coming into the lee. And I was in the trees on my third thermal flight.
I was so lucky, you know. I was flying. I was trying to get altitude. And I don't know. I still don't know how it happened. But probably I stalled the glider. I was probably trying to turn really narrow turns. And it just didn't work. And I probably just stalled the glider on one side. And bam, I was in the tree. And the glider got stuck in the very, very last high tree before there were no trees anymore. And so. And I was sitting just half a meter above the ground in the harness. And I didn't even hit anything, you know. So I was so incredibly lucky. Just my glider was destroyed. And I said, okay, I don't know what happened.
But I knew Philipp Menikus from NOVA. And so I asked him, okay, do you have a glider for me? Because my glider is crashed. And can you fix my glider? And then he gave me a Mambu, which was at that time a very good cross country ENB glider or 122 glider. But quite demanding, actually, for its class, I think. And so I drove to Innsbruck to fly the Mambu on the Nordkette. Maybe you know the Nordkette, which is very steep and high rocky mountains north of Innsbruck. And in spring, I think it was April. Or May. There were really, probably April, yeah, beginning of April.
Really, really strong spring thermals. And I was going up like crazy in the thermal. I didn't have any idea. And I went into the thermal, and I stalled the glider again. And I was going down 500, 600, 700 meters. And just before the ground, I was twisted, everything, just before the ground. And before I wanted to... Pull the rescue, the glider was flying again because I left the brakes alone.
It was crazy, really crazy, crazy. I thought, okay, I have really no idea about paragliding, but I still want to do it, so I have to do something. And I went to a safety training. Yeah, and that was then basically the beginning of a good... One
of the questions I have down here is advice you would give to your 50-hour self. I guess the advice would be just don't do it like you did it. That's simple. I
was really crazy about it, and I had no idea. And I thought, okay, everything is easy, and it just works well like that. But really fast, I learned that it's not easy, and you have to learn it properly. Probably. Probably.
Yeah, and then I did this course, and the next one, the next year, one and a half years, yeah, in 2008, I did this project with a friend, with the speed gliders. So I learned to speed ride, and I was then at the end pretty good at that. And it gave me a lot of, how do you say, self-confidence because I learned with that speed riding project where are the limits, how dangerous it really is. After that, my cross country flying starts to become better, a lot better.
So in 2008, you start flying better. I'm assuming you're starting to really kind of link things and figuring it out. Were you already at that point thinking about the X-Alps, or was this still very much just a part of trying to get better?
No, the X-Alps was always in the back of my mind. Really, I thought about the X-Alps all the time. And
so how did that kind of guide your training? I'm going to jump ahead a little bit. I read a really interesting article that I believe you wrote after, so 2011, and if I get any of this wrong, please correct me. But 2011, I remember the weather was very bad, but you did incredibly well. You were third and just, I think, nine kilometers from goal. This was your first one, and I believe maybe you led to the Red Bull thing. It was some very exciting stuff. And then you trained very hard for 2013, and I know in that one you didn't do as well as you hoped. And I read an article about how some of the things you felt like you did well and you executed well, but other things you didn't do as well.
How did you move from that experience to the 2015 event? Take me through kind of some of the learning and the progression there between 2011, 2013. When I
took part in 2011, I was basically a beginner paraglider pilot still. I mean, I was, of course, testing with Skywalk, and I had the technical skills to do stalls and whatever and big collapses and everything like that. And, of course, I had quite long cross country flights, but this is still far, far, far, far away from something like Triglimaura and all that. So, it was about paragliding, you know. So, compared to other XARPS competitors, I was a beginner in 2011. And that the weather was bad was an advantage for me, actually, because also in 2011 I was one of the fittest participators, I guess.
So, yeah. I was able to run a lot. And the parts I could fly, I did well. And after the XARPS 2011, I knew that in this, I think it took almost 14 days that time. In these 14 days, in these two weeks, I learned as much as in three years or four years of paragliding. Like, this is what it felt to me, you know. I was never before in my life flying in valley winds that were so strong that I couldn't fly fast enough. I couldn't fly forward anymore. Like, 40, 50 kilometers of valley wind happened to me five times during the XARPS 2011 or things like that. I didn't know. This was so much new stuff in 2011 that I, yeah, that I knew that, okay, there is still a lot, a lot to learn.
And then what happened was, like you said, that Red Bull decided to sponsor me and made a lot of pressure to me. Because I was, I knew on the one side, okay, I'm not the best. I'm a very experienced pilot. And there are so many things to learn. But on the other side, people probably expect that I'm now a professional paragliding pilot. And I will win because now I was third. So the next big step can be first place in the XARPS 2013. So there were two very big different angles of this 2013 race. And myself. I started to already be. Believe it myself that I'm really good at this, you know.
Like that I can really fly and that I have a lot of experience. But the reality was actually different. I mean, when I look at it now, I have to see that, you know.
By seeing that, that you weren't as, you needed better piloting skills. Obviously, you were really fast and still very fit on the ground. But 2013 was amazing weather. Is that what you're saying? That you just, you didn't have the flying skills that you needed? I don't know if it's
really the flying skills. It's more the mental skill to fly well. I think that in paragliding is the biggest part. If you have very good, like, if you have the technical skills for paragliding. And if you understand, I don't know, the whole, like, how does thermals work. And if you have a feeling for that. Then at some point, it's the mental game. You know, that's what I think. To keep calm and not to get crazy if somebody passes you in the air. Another competitor. And then you have to go full speed. And then you land, you know. That's a typical situation. So, in this concern, I was not good in 2013.
I was too, I had too much pressure to be in front. And then on the first day, or it was the second day of the race. It was a very good flying day. Chrigel flew from Dachstein all the way to Garmisch. Not to Garmisch. Yeah, to Garmisch and the Zugspitze actually. The next turn point. And I was also flying. I was not flying bad on that first day. But then I was landing. And I was on the, I think I was 25th place or something like that. And I thought, okay, that's it. I cannot do this anymore. I have to give up. I have to stop. So, my expectations were not met at all for me, for myself.
I had that problem. Probably the others didn't even think so much about it or care about it. But, yeah, I had a big problem. But I didn't give up. I finished. I went all the way to Monaco. And, well, yeah, I learned also a lot again in this race, of course. I finished ninth. This was okay for me. Sometimes I was sixth. Back and forth, you know. But it was okay. I knew, okay, for 2015 I really have to get better, you know. Like, if you want to be professional, you have to really prepare professionally. So, I started to work with a coach.
Actually, it is Thomas Thériault. It was Thomas Thériault. Creely supporter. I was working with him quite a lot.
And, yeah, this was the mental part was getting better in this way a lot.
There were rumors, Paul, before the race. And maybe that's all it was, was just a rumor. But there were rumors that he was going to be your supporter for 2015. Was that accurate at all?
Yeah, the rumors were right. We were thinking about that. For a few days.
But, no, it was longer, actually. But we made a project together in England. A sailing and running project. And we saw that it's just not the time yet to do that together. Or maybe not at all to do that race together. Like Thomas and me. But still, I think he's a very, very good coach. Like, he can... He can help everybody so much really fast. And that's what he did with me, too. So on this level, we can work together really well. And we're still doing that. And, yeah, with him, I really started to accept my situation as a professional pilot.
But not with the experience that Creely has and the situation that I still want to do really well. And, yeah, this is how it went on. And 2015 was a really cool race for me. Like, I really, really enjoyed it.
Incredibly strong, that entire race. I really enjoyed and encourage our listeners to check out your blog series that you put out on Facebook. The 25 Days Till Christmas. I followed that very closely. That was really lovely to relive each of those days. And you and I were together in the beginning and then never again. But you made what I thought was a really good move at the end. It turned out to be kind of unlucky. But I agreed with you when you wrote up that, you know, it was the thing that made sense. And, you know, that deep line down the border of France and Italy is a really serious line. So it was actually the line you flew was the one I was planning on taking. And, you know, it just made more sense to dive in deeper when I came through. But, yeah, that didn't work out for you as you planned.
But you pulled it off in the end. Really nice job there. Now that you've got the compilation of these three events, a couple of things. Do you think Chrigel can be beaten? And if so, what will you do until 2017 to give yourself a better chance?
That's a good question. Actually, I think, yes, he can be beaten. I didn't think that much before 2015. But now I think it's possible. And, yeah, just to tell you why is that I saw until the last days of the race that I really felt that he was pushing really, really hard in front of me. You know, for a long time I was on the second place. And I was sometimes not really far behind him. And I knew that, like, we were kind of climbing up the same mountain sometimes. And he was in front of me. And I was going really fast.
And I knew that he had to go really fast in front of me, too. And I could feel that there was a certain, like, pressure on him as well. Everything is possible. And I saw this time that it's also possible to beat Chrigel. Still, for me, he's the best pilot. And that will always be his biggest advantage, that he's just really, really good in what he does. And he will always be kind of my, like, paragliding hero still. You know, like, it's not that I want to...
It's difficult to say that, how to say that now. But I think he's still the best pilot. And he will always be better than me because the progress is there for him as well and for me as well. But, like, yeah, you know what I want to say. What will I do for 2017? Good question. I just want to be... I think the key to be really good in this race is to be professional. Like, the word professional is the key, you know. And professional means that you think of everything before. You train professionally. Your material is right, you know, for you. You can manage that. Yeah, you just did everything possible to be as good as you can.
Did you
change anything? You know, kind of radically? Or were there any kind of real aha moments during the race? Like, oh, shit, you know, we should have done this. Or is there anything that you will... You know, a real deliberate change in your strategy for the next one? And I'm not asking for my own because I'd like to do it again as well. It was a fantastic event. I'm more asking in terms of just you personally. You know... Look... Did you identify any kind of weaknesses in your game that you would change? Mostly in terms of flying. Like, in terms of how we can kind of teach the audience about how to improve.
Well, the key for my performance this time was that I didn't allow any pressure on me. You know, I was just flying for myself. I was taking it really easy. I was not going full speed bar all the time. I was just trying to fly really concentrated. And really well. And this was kind of the key for me to be able to even follow Chrigel on a good flying day. You know? And even in locations that I didn't know and he knows really well. What I should probably learn or what I have the feeling is that will to really win. You know? Like, there is the one side that you can say, okay, I take everything easy. And I fly here.
And I fly as far as possible. And I run as fast as I can. But in the end, for example, on the last kilometers from Annecy to Monaco, I think if I would have the real determination to win and to... Then I would have maybe decided a little bit different. So, for me, in the end, it's... I think after three X-Alps participations... As soon as you have the skills, like, you know that you can fly the whole day for ten hours. And you can fly fast for ten hours. And then you have the performance, the endurance to climb 4,000 meters every day.
Then it's just a mental game. And you have to... Like I felt it from Chrigel. He really wanted to win. Like, he did everything to win. You could really feel it. Like, he pushed as much as he could. And I just kind of wanted to do it for myself. I wanted to take it easy, kind of. But still, of course, I went up the mountain as fast as I could. Nothing about that. But this determination that you really want to win is kind of a key, I think, that I was missing a little bit.
And maybe I'm wrong about this. But, you know, I don't do a ton of competition flying. But, you know, every year I try to get in a couple of World Cups and stuff. I don't believe that you do much paragliding racing, like World Cup-type racing. Is that correct or am I wrong there?
No, that is totally correct. I take part probably an average of two competitions per year, which is not a lot.
I was really, like, seeing all the other pilots. Like Clément Latour or Aaron or, yeah, all the other pilots, kind of, that are really good taking part in the World Cups. And I was really thinking about that. You know, like, do I have to go to a World Cup to be able to win the X-Alps, for example? Or to be really good in the X-Alps? And now, in 2015, with Sebastian Huber and myself, I saw that it's not necessary. Like, really necessary to do that. You can, that's what I think. I mean, of course, it doesn't, like, it's nothing bad about taking part in a lot of competitions.
But it's still a totally different world. I mean, you learn to fly fast, for sure. But flying cross country through terrain that you maybe didn't see before in conditions that will never be allowed sometimes in, or sometimes in conditions that will never be allowed in a competition, is a totally different thing, I think. And there is nobody around that you can fly behind. You know, there is not a hundred other pilots that show you the thermals, and you can just, yeah, fly behind them if you want. And so I think it's, from my, it's my view, it's my personal opinion, it's quite a different, a different thing. And it's not...
absolutely necessary to be a good competition pilot to be good in the X-Hubs. So
for going into 2017, then, it sounds like, you know, a big part for you is kind of the mental preparation and the desire and determination to win. Obviously flying as much as you can, but maybe competition, flying, not so important. What about learning the areas? I had a very interesting... We had a media press conference a few days before the race at Red Bull, and Chrigel was sitting next to me. And before it started, I asked him, I said, Hey, you know, have you been flying the course in the last couple of months? Because I was over there all of May and June, you know, learning as much of the course as I could. And he said, no, no, I never do that because it's totally different in May and June than it is in July.
And it takes away my creativity, which I thought was really interesting. In other words, so he likes to go into a place and fly it as the day demands. But of course, in some ways, that's easier for someone like Chrigel, who's been flying in the Alps since he was nine. You know, he knows it so well, and he's done competitions in all the places that we fly in the X-Alps. So how do you approach that? Did you... I know you did the Adriatic Circle expedition with Tom. And so that went through quite a few places that were on the... on the course. But how do you approach or how will you approach that aspect of it before the next race?
Yeah, actually, I think that's the biggest advantage that Chrigel has, that he knows the Alps like inside and out, I would say. And I think also that this, besides the mental part, is the second most important part. And by now, I crossed the Alps, I think, three, four times. Including the Adriatic Circle. I know a lot already. And it makes me feel much more comfortable than in 2011. Still, in 2011, I was third place as well, you know. But when you get to a place and you already know what's behind the next mountain and how this valley looks like, and then if you run up a mountain and you know, okay, there will be this takeoff, and you're not running up the mountain and thinking, okay, is there a takeoff or not?
Or will I be able to glide out the next valley? Or are there trees? Or is there a cable? Or whatever, you know. This experience can make you really a lot faster, I think. So to prepare in this direction, I always try to do as much hike and fly as possible. And from 2013 to 2015, the Adriatic Circle came up in this idea as well. I was looking at the map and I thought, okay, I want to cross the Alps to get better for the next X-Alps.
And then slowly, slowly, this whole project of the Adriatic Circle evolved out of this thought. And for the next summer, or for this summer, 2016, I have another project. I have another project in my mind already, which is also taking place in the Alps, hike and fly. And yeah, I will definitely work on this as well, because I think sometimes I can't even imagine how a pilot from, I don't know, maybe you, I mean, you probably know the Alps better. But I think this can be a really, really big part that can make you a lot better at knowing the area better.
That last night, or the, sorry, the night I got into, the day I got into Monaco, we had some beers that night and we were talking with yourself and Aaron and Petio and some of the other guys. And we were all sharing some quite scary stories of, you know, incidences we'd gotten ourselves in. And I imagine you've probably had those. You mentioned you had some, you know, really high winds in 2011. I think 2013 was the highest. It was really good flying conditions, but I'm sure probably still some scary moments. How have you kind of resolved to yourself the danger of the ex-Alps? And just in general, I think also training for something like the ex-Alps, you really have to put yourself again and again in very compromised positions.
So that, answer that for me if you could, as well as, you know, I think the third flight, it sounded like you went into a tree on your third flight. Have you had other examples like that that have taught you some things about safety? Yeah,
this is a very difficult question actually for me because it's so hard to answer what makes it possible to fly safe or to fly fast and safe in the Alps. In 2013, in spring, in spring 2014, I crashed. For the first time after that one crash with the tree. I was flying a big triangle and I actually wanted to make it over 200 kilometers, a triangle. And there came this, there was a big storm in the back and I thought, okay, now I have 170 kilometers, I have to fly 200 kilometers. So I went to reach and there was cold air coming over the mountain and it was really like blowing from north down
the wall, like a fern situation. Like it was really falling wind that was falling down to the south. And you could actually see this, this little, this small layer of cold air which was forming a little bit of cloud, like it was a fog area, a layer that was falling down the mountain. And I, actually I knew, okay, there will not be a thermal anymore, but I still went very close to the mountain and I was trying to soar that little ridge on the north side instead of flying, obviously, where you fly normally in the south side. And, but at some point it wasn't working and it was, it felt like five kilometers per hour wind on the ridge and I had to go into the lee side because, yeah, otherwise I would land on the mountain.
So I thought, okay, there's not a lot of wind and I fly into the lee and I knew that, okay, sometimes it happened to me that the glider is still like giving you a little bit, a better glide when you leave it in the, in the luff side as long as possible while you as a pilot are already in the lee side. So I was really like sticking to the ridge and as soon as the glider came into the, under the ridge, like really in that moment the glider was completely collapsing and I was in the same moment I was in the, in this very, very steep 1,000 meter rock wall. And like I was falling into that wall three times. I was doing a salto down the, the rocks wall until the glider got stuck and I was thinking, okay, shit, you know, like how could this happen?
I was never, never expecting this to happen, you know. So since that moment I was, I had to kind of build up a new like motivation and also like safety strategy. For me, just can happen, you know, like you can fly as safe as you want, but still from one moment to the other you're in a situation that, that makes you crash, you know, like can just happen to anybody. That's what I think. I don't know about you, if you, if you think the same, that's really interesting.
Did you, in that incident, do I understand correctly that you, so you didn't throw your reserve, you actually, but you hit the cliff wall and you got hung up by the glider or how, how did?
I was so low. I remember that I had the collapse. I was actually having the collapse on the side that was away from the, sorry, from the wall. So I had that moment, I didn't like with, with the, like a pendulum crash into the wall, but I went to the other side first and I thought, okay, the collapse opened and I thought, okay, maybe I can come out of it like with, like out of a big wing over. But in the moment, like the glider was shooting really far in front. It probably collapsed. I don't remember that moment really. It probably, it collapsed in front of me and I hit the ground in that moment. And then I was falling down the rock face like three times or something. And then the glider got stuck in the rocks and I stopped at that point.
Actually, I didn't really hurt myself. I had a little bit like compressed vertebra, but nothing like really serious. I had no big like operation or anything. So I was so really, really lucky. Like I thought, okay. This now, the whole luck you can have is used.
Your luck jar was empty. Yeah. That was it.
There can't be anything left. And then one friend told me, okay, just like you, you even if you, if you have six, six, six in a row, you on the next draw, you still have the same chances. You know, this is, this is what kind of made my mindset really good again. Because it doesn't mean that when you lucky one time, you are not lucky anymore. The next time it
was it, um, was it, was it hard to fly again after that for a little while? Or were you, were you more reserved or more scared or did it change? Obviously you said it really changed how you approached it, but in what ways?
Yeah, that's, that's interesting because, uh, it was 2013 beginning of May when that happened. And in June, uh, mid of June, I stopped. I started the Adriatic Circle with Tom, project Tom, project with Tom. Um, and I, I remember I was really afraid, you know, to fly. Actually, I was really, um, checking the situation very, very well. And I was thinking like kind of taking no risk. And I told Tom, okay, no, maybe we shouldn't take off or something like this. So, um, I was really, um, how do you say, like trying not to take any risk. And, and then I remember actually it was that day when Tom crashed. We were flying, uh, from, um, over the Newfoundland bus.
Actually one part of the, this year's X-Arts as well where I was going the other direction. But that time we were going from north to south east, um, towards, uh, the Swiss, uh, the Italian part of Switzerland there. And we were, we were flying in pretty turbulent conditions. And, uh, then Tom crashed. And then in the hospital he, he told me, yeah, on this flight I felt that you were back, you know, like back with your, with your flying like you were flying before. So I think it took me at least, like we were flying every day. So it took me for sure 30, uh, cross country flights to, to get back to that, to that, uh, performance that I was having before.
Like this, this little bit of aggressive, aggressive. Kind of flying, you know, going close to the wall to take a turn and stuff like this, you know. This is just, this just took time to, to work on it. Um, but now I've tried to fly, um, in a way that thinking one step more ahead than before, you know. Like really this is, I think in that, in that situation when I crashed I was thinking to think ahead. But I was just thinking one step ahead and not two steps ahead. Kind of. So now I try, I just try to, to think about it before and to say, okay, sometimes you don't have to fly really, really close to the ridge.
You can also fly a little bit outside. Just with a little bit more distance. And it works as well. And things like that, you know. And, uh, this is also a funny story about that. When I was doing the X-Alps this year, I was, uh, last year I was flying with Sebastian Hoover sometimes. And in the end. After the race, he, he, I talked to him and he told me, yeah, it was very interesting to see. And I learned about, I learned something there. To see me flying always a little bit further away from the ridge than he was. You know, like he was scratching the, the big walls. Like the really high mountains, really high peaks in Switzerland. I watched him flying there and I was just flying straight outside.
And I was, I, I had the same, you know. Like, uh, speed. And we were meeting again on the next mountain, you know. But he was taking a lot more risk. And he was taking, he was obviously taking a lot more risk, really. Like, and I thought, okay, well, this doesn't look so safe. But probably I would have done exactly the same, uh, before this crash. And this is, this is what I learned. That there is not only one option to fly, you know. So many options because, like, we don't even know how many possibilities there are to go. Sure. Here or there, you know. And, uh, there's always one that is a little bit safer or better compromise between safety and, uh, flying fast. When
I was, when I was first learning, I did a, a really instrumental trip with a guy named Toby Colom. He runs a company called Passion Paragliding. And I still, to this day, I'm a very terrain-hungry pilot. I don't like to leave, leave the terrain. Because I'm a mountain pilot and that's what I trust. And I don't know the flatlands very well. I haven't done much flatland flying. But every time we would launch, he would just go out to places that I thought would never work. And, and he would always find a climb and always go. It would always work. He'd always find something. And it was, you know, it wasn't over triggers. And it was, it was over valleys. And it was the places that you weren't supposed to, you know, quote, unquote, get a climb. And he would. And it was much, much safer. He was quite scared of the big mountains.
So it was just a kind of a different approach. But, but I learned a lot from that. I'm constantly trying to talk myself away from the terrain. Sounds like Sebastian Huber and I would like flying together.
Well, I don't want to, I don't want to say that I'm, that I'm not flying very, very close to the terrain sometimes. Really, I'm, I can, I can fly in terms that are like, that's just one channel there, you know. And I, I take a thermal there. It's just, I just want to say that it's sometimes, it's obviously possible. That another route works as well. Sure. And a safer route. I take the safer route. And this is what I learned, you know. Sometimes you have to go really close if you're scratching the hill really low. You have to go close to the, to the mountain sometimes. And I do that, you know. I can do that. But I, I do it, I know that I'm doing it then in that moment, you know. This is, this is what I want to say.
This is the difference. That's what I learned from this crash. That before. Before I was not thinking about the risk so much. I was just flying, you know. And now I think, okay, now I know I have to go really close to the wall to get up again. I will do it. But I'm not just in general flying as close as possible to the wall.
Hmm, hmm. I think that's, yeah, I think that's
really, really good advice. Yeah, I was actually flying with Chrigel in a tandem once in a competition. It was a borderline competition. I don't know if you know that. It sounds, for the English speaking, it sounds stupid to do a borderline competition. But there are those borderline competitions in Austria and sometimes in Switzerland. And you have to, it's like a little, a small, it's 33 hours of getting away as far as possible from the, from the start and getting back in that time. And I was taking part in the tandem with Chrigel in, in this competition. It was in, in autumn 2013, I think, after the XARPS. And he was the pilot, of course, in, in, in Switzerland.
It was actually in his home, like around Interlaken. We were flying with the tandem that day, I think, 150 kilometers almost, you know. And we were winning, of course, with a lot of advantage because he knew the terrain perfectly. And with that tandem, we were flying, I don't know if I should say all the details here for everybody.
What I can say are the legal, legal things. And the legal things were that the trimmers were open all the time and we were flying like two meters from the terrain and straight for 20K, doing a big crossing, going up in one thermal, straight for 20K. And again. Yeah. And like three, four times like this. And really we were not flying further away than two, three, five meters from the ground all the time. And I was like, I trust, I trust him a lot. I know that he, he's really good. He knows what he's doing. He didn't crash yet for really a long time. So yeah, I just trusted him and I felt really comfortable actually. But it's totally not, it would totally not be my style, you know, to fly like this close.
Anymore. That
is his magic. It's just flying straight. He just doesn't turn. Of
course it is. Yeah. I mean, yeah. In, in those cases, maybe, or probably is the right strategy just to go, to go very close and straight. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, hey, we're, we're getting close to our designated hour, but I have a couple of questions I really do want to ask you. This one, not necessarily paragliding. If it's, if it is paragliding, so be it. But what is your, when you look back at, say since 2005, when you learned, but again, it doesn't have to be paragliding. But what is your greatest achievement and what is your greatest disappointment?
That's an interesting question. I think for me, for myself, the greatest achievement is that I could always be in the X-Alps until the end of the race, like the official end. Either reaching Monaco or in 2011, just when the time is over, it's over, you know. But I didn't have to leave the race because I hurt myself or something like this. This is for me personally, my biggest achievement. The worst, maybe I shouldn't say that it was this crash because I learned so much about it, but I think it was that, that crash actually.
Because, yeah, it was kind of a horrible situation for me to, yeah, to crash and to see that it can be over in a second, you know. Like you don't even realize that it's happening, you know.
I think the really good lesson there, the hard lesson there is that we can't rely on luck, can we? Can we? I mean, it was, there's only so many times you can pull that card.
Exactly, yeah. That's, so we have to, we have to work on this, you know. We have to work on, on this aspect. We have to do everything that's possible to, to fly as long as possible, you know. Like as long as possible in our life. I saw, I saw so many like good friends crashing and like one friend of mine died and others like broke every bone next to me and I was there when they were just like lying on the ground. And I, I saw it like it's, it's now it's cruel stories, you know, not for the listeners, not nice for the listeners to listen but, but people like they have so much pain when they crash and it, it's so bad. And I, I really think this is not, I don't want to have that, you know. I really don't want to lie on the ground totally broken or even dead.
And so this is my, my main, my main goal actually to fly as long as possible, maybe not getting the best results. So it's, it's more important to, to do much, many, many, many more flights than to be, yeah, first summer for one time.
There are old pilots and there are bold pilots but there are no old bold pilots. I love that saying. Do, do you have any, just, just one other kind of question that we talked about before we actually started this. You had a friend that wanted to know if you have any resources that you would point people to. I know when, when I started getting into it, Burkhard Martin's book Thermal Flying is just like my Bible. Do you have anything like that that you've used over the years to, to train outside of just the doing it?
Yeah, actually this book that you just mentioned from Burki is, is a very good book but it's, if you want the really detailed version of this kind of information you should get a, a book that is called Strecken Sieg. It's like, it's a, it's a, it's a book for sailplane pilots. I think from this book you can learn really everything about cross country flying. You know, it's like more, like going more, a little bit more into detail and it means, the, the title is Strecken Sieg in, in German and it means cross country flying with sailplane. This is my, it's my kind of Bible. When we meet again I will show it to you and you, you can maybe.
I'll read, try to get it in, get it in an English version. This is actually a very old book by now. I got this, like I was, I was getting it from Philip. That one, Philip Medicus who, who introduced me to paragliding as well. He was a sailplane pilot before actually. So that's why he knew that and it's, like in theory you can learn everything there. Like flying, waves, or like things that you don't even think about with a paraglider in first. In the first hand, you know.
Yeah, I think in this, in this example Hansa who's a meteorologist. That's what he does is study weather. He, he flew in some wave coming into the Matterhorn that day. I think it was day, day eight. And that's just something I'd never, I'd never imagine we would be doing on a paraglider. That's pretty cool.
I was, I was on a wave once too in Emberger Arm. I was going up and like when I, when we were at the cloud base everybody was leaving. And it was, but it was still beeping. My Vario was still showing me that it's climbing. So I climbed and climbed and climbed. And then I was so high above the, above the cumulus clouds underneath me. And I thought, okay, this must be, you know, this must be a wave. And I just flew straight over everybody. That was really cool. Yeah,
that is really cool. That's amazing. Well, Paul, we'll, if you don't mind, we're going to end it on this, the Proust questionnaire. These are just a whole series of questions that, answer however you like. What is your favorite word?
My favorite word. You have interesting questions, really.
My favorite words. Yeah, it's one of my favorite words is, or it's two words. In German, it's locker bleiben. It means kind of stay, stay cool. Stay cool.
Okay. Like, like the Fonz. And what is your least favorite word?
My least favorite word.
When, because we talked about those things right now, it's probably crash. If you ask me in this moment. Excellent.
Yeah. What turns you on and what turns you off?
It turns me on to, I love to, to have a small glider on my deck and just, just have a mountain there and just run up is what I love. And
what turns you off?
What turns me off? If I can't take off.
Walking back down. That's awful. I agree. It's
actually very important to learn to walk down because when, when you have to climb the Dachstein on the first or second day of the X-Alps and you can't fly down, you have to walk down. And if you are not used to that, for sure. You're probably out of the race or yeah. It will give you a really, really hard time. So yeah. So sometimes it's important to run, to walk down as well.
Yeah. I hate going down. Oh, what profession other than your own, other than your own, would you like to attempt?
Um, well right now I'm learning to fly planes, so maybe I should be, I should be a, um, pilot for a plane. And
what profession would you not like to do? Uh,
any kind of profession that, uh, means that I can, um, not be. Outside, outside sometimes when the sun is shining, this
is a common one with our audience. Veso answered that the exact same way. And then last one, and then I'll, I'll let you go to sleep. I know it's getting late there in Austria. Um, if heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?
Um, you did a good job. I like it. You did a good job.
Welcome. You did a good job. Enjoy. I love it. Yeah. Fantastic. Paul, thank you very much. Uh, before we sign off, where can people find you? I know you're, you've got quite a social media presence, but, um, if people want to reach out and say hello or ask you any questions, how can they do so?
Uh, well by now it's, I would say it's Facebook. Of course, uh, I have a homepage as well, Paul Guschlbauer.at, but, uh, just type my name into Facebook and you find my athlete page. I answer, uh, messages very fast usually as soon as I read them and yeah, I'm, I'm happy to, to answer any questions and to be in contact with people who are, yeah, asking me things or want to know more.
Great. Cool. Um, Paul, thank you very much. That was, uh, a lot of fun. It's great to talk to you after all these months and I look forward to flying with you and, uh, competing with you in the ex-Alps here in 2017. And, um, hopefully I'll see you soon. Hopefully our, our paths will cross before then though. I know we've got a lot of similar interests, so, uh, thank you.
Yeah. Whenever you, you want to come by, come by and, uh, yeah, the time you're, you're asking really good questions. So I told a lot of stories and time passed really fast. Actually, I wanted to have it very short because I listened to some others and I hope people will not be bored when they listen to my or our conversation now.
Oh, I don't, I don't think it will be, and, and by the way, um, for those of you listening, uh, I really appreciate it. I really do recommend if you've got an interest, uh, in flying as well as the ex-Alps, uh, Paul did this fantastic series, uh, I think he called it 25 days till Christmas, um, on, on right on Facebook. If you go to his athlete page and like his page and read some of that stuff, it's really terrific. He did kind of a day by day accounting of the ex-Alps. It was very exciting to, uh, to relive both as a participant and I'm sure as a, as a viewer. So Paul, thank you very much. Uh, happy new year. And, uh, we'll see you soon. Thank
you. Yeah. Thank you, Gavin. And I hope I see you soon too. And thanks for listening everybody.
Well, that was pretty fun. Uh, really cool. It, you know, it took us weeks to, uh, put that together. I've been wanting to talk to Paul for a long time. We haven't been able to spend much time together, actually, we, we got to know each other very briefly in the ex-Alps, uh, this year, but I hope to fly with them and spend some more time with him in the future. Um, really cool chatting with him and hope he got something out of that. Uh, as always, all we ask for is Buck's show. If you got something out of that, or one of the previous episodes, if you haven't listened to any of the previous episodes, I highly encourage you to go back and check out some of them. Uh, there's some fantastic wisdom and some great personalities there. So go back in and, and, uh, set them up for a drive or when you're heading out to the next, your next flying site, uh, appreciate you listening. Thanks so much for the donations.
Everybody's being incredibly generous. Uh, this has been a lot of fun. We'll keep doing it. Uh, and I think we finally got Will. Big ad queued up. Uh, he's just gotten back from the ice festival and I'm going to be sitting down with him this weekend. So if you've got some questions for the maestro or the legend, however you want to call Will, uh, hit me up on Facebook and let me know what I should be asking him. I've got a long list of questions, but that should be a really fun talk. See you next time on the CloudBase Mayhem. Cheers..