Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. I'm recording this back at the end of May, but when you get this episode, it's going to be very close to the start of the Red Bull X-Alps. So I hope you'll all join in and watch this insane, wild, crazy, absurd event as we race across the sky and the ground in the Alps from Salzburg to Monaco. You can find all that out, of course, on Red Bull X-Alps.com and, of course, all over the social medias. So follow along. You can follow my Instagram account, Gavin McClurg, or you can follow my Facebook page, Gavin McClurg. Love to have you join me there. We'll be doing daily blog feeds and video feeds and pictures and, yeah, getting pretty excited.
Been training a long time for this one and stoked to have your support. Got a great show for you today. This one's, we stepped outside of our usual path this time and sat down with Caroline Paul. Some of you may have seen her. Her TED Talk, which was how we connected, she gave a great talk a little bit ago on TED. I think it's been viewed by over a million people, all about bravery and especially with women. Caroline is kind of the adventurer's adventure, I guess you would call her. She is the author of four books, including the bestseller, New York Times bestseller, Gutsy Girl, which I just finished reading. It's fabulous. She was one of the first firefighters in the country as she worked for the San Francisco Fire Department for 13 years. She's done sea kayak expeditions.
She tried to beat the Guinness World Record for crawling when she was a kid. She built a boat out of milk cartons when she was a kid and talked a couple of her friends and brother into going down the river, which didn't work all that well. But she has a penchant for adventure, and one of those adventures she got into was paragliding. And so when I heard her talk, give her TED Talk and talk about paragliding, I thought, wow, we got to get this gal on the show and talk about risk and fear and strategies for, you know, developing bravery in people and especially women. So I think you're going to really enjoy this. A couple of things of housekeeping before we get into it. As you know, we had a little contest in April and May to whoever gave the best review on iTunes or Stitcher or Google Play or however you get this podcast that I would give away a blue fly Vario and my DeLorme unit that I used when I went across Alaska.
Got so many awesome reviews. It was really actually very hard. Hard for me to pick winners, but they're they're just terrific. People wrote poems and just so I'm really grateful and really thankful for everything you did. We're going to actually do some more giveaways just so I can pick more people in the future. So if you don't get the shout out for these two wins, don't worry, you're still in the hunt for some good stuff. We've actually just gotten delivery on our CloudBase Mayhem T-shirts and hats. So I encourage if you want. To support the show, if you go over to patreon.com forward slash CloudBase Mayhem, if you contribute at 10 bucks a show, you'll get one of a brand new recap that Anika Hurden makes.
They're beautiful and they've got our logo on the front. They're really, really cool. I'll have some pictures of those up on CloudBase Mayhem and on the Patreon page. And if you want to contribute 20 bucks a show, you'll get a T-shirt among a bunch of whole other rewards. So check that out. Some pretty fun stuff. But anyway. So the winners of the giveaways. First, we've got Chris Balmer. He wrote, Hey, pilots, if you dare call yourself a pilot, having never listened to the CloudBase Mayhem podcast hosted by Gavin McClurg, whether you're an old salty or a newberry pie, you need this podcast. The CloudBase Mayhem podcast will bring you the best aspects of paragliding, all from one easy to access digital launchpad. You'll hear heart wrenching stories of pilots who have left everything and sometimes vice versa to pursue the ultimate joyride, as well as gobs and gobs of precious paraglider lessons.
Hard earned by seasoned pilots who know what they speak, will discover secrets to successful decision making, be inspired to explore new places to fly, increase your awareness of weather workings, and sometimes just be entertained by the likes of some of the most passionate, real and intelligent people in the paragliding world, hell, in the whole world. I consider the Mayhem podcast one of the easiest way to augment my flying other than, well, flying, live it, learn it, love it. You can't go wrong plugging yourself into the condensed wisdom of the luminaries of the sport. Worth a bucket episode. If it gets you one flight of an extra hour or two, yeah, but it saves your life, you tell me. So pretty cool. Thanks, Chris. Appreciate it. You've got a blue fly burial on your way. And the other one, Thomas Faye, you're getting my Delorme. Thomas says, watch out.
If you're struggling with your paragliding addiction and don't want to make it worse, stay away from this podcast. If you already accepted that there is no cure, go ahead and suck it all up like sponge. It will literally get you high, probably up to cloud base. Thank you, Gavin, for providing us with this. Incredible podcast. It helps me becoming a better pilot, and I hope you keep on producing for many years. At least give me time to become a better paragliding legend for you to interview. So very cool. Thomas, thanks so much. The rest of you, thanks so much. I really appreciate that. So without further ado, please enjoy this most excellent conversation with Caroline Paul.
Caroline, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. And I am really excited to talk to you.
Oh, I'm excited to talk to you. I'm such a fan. Gavin, I'm really a fan. And I've been a fan for a long time.
Oh, my goodness. So maybe a good place to start this off is a story. So right out of college, I was totally broke, as most people out of college are. I was living in Seattle, and I was really into rock climbing. And so I volunteered at my gym so I could get a free membership once every couple of weeks to teach climbing. And the Seattle Boys and Girls Club would come down. So these were five - and six-year-olds, boys and girls, and I would teach them how to climb. And so we'd spend the afternoon in the gym. And every time, it was always the exact same thing. I'd have six or eight little kids just tugging on my pants and so excited to get on the wall. And everybody wanted to be first. And you'd put little Johnny on the rope and just rally to the top, stoked, no fear, didn't think about how high he was.
Everything was totally fine. And then, you know, it was just so much fun. And the next kid would get on the rope and be totally excited. And two feet off the deck would just lose it, completely scared and want to be lowered down right away, often in tears. And I was just blown away by the differences at that age. And it made me think a lot about then and still does. I've been thinking about this a lot lately for different reasons, but this whole nature versus nurture thing. And I know you have some opinions on that. And so I just thought we'd start with that.
Great. Yeah, I mean, I'm an identical twin. So as you said, so it's the nature versus nurture thing is pretty interesting because I do feel like genetically very similar to my identical twin. I feel very similar and I am I'm like genetically a clone, but we also express in different ways. So I guess I just a question for you was that person that often cried. Was it a girl or a boy?
No, I don't recall. This was quite a while ago, but I don't recall that that made a difference. The big difference was and I've heard you talk about this is that the girls would always let the boys go first. And I and I know you talked about that, you know, in your TED talk, you talked about, you know, the playground phenomenon that we let the boys go crazy and we warn the girls, be careful.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I've been really interested in the difference. The different ways that men and women react to fear or to risky situations and because I'm somebody who loves adventure and have, you know, I learned to fly planes when I was started when I was 19 and I had already done like weird things like build that milk carton raft. And I had already I had become a whitewater rafting guide. And one thing I noticed, like specifically with like whitewater rafting. Is that on the easy rivers, it was pretty much 50 50 women to men. But as the rivers got harder, the women seemed to drop out and there were only a few that could handle those rivers or that would do those rivers.
And it was mostly men on the big class five rivers. Now, I know some of those women who could handle those class five rivers and they were excellent rafters and not necessarily huge people. And so. I knew that it wasn't, you know, strength that was holding women back. Like, what is it? Why? And I've that's sort of been a question that's fascinated me pretty much for a long time and why I wrote the gutsy girl. And as I began to look into it, it became pretty clear to me that we nurture girls to be fearful. And we do it starting at a very young age. And that study that you talk about where was one in which kids. On a playground were watched around a playground fire pole, which is ironic because I was a firefighter for many years.
And they saw that moms and dads were much more likely to warn their girls about that fire pole. And if the girl still wanted to use the fire pole, they were really likely to assist her. And they saw that parents around their boys sort of push them to use the fire pole. And often they would guide them on how to use it on their own. So. So this message is clear, I think, that we're telling girls at a very young age that they're not very capable and that they don't need to use their decision making skills. And if you are going to do something, you're probably going to need some help. So it starts early. And I think we we believe that. And as we get older and we become teenagers, we stop going outside our comfort zone, whereas boys are embracing going outside their comfort zone.
And then if you're in the outdoors field, well, you'll start to see that it's the men who are doing the much radder stuff. And there's really no physical reason. Like Gavin, I became super interested in wingsuiting recently. Now, I'm really glad that wingsuiting wasn't available when I was younger. I'm older than you. I'm 54. So I started flying when I was 18. And then I started paragliding almost as soon as it came to the United States. I mean, the way I remember is it was the 80s, right?
Yeah. That early.
Yeah, it was early. Like my first wing was basically a square. It was. It
wasn't a wing. It was a parachute.
It was. It was like a parachute. And they were like, no, really? We didn't get this from the military. It was. I would be landing short of the LZ all the freaking time and not being able to figure it out. Anyway, the wingsuiting is really interesting to me because that is not a sport that demands physical strength, which is, I think, pretty much. That's the one area where men can be better than women, possibly. And yet there I'd never heard of a female wingsuiter. And then recently I began to look it up. And lo and behold, there are. There are. Yeah, I know. But we just don't talk about them either that or they don't talk about themselves. But also, we don't talk about them because we don't have a mythology in our culture where women are held up as heroes like that or as risk takers.
So what was different in your own family? Because clearly. You know, you and your sister are serious go getters and, you know, and in your talk, you're you're quite humble and say, you know, you didn't have skills. And so you were looking for something to to to crack the Guinness Book of World Records by by crawling when I can crawl. This is something I could do. But, you know, just to have that mindset took a lot of bravery. So what was what was different about how you and your sister were raised versus what you're seeing in the world?
Well, I do think there are two reasons. Well, first of all, my sister is not a risk taker in the same way I am. So whether that's nature or nurture, I can't really explain. But she is we she is a risk taker. Nevertheless, she just doesn't express it in the outdoors like I do. She's an incredible athlete, though. I mean, she's she does 11 mile swims. She's both of us learn to be very dogged at a very young age, partly because we were identical. Twins and we competed against each other. We we were sort of the really the only person I wanted to impress was my identical twin sister. And I think I can say that that's probably the same for her. And so I think we developed this this doggedness. And I don't want to sound coy here, but I'm really not that skilled at stuff.
And I'm not trying to say that. So you go, oh, no, Caroline, you are because I'm really not. I'm a kind of a jack of all trades. I like experiencing things. And I think I got that from my mother. My mom and she I've talked about this before, is that she grew up. She's British and she grew up with a mom who was very fearful and didn't want her two daughters, my mom and my aunt, to do anything physical. Really, you know, told them they get hurt and they just never they didn't do anything outside and they they didn't do that kind of any rough and tumble play. So when my mom and then my mom at 21 went on a ski trip. And it was. It was a revelation because she didn't get hurt.
She didn't die. And she had so much fun and she realized everything that she was missing. And she didn't tell me this till quite recently because she's always said to me, I don't really understand why you are so she uses the word brave. And, you know, why you are. Well, why you are so brave, because it didn't come from me. So what. But what did come from her? What came from her is this. She wanted us to experience a lot of things and have fun and go outside because her mom had not let her do those things. And so she wasn't trying to make my twin sister and my little brother and I brave. She was just trying to give us experiences and fun.
And so at a very young age, we sledded, we skated, we bicycled, we skied, even though we hated it. We hated skiing because there was all that stuff you had to put on. And it was just this drag. But my mom was like, no, when you're a little older, you can make the decision not to do this. But for now, we're teaching, you know, you have to play the flute and the guitar and, you know, all those things, you know, you can then drop. But they wanted us to. It included things like going to church. She just wanted us to experience a lot of things and then make our choices when we were older.
I want to circle back to your your thoughts on strength, because, you know, paragliding.
Paragliding is a perfect example of this. You know, I mean, these days there is definitely I got called out about this in a few episodes back with Isabella Messenger, fantastic pilot that, you know, their size matters really in that you can fly a bigger wing and bigger, bigger wings are faster. So for competition, you know, for racing, you know, there is an advantage to being a bigger person, but there's there's no other advantage at all between male and female. But it's got to be, you know, since you started flying, you know, there's there has always been a really, really awesome female pilot in the world. You know, there are few and far between, but there's, you know, every year there's somebody that steps into that role for a few years and they typically go away. Right now, Seiko in France is just, you know, she's every bit as good as the best guys.
But, you know, it's 101. And that's I think that fascinates all of us. You know, we why is that? You've answered it a little bit. But like you said, it's is it just the perceived risk? Is it just the fear? Is it what is it?
Well, I do think I mean, again, I think we're acculturated at a really young age to to be fearful. And I think that when our parents caution us, they're thinking about all the things that they think terrible can happen to girls in this world. So they think they're protecting us. But what they're I think what they're really doing is not. Giving us all the lessons that taking risks gives you. And that means, you know, decision making and leadership and confidence, which is a big one and teamwork, working with other people. So it's not just that we're taught to be fearful to all these other things, all these other great lessons that come along with pushing outside your comfort zone as a kid that we don't get. And I think that and confidence is a big one.
So I really believe that. We don't yet have a again, maybe the mythology is the word or a culture that celebrates women at doing these sort of heroic, adventurous things like superhero stuff, which is kind of what flying is after all. And so when you don't have that, you don't have people looking to do that. It's it's it's it's like a weird like you're a sailor. So, you know, if you're just off course by a little bit in the beginning, it's not a big deal. But if you keep staying on course like that, you're missing where you were going to go by thousands of miles. And I think it's the same thing. We start so young with these messages.
By the time, you know, we're in our 20s, things like and or I don't know how young or how young are people flying now? I mean, I started well, it was a little different because it hadn't really come. But, you know, I started doing outdoor stuff in my teens. You know, if you're if you're off course on that, you're just never going to experience. It.
Yeah. You know, in Europe now, I think it's it's quite a bit more strict in some sense. And it depends on the country. But most countries, you know, you can't really fly or get a license until you're 15. So, you know, pretty young. And the sport is is always struggling with attracting younger people. I mean, it tends to be an older person's sport. The acro the acrobatic side of things is is radically changing. You know, those those folks tend to be pretty young. It's just so fast, which you've got to be on it and they're getting so good so fast. It's just a young, young person's game. And there's some there's some pretty phenomenal female acro pilots right now. So which is right. And that I have never
heard of. So here's the other thing is I just don't think we taught there aren't enough role models for for girls and young women to see that these are things that they can and should do. And that that you really get cred for and that are really big. Boys learn at a young age that not only do they get credit for it, but it's really satisfying to have adventures. And we don't we don't get that. We don't have a role model to follow that way. And so now what you'll be seeing is all these because I've been contacted by these organizations since the book came out. There's all these outdoor groups for women who are going in the outdoors for the first time, but they're thirsty for it. But they just have not been given sort of.
The opportunity or the role models before this.
And so in your experience, is this really changing? You know, because I I think of my own community here and they're just, you know, I think there's probably more men, but there's got there's some women getting after it. I mean, it's just so inspiring. There are some real bad asses here. Oh, that's a mountain rivers. You know, they're just amazing.
Oh, my God. I mean, yes. And I knew them when I was a kid. I knew some of the best. I was a whitewater rafter. I was part of. An all women's whitewater team. And it happened to be at this golden age just when the the new raft had been invented called the self bailer. Do you know rafting at all? Yeah, totally.
I was a kayaker for a long time. So, yeah, well, there
you go. So, you know, that was suddenly all these rivers were opened up to us because these rafts wouldn't fill up with water and stay filled up with water and become on, you know, uncontrollable. So we could do big rivers that had been there were a lot of unexplored rivers. And I was with a team of, you know, Nancy Wiley, Kelly Califatich, Beth Rippins. These were top, top whitewater people, hands down, you know, along with the men. Yeah. You know, Lars Holbeck, who I adore. Yeah. Of course. Was was awesome. But his girlfriend was Beth Rippins and they did expeditions together.
So. So. So I want to talk about your firefighting briefly. But before we do, before I lose the thread on the risk, you you said something in one of your talks about putting fear in the right place. I just did a podcast with kind of air Jedi and North America guy named Bill Belcourt. And he had some good thoughts about fear where it's just, you know, we're participating in a sport that is scary, just flat out, you know, and it's it and it can get very scary sometimes unplanned, of course. And, you know, but you have to you have to box that fear up and put it in the appropriate place to kick it away. How do you do that?
Well, can I just ask you a question that I've been wanting to ask you? Just how bad were those thermals in your in both of your long your in the Canadian Rockies? Yeah. And when you were crossing over Denali, like what the Alaskan range? Can you just give me a sense? Because you did. You did say you were scared. But I was like, holy, I've been in some bad thermals. I mean, I've been in thermals, but I know they're nothing like what you were in. And so bad that I can't keep my mic or you actually got might even have. I'm talking about in my experiment. I fly now. I don't fly paragliders anymore. I fly hang gliders with motors, you know. And I can't keep my mic. But I was thinking, holy cow, that must be nuts.
Give me a sense of what it was like. So the
that scene in the Rockies traverse where I swear profusely, that was actually a really scary climb. At that point, I had it pretty under control. So I was able to talk to the camera. But I had kind of dug out of this canyon. It was really windy that day. Will and I were both getting pretty spanked. And I sometimes when I'm in the air, I need to talk like that. I need to just. I either need to. I do one of two things. Typically, when things get really hairy is I do these kind of four second in and out breathing until I just calm down. And the other one is just like, yeah, this is awesome. You know, like I got this, you know, kind of like talking back to the thermal. I do that a lot. You know, sailing when I'm offshore, things are just really bad.
That's just my way of. Yeah. A lot of it was learned when I was sailing because I had clients on board. You know that there's nothing worse than being in a storm with clients. And showing you don't want to show them that you're afraid because they're already afraid. And they know you feel very small in a big sea. And so, you know, you want to really project confidence. And so I think I think projections half of it is just faking yourself out that. But
did you have any big wind collapses? I didn't see any. And I was like, wait, wait.
We did in the Rockies a bit. You know, I don't want this to sound the wrong way or not humble. But, you know, I don't I don't get many collapses. Anymore. You know, when you start getting better and better, you get pretty good at keeping your wing open. But to fully answer your question, nothing is as rough as where I fly on a pretty regular basis in Sun Valley. This place is as rough as it gets. And so, you know, we deal with conditions here that are much windier and much, much more, much stronger. So really violent thermals that were, you know, both in the Rockies and in Alaska were not enough. And actually the flying in Alaska, you know, it was more just the bigness that was kind of made it feel pretty sketchy.
But most of the flying was actually pretty tame. You know, I would I would take groups up there and do and do baby trips like guided baby trips, not the whole section through Denali, of course. But after that, after the road that goes through the park, most of that's pretty manageable. You know, the takeoffs are manageable. You can land anywhere in the tundra. It's not. It wasn't that far to a road that that kind of after Dave left that section of the film. But, you know, stuffing it into that cloud that that was nerve wracking. Now, I did that totally on purpose. You know, I I could have not gone in that cloud very easily. You just dial down really fast. You know, it was cloud sucking pretty hard, but that was more just stormy. And I needed the height to make the next jump over over the what river was I trying to get over there?
I was trying to get over one of the major drainage changes coming off the north slope of Denali there. And so, you know, the cloud base wasn't that high that day. It was only like eleven thousand. And so I just I went in the cloud on purpose, but I didn't think it was going to be that long.
How long were you in that cloud? Because I don't understand. I would have just gone in. Yeah, it
was over 20 minutes. But
then what do you did you go hands off and just be like, let's just let this thing fly? Because you didn't know if you were just going to go. Oh,
I was all over the place. That's the problem. You know, you know this from flying planes, bush planes, I'm sure. You know, this is what kills people in Alaska. Bush pilots all the time is going into white because you get you're so disoriented and you're convinced at times that your wing is below your feet and you can't fly straight. And so the trick there for me, which was quite comical, actually, is so just very, very light pressure in the brakes in case, you know, try to just feel if something was going to take a big surge on me. But that but half the time. So I kept trying to pull up my compass on my inReach device and I'd had it set for power saving mode. And so after 10 seconds, it would go blank. And so my compass wouldn't work.
You know, usually we have a manual compass on our deck, but we were trying to be so light. We were, you know, we weren't we didn't even have it. And then so I would pull up Gaia maps. You know, it's like an app on your phone. And but that thing reacts quite slowly. So and I just had that up really not even so much for direction. It's just to make sure I wasn't going to run into something just so I had terrain clearance. And half of the 20 minutes I was flying the wrong way. I mean, I'm not telling your
mom any.
I know. Well, she she has sat in the premiere of both those films right next to me. And I get the biggest bruise on my knees from her just.
No, I was watching the whole thing while I was working out a lot of the times. And I was like, I have no idea. I have to go work out. And it's because I got to watch your Moyes while I was on my whatever dumb machine. And I was people around must have thought I was crazy because I kept going. Oh, no. Oh, no. No, no. He's not going to do that. Oh, we have had those reactions. Anyway. Okay. Well, let's see. Fear. You know, I I'm I've said this. I actually am not fearless by any means. And I think most maybe a lot of us adventurers aren't we. And that's why we take risks, because we're trying to prove to ourselves that we you know, that we are brave because we value bravery.
And yet we're a little bit more fearful than we think. And like I like I said, I was I was a really shy and fearful kid. And it was not a good feeling to feel that vulnerable and scared of, you know, big kids. And school and all that. And so I have a I like facing fear. And I have a methodology that I use, which is I first of all, I recognize it. And I hold it up. And I really assess like, is this really relevant? Because fear is often, first of all, too late. So I was there's a story in the gutsy girl when I was a firefighter about my crew and I were crawling. I was crawling down a hallway with the hose trying to find the fire.
And it was really dark and smoky, a little odd and quiet. And then all of a sudden there was a huge explosion and we were blown out of the hallway. And when I caught we were kind of now we were in the garage and getting ourselves sorted. And I felt this fear that I honestly had never felt before. And I wasn't used to it. That kind of overwhelming, like, no freaking way am I going back in that hallway? That was very unlike me. In fact, that fear was a little too late because what had happened was that we had experienced a flashover. Not where we were, because if we had, we would have died, but probably somewhere in that building in a room off.
And it had just and a flashover is when everything's so hot that the air just explodes. And we had been blown out of that hallway. But now the hallway was safer. Because the heat that had been building up had now exploded. So in fact, the hallway was safer. So this idea that I was so terrified to go back in the hall actually didn't make sense. And I know people look at me like you're just talking about. But you get what I'm saying, right, Gavin? I mean, fear is there for a reason, but it's often not quite calibrating everything. And so it's important to look at it. It's definitely something to look at. It's a flag. What happened? Oh, that was bad. There was a big explosion.
But really, now you take the time to assess how relevant it is. Now, that's an extreme situation. Most of the time, I'm feeling fear. And I'm feeling a lot of other things, too, like when I paraglide or when I fly now my trike. And that is excitement, anticipation, curiosity. And some fear because, you know, you're still flying. It still feels like magic. I don't know about you, but when I fly, I'm like, how did this happen? It's like magic. Suddenly, I'm on the ground now. I'm loosed from the world. It feels like magic. I know what the physics is, but it feels like magic. And so I feel fear. And I then look at all the other things I'm feeling.
And I put them in line. Like, why am I here? Well, I'm here to have a big adventure and have fun. And am I? Yep. Okay, good. Push fear a little farther back. You know, I'm with my friends, and I'm feeling exhilarated. Is that cool? Oh, yeah, that's cool. Fear goes a little farther back. And so I really think that if people look at their fear and also all the other emotions they're feeling and then line them up in this, that they'll do way more things outside their comfort zone than they do now. Because fear is not what we women have often been taught. Which is a reason to stop. Fear is simply a reason to look. But not to stop. And I think that we've been taught from a really young age that fear is a reason to stop.
And then someone else will do whatever it is for us. Often a parent when we're a kid. And then as we grow older, it's going to be a boy or a man. And that's, first of all, a lot of stress on you guys. Because you guys have been taught to step up no matter what. We need to learn some of that.
One of the questions I get a lot of is why? Why risk so much? Why do this? You know, for me, it's, you know, when you do a little bit. You talk about micro-bravery. I love that. But when you do a little bit and it works, you want to do more. How do we balance that potential of going too far?
You know, when I was young, I was totally a risk taker. I mean, that was what I was. And I hung out with Lars quite a bit. Lars Holbeck, who probably a lot of your listeners know. He's passed away now, which is just a tragic, tragic loss. But he was an amazing kayaker. And he actually got into paragliding a little bit after me. So we would go on paragliding expeditions together.
But Lars was the first time I ever realized, because he actually said that. He said, I'm not a risk taker. And I was shocked because he's such an adventurer. But there's a difference. And now I'm not a risk taker. I like to experience things. I'm very happy to push my comfort zone. But I'm not really there just for the pure adrenaline. I'm there for the experience, which includes adrenaline. And maybe it's because I'm older now and I've had my fair of crashes and injuries and close calls. But I think it's a mistake to think of adventurers just as risk takers. I think we are experiencers on a physical and emotional and mental level.
And that whole package is what we're after.
Let's go to, oh, I want to ask you about your crash. Was that in a plane or a trike?
That was in a trike. That was in my trike, yeah. So humiliating. Well,
I don't use this podcast to scare people. But it's paragliding and hang gliding and wingsuit and base jump and flying. And there are accidents. And I think there's always something to be learned from them. For those who don't know the story, because you've talked about this. You talk about this in your book, too. But what was the takeaway? And how did you come back from it? I think that's always really interesting. How do you recover and get back on the slack? Yeah,
no, no, that is interesting. So I fly at weight shift trikes, which is basically hang gliders with sort of go-karts underneath them, is the way I explain them. I fly them out of an airport here in Petaluma. I hanger it. And I had been having problems with my wing. It was a new wing. And it wasn't, it just didn't fly well. And I'm not that, I'm not a gearhead. I've never liked gear. I've never been somebody who's interested in gear. And a lot of my fellow adventurers are, especially pilots. But I don't, so when I got into weight shift trikes, now I'm dealing with a motor. It's like, ah. But we, there was really, at least at the time, it was an unregulated sport.
So you had to really deal with your own equipment. And my wing wasn't flying well. And I pretty much ignored it, I have to say. And I, this is the lesson that I learned, is that you do not ignore these kind of details. Because I thought I was a good enough pilot just to overlook it. And one day I flew in very, very rough air. And I knew that this was, my plane was just not responding well. And I was kind of freaked out. And I turned around, went back to the airport, and came into land. And I stalled, and the wing stalled. I stalled the wing, clearly, somehow. And just augered in.
And pretty much shattered my left ankle and had a head injury. But not a head, I had a head wound. I was oriented, I was very lucky. And it took me almost a year to recover. The takeaway for me is you cannot let those things go like I did. Because that's what's going to happen. Your wing will stall. Because it's basically not trimmed right. My wing wasn't tuned right. And I sort of was, because I'm not good at gear, not good at fixing things, I don't consider myself handy, I ignored it. Thus, in the Gutsy Girl, there is actually an activity where girls go pick up tools.
Get your hands dirty. Learn tools and learn confidence around tools. And it's not that I, you know, as a firefighter, I certainly know how to use a chainsaw and throw a ladder. But it's just not something that I'm that interested in. So, that's the moral of the story. And my girlfriend, Wendy, she actually made me promise that I wouldn't let little things go by. And that includes, like, my car. Like, if there's a light out of my car, you deal with it right away. You know, I try to really take it to heart now because, you know, what happened was an accident that could have killed me. The way I got back from it is I love flying. I've been flying since I was very, very young. And I thought, but so I, so I, after a year, I wanted to fly again. And I asked my instructor to help me.
And we got back in and started some basics. And I was super, super bitchy. That's how I express fear is that I get really sort of irritated and bitchy. And I realized, oh, you have PTSD. And you're, you know. This is not fun. Flying is not fun for you. And I thought, well, if it's not going to be fun, I'm not going to do it. But I love flying. And I've flown, you know, different flying machines. And was I going to give this up? And so I decided I would go get hypnotized.
Wow. Okay, cool.
Yeah. I mean, you know, when I can't figure something out, I try to go way out of the box because being in the box isn't helping. I mean, I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. I was taking my little lessons. And I was getting, you know, reacquainted with flying. I mean, I've been flying for years. I was doing what I was supposed to do. And it wasn't. Emotionally, I was just not having fun. And so I went and got hypnotized. And now I'm a pilot again. I fly every week. I am not the pilot I was. Don't love rough air. Fly and love early, early morning calm situation. And. But I'm flying and I don't care. You know, I don't have anything to prove. I'm just so glad that I'm still flying.
Do you when you write about in the book where you're actually this wasn't in the book, but you write about, you know, when you first learned to paraglide, you know, you're you're where you learned your your ridge soaring. And and that's what that's paragliding. And then a friend of yours goes, now we got to go learn. We got to go thermal. We got to go large. We got to go cross country. And you guys. Go to a place and you launch off and you're you're you're you're failing. And then what? Wait a minute. Now it's working. And then you end up in a cloud that you make the ultimate rookie mistake. And ultimate man.
I'm really good at those rookie mistakes. I have to say, well, didn't you know, this is what I loved in your film. What you said is like there's there's paragliders that have landed in trees and there's paragliders who will land in trees.
There's those that have those that will. Yeah, right. It's like the it's like the you know, a very good friend of mine is a bush pilot in Alaska. Well, he was support for us on that Alaska trip. He was the he was the Super Cub pilot in the film. And he you know, he he says the same thing. He hasn't had a crash. Knock on wood. But up in Alaska, it's there's those that have and those that will, you know. Yeah. But yeah. So was that was that sufficiently scary that that was it for you for thermal flying? Or was that just an experience you wrote about in the book? And you kept going from there.
So it was just it was just, you know, dumb. And I was basically Lars had instructed me on how to thermal fly. And he's so good at everything. Yeah. That, you know, I couldn't actually say that he probably didn't give me like every single thing I should have done. But he's a great he's a great teacher, I have to say. But he's also I think because everything's he's just so good at stuff. Sometimes he forgets. So anyway. I think I don't think he told me not to go underneath a dark cloud. I just don't think he told me that. And so when I hit a thermal that was a pretty bomber thermal, I was psyched. And so was my Vario.
And then all of a sudden I was misting over. My Vario was screaming at me and I was like, whoa. And I knew I knew the stories. I mean, I know I knew all the stories because I. Because we paragliders do. And I got myself out of it. I got myself out of it. I don't know if you know how I did. Did I say how I did? I guess. I know what I should have done. You know, back then. I don't know much about wings now. But back then. I want to
say you like stalled it or something. I didn't though. See, I
knew I should have. That's what I should have done. Don't you think? Yeah. No. No. You should have
just spiraled down. You don't. I mean. Viral.
A spiral dive wasn't. Okay. Well, okay. Possibly. But I didn't think. I think I had tried that initially. Like just at least. Anyway, my thought was I should stall it because I was getting sucked up so fast. And but at the time, you know, it was uncertain whether your wing would reinflate. They just weren't that good. And in fact, I lent my I gave my wing that I flew at the time to a friend of mine. And I'm like, I don't know what it was like eight years ago, seven years ago. And his and he was going to want to try paragliding. And his instructor looked. I said, this is an awesome wing. And it's super medium. It's for medium pilots. It's stable. And I gave it to him. His instructor was like, this thing is a death trap.
But back then, you know, that was like it was a good wing. Anyway, you know, I wasn't just there was just a sense that it might not reinflate. I didn't. And also the reinflation of back then, you could sometimes drop back into your wing because it was so abrupt. And I just didn't. I should have stalled it. And I didn't. And I tried Big Ears, which is kind of the lame California ridge soaring way to get down. Sure. Not enough.
That wouldn't be enough.
No, it wasn't enough. And so then I spiral dived in Big Ears.
Yeah, that's right. That's what you did. Cool. So you had some experience. You knew how to do this stuff. Yeah. This wasn't all just Greek. You weren't getting sucked up in the cloud going, huh? Well, let's see.
I mean, I, you know, again, like I think with adventure, it's all this this this line of you want to go outside your comfort zone. And so you do need to take risks, but they need to be calculated. You need to have skill. And that's one thing I do talk about in that in Gutsy Girl, because I think women do think that being an adventure is just all about like balls out risk and danger. And it's just not. Yeah.
Yeah, sure. So was that how did paragliding stop? And why did it stop?
You know, I fell on my knee and a fire and I injured it pretty badly and had many surgeries and finally had to have my knee replaced. And so I decided to switch from I didn't want to land. As a result, my back was starting, you know, firefighting is just hard on on you. I mean, everybody plays hurt as a firefighter. I'm a firefighter in a big city. So I thought, you know, I don't want to push this because if I had any way shattered my femur in some weird paragliding accident, then I would not have anything to hammer my fake knee on to. This is what my doctor told me. So I switched out of paragliding and took up trikes. And then, you know, probably probably crash years later, had many years later.
Yeah. Yeah. Caroline,
I know. I know. I want to be sensitive of your of your time pressure here. I know you've got another thing you have to get on to. But before we do in these last minutes, I would love to hear about, you know, so you fought fire for the city of San Francisco. You were one of the first women in the nation, I understand, to be on a big city crew. I'd love to hear you. You fought fire for 13 years for city San Francisco. I'd love to hear what the impetus was to to take that on to the event. And get into it. Because, you know, you talk about the the numbers are wildly against women. And that is a profession where strength matters. So, you know, what what I have a lot of firefighter friends and, you know, they're big dudes.
I'd love to hear that story.
I actually knew no female firefighters growing up. And it wasn't something I ever wanted to do. I graduated from Stanford. I was supposed to be, you know, a businesswoman. With a briefcase. But the idea of an office job just always terrified me. And so I was actually on course to to be a journalist or sort of a documentary filmmaker. I was trying to follow like Dave Breshears. Like he was an amazing outdoors person. And he made his money by being a filmmaker. Like I wanted to sort of make sure that my life included adventure and that somehow I could get paid for that. But firefighting never came up as an option. It just it wasn't. And I had no role models for that. But so at the time, 1988, I was working at a radio station.
And because I was, you know, pursuing this sort of journalism thing, documentary filmmaking, etc. And all these stories started coming over my desk about the racist, sexist San Francisco fire department. There were lots of issues at the time. It was a very insulated fire department. And they were just letting in women. So I wasn't the first. I mean, there were there was five women in. And and I thought, oh, this would be an interesting undercover story. People, by the way, who want to be a firefighter desperately, as I totally understand, hate me for this. Because basically I fell into the job of firefighting. And it was a job that so suited me. So I went to the testing process thinking I was going to get a story.
Whoa. I did not know
any of this. This is
cool. Wow. Yeah. So and of course, you know, let's be honest, like racism and sexism doesn't show up in a two hour test testing period. The reason racism and sexism is so insidious is that it's not that obvious. A lot of the times, you know, it's a it's something woven into our culture. So I don't know what the heck I was thinking. I was just a dumb 25 year old. And I thought I'd get this undercover story. And I didn't. But I went through the whole testing process. Because I became more and more intrigued. Like, oh, what is this job? And I got in like I scored very high because I was just I'd taken so many tests in my life. Not for any other reason. I mean, really, it's like winning a lottery to be a firefighter.
I was a rower at Stanford. I was so I was very fit. And as you know, I'd also been on the at the Lake Placid Olympic Training Center as a loser. That's
right. I forgot about that one. Yeah. That's another great story.
I was I mean, I was very, very fit. I still am. I believe in it. And and firefighting is a really tough job. And when I and so I understood, you know, why the men were very, very well. They range from being actively hostile to just trepidatious about women coming in. It makes total sense. I mean, first of all, they had no role models themselves for strong. Athletic women, because in nineteen seventy two.
Title nine passed, which gave girls equal access to sports. And so for them, they'd never. That was my generation. Nineteen seventy two was when I was in what grade school or something. So that was my generation who who started to become athletic and outdoorsy and strong and physical. And I'm learning all those attributes that come along. With it, then, including bravery. But to these men, a lot of them, they've never seen women who could do anything like that. So I totally understood when I got in. And by the way, I was the 15th woman because people say I was the first. And there had been some women around the nation, but there certainly weren't that many. I was the 15th woman and there was fifteen hundred men.
So it was still very much we were very much an anomaly and under a lot of pressure to perform. And it is a very difficult job physically. And so if you are a woman, you have to be in super good shape. But it's really interesting. And Gavin, you might understand this, that if I was to pick my crew and look around a firehouse, it often wasn't the biggest men who I would pick. I would pick a lot of the smaller men who were smart, who knew their physical limitations and were smart and very brave. And I'm making generalization here. But, you know, it's not just about strength. So there is definitely a place for women in firefighting. There's one story where I remember us being we were on a stairwell waiting for the door to get knocked open by the guy at the top.
And we're all lying there in a line and he's hammering at the door with his axe because he's a big guy. Now, I am strong, but I know what I would have used immediately. I would have used the claw bar on that door because he was not getting that door open. And I actually had one on me. And usually you don't give up your equipment, but it was getting smokier and smokier. And I was like, how long are we going to wait here for this guy to open the door? And I yell up, take my claw bar. And he wouldn't do it. But so being a big guy doesn't necessarily mean you're doing the right things or you're a better firefighter by any means. It would have taken me like much less time to get that door open if I'd been up there, especially if I had somebody who gave the claw bar one whack on the head.
Then we would have just that door would have popped open. But if you're a big guy, you don't necessarily think that. So you've got to be fit and you have to be strong. And I really understood why people and I did not resent at all why people had that worry about us. But I was fit and strong. And but here's the thing. And I talk about this is that what I really realized is that what people, both men and women, not only did they think that women weren't strong enough to be firefighters, they definitely thought we weren't brave enough. And that is something that I think people are, first of all, very wrong about and is the much more important asset that you have to have when you're a firefighter.
So when you're when you're in that kind of environment, you know, fifteen hundred to fifteen, especially early on, I assume things have probably gotten better from the female perspective. Maybe it's still just all jockey talk and, you know, Trump bus talk kind of stuff.
But or is it not? I mean, did you find in general like would you want your daughter to go be a firefighter?
Yeah, I mean, I think it's an amazing job. The job made me such a better person on so many levels. I mean, I didn't I went in for the adventure and I just came out a better person, more empathetic, more under with a deep understanding of the many different ways that women are. That people live in this country from hoarders, you know, to section eight housing to people on the street and just a real understanding of people, human resilience. I mean, I'd never seen a dead body before. And the first dead body I saw was a woman who was murdered. I mean, this was a shock for somebody of my socioeconomic background and a culture. It was, you know, I whether it's I can't really speak for now because I've been out of the fray. I've been in the fire department for a really long time, but I don't have kids.
But if I did, I would definitely want them to be firefighters, male and female. I think it just makes you a better person if you're smart enough to see the job that way.
And did it take any kind of special resilience to, you know, deal with the probably the heavily testosterone laden laden environment or or are really, you know, the firemen? I know. Or just amazing people. Or is it just it's just an amazing place to work regardless of your. I
mean, I love I'd always been around just more men than women because I had so much in common with. I mean, I liked all the stuff that the adventures stuff that men liked when I was growing up. And so the testosterone laden environment was not intimidating in and of itself. I mean, it's really fun to watch how men interact. I mean, that you guys have a lot of fun together. There's so much laughing going on. It's really loud. The best jokes in the world. But the one thing was, of course, is that I wasn't really not. It was a I was I was excluded from that. And it wasn't on purpose. And I could see that it was it's simply because, you know, the genders we perform very ritualistically.
And and the female ritual. Honestly, is to is done very differently than the male ritual. So you guys are brought up in a very hierarchical way. Like you're always one upping each other. And that looks like jokes. And it's it's fun to watch. I love it. Personally, it can get kind of brutal as a woman. We're like, whoa, is this going to come to blows? I mean, they're really he's fat. He's bald. I slept with your wife. I'm like, really? It's funny, but I just can't imagine saying it. Because we're not brought up that way. You know, as women, we are brought up to maintain parity in a room. And that's what we do. And so imagine in the firehouse when you get those two rituals, those two sort of acculturated ways of being in the world together.
And it's it's weird. So it's if I joked with the men, it would they would be insulted. You know, it's just different. I mean, I think you can imagine if a if a woman said to you like. Hey, you're fat. I mean, I know you're not in a joking way. You would be freaked out if you're is is different. It's different. And it's so it's hard to cross those bound those those etiquette boundaries. And it's the same if you're a person of color. I mean, people are like, I'm not a racist. I'm not prejudiced. But there's so much exclusion going on because we're sort of a white culture. And you don't see it because the rituals are all in your favor. It's really interesting. I have to say that I I had so much fun in the firehouse and I've laughed so much.
But to say that I was always included. No, I wasn't. But but I could understand why. I mean, I understood it. And, you know, as long as no one was, you know, overtly harassing me to my face or mean, which, you know, it's sometimes they were, you know, I was OK with people. But you have to be respectful to me. And in general, I got to say, firefighters are fine. They're fun and super smart and very interesting. And I'm just so grateful for those years in the firehouse. So grateful.
Awesome. Awesome. Caroline, you you mentioned your partner is Wendy. I'm going to make a massive jump here and assume that's not a guy. I would love to ask you a question that may be kind of tricky to ask. But, you know, in my experience with professional sports and just beat around sports my whole life. That is really prevalent for gay women to be very brave and bold. I have no statistics to back that up. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
Yeah. You know, I think that that might be true. Maybe there are more gay women in those arenas. And I think it's because we just we aren't brought up with a template the way you are if you're straight. And so I think we're more willing to break the boundaries. Because we've already broken one of the essential ones, you know, just by being born this way. So I think we just are more open to pushing outside the normal sort of gender roles. I also think that when I was a kid, at least, gender and sexuality were very intertwined. Like we kind of thought they were almost the same thing. And so and I hear this actually from friends of mine now whose kids are gay.
Is that like initially their kid grows up is when they're young. They take on the trappings of the other gender because that's the way they the only way they know to express this sexuality that isn't in line with the norm. So, for instance, you know, like a one friend of mine was talking about how her daughter just wanted to wear boys clothes. And they even thought she might be transgender. But it was actually she just didn't have any role models for how to express. What looked like a boy thing. And now she's not like that at all. You know, she's now she's a teenager and not like that at all. Like she's I mean, which is it would be fine either way. But she's just solidly gay. She's not transgender. She likes being a woman. But so I really feel like at this since since a lot of this happens at such a young age, like I was talking about the lessons that we're learning, the messages that we're getting.
It's possible that, you know, those of us who were gay as kids. We took on the male. Much more male trappings because our sexuality seemed to be more male. Now, I don't think I'm male at all. But I feel like that was my I was more open to learning, valuing things that men valued like bravery and not as much the things that women valued like fear, which I think we we are taught to value and kind of use and is very feminine. But now. As we are more sophisticated as a culture and we see that sexuality and gender are actually distinct things. If this indeed is true and anecdotally, it did feel true that there were more.
I didn't actually know that many gay women. Frankly, all my close friends happened to be rad straight women. But I totally hear you. And certainly in firefighting, there's a disproportional amount of gay women. There's certainly a ton of straight women. But there's I'd say there's a disproportional not given how many of us are supposed to be gay. But there's a lot of gay women who are supposed to be in the population. But again, I think that's two things. So we're breaking out. We don't have a template that we have to stick to. So we're just more open to things and able to do things that aren't considered ladylike, basically. And also this this idea that, you know, that bravery is the purview of men. And if you're a gay woman is a young kid. You think that that's probably where you're going?
Sort of in this male world because you like girls. And that's going to change. I really think hopefully I mean, I know a lot of rad straight women, that's for sure. But if that's what we were seeing, I think that's where it comes from. I don't think there's a, you know, a chemical in there that's like, oh, you're gay and you're super adventurous because I do not have a. I really honestly like all my lesbian friends are just totally like, what are you doing going outside and camping?
Cool. Let's hand
it to the scientists. It's their turn. They got to figure this out.
Exactly. Exactly. Well, Carolyn, I know I've burned up your time before I let you go. I would love to give you an opportunity to let people know how they can reach you. And also, if you just have any kind of closing statement to the to the female listeners of our show and everybody on risk, on adventure, on getting out. They're going for it because I know that's what you're all about.
Yeah, I don't. Gosh, I bet the female listeners of your show are really kick ass, which is great. I don't have any. But if you do have listeners and I hope you do, who aren't like over outdoor adventures like paragliders and stuff, I hope that they know that, like my message in general is get outside your comfort zone. Don't get outside my comfort zone. My comfort zone can can look really extreme to people. But please get outside your comfort zone. And that's that's what I really want to tell people. My website is where my email is. And I think all my information, it's Caroline Paul dot com. My there's all that in my TED talk link is there.
And, you know, I'm on Twitter, but not that I'm not that I don't I'm not really that connected via like basically someone will try to get a hold of me on Facebook and Facebook. I think I hate them because in three months later, I
discover it. Yeah. Well, then I'm like,
oh, I forgot that little icon up there. I'm not trying to sound super old. I'm just outside, you guys. I'm just outside.
Perfect. Perfect. Yeah, I know. This stuff is this stuff is totally overwhelming. Well, you were very kind to get right back to me. I will have the TED talk and your your talks that you've done with Tim Ferriss. You had a kind of a question answer thing that I thought was awesome. And then also a regular talk on Tim Ferriss's show. So I'll have all those links up in our show notes. Caroline, thank you so much. I have family out in your neck of the woods. So the next time I come through the Petaluma area, I'd love to shout you whatever you'd like to drink and we'll go have some laughs and maybe get up in the sky. But thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. It means a lot to me.
Oh, I'm so I can't tell you. I'm just I'm really so honored to be talking to you because you are really a kick ass adventure. I'm a big admirer. Big admirer. Well,
thank you so much, Caroline.
Thank you.
And until we meet again and I'll see you cloud base. Great.
Well, I hope you all enjoyed that. That was pretty fun to take a diversion from our normal programming and and talk to Caroline about about bravery and courage and developing courage and fear. And what a fascinating life she has lived. Hope you enjoyed that. As always, all we ask for is a buck a show. This is a listener supported podcast. I'm not into doing the sponsor thing. Hope you appreciate that. And so if you've gotten something out of this or one of the previous episodes, there's a whole lot of good material there. Hours and hours and hours to fill up your day, driving up to launch and have discussions by send us a buck via PayPal or even better. If you go on patreon.com forward slash cloud based mayhem, you can see some great footage from the Alaska traverse with Dave Turner and just kind of set it and forget it.
And then it only depends on us creating content. You only pay when something comes in. So I encourage you to do that. Congratulations again to Thomas FAI and Chris Balmer for their awesome reviews and the rest of you. So many great reviews. I'm going to find other ways to reward all of you for doing that. Thank you so much. Another way to support the show. If you don't have the funds to do it, I totally get it. We're going to keep putting these out there. Follow me on Instagram. Follow me on Facebook on my page, not the personal one. And because that's kind of like currency, I can go to my sponsors and and get money in other ways. And prove to them that we're creating great content for them. So that goes a long way as well. And then all of you that are sharing it on social media. You know, the whole point of this podcast is just making everybody safer and trying to get us all to learn how to fly better and fly farther and do it in a responsible way where you don't get hurt.
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