Your construction smells of corruption. I'll manipulate.
for me to teach, and we're calling it master classes. They're really based on hike and fly and bivvy, and Tim was one of my students. Well, that's kind of funny, though; he knows a lot more than I do, but he's been flying 30 years and was, you know, regularly chases it on X contest and very well-known British pilot. And right after those class, he got—he took that class because he really wanted to get into bivvy, and after that, he certainly did. He's been doing some some really cool lines with some other friends in the Alps with kind of no objective, just, you know, having fun in the sky and doing it safely and covering ground. So this conversation is all about Vivi and gear and how to get into it and where are good places to go to practice and what are the kind of minimum skills you need.
So we put out this survey quite a few weeks back on how we can improve the podcast cast, and and many people asked for more shows on hike and fly and bivvy, so here you go. Enjoy this great talk, super fun talk with a good friend of mine, Tim Pentry, and invite you all to go look at the show notes in for this episode to see some of Tim's great videos. He's been documenting these, these bivvy trips he's been taking, and they're, they're a lot of fun, so enjoy Tim.
Uh, so awesome to have you on the show. We met a few years back; now it's crazy how fast time flies, but we met it up at the lakes doing a little hike and fly gig with with Jockey and and Ed Ewing at XC Mag. That was super fun. I can't wait to get back there. I've been watching all your videos and pictures of the amazing flying you guys do in the UK, and since that talk, and I don't know if maybe it's before that, but you've done some awesome bivvies in the in the Alps, and I know people have been following following along those as I have. And so, I I can't wait to talk to you about that, but maybe a good place to start is just a brief, you know, one page on your history of flying. How'd you get into this absurdity, hey?
Gavin, well, it's, uh, it's fantastic to talk to you. Thanks very much for inviting me on the show. Ah, gosh, how did I get into it? Well, if you, if you go through it all, it's probably more than the page, because I've been flying for, uh, 30 years. This year I started in 1990 and, uh, yeah, I know, back in the, uh, in the dim and distant past, what
The hell was I doing teaching that course? We should have turned; we should have had you do it.
I don't know, yeah, not quite as, uh, full-on as you, I don't think, but yeah, I got into it. Um, I used to do a lot of windsurfing, and back in those days there was a windsurfing mag that I subscribe to, and it had an article about paragliding, how it was the ideal sort of light wind alternative to windsurfing, um, and I'd also seen it on telly. There's a French pilot and I've forgotten his name and it won't come back to me, I know, but he climbed three of the highest peaks in the Alps, or the famous three famous peaks in the Alps, and and paraglided off all of them, and And I think that was in the late 80s. And I must have seen that on, you know, terrestrial telly.
That was all there was at that time. And, you know, that piqued my interest. And then when I saw this article in Borg's magazine, that was it. Signed up there and then with a couple of mates. And the rest is history, I suppose.
I find it really interesting, this flow sport to flow sport thing. You know, Will Gadd talks about that. In fact, I was just reading his chapter in the book. You know, we're kind of editing that all up for release here shortly. And he was talking about, you know, when people come from other flow sports to flying, it's, it's often a pretty good transition. And when, you know, when you're not so say like climbing or triathlon or something, it can often be a really tough jump because the people that are into flow sports are attracted to flow sports. And I, I, cause I did the same thing. I was a kite surfer before a pilot. And I think it's, you also have that advantage of understanding the invisible quite a bit better. You understand how air works and how water works if you're a kayaker. I'm amazed by how fast kayakers get really good at flying.
Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with, as you're saying, the flow sports. And you mentioned that on just one of your recent podcasts. And I've since become a kite surfer myself and sold all my old windsurfing kit for virtually nothing, sadly. sadly. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. Yeah, kayakers, yeah, you've got the whole sort of water flow around, you know, rocks, which is synonymous with the air. And, you know, I've been sailing and windsurfing and for years, really, and just teaches you about the air and you can react to those little shifts, you know, especially when you're kitesurfing, You're constantly on the bar, in and out, just adjusting to minute, um, yeah, active flying, I suppose, really, you know, that's exactly what you're doing, yeah.
Exactly, yeah. I mean, you're just the pendulum's, maybe a little bit different, but it's—it is active flying, um, yeah. And when did you? So, I can't even remember when—when we did the the master's class was 20, it was after Alaska came out, because that's what it was really. I was kind of touring with the film, so that must have been 2017.
That's what I was going to say, 2017.
And were you already well into Bivy at that point or was that kind of the launching ramp?
That was the launching ramp, really. I would, you know, it'd been on my radar as one of those things that I'd thought about doing for quite a while but I'd never really sort of plucked up courage to take that first step. And it was that, later that That summer that I did actually my first one, that was an overnight vol biv, but still vol biv down in south of France.
What was the catalyst really? I mean, was it just, okay, you'd done the comp scene or was it just something you were looking for something different with flying?
Yeah, I've done quite a few British Open comps over the years, never taking it too seriously. I've always, most of the time was just on serial class gliders, you know, sports class.
And then I think it was probably 2017, I got my – moved on to – no, I had a three-liner before, but I moved up a level to a D-class glider.
Actually, having said that, I flew a – back in the day, I had a Nova Sphinx, which was – that was my second-ever glider. I think that was 94 I got that, and that was a DHV-23. In back in those days, which is equivalent of a D, but then I went back to, you know, back to C-class gliders, um, until I started getting, uh, into, into the, um, Omega X-Up series, um, so yes, 2017, um, I was still doing comps, I but I just, I felt there's more to it and just wanted to do some more adventurous stuff, really.
it's just
the go
ahead what i
was going to say, it's just the the freedom that it gives you when you're not constrained by, uh, you know, retrieves or getting back to the car. Um, you know, that's what that's what's so liberating about vol biv and
What was the, uh, you know, later that year when you did the the one night, but when you when you decided to head over to the Alps and do your first big one there, what was what was the preparation like? What did you feel like you had had to kind of figure out beforehand? Well,
On that one, I, um, that was in 2018. And so the one, the one day one, the year before was, I've been down for four or five days staying with a friend, uh, Nigel Cooper down in Saint Andre, and he knows that area like the back of his hand. But I know it pretty well from quite a few comps over the years. Um, so on that one, it was just a basic kit. He, I think, I don't even think I had a stove for that one. I think we just used his little stove. So that was, if you like, a proving ground. I borrowed someone's air mattress, which went down in the night.
I had a bivy bag, no tent or anything like that. And it rained for about, actually, only 20 minutes. We were incredibly lucky because there were thunderstorms all around us. Um, but so yeah, sleep was a little bit hard to come by that night, but you know, just for one night you can put up with it. Um, so that was a sort of trialing ground, but I mean, I suppose in terms of preparation for the next trip, again I did it with Nigel actually, so we had a sort of vague plan of where we wanted to go in terms of kit. Yeah, I mean, that's one of the fun things about it, isn't? And they're just sort of spending days, weeks, months sort of pouring over kit and, you know, looking at videos and getting stuff from AliExpress, you know, cheap tents and the like.
And that's all part of the fun, I think, for most people doing that kit research.
Yeah, I like, you know, it's funny to think back. There's that scene in the Alaska film where I'm like, I can't believe we forgot gators. We had six years to prepare for this thing. I mean, I had my stuff laid out for that trip in, you know, like January, you know, I've got this sunroom in the back of the house and, you know, okay, well, that's got to go. Okay, well, that can come out, you know, just tweaking and tweaking and tweaking for months. And then we get up there and no gators. Yeah, schoolboy era for sure. Yeah, absolutely. Well, take us down the road for where did you go? Where did you end up? How was your approach? You know, what I kind of want to fleece out a little bit is just, you know, for those that are embarking or thinking about embarking on their first bivy, what are kind of the critical things?
What do people need to know? What do they not need to know? What do they need to be concerned about? out i
mean, I would say don't overthink it too much, really, but you know, you want to, especially if you, if you're going to the Alps for the to do it, but I mean, you could just, you know, here in the UK, you can, um, you could have a simple one or two night bivy, um, in the mountains of South Wales or the hills, um, you know, you're not going to fly hundreds of kilometers, obviously, um, but, but you don't have to to have fun. You know, you can fly 20 or 30 kilometers and have a hike and then a camp. And then so it's all, you know, don't make it too much of a big thing, I think, is the overall message. I mean, if you're going to the Alps, you have to plan it a bit more. But again, you
know, you might have this great trip planned, you know, from one side of the Alps to the other. But at the end of the day, it's just a series of flights and hikes. and in the alps especially there's always places to find water and food so you don't need to carry too much with you yeah is that does that answer that question yeah
I'm trying, I'm thinking about too, like, are you, uh, are you doing, are you still using a bivy sack? Are you just using a tarp or using a tent? Uh, you know, how heavy is your gear? Um, drill down a little bit more on, on the gear you're using for these Alps trips, sure.
Um, so I do actually have a a kit list um as a Google Sheet, so I can... Oh, great, we'll share that.
In the show notes, we'll put that in there, uh...
but just to sort of run through some of the things, um, I use, I mean, uh, because because the I
think in the Alps, especially you're not in the middle of nowhere. There's always places you can find shelter if the weather is terrible. Um, you know, I haven't gone for a particularly expensive tent at all. In fact, far from it. The tent I use, a tent now rather than the top or a bivy bag, um, it's, it's one called, uh, 3F Ultralight, and I can't remember the model name, but yeah, it's like 60 quid from on AliExpress. It's just a single, single skin, um, but with use one of your walking poles as as the main sort of central pole, but it's, it's fine. I mean, I'm six foot four-ish, six foot three, and I can fit in it. Um, so yeah, that, that does the job, and it's, it's, it's waterproof, which is
You know, all you want for you wouldn't want to spend all day in it, of course. But yeah, so it's not, you know, it's not like, you know, if I was doing a trip like one of yours, you know, the Alaskan one, you'd want something a bit better, for sure. Yeah,
I always, it's, it's, it's interesting because I've gotten a lot of comments over the years, both from the Rockies one and the and the Alaska one, "Why were you guys carrying so much gear? And it looks so heavy. And you could have done this, and you could have done this." And my feeling around Bivy is that we're not racing, you know? It's, it's not the X-Alps that you know, I've, I've put to get put all this energy into putting together this trip. I'm not trying to make it end, I want to be, be out there. And like you say, you're not, I'm never trying to crunch kilometers on baby. I mean, of course, you know, if you're handed a, if you're gift wrapped a beautiful day, then take advantage of it, go for it. But, you know, to me, it's about the, you know, I love the camping and the tramping and the, you know, just watching the sunsets.
I'm not in a hurry. And so, and then the flip side of that is I also, I want to eat really well and I want to be super comfortable And I want a tent that I can sit up in and listen to podcasts and write my journal. And I just, I guess I find that it's better to put a little bit more effort into being fit. And, you know, like I like my little espresso maker. I love that stuff because you've got all this time, you know, if you wake up in the morning and you're just like, oh, we just got to go. oh, well then, you know, uh, of course you're, you can go a lot lighter, but you know, you can go X out style for sure. But I don't know, I'm not, I'm never in a hurry and I don't, I just don't mind carrying the extra weight. And then if you carry the extra weight, you need better food, you know, and you're, you're, I often find you are a little bit sleep compromised.
And so, you know, food and being comfortable helps.
Yeah, you're right there. I mean, um, I, I, I, the most expensive bit of my kit is the, is the sleeping, uh, is the mattress, the air mattress, the air bed. Um, and so I've got a, a Therm-a-Rest, um, Neo Air, which, um, yeah, which is really good, nice and warm. Um, and it does the trick. And for the first, well, up until this year, I just used my glider to sleep under. There, and then I was... we had this discussion with some friends, um, about, you know, pros and cons of sleeping bag versus a quilt versus, um, uh, you know, versus under sleeping under your wing.
And this year, I, I may I sacrificed, um, talking about coffee, coffee makers. I ditched my little espresso machine, uh, my little mocha thing, and instead used the way to, uh, yeah, I bought a quilt, quilt, a down quilt, and that was, that was really nice and comfortable. Actually, that was perfect. Um, you know, I don't like the feeling of being zipped up in a, in a tight sleeping bag, but a quilt was just, uh, work worked really well. Oh,
Interesting. So, what what I do is, I I have a really good sleeping bag now. If it's a summer bivy, then I can go to a much warmer bag—by that I mean a warmer-rated bag, uh, you know, and down. But I have the I have a down bag that's like a zero-degree bag for, you know, for something like Alaska. But then when I add to that, and again, this is extra weight, but I just have a silk liner, you know? It's like a little mini, it's like another sleeping bag. And then, you know, because if you're going for days and days and days, you're kind of gross, and and that just keeps your bag nicer. And it's also just really comfy, uh, you know, it's kind of so that's—but that's a little bit on the plush end of things. But a quilt's a good idea. I hadn't thought about that. That's a great idea. I mean, this whole like, you know, sleeping in your wing sucks, or sleeping—I what I do with—you're totally right about the pad.
You gotta have a pad. And what I do is put the pad, I put I still put the wing underneath the pad, you know? So I kind of a thin little pad, and then it's just extra, you know? But then it's not making the noise, and it's just a little bit extra cushion. I'm getting old, I need the cushion. Yeah.
I haven't tried the putting the wing under it. I know, I know, a friend of mine did on one of the trips, but uh, it seems like actually sleepy on top of your wing, it's going to be squashing it and you. If you, you know, turning over three or four times or an hour, which I seem to do, um, you're probably going to end up trashing it. So yeah, I haven't, I haven't done that. Um, well, uh, what else are
You guys cooking a lot, are you? How are you handling your food? Because that's always a big kind of Achilles heel for folks. It's, yeah, that—that part's, that's tricky because food's heavy, yeah.
I carried about, uh, this... This most recent trip, I think about seven or eight days' worth of food, which was a bit overkill, really. I had quite a few packets left. And so I had those ones you just open the packet and you pour in boiling water. I mean, I think the one brand I've got is called Adventure Foods. And, you know, it's fine. In fact, it's more than fine. It's so convenient. There's no washing up to do. which you obviously don't want to waste water. It's just pour it in, wait eight minutes, stir it up and eat it, basically. Well, stir it up before you wait the eight minutes. And it is surprisingly nourishing food.
So that was the sort of evening meal.
Breakfast, I had a tip from Greg Hamilton, the pro-nutrient South African protein cereal he recommended. And, yeah, I sort of pre-mixed portions of that with a bit of milk powder and put it into individual little plastic bags and carry about, well, you know, one of those for breakfast and, you know, a few spare ones just as, you know, extra food if I needed it. And the only, the only trouble with them is, uh, well, my wife and kids were, uh, totally winding me up the very first time I did it because it looked very suspicious, you know? These packets of sort of white and brown substances, they were saying, "How are you going to get that through the customs?" Yeah, I've had
that one it's
past the sniffer dog, but I mean, yeah, but I'd recommend that stuff. You know, you get banana flavor, you get chocolate flavor, and uh, it's very easy and, you know, worked out super cheap for just a breakfast, yeah.
You know what? I started doing this. Seemed to work pretty well. Was I would just take a Ziploc with the powdered milk and mix in a bunch of brown sugar, and that would be my, you know, that'd be for my cereal or for my coffee, you know, if you like sweetened coffee, which usually I just do cream or something, but that was kind of a nice way to get rid of a bag and just have one thing, you know, a little bit more calories, a little little more glycos, which is good. Um, yeah.
yeah and
Then I, I changed my coffee from, uh, you know, when you just do the pour over coffee through a, through a paper filter, and then you huck the paper filter. That, this is just a permanent one of those; it's just a metal mesh one, you know, so it fits down in my pot really perfectly, and I could just put the coffee in there, and then I'm not there, and then there's no trash, there's nothing to burn, you know, it's kind of nice, you just reuse it, yeah.
Yeah, um, I took some coffee bags this last time and didn't, didn't actually use as many of them as I, as I thought I would. But, but they were, they were, they were great, actually very tasty. But yeah, someone's giving me a little, um, a little sort of plastic mesh thing that you can just tip coffee into and then dunk that in your, in your, you know, cup of boiling water, just like a tea bag. So I'll give that again because actually those, those coffee bags are quite expensive, so
This, this first one you did in in 2018, where did you start and where did you end and what were kind of the, were the highlights? I
...mean that, well, it was basically from, uh, Cold Ablain, I started. And then we, I met up with Nigel on route. I mean, that first day was just, just ridiculous, really. I left home at something like three o'clock in the morning. I live in Bath in the UK, uh, caught a flight from Bristol airport, which is about an hour's drive away to Nice. So I arrived at Nice at about 10:30 in the morning, and I was a friend of mine, Marcus, Marcus King, um, he met me there at Nice airport, which is very kind of him, drove me up to Col de Blaine, and we were at Col de Blaine takeoff for sort of midday by
Half twelve, I was in the air heading north, and I met Nigel sort of on the on the Dormeluz ridge. He was, you know, he'd been flying from Saint-André, and we met up, crossed over the Lac de Serre-Ponçon together, and we just had an epic flight. We landed high above the ski resort of Orciers, and so it's just, you know, how can that be possible? To be at home at three o'clock in the morning, and then that evening you're camping on a French mountaintop. It was just incredible, you know, and especially after an epic flight, you know, like 120 kilometers or something, I think it was, uh, just amazing and
That zone, I mean, describe it for those who haven't flown it, because I've just got the hugest grin on my face ever because I've spent quite a bit of time down in that, you know, know in the Maritimes. It's just epic down there. Um, describe kind of what you're—what the scenery is like. I think people don't understand how big it is, yeah.
I mean, it's not as big as, you know, the Alps further north, the Northern Alps, um, but they're still bloody great big mountains compared to what you see in the UK, clearly. And you know, by the time you, by the time you work your way up the Dormelues, um, you know, you, you've gone past some pretty, pretty big peaks. You've gone past the Tec de la Strop, which is, I don't know offhand, but it must be around about 3,000 meters, um, and then, and the terrain up to there is all, it's pretty rocky and rugged, and you got some serious boonies once you go, you know, once you've gone sort of 20k north of Saint-Andre, you're in, uh, you've got about, I would say, another 20K of
really boony
countryside. Then you get onto the Dormeluz Ridge, and then you've got the Lac de Serpensan, which is beautiful. Just, you know, by the time you get there, it's in the afternoon. You've got the sun sparkling on the water, and it's bright blue waters. And the other side of the lake, you've got the Ecrins, which have got some very big peaks, you know, up to 4,000 meters. um you know it it's pretty mind-blowing really what
time was this
June spectacular, uh, no, this was, um, uh, it would have been that this, this trip was early July actually, 2018. Yeah, I think it was like the first, might have been the first week of July, were
You dealing with much, um, were you dealing with much valley wind then, or was it, was it, was it pretty good?
Um, well, it just depends where you, you are, really. Um, the, the flight up from, you know, San Andre up to the, the dormer lose, not really valley winds to contend with, you know. The train's a bit more, sort of, how should we say, a bit more random. It's not particularly organized when you, but when you, when you get to cross the, the lake, um, you get quite a strong westerly wind there. But you've got a
rock up to Brian son and all that zone. This can be windy.
Yeah, and up the Briançon valley, you get quite a strong valley wind, I'm told. Um, uh, so yeah, it's in places for sure. It's, it's windy, and but it's, it's the obvious places where you, where you have the valleys leading into the, the higher mountains. Um, on that trip, we, for the next day, we, we flew, um, sort of we took the roundabout route, um, out towards Grenoble rather than sort of, you know, a tiger line, you know, straight north through the equines. That's a dream for another year, maybe next year. But, yeah, we're up with this sort of traditional route. And then the second night, we just, I just, I camped.
Well, we had a lovely flight. We'd done 60 kilometers or something. And we, the weather was, there were some big clouds building and we just flew over this beautiful spot at the, It's called Talyfer, Massive de Talyfer, and it's sort of not far from Grenoble, really.
You fly over these sort of peaks, and then you've got a plateau dotted with little lakes, and it was just magnificent. So we decided to call it a day after sort of 60K and found a beautiful spot to land right by the lake. and the first, the very first thing I did, I got out, I landed, you know, 50 yards from the lake, I suppose, and dumped my glider, dumped everything, and I did, I'd had an accident with the p-tube, it just completely, so I totally pissed my trousers and, uh, so yeah, just dive straight in the in the lake, it It was, uh, beautiful water was fantastic.
So yeah. So sorted out those, uh, little, um, uh, little challenge, shall we say? And then, you know, the business of pitching the tent and holding up the glider and stuff like that. But yeah, what a, what a perfect spot. That was really nice.
And what was the, well, I'll let you keep going with the rest of it, but just before you keep going with the rest of this trip though, What was the style of it? You know, what—what did you and Nigel agreed to beforehand? Was there a, you know, you're staying together no matter what, or you're going as far as you can? Or did—did you have, like, when you wake up in the morning, did you have an objective, or did you just, let's just go flying, um?
we had originally sort of planned to try and you know get to Chamonix and maybe further further into Switzerland, but actually on day two on that flight, we completely changed our plan because the weather further north was looking unsettled, so we ended up sort of doing a triangle around the outside of the Ekron the next day. We flew over towards Brianson. In fact, we landed in Brianson, and then the following day, we flew back down to St. André, so that was the shortest trip. So we were, we were, we had no fixed objective. Each, you know, we prepared to change, change plans in the air, um, and change plans from day to day.
You know, that's a great thing. You just go with the flow, really. I think you know if you, if you set out to do a trip to fly the whole length of the Alps and you realize the weather was really pretty poor further north, then you could have a—you, you can still have a brilliant week flying around the Ekrins and, you know, the Alps Maritime.
There's plenty to fill your boots there.
Yeah. And how did you guys meet in the air that first day? Well, actually, let me rewind. Were these dates just set? You're going no matter what to Nice or is it the kind of thing because you're in the UK, you can just pull the, oh, weather looks good. Let's go.
Well, you could do that. But most times you do have to sort of actually take a day and just sort of stick with it unless it's really, really poor. And in fact, I need to go back to how we met in the air, but that brings me on to sort of this year's trip where there was eight of us who met up in St. André. And we met up on the Sunday. This is sort of end of July this time. And the forecast really wasn't that great, you know? The first two days down in the outmaritime were forecast to be pretty windy and then unsettled further north, and we were having these discussions: do we go?
Don't we go? And I think if I'd been on my own, I probably would have bailed on it, but um, actually, when we were there, the the first days flying Monday, we had I had another fantastic day flying, you know, 100K north. Second day was great too. So you just got to – it just goes to show, really, you've got to sort of be there. Yeah. You've got to be in it to win it, I think is what they say.
Yeah, and, I mean, I think there's also a – there's a lot to be said for kind of – I call this the Nick Neynens approach. You know, he does bivvies all over the world. You know, it doesn't have to – it can be a long ways from banger. You know, you can get a little 10k glide over Morning Glory in the morning, and that's your flying day, and it's epic. You know, you're out, you're basically—you've just taken a flight you probably never would have as an experienced pilot because it's not that good, it's not a day to go flying, but it's totally safe, and it's really, really, really pretty, and you get to spend the day in the mountains, you know? And, uh, so you, yeah, it's—you can do a lot with bivy. That's what I love, love about it so much, yeah.
I mean, exactly. It's all, whatever you do is some sort of an adventure, isn't it? You're not—if the flying is, is fantastic, and yeah, it'd be pretty upsetting to spend a week and just get, you know, 10k glides in every day, uh, rather than any sort of proper cross-country flights. But, you know, I'm sure if that did happen, you'd still have fun. It'd still be a memorable trip. Um, so yeah, it's—it's more—it's more than just about the flying; it's the people you meet on the way and the places you see, the whole sort of the whole experience. Um, just going back to sort of how we met up, how I met up with Nigel in flight, um, pretty simple, really. He was using, uh, I mean, we—I could see him.
I use Fly Sky High as my instrument of choice on my phone. And so that will display your friend's live track. Nigel was using, he doesn't use an iPhone. He was using XCTrack. But yeah, he had another LiveTrack24 app on his phone. So I could basically see him on my phone. And I knew where he was. I could see him. were
You guys using radios too, or just just that, yeah?
We did, we did. Um, yeah, we did when we got closer. Yeah, oh.
Wicked, that's that's that's pretty sexy. That's good, yeah, it's so
Well, it worked fine. It was, it was really good, yeah. I mean, plus we might, I think I probably, you know, messaged him, um, using Telegram whilst I was in the air saying, you know, I've taken off or something, yeah. So he would have got that as well.
let's let's let's pause on this real quickly what are what what What have you got with you electronically?
Yeah, so, I mean, I've got the cameras and that sort of stuff. The GoPro is what I had this year. Previously, I've had a cheap Chinese equivalent, which actually is more reliable, I should say. Get a Garmin, man. Get a
Garmin. They're so much better. I have to plug that in. Their verb is a lot better than the GoPro. Yeah, it's really nice.
Yeah, oh well, I've got to make the—I've got to make this GoPro investment last a little bit, of course. Um, so yeah, I've got that, um, radio this year I bought a, you know, the little stand for the charging stand for the radio and a little, uh, step-up transformer cable to make it work off USB. You know, it's not a USB radio, um, it's a few years older, um, but in terms of, yeah, instruments and, you know, flight deck, I had the—I've got the Garmin InReach mini, um, so that's really nice, uh, to have to have that and to have the tracking on.
Um, I've got, uh, my very—I had a XC Racer 2 flam arm, just a bit of reassurance to know that all those, yeah, cells, cell planes buzzing around you down in the Alps are gonna, um, gonna see, know you're there. And, yeah, just my phone and a battery, of course, but a phone running, uh, sky high. So, yeah. Oh, yeah, well, and to charge it all, um, an anchor solar power pack, how
Big is the, do you know the wattage of the solar 50?
yeah 15 watts 15 Oh, so it's a
pretty good size. Okay.
Yeah, it's got two panels. And actually, the way I did it, I've got two of the Anker 10,000 milliamp batteries. So I had, you know, they both start off fully charged. After the first day, one's getting low. So the next day, I'll charge up that one whilst I'm flying and use the fresh one, you know, on my flight deck.
Where do you hang the panel when you're flying?
Lion, yes, I had to, I had to do a bit of experimentation to get this working properly, um, but yeah, it's tied on to, uh, basically not, not the sort of carabiners, but yeah, close to the carabiners, and then I have it, um, folded out on my legs. But I, I tried it once in the UK before, before the trip, and it, every time I put the speed bar on, or every time I went a little bit faster, it would just blow up in my face. So I end up putting a little bit of elastic around, you know, from the bottom corners of it, around my legs, around the pod, um, just to keep it in place, and that worked really well. Obviously, you ought to be extra careful when you're heading up, ready that you haven't got any lines caught in this bit of elastic, but, uh, yeah, that worked really well, and
And what wing and what harness?
So I've now got the Omega X-Alps 3, a two-liner, and I've got the Lightness 3. Okay. Yeah, and it's a fantastic combination, really. I got the X-Alps 3 last summer, so summer 2019. And like, it arrived two days before, um, my plans, you know, Vol Biv in 2019. I was umming and ahhing because I had a Oxer 2 XLS2, which is a three-liner. So, do I take the one I know, or do I take the, the, you know, the brand new two-liner?
Um, luckily, I had an hour's flight on it on my local site, um, on the day before I was due to fly out. And having had that, you know, hour's fly, I thought, right, you know, you've got to take the new one, really. And I spoke to Greg Hamilton as well; he also had one, and he said, "Yeah, you've got to take the new one." Um, so yeah, that was a great decision. His
His advice when I had him on the show was that when you're going bivy or going light, so either one, uh, you should step down, you should cut, you know, if you're, if you're, if you're normally only flying a two-liner, end it's probably best to go down to a an enc, you know, maybe even a high end enc or mid-level enc or something for when you're going light, either light gear or if you're going bivy, do you, do you agree with that, I
Think it's a general rule, yeah? I mean, it's—it's pretty sensible because it's not all about flying, you know? Whether you do 90k or 100k, you know, if you—you had a two-liner, you—you might do a little bit further, but it doesn't—it's not that important. You're not racing anyone. It's—it's just the—the views and—and the experience that you're after. But I mean, not everyone has the luxury of having two wings, you know? Special like a lightweight wing. I've just got the one glider, um, and I've only ever—or I've only ever had one glider at a time, um. So it's, you know, you take what you've got, basically. And for me, yeah, I've been flying 30 years and I've gone from the Oxa one to the two and now the three, um.
You know, going from a three-liner D to a two-liner D, there was no it— didn't feel like a step up in you know in how in how it handles in difficulty or anything like that it was if anything it's sort of easier to fly um so So, yeah, I think it's a – for me, it's a lovely win to – Nice, nice sweet spot. Yeah. I mean, for sure, if I'd had something like a Yotta 2 – not the Yotta 2, the Z. And I should mention that I didn't do this in my sort of bio at the beginning, but I've been an advanced ambassador and advanced XC serial team pilot for – well, since 2014. So, yeah, I'm like advanced kit, but that's enough of that sort of plugging.
But, yes, I would have had just as much fun on an advanced Z or any other sort of lightweight wing, really. But for me, yeah, having the two liner is lovely, especially in such a light form factor.
The lightness, does that have a carbon seat board or is it just a hammock?
It's just a hammock, yeah.
And anything you want to say about that? That, you know, 30 years of flying, you know, imagine you spent most of that time flying a seat board. Was there much adjustment? Was there much getting used to it, pluses, minuses?
Actually, my Wender, prior to the Lightness 3, I had a Lightness 2, which is also a Hammock 1. And prior to that, I had an Impress 3, which was also a Hammock 1. So I hadn't had a seat board since my Impress 2. So, which is quite a long time ago. So, but the very first time I went in the impressed three, yes, I was quite taken aback about how much feedback it gave you. Um, but the designs of the in the lightness range of, you know, the three is more, uh, what do you say, roll stable, I guess, than, um, yeah, than the two. But even the, you know, the two was fine. So, I, I, I personally like the comfort of just having the hammock.
Um, yeah, just don't feel I need, yeah. I don't feel as a seatball will give me, give me any more. It's, I'm quite happy with the hammock as it is and
How do you, how do you pack it? Is that, you know, because when I, let's see, I'm trying to remember what I had in Sup Air, I had the Delight 2, I believe, but I had to, you know, it has a pad and so I had to remove to make space. I, I removed the back pad, uh, actually no, you know, it was one, one system, so I had no pad. It was, you know, so I would, I was real careful about how I put everything in, in terms of the sleeping bag and the sleeping pad under my butt. You know, I tried to get most of the soft stuff under my butt, but what do you, is that lightness, does that have plenty of space? Is it an airbag, or can you just pack around it, or do you have to remove stuff? Um, so
There is a massive compartment right underneath the seat, which is when you're just doing normal XC flying or whatever, it's... it's got this big, uh, foam cushion in. So, once I realized how easy it was to take that out, um, you know, I... I could in that... that compartment, I could put my tent, my sleeping quilt, my mattress, um, a... uh, a poncho, um, and a couple of other things as well. So, and yeah, it's all always nice soft stuff, so that it probably gives you, you know, as good a protection as in there anyway, sure. So, yeah, so that gets rid of all that sort of soft, bulky stuff.
Food, and the sort of food is quite heavy, that I got most of that in the sort of ballast compartment, which was, you know, which is underneath your your legs, yeah, in front of the pod, um, and that left the the back compartment. So, yeah, on the lightness three, actually, it's got two, it's got the, uh, it's got a foam layer and then it's got sas tech, sort of slightly harder, more plasticky, more rigid protection. So I took that, that latter bit out of the sas tech, a bit, bit out, and just left the foam in there, um, and then you know, you shove everything else in there, um, so yeah, there was, there was sufficient
storage, you know? Yeah, there was not, you know, there's, there's probably harnesses that are better suited for, you know, doing longer Volbibs, for sure, but for a week, 10 days, two weeks,
the Lightness 3 is absolutely fine.
Yeah, and
the Lightness 2s as well. They're pretty much identical, really, in terms of capacity, I think.
And what do you use for a rucksack?
Yeah, I've just got the standard one that comes with the… With the Lightness? With the Lightness, yeah. And that's pretty good. It's got my side pockets. Do you know how big it is? Yeah. It's a 90-liter one.
90-liter, okay. And that's plenty of space for your seven days of food.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, sufficient. Everything has to be packed in pretty well. You've got to do a good job. Yeah, you can't just chuck it in. And in fact, when I get to go flying normally in the UK, like I was flying just a couple of days ago for a little hour soaring, I was thinking, how do I get all my whole bit of stuff in this?
There doesn't seem to be much spare space in it. But once you actually pack it carefully and, you know, know you've you've taken out some of the padding and uh you know it all fits in fine yeah and
Are you guys utilizing, you know, grocery stores huts? Are you ever trying to top land and spend a night in luxury, or is it all just kind of on the go?
preference really is, the preference is landing high and, uh, sleeping on the mountaintop for me. I mean, that was, uh, you know, that that's what the the whole experience is about, really. I like on this this year's trip, uh, one of the sort of best days for me actually was, uh, I mean, was not the day I I mean, I had an amazing flight on one day all the way from from sort of herbier down to Bellinzona, um, but then I landed, I landed low on that flight, you know, landed in goal at the Bellinzona landing field and then had to find somewhere to camp, um, in a sort of, you know, slightly built up environment and I after this, I did find quite a nice place, but it it
wasn't the same. The next day, I was expecting to have to do a lot of hiking because the weather forecast didn't seem that great, but actually, I did start hiking, walked about half an hour, then the sun started coming out a lot. This is... this is mad, uh. So I turned around and actually, you know, caught the gondola up to the takeoff at more nearer, I think it's called Belenzona, and I ended up having a wicked, you know, 100k flight, and I... I landed on this sort of plateau, had an hour's hike up to... I didn't know where it was, but it was called Monte Padreo, and just on my own up there, beautiful views all around. Um, a few goats knocking around with a sort of goat bells tinkling away, and...
and that's the essence of it to me. Um, so that day, yeah, I had a fantastic flying, but the whole... the whole day was... was probably the, you know, the best day just because of the beauty. of where you end up, uh, you know, camping, so
I got to hear about your flight from Verbiage to Bellinzona, because that's exactly the opposite of my best day in the 2015 15 race that really put us back into it. And, you know, 18th to eighth that day, I went, I started in Bellinzona and I actually hiked, it was really stable. We had a really brutal inversion. So I hiked, I don't know, another thousand above Mornier, uh, you know, from the, so from that night we were kind of in Bellinzona and so hiked up above, way above that Mornier launch up in those big mountains up behind you. And then flew to Verbier, uh, you know, That was back when the Matterhorn was a turn point, so through that zone and then stayed really super tall and kind of floated into Verbier later that evening. And it was a really strong headwind all day, so it was—that was an exceptional, uh, day.
But what was—what was your route going the other way?
Oh I mean that sounds like an awesome flight you you described that. Oh it was just
It was unbelievable because, well, and most of that, you know, when I got into the Zermatt Valley and was pressing up into, I mean, it was a really windy day. This was not a wreck, and that was a day that but, you know, Hansa and the Korean both flew in wave. The Korean got up to like 5,000 meters and was flying in wave. And, you know, it was strong headwinds. So you were flying in the lee all day and just kind of pressing and then taking your hits and pressing. But when I got in the Zermatt Valley, everybody that was in front of me, you know, from Bellinzona, basically, I just cut the corner and went straight through that kind of, you know, there's the big sea that goes up to the Arolo and then the Newfoundland. And I just went straight across all that stuff. just like, I just, I got to take some risk here where there's no way we're going to get to Monaco. So knowing that if I bombed out, basically my race was over, but, uh, you know, so I just went straight and then suddenly ended up kind of between the Simplon pass and the Newfoundland pass.
And like suddenly recognized where I was like, Oh my God, I'm, you know, one more move. And I'm in the Zermatt Valley. Holy cow. And when I got into that Valley and there was, you know, there's Guschlbauer. No, it wasn't Guschlbauer who was, uh, Ferdinand and, you know, all these guys that had been, were way ahead of me that morning. Oh, I've really caught up. I really caught up. And almost everyone went up and tagged the Matterhorn and then came back down the Zermatt Valley to cross the Rhone and get on the other side and keep going. And they, but my, my supporter Bruce just kept sending me messages as they were watching me going into there. Like, don't come back down here. And the valley winds were cranking up from, uh, you know, from the West. And, and so So I just stayed high. I got a big, tall climb over the glacier and just bobbled across the top of, you know, above, you know, on the sea on side.
I mean, of the, you know, the south side of the Rhone. But, you know, you just, you'd kind of take a beating on each one of those fins. And then eventually I just logged into Verbier, which is kind of where one of the places I learned in the Alps years and years ago. So that was very special, you know, late in the day, looking down. Oh, I know this place.
Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. Well, I mean, the line we took, Chris and I, with my mate Chris Ashdown, we'd spent, well, I'd spent a couple of nights in Verbier. The day before, it'd been pretty rubbish weather. And actually, yeah, my Volbibs are not so purist. They're not necessarily camping every night. And if I remember there's an apartment that my brother's wife's family own in Verbier, I'm going to use it. And I did. So I pitched up there for a couple of nights. Then that the day of the flight, Chris and I, we hiked up to the takeoff.
It's a quite decent hike. You know, it's like three hours. I don't know how many meters vertical. I mean, you'd do it in half the time, Gavin. But for us, it was. Yeah,
that's a pull. It's not like a good
old hike. Yeah. But yeah, so we met these couple of Swiss pilots up on takeoff, and they in fact suggested flying to Bellinzona. So we thought, yeah, why not? It seemed like a sensible plan because the forecast for the next few days was windy in the western and northern Switzerland. So, getting down south and using that as an entry into Italy sounded like a good plan. Um, so yeah, we—we just—um, we—we hopped over the Sion valley from Verbier. At the first move, we took off about midday, um, and then just, yeah, it's pretty straightforward sort of route all the way up to Fish, um, and we hopped south over the Rhone valley, just past Fish and over I
can't remember the name of the pass.
newton it is
the Newton, yeah, yeah, I don't know how do you say that, new I
Don't know if I'm saying it right either, but Newfoundland, I
call it the
new yeah
Yeah, okay. And that takes you into the Arola Valley, yep. And so, yeah, um, that—that going over the pass was—was spectacular. Some high peaks, um, yeah, that's
beautiful in there
Uh, yeah, it was lovely. It was... question, we didn't quite know. I mean, I was... Chris was a few k behind me at this point. I was just on my own, didn't know quite where to go, you know? Know there wasn't much working there, and it wasn't actually until I got into the Arola Valley that started finding good climbs again. And yeah, just followed the valley down, and you know, after seven three-quarter hours, so I was
In Benin, glorious couldn't
Believe it. I just, you know, my furthest ever flight in the Alps, the longest in the air, and just sat down down in the landing field, just go, "Wow, it was incredible." Yeah,
That's a special feeling. How were you the thing?
Is I, I was happy to, you know, I'm happy to land there because I didn't think the forecast was that good for the next day, and I thought I'd just do a bit of sightseeing around Belenzona. But actually, you know, that whole business of being in a sort of more built-up area town, carrying your rucksack around 20, 20 odd, well, 23 kilos, everything, uh, came to it's, it's quite difficult, really. So, you know, I don't know what had it. Well, I end up not even thinking about sightseeing; I was just going to go and hike, and then I turned around and, you know, my plans changed, and I got the gondola up and then had that really nice flight. But it's always difficult when you, if you end up low down and you're in a town, like later on in that trip, I ended up in La Vita Terme in the evening.
Where the hell do you find somewhere to pitch a tent in a town? And so on that occasion, I hiked up a hill. I started hiking towards takeoff only a little bit. And then there was this old house that was being renovated. It had like a cement mixer in it. And I think there was a digger somewhere and some building waste. And I just sort of tucked myself around the side on a bit of grass. So that wasn't very glamorous that night. So you have to take the rough with the smooth.
Yeah. And I mean, style is important to it, isn't it? I mean, the Alps are just so well suited for what we're talking about. out. But it is nice to, it is nice to avoid that if you can, because it just, it really takes you out of it. I mean, this is the thing I can't stand about the ex-Alps and this isn't a sustainable attitude because obviously you want to get to Monaco. That's the point. But getting to Monaco in 2015, you know, you've just had this, you're in the mountains, proper Alps, and it's just so beautiful and so spectacular and all these fun little villages and huts and peaks. And then you, you get to Monaco, it just doesn't, it doesn't add up. It's, it's really disoriented, you know what I mean?
You're just in this concrete jungle, so yeah. And so, if you can, if you can bypass places like Bellinzona, all the better. And that takes me to the question, which is, how important is top landing? And let's, let's talk about skills a little bit, because I, I do feel like, yeah, skills and weather. I want to ask you kind of how you also, you know, navigate and deal with weather, you know, just getting it on your phone and that kind of thing. So I'm asking too many questions here, but talk about all that. Talk about the skill side a little bit.
Yeah, well, we've last year, sorry, this year, last trip, we sort of opened it up to try and encourage, you know, people like I was a few years ago. who fancy giving a whole bit of a go but haven't quite plucked up the sort of courage to do it, you know, to give them a chance to do it in in as part of a group. And so you do need to have flown in in the Alps, in into mountains, um, you know, you you've got to have a more than just a passing understanding of valley winds and, you know, weather conditions in the Alps, um, because Because, you
know, it's not just like going off on a downwind cross country in the UK where you can just land anywhere. You've got to be aware of your surroundings, aware of the terrain, aware of what the wind is doing. And I, you know, I've got it wrong a couple of times, flown into places where, in hindsight, pretty stupid. But, yeah, we all make mistakes.
Yeah, that's almost unavoidable, really. that's definitely something you should know before you start if you're doing a bivvy you're going to most likely get into a position where you're not that psyched with
yeah one guy on our trip a couple years ago he had flown some good distances out in beer I think it was but it didn't really prepare him for the complexity of the Alps so yeah Yeah, we wouldn't want anyone coming on the trip with, you know, who's not flown in the Alps before. I mean, do some competitions out there, you know, like the, what
are the various sort of competitions, the Sharpa Open at La Ragna. Get a feel for flying in that part of the world. There's quite a few of those sort of, you know, intermediate level comps that will give you a good, you know, understanding of what's going on out there. I mean, in terms of skills, sort of flying skills, I mean like you always say, top landing is, uh, the ability to do that is, is paramount. But there's always, there's always places to, to land. You don't have to top land, you can land down in the, in the valleys. But I mean, I'm not saying we all need to have Chrigel or Patrick von Cannell's skills that you know, fly on the wall landings.
However, nice it would be to have them, you know, we're not We're not preparing for the ex-alps here, are we? Well, you are, of course, but for us, you know, it's not—it's not that critical. Just on a regular little vol biv trip, so you—you're picking sensible places to land, rather than, "Whoa, there's a potion stamp, I need to land here or else I'm down in the valley bottom." It's not—we're not quite doing the same thing. I
Would I... would put out a little listener, just a heads up, and maybe a, uh, PSA here real quick that, you know, I know many of you listening probably follow Chrigel and and Patrick and, uh, you know, they've been doing this top landing challenge thing and it's all just on Unreal. It's awesome what these guys are doing. I've been working really hard at this kind of for the last six months and I will just put out there that this, this is super top level. It's not necessary. Um, you don't need to learn how to top land like that. And, you know, I would just put a warning that this is, this is extremely top level flying that these guys are doing and, and showing. And they're, they're obviously, they're not bragging.
They're not putting it out there to try to, you know, inspire other people to do it. I don't think. And so don't be, don't be overly inspired to go learn that. It's an awesome skill and it's It's great to have in your toolkit, of course, but it's not really necessary to do, you know, awesome bivvies. I had no idea that this even existed for all the big bivvies that I've done. I'd never seen that or even thought about it. And yeah, just heads up. You get that timing wrong, it is really extreme.
You're totally right there. I mean, yeah, I've never needed to do anything like that. So, yeah. Yeah. I mean, in terms of weather forecasting, yeah, we use Meteor Parapont, which was, I mean, it's the information is presented in a really nice, easy, understandable way as to whether it's accurate or not. I don't know. One of the days on this trip, it was forecasting really strong winds in the Trento Valley. and I got there and there was nothing really, um, and it sort of changed, slightly changed my plans. I end up sort of landing when maybe I needn't have landed.
I guess you don't want to just use one, one source. We were also looking at, um, soaring meteo as well. It's a little more complex, but that gives you a good, a good, uh, overview a few days out looking at thermal quality. What other ones? And sometimes just getting an overview of the weather, you know, sometimes just whether it's sunny or not is going to be all you need. So, you know, Messier Swiss is a good app, actually. That gives you actual wind speeds in the valleys, which is nice to know.
Yeah, I was going to say, are you checking anything on the fly?
Well, yes, sometimes. times, um, yeah, like this year I had a flight from San Bui to to sort of just past Martin, you know, land, end up landing in in the Sion valley. Made a little bit of a mistake there in my route choice or decision making at the very end, and so, but before, before I reached that decision point, I had opened up the Metia Swiss app and I checked the the winds, um, in Sion, and I could see that it was was like 20 kilometers an hour, so I thought, well, you know, that's fine if I do end up landing down in the valley there, it's going to be manageable. And on that Bellinzona flight as well, I was checking the winds as I was sort of going down that Arola valley towards Bellinzona and
What are you using for that? Are you using Wind Alert or Medio Swiss?
uh metro swiss, yeah. I mean, if there's
that's terrific alert
Yeah, there was another. There's another one that someone told me about.
can't remember what it is offhand but it may have been that wind alert one as far as I know it's mainly Switzerland that has these sort of valley winds.
Usually when I'm in Europe I'm using the Medio Swiss. It's really terrific. I mean I think the point here for those who haven't flown in the Alps is that
valley winds can often be an issue and they're not an issue if you know about them because you just land high you know side land or you just don't, don't, don't subject yourself to them and it's, it's no problem. So it's, I think it's a good thing to be observing if you can. And that's a whole nother skill level, you know, checking your phone and tapping into all that kind of stuff, but that having some of that tech really helps. And like you said, I mean, in terms of the accuracy or non-accuracy, you know, in 2015, we did it on the fly. You know, my buddy Bruce did all the weather in 2017 and 2019. We had an an actual weather pro, you know, who was supporting a couple other pilots. He has in every race since the beginning, since 2003, and he's a proper, you know, medio france, uh, he's a pilot and a medio france weather forecaster in, you know, lives in Chamonix, so he's got the eight screens going and the whole thing.
And this isn't a knock against him whatsoever, but, uh, you know, he, he provides—it provides valuable information, but the accuracy of it is not much better than what you get from the apps, really. I mean, and it's often just not accurate. I mean, what we're dealing with, and that, again, it's not a knock on him at all. It's more that we're flying in the micro part of our climate, which a lot of the weather models just don't pick up. you know, it's we're being affected by a lot of things at the micro level that the models aren't going to get and often don't get it right, so you kind of, like you said, you kind of got to go to know, yeah, yeah
Yeah, it's a lot of—it's just observation of what's actually happening in the air around you, you know, and on the horizon. And one, one, one thing I, uh, learned slightly to my, to my cost, um, last year, 2019, um, I end up on that, on that bivy trip, end up in Andermatt and, um, I'd
flown that day from, uh, oh yeah, just near, near fish actually, so up and
over the firka and
Yeah, um, so I'd taken off at Fish, yeah? And actually, it was, uh, it wasn't the, you know, it wasn't the best of conditions, so we didn't get... oh yeah, we went over the Firka Pass. That's right at the, yeah, over the Firka Pass and then got to Andamat. And, um, there's a couple of, uh, windmills, uh, wind turbines on the hill, uh, to the north of Andamat, and I was trying to, as I was approaching them, I was looking, seeing which way they were turning around. I was trying to work out, well, they're going, um, they were actually going anti-clockwise, but I was just trying to work out, can you tell without knowing which way they turn whether the wind, whether they're facing into wind or not, you know, relative to you?
And, um, I, because the previous year I'd done a similar flight from Fish and had soared up that, that south-facing slope underneath these turbines, I sort of convinced myself that's what the wind was doing rather than the wind normally comes, uh, hits and comes from the north there. And anyway, so these, these wind, I, I last year, then I ended up getting into a bit of rota just by these turbines. Yeah, well, not just by them, you know? Yeah, I was well away from them, but in that vicinity, the wind was clearly coming from the north and I'd sort of convinced myself on part based on past experience that it, well, it's probably going to be working there. It's a south-facing slope and those turbines must be just reflecting the, the, uh, anabatic wind blowing up the slope and, uh, yes, a bit of rota and I thought that was the end of sort of like eight days I'll
Just go and land now. Let's call it a day. You know, I had a good run of it, right? Um, but there is a rule: because wind turbines do always rotate clockwise when they are facing into the wind, if you're viewing it from in front of them, as it were. So to try and summarize that, if you're looking at a wind turbine and it's going around clockwise, then the wind is blowing from you towards it. And if I'd just known that simple rule, I would have known not to go into that little area.
Oh, I didn't know that.
That's interesting. Yeah, so they all turn clockwise when facing into the wind, when you look at them from in front.
So, yeah, because they don't swivel, right? So what you're saying is if they're… Oh,
yeah, no, they do swivel. Oh, they do. Okay. But they only go around one way.
Ah, okay. Okay. Okay. I'm with you. Yeah, because we were… Boy, we were dealing with a lot of wind turbines down in Texas. It's they're they're there's a pucker factor there, for sure. They're big, and they look like they're going so slow, but the tips are going at something like 205 miles an hour, 105 miles. They're going really fast; they're moving. You don't want to play with those things, no.
No, I—I mean, this is the whole people have discussed about, you know, what's the turbines like behind them? But I sort of think it's not quite as bad as you think, because it's not pushing air; it's actually, right, you know, moving energy from the air, isn't it? Yeah. I just
don't know that we want to drop ourselves into there and find out.
No, not out of choice, but they are often good trigger points.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. No, they, they saved me quite a few times in Texas, but then they didn't sometimes too. So then you're like, Oh, I get to a road. So what's, what are, what like, take me back to that first, the big trip you did with Nigel, When you got done, what were the things you put in your notebook? Okay, well, we got to do that differently next time in terms of gear, or food, or uh, route, or anything I
Think I sort of refined gear a little bit, but you're always sort of doing that. But the route, again, you know, we didn't have a set route in mind; we were sort of flexible. No, you know, for the—for the did a trip the following year, and uh, I think I pretty much everything I took was was the same as the previous year. I think this something we sort of found out on this year's trip. We found ourselves, um, after even after day one, split up into sort of three three pairs of two, and that was all that was all fine because we all had company. But then at the end of the second day, I had a fantastic flight landed in Eugene.
Chris was, oh, I don't know, maybe 40 minutes behind me. I didn't know where he was; I wasn't seeing him on live track. Um, he didn't know where I was. Our radios weren't really working because I was now down in the valley. I did I did hear him just as I was coming into land at Eugene, but I wasn't in a position to reply. And it ended up he he went up a different valley. He, uh, you know, flew about the same distance, he but had he had—we been in touch, we would have—he could have, you know, landed with me, and we would have had a night together and had a a cool flight, not a couple of days later, so
Comms in the air is definitely something that I think we could improve on, definitely. Live tracking, everyone needs to have that up and running and working. I know the FLAM devices help with the sort of shorter range, uh, seeing where you where your mates are, but that's sort of in its infancy, really, because I know apps like Fly Sky High, you can at the moment, you can't allocate a name to a FLAM ID, so you just see this sort of arrow on the screen, so you don't know who it is. But LifeFact24 is probably the way to go, but plus having an alternative, easy-to-use means of communicating in the air without necessarily relying on radios, and I know Gavin, you mentioned in—was it your recent one—about an app that
you were using for like a walkie-talkie app
yeah Zello we used Zello and there's others, but it's, it's basically just turning your phone into a radio.
Yeah. And I know you're not going to have internet the whole time, but.
Yeah, but you know what it does is it stores it. So you can, you know, they've got these little, I've always just used it from the phone, but they've actually got a Bluetooth, a little push button you can just put on your helmet. So a Bluetooth to your phone and you can, we always just set up a Zello group before we go flying. And we, we use that here where we've got 5 % of the cell that you do in the Alps. So, I mean, there are places for sure, like you said, in the Alps where you're down in a canyon or something, you don't have cell, but it's for the most part, it's pretty good. And you can, you just hit that button on the side of your helmet, like you're hitting a radio and it'll put that message to the group. If you've got it set up that way or to one person, you know, so if I'm just flying with Revis or somebody, it'll just be Revis and I.
And, but the nice thing about it is it also saves it. So if you're not in cell and you just press the button, it'll record that. And as soon as you are and they are, there's obviously a two-way thing here, then that person will get it. So that's really nice. We use it a lot in the race because we don't use a radio in the race. It's too much weight. And so that's kind of how we're communicating. I like that a lot more than using, you know, a telegram or WhatsApp, but another thing that we utilize quite a bit when we're flying for location and that kind of thing, like you said, the fly sky high is great or the, the live track is great, but, um, we'll turn on, you know, just turn on, share your live position for eight hours kind of thing in telegram.
So again, we'll make a Telegram group, uh, same as we would with like the Zello, but we'll just make a Telegram group with just the pilots we're flying with that day. This is really handy in terms of for emergency and that kind of thing too. It's, it's super helpful; it just makes it quick. But you, and then you can just share your location now. The only downside is you're burning a lot of juice, you know? So that's, you've got to have your phone connected to an external battery, so. So I've never used... But are
you burning more juice than if you're using it? I don't think so. You know... I
don't know. I don't know if it's... If you're using
FlySky High or XC Track anyway. Yeah,
I've never actually done the... It just seems like it's burning through more battery, but do I actually... Is it actually? I don't know. You know, I mean, I've always got that... I use that same battery you do, that Anker 10,000 milliamp. It's great, you know, so that'll keep you going all day, no problem. So I don't know if this is a great multi-day solution in a bivy environment, if you can't charge up your stuff, but that would definitely, I would think it would use more, but those two things you can do WhatsApp or Telegram. We've been using Telegram more. I think Telegram is better at that, but then, you know, and of course, the big qualification here is: how good are you with your hands and using the phone in the air? You know, some people can do it. Like, I mean, Revis can do anything on his phone in the air; he's amazing.
And I'm less than that, so you know, so it depends on how much you like to do stuff in the air. But that can be really great because you just click on it and you can instantly see where their last ping was, you know? So it may not be live, but it's—it does help. And it's nice to, especially when you land, to have kind of all those things going, and you can, you know, you can put together the puzzle pretty quick, yeah.
I mean, in the UK, we—and actually, it's been a few other countries are using it now. We have a thing called XC Retrieve, which uses Telegram, um, and you have—we've got various different Retrieve groups, uh, set up around the country. So we've got one in, in the southwest, sort of my area. We've got Wales, we've got sort of central, we've got Lake District, blah blah. But so when you land, you—you drop a pin in there, and you can—your next message is a little message saying, "Yeah, packing up, um, gonna hit those"
are great to
wherever, and you put the sort of hashtag hash map on it, and then if you go to a website, website xcrt.aero, then you can see all the pins for, for everyone in the UK, you know, on the, on the same map. So you can, you don't even have to be in the same group as them, but you look on this map, you see, "Oh, look, Joe Blogs there," and landed down the road from me. I didn't know that, yeah.
and you
can you can click on his pin and then message him and then you might want to share a taxi or or he might have a retrieve driver, and you can sort of share lifts. So, yeah, and we use that in our Vol Bivs as well for sort of sharing positions once we've landed, but it's not so, you sort of don't tend to use it in the air, although it will show, it shows live track 24 positions as well on it and in reach and spots, so it's pretty flexible. But, yeah, just having the sharing your live position in Telegram just amongst the little group of people you're flying with, actually that could work quite well. Yeah, I'm going to check. I might try that with some mates
next time we're out flying.
Yeah, it does. It works
quite well. And like I said, the communications app, Zello, I couldn't believe how much we used it in the last race. I mean, it was 99 % of our comms. It's unbelievable. It's really great. And it's amazing how well it works here in the West where we have very little cell. I mean, it'll still, as soon as you get to, you got coverage for a minute, boom, boom, boom, they go back and forth and, you know, it's, it's, it's quite useful because, you know, radios, like you said, I mean, radios are a must, but yeah, I'm not going to carry one in the X-Alps. And there are just, there's times in Bivy where it'd be nice to, you know, not carry that brick and, you know, it's another thing to charge another thing. But I mean, I think for, I don't want to discourage people from carrying radios. I think radios are really key, especially when it comes to emergencies, but yeah, there's, there's other stuff that's, that's, that's valuable.
You know, for sure, if you're not going to carry radio, you got to have an in-reach anyway, just period. But then an in-reach becomes really, really important. That's super handy. And is this, Tim, is this like a guided thing? Like, are people paying to go on these or is it just meets? No, no, we
just called it the Gumball Trans Alps Rally after that Gumball Trans America film.
Right. That
sort of race. This isn't a race. It's just an excuse to sort of find some people to go bivvying with. I mean, we did get split up pretty rapidly, and I spent most of this last trip on my own, which is fine, but sometimes a bit of company is quite nice. So yeah, the more the merrier on this trip, as far as as far as we're concerned, as long as you know you've got the relevant relevant experience. If you haven't, then hire a guide and do it with a guide, but no, it's just an idea to
encourage people to do it, get more
people doing it really, yeah, yeah, and we've got within the UK, I set up this Facebook group, um, the UK vol biv pilots, and it... It started off to, like, 20 or 30 people, and now there's, like, 350 or almost 400 people in the group. Holy smokes, really? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. They're not all British pilots. There's a few, you know, from all the rest of the world. That's awesome. Yeah, there's a lot of interest in it. And, you know, from my own experience, you just need a little bit of a push to actually give it a go.
I mean, the...
So that was the idea. And we're doing another trip. It this year, or in 2021, I
Was going to say, okay, so next, what now that you've done these? You did the first one, 2018, 2019, did what you did one this year in 2022. So this is, yeah, yeah, okay. What, what, how, what have you refined about timing and and where you know? So, where, where will you go and what time of the year have you decided is kind of the best? Is the sweet spot for the next one
Yeah, well, we're still, um, we're still, well, we've got the time. I think we're going to go in in July, the middle two weeks of July, probably. Uh, but basically sometime in the July we haven't, we're trying to decide whether to, you know, do the similar route to what we've done before, i.e., from sort of like Santandre, north woods, and and then, uh, eastwards from Chamonix. You know, that's that's a logical route, you know, heading west to east because you've got the general prevailing wind is from the west in those northern Alps. But we quite like the idea of a bit of a change of scenery, maybe, you know, potentially start in Slovenia and go via Austria and then, you know, head into Switzerland from Austria.
So, yeah, we're still wondering about that. that or we start in chamonix and sort of cut out that the first two or three days and and just go head east from chamonix um or you know Annecy or somewhere like that so yeah yeah
I mean, I guess, I guess if you're going kind of mid-July, you're starting to orient definitely towards the bigger stuff. You're definitely getting into the time of year where you've got stability is can be an issue down in the lowland, especially on the Italian side. So yeah, you're kind of probably wanting to play with the bigger stuff, getting above the inversions, yeah.
I mean, I a few years ago, I did do a little bit of research looking at flights on X-contest, you know, which I'd pick a sort of area and just see how many, how many flights over 100k were there in each month, um, and it seemed like, you know, May and, well, June, let's say you get some absolutely mega days in June, but you get more non-flyable days in between what time you get to July. The weather, yeah, it's a little, it's more settled, it's, um, so it's definitely more reliable, but you don't get such, you know, real five-star days, right? Well, you can do, um, but yeah, the stability can be an issue, uh, for sure, you know, in the Albertville valley, it can get quite stable, you know, between Grenoble and Albertville and, And, yeah, like you're saying, in those Italian sort of lakes regions, it can get pretty stable.
Yeah.
So, yeah, next year, maybe try and avoid that bit. But, you know, you just go with the flow. If you've got a few days, some windy days further north, then you sort of progress southward.
And would you all just, you know, if you've flown into a Venus flytrap area, it just looks terrible for a few days. days, would you just get on a train, go somewhere else? I
I, I think we probably would do, yeah, you know, just to, yeah, like this year I, I ended up, uh, getting a couple of bus rides to get from where I landed just to the west of Trento to get across to, uh, Navicho Termay. As it happened, it was pretty stable the next day after that, so didn't that made a few kilometers progress? About 40k, that my final day, but I started slightly kicking myself because I didn't, didn't do enough route planning down in that sort of southern dolomite sort of area, and I should have from the day before, I should have made my way more to, uh, is it Bolzano, and then across into the Dolomites from there.
I think I probably would have got some better air, but you know, you live and learn, don't you? That's
The beautiful thing about it, I mean, and you mentioned beer, you had that pilot that you know, know that there's so many places in the world too where you can do some really neat—I mean, even Columbia, they're doing, they're doing some really cool bibbies in the Valladolid. You know, I always go down and just race Roldanillo, you know, and do the same thing every time I go. And yeah, I mean, there's been lots of really cool stuff being done, you know, and it's just, it's just flying up and down that valley. But you know, there's lots of places to top land and there's, you know, it's cheap and you know, there's, there's places like this all over the world that are really fun. But I, I, I like that you guys are focusing on the Alps cause it's, it's, uh, you know, I think, I think you learn a lot and it's just so friendly for it, isn't it? I mean, you don't, you can, you, you don't have to, you don't have to crack yourself.
You can take the gondola, you can take the train, you can take the, it's just so easy to get around and, and move pretty quickly. And, you know, you can, you can keep it pretty, uh, you can keep it pretty nice.
Yeah. Yeah. We're not all hardcore adventurers like you, Gavin, or the likes of Benjamin Jordan. God, have you seen his latest trip? I just saw that on
Instagram. I had no idea he was even doing that last year.
No, he kept that very quiet, didn't he? God, all the way from Mexico up to Canada over basically half a year it took him. Yeah,
that's the line you would take too. Holy cow, he would have seen some incredible terrain.
Yeah. I mean, I was definitely sort of missing home comforts after, you know, nine or 10 days. So I was quite glad to get home. A nice comfy bed and a nice food again and see the family, et cetera, et cetera. But I mean, I've been away for, you know, six months, five months. I don't know. That's pretty hardcore. It
is pretty hardcore. Yeah, I'm sure it'll be an entertaining film. Tim, just before we close up here, you've been at this for a long time, 30 years. You've heard this question a million times on the show. But if you could go back or you could rewind the clock to your 50-hour self or just do it all over again, what would you change?
I'll tell you what. I stopped entering flights in our National cross country League a couple of years ago. And that was quite liberating. I, I, you know, it was nice. I had been, you know, for the last 20 years religiously putting every flight in, in the cross country league and comparing it to other flights, you know, and there was, there was a lot of pressure to be out on the really good days because otherwise you'd, you'd miss out on, you know, your points in the XC league. Nowadays I just put in X contest as a sort of record. Yeah. Like your log. Yeah. Yeah, it's like a logbook. So, you know, that was a bit of a breakthrough, really.
And that sort of coincided with, you know, really enjoying the Volbib, more sort of adventurous flying.
To me, it's the, yeah, I mean, we've talked about this quite a bit. The kilometer crunching approach isn't very sustainable, is it? I mean, you really have to. Yeah. I mean, I, I was way into that for a while and I still do. I mean, we have this, we have the U S contest, you know, here, the last day just started at the last few years. And, you know, this summer I put a lot of energy into it until, you know, until Kiwi disappeared. And that kind of took over for us for a while, but you know, and that was really fun because it forced me to go out and, and fly things that I hadn't thought about. And that was, that was really neat. But, but as a, as
a lifestyle of the, of the sport, I don't dig it. It's just, Doesn't work; it just puts me into shitty air, and I don't need to do that. I mean, you know, I try to reserve my shitty air for the X-ops. There's only so much psychological trauma we can handle, you know? Or at least, that's how I'm feeling about things these days. I
mean the the UK XC league is a great resource of, you know, fly information and everything, and it's, you know, it's fun to see how you're doing, comparing yourself to others, but when you, I think my best ever place in the league was like, I don't know, I can't remember, eighth or ninth a few years ago, but I know that I'm never going to get to the top because I just don't have the time. And then when you've got like a family christening or a wedding or, or, you know, even just kids' birthday parties or something like that to go to, and it's a beautiful day and you can't go flying, it's just sort of, you know, all your mates are doing 100k's and everything, it's, it just puts, it just makes you unhappy.
And you know, why go there if you, if you're not, if you're not doing the league, you know, all that pressure is lifted off you, you just, you're not missing out on your Tesco points, you know, you know points in the league, it's just, uh, you just fly for the fun of it, and that's how it should be. So the other thing I wanted to mention was, well, let me just tell this story. It's back in 2012, I can't believe it, so long ago. April 2012, and it, the forecast down in the south of England was absolutely rubbish, forecast up into the highlands of Scotland was five star. So there was about a dozen of us from the south, we all headed up there in a few cars, and we got up to we, we the night before, and then we got to White Corries, which is a site near Glencoe, on the Saturday morning, and it was just beautiful conditions.
I did a nice little triangle out in front first, before I sort of worked out what the day was doing, and then I started. I had this plan to fly from White Corries up to sort of Fort William, that's pushing into wind, then trying to get onto basically Ben Nevis, and then fly back to White Corries, and that would have been a really nice little house in return. It didn't quite work. I thought I managed to push all the way through into wind up to Fort William, and I just couldn't, didn't have enough height to get onto the sort of what's it called, and at more range, so I you know I decided to head back, and I got a nice climb out from Fort William.
The wind was pushing me southwest, and I was running alongside Lough Linney, which Fort William is at the northernmost end of. And the sky to the west, i.e. to my right as I was flying southwest, was beautiful, and the mountains were beautiful, and it just looked epic. pick the sky to my east, where I come from, was getting a bit overdeveloped and spread out, and I think there were a few spots of rain, and I had to—I was in such in two minds, um, should I just carry on with this thermal that was drifting me over Lock Linney?
It was about a kilometer Uh, crossing of the of the lock, and then I'd hit the mountains on the other side. I was just full of doubt, how am I going to get back from there if I cross over the lot? I could really, I could see there was a little ferry at Corinne, and you know, but I just put all these doubts into my mind. Um, and there was another thing, I'd arranged dinner at this place where we were, we were due to stay that night, and there were other people with me, you know, staying there. And in the end, I, I wimped out and landed on the eastern side of Lock Linney because I fell out of the thermal, of course, because I couldn't keep with it. And to this day, I regret not just going with my gut and really, uh, you know, going to the good sky on the, on the other side of the log.
You know, worse would that, would have happened? I would have had a bit of a walk out. Um, I could, could have flown another 50 or 60 kilometers and landed on the Isle of Mull. And then that would have been a real adventure, you know, having to get a ferry back. And, you know, it would have been a story to dine out on for the rest of time, but I wimped out. So the point of that story is really to just go for it. You know, if you get a chance like that, it doesn't matter what, if you, if you end up having an epic retrieve, that's all part of the fun. Don't, uh, don't wimp out. And for sure, with my, with my lightweight gear that I've got now, I'd absolutely definitely do that.
Back, back, you know, in 2012, I was on much heavier gear, so yeah, I guess that was, you know, weighing on my mind as well as it would have been weighing on my back. But yeah, that's all I wanted to say, really.
Oh yeah, and there's that sees the day, I mean there are those times, isn't it, where it's just totally appropriate to, to go for it. Well, I hope you get another, another opportunity like that. That's, I'm visual, I mean I haven't flown anywhere you just said, but I'm visualizing, you know, flying over the locks and, uh, that would have been, that would have been a crusher, but, uh, well, hopefully you'll get another chance.
It's an awesome place to fly, yeah. I'm, I'm dying for another, uh, trip up to Scotland, you know? When, when the weather's good up in, you know, up in the Highlands of Scotland, it is unbeatable as a place to fly, you know? You, you often get six, 7,000 foot cloud base, which, you know, when the mountains are only 3,000 foot max, you know, you've got huge height over the terrain and it is just so wild and spectacular. Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah.
Brilliant. I had some of the best flying, some of the more memorable flying I've ever had. It certainly was, you know, nothing challenging and nothing radical by any means, but, you know, we spent almost a complete summer sailing the outer Hebrides and Orkney the islands back in 2010,
I guess it was. Yeah. No, late summer of 2011. And you could fly anywhere out in the Hebrides. It was unbelievable. You'd anchor in these cool little bays and ride out these storms. And then there's no trees or anything. No matter what direction the wind was, You could hike up, you know, 10 minutes and then soar. It was all soaring. I never did any XC, um, but I'm sure it could. That'd be pretty neat, you know, to fly from like the northern tip down to, or something. But, uh, just, yeah, I mean, just the, just the spec, it was just beyond spectacular all the time. I actually took my mom for a tandem there. She was on the boat for a couple weeks and she still talks about it as the best day of her life. It was just, it's just awesome.
Can I imagine, yeah?
wicked yeah
Yeah, it is stunning. Well, next year, hopefully, oh.
Man, that would have been good to go, oh.
Yeah, because it was only last year, or no, the year before, 2019, that the first people actually flew to Mull, right?
and I reckon I
could have done it if I'd just gone for it, but yeah, oh man, oh
We've all... we've had plenty of those. It doesn't
matter, it was still a... it was a great, it was a great flight, whatever, and uh
of course i
had a we we were staying at the there's a, uh, there's no, well, a railway line called the West Highlands, uh, West Highland line, I suppose it is. And there's we, a few of us stayed at this, um, old railway station. There was a B&B and they cooked for us there. And whilst we were there, this, this great big Pullman was it? No, the, the Orange Express Press, you know, um, carriages rolled into the station and it was just a, it was a wonderful evening there. We had a superb meal
but even
so yeah
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! A great place to end, Tim. That was, that was terrific. It's fun to talk to you after all these years. I mean, we've been in touch since then, but I can't wait to see what you do next. I was actually over in Europe up after the race in 2019 and watching your expedition very keenly because it looked like a blast, and it's, it is a really, it's a great finger of our sport that is, that, and that you can, uh, walk out on and really enjoy in a lot of different ways. So, I think this will be inspiring for, for those thinking about doing it, but thanks for sharing your advice. We'll put up your, your kit list on the, uh, in the show notes, and anything else you want to share there. And also, I'll, I'll provide a link to your great videos.
But thanks, Tim. I appreciate it.
Thanks very much, Gavin. It's been a pleasure talking to you. And thanks for your contribution to the sport through the Cloudbase Mayhem. It's a fantastic resource, and I look forward to each of the episodes when they come out. So, yeah, cheers. Thanks very much.
That was great. Thanks, Tim. I appreciate it. Talk soon. soon if
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