Hi there everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. This is actually an oldie but goodie episode. We haven't done this, I think we've only done this once. I've gone back to the archives and posted up a show, but Bill Belcourt has been on my mind a lot lately. He was down at the ex-Red Rocks. One day two of that hike and fly race, we had a three day stage race down there that I was the race director for. A very different position than something I've done in the past. It was a blast. We had awesome weather. It was an amazing inaugural event. And our friend Matt Datum won the $5,000 prize for first place in the pro division and everybody's already talking about and starting to plan next year's event.
So, yeah. If you missed it this year and you're into hike and fly, pay attention to the ex-redrocks.com website. We'll be opening applications up there soon and changing a bunch of things to make it even better. And it was a blast. It was pretty amazing. It completely wore me out and I came back to a very furious final build here back in Sun Valley in Idaho to get my family moved in and out of the trailer. We've been in since before the X-House and so I've been burning the midnight oil for the last few weeks big time and I have not been able to record a show. I haven't been able to get anybody lined up in the last couple weeks.
So, we thought we'd go to the archives and go to the very first one, the show that inspired all of this mayhem and all of this madness. It was with Bill Belcourt and we went through. He was the head of the Red Rocks. He was the head of R &D at that time for Black Diamond down in Salt Lake and we were shooting 500 miles to nowhere and went in and had a chat with him with the red cameras rolling and everything. And, you know, whenever you have a chat and an opportunity to sit down with Bill Belcourt, it's a bit mind-blowing. And so we used, you know, it was a seven-minute film in the end, 500 miles to nowhere, and we got a couple of really good lines from him as we knew we would. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. There was an hour of footage in this interview I did with him then. This was 2014. It sat on a hard drive for quite a while. Was it 2014? Maybe 2013. Anyway, it sat on this hard drive for quite a long time and I just thought, God, what do I do with this? I didn't know anything about podcasting. And those of you who have bought the book, Advanced Paragliding, know this story because it's the opener. It's how this all got going. But, anyway, somebody mentioned at one point, I think it was Nick Greece, actually. He mentioned at one point, hey, you should put this in a podcast. And I'm like, a podcast? Well, how's that work? And that's how the mayhem happened. But what he said back then is still totally relevant, if not more so, as it is today.
And it's still gold. We had some weird problems with the sound during the interview with the RED cameras. These are these incredibly expensive, really high-end cameras. But they have a lot of... overheating issues and the fan kept coming on. But the audio is still plenty good enough. And Miles will, of course, do his magic. And I think you'll enjoy it. I am sitting down tomorrow with Eduardo Garza. So we will get caught back up, as we always do. I'm sorry if we're at least a week late right now. But we will get caught back up, back on our regularly scheduled programming of putting out a show every couple weeks. Also working on some bonus stuff in the background, which we'll have out. Shortly as well.
And keep an eye out for our newsletter. We're going to have a pretty nice discount in that at the XC shop. With XC Mag. To take there and buy books if you want. You know, we've got Ricard Martin's latest updated Thermal Flying, which is who I had on the show recently. Or Advanced Paragliding or Beginner Paragliding or whatever. If you're missing some books from your library, you can go and use that code. And that will be in our next newsletter for 15 % off. What else has happened? I went out to Turkey for the World Cup. And that went pretty well. That was a lot of fun since I've talked to you all. And yeah, we ran this X-Red Rocks thing, which was truly a blast.
It was really cool to see. We had 50 people in this thing. The Adventure and Pro class. People went really hard for three days. It was very impressive. And really excited for the next one. So yeah, again. Keep an eye out for that. And in the meantime, enjoy this very first show that we did with Bill Belcourt. Cheers.
Well, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. This is the inaugural episode, the very first episode of the Cloud-Based Mayhem podcast. I've been threatening to do this for an awful long time. And I've finally gotten my act together. We'll see how this goes. This first show is really amazing. But first, what is this all about? What is the Cloud-Based Mayhem podcast? Basically, it was born out of a hope to kind of disperse knowledge about all things free flight. So, acro, cross country, whatever you fly, I think this will be very valuable to you. The reason this kind of sparked my interest in doing it to begin with was my first World Cup that I ever flew.
I flew in, was here in the hometown of Sun Valley in 2012. And after the comp, it was the first time I'd ever flown a comp wing. It was the first time I'd ever really raced with guys and gals who were incredibly talented pilots. And after the race, we had an open distance competition here and had really bad weather, couldn't fly much at all. And instead of just wasting the time and going biking every day, a lot of the real legends in our sport got up and gave some really amazing talks. About how to eat and how to hydrate and how to think big and basically how to fly big distances. And we heard from Matt Beechinor and Nate Scales and Nick Greece and Russ Ogden and Bill Belcourt. And it was just incredible.
We have resources like Cross Country Magazine and Hang Gliding and Paragliding and other resources. But it was just so much information condensed into a really small timeframe. And I think everybody that was there, I was lucky enough to be there, was just blown away. And I thought, God, wouldn't this be amazing to disperse this to the wider flying audience, whether you're an expert or a novice like I was. I just found that I got so much out of it. One of the podcasts I listen to all the time is the Tim Ferriss podcast. And he kind of tries to dissect excellence and provide it to laymen. And that's what this podcast is all about. I'm going to try to interview the really, really exceptional pilots, whether they be hang gliders, paragliders, what have you, in our little French sport and try to disperse that knowledge.
The first guest I have with us is Bill Belcourt. He actually wasn't a guest for the podcast, but he's given me the okay to put this out live. When we were filming 500 Miles to Nowhere, we stopped by Black Diamond. He's the director of research and development there at Black Diamond. And if you've seen the film, you know that there's a couple lines in that film that are just phenomenal. Of course, they came from Bill, our little Yoda. He's the leader of the sport. But what many of you probably don't know is that we sat down with him for over an hour and a half. And I asked him all kinds of things about throwing a reserve and what the concept of bringing it means and how do you fly big, ascetic lines and risk and reward and safety and gear and equipment and where paragliding came from and where it's going and two liners.
And the list just goes on and on and on. It was just this insane course. In free flight that we luckily recorded it. We had the red cameras going. I have to apologize for some of the sound. There's a lot of kind of fan sound coming off one of the cameras. But I've kind of put this together and edited a bit. And I hope you enjoy. So without further ado, here is Bill Belcourt, the legend.
I'm Bill Belcourt and I've been flying paragliders since 1989.
And why paragliding? I know you've got a background in rock climbing and alpine climbing. But why paragliding? What attracted you to that sport?
It seemed like a great descent tool for alpine climbing. Instead of carrying a bunch of ropes and equipment to get down off of something, you could just carry a small paraglider and fly. Fly off the top. That at least was the mentality in the late 80s.
And as a paraglider myself, we all kind of see you as kind of the legend. As the one that really paved the way in cross country paragliding. How did you make the transition from using it as a descent tool to using it as a traveling tool?
It became obvious almost instantly that the paraglider had way more potential in it than just a descent tool. And I wasn't the first one to realize that. People I was flying with also had put that together sooner. My mentors, like John Bouchard being one of them, Todd Bidler being another one. They had realized the potential of paragliders to fly distance. And the glider design at the time was evolving towards that. And in a way from being used as a descent tool.
And if I think back, John Mittendorf, who was one of the bad ass big wall climbers and one of the early users of paragliders as a descent tool, he noticed that the speed increase of the new paraglider descent tool, the new designs made them that much more difficult to launch in precarious places and use as a descent tool. So it was moving away from that to a flying machine that was just more capable of flying. Not just getting down on things. What do you think
of our aircraft in the year 2014?
Well what I think of a paraglider now is,
I'm constantly amazed by the technology's ability to continue to evolve. And that's a credit to the companies making paragliders. I remember thinking in the 90s, oh these things are as good as they're going to get. And even as much as five or six years ago, that they're as good as they're going to get. And now we're just going to see incremental gain. And then there's another breakthrough. Like the two liner. And they just get better. So I've been proven wrong enough to know that they'll just continue to get better. And the amazing thing about it is it's still basically
Dacron or nylon fabric and string. And they just can fold up and fit into a pack and still do incredible things. More incredible things. Than ever before.
Bill, just in the last couple of seasons, it seems like a handful of pilots here in the West have been flying these really big lines. You know, you and Dadum flew to Moab this year. All these records went down last year and this year. What do you attribute that to? What's going on? Is it just wing design? Days
that you can go far is just the realization of years of planning and waiting. And you have some ideas in mind as to what you want to do with a particular day based on the conditions of that day. Whether it be lift, whether it be wind speed, direction. And if you can work out your schedule. It's just a great way for an individual to have that day to go flying. And if you have a plan in mind that you've been thinking about for a long time, then you're just much more likely to be able to execute on the plan instead of just randomly coming up with something while you're in the air.
And trying to think big. And trying to see the day coming. Have a plan in place for the day. Which is always subject to change. But it means you're just more likely to pull it off. And there's been plenty of days in the past where I haven't thought big enough. I've only thought about a flight up to a certain point. Only to arrive at that point with a little bit of day left with no idea what to do next. And now I just try to look out as far as possible on those potential flights. Knowing that they can go better than expected.
They can go worse than expected. And you should be mentally prepared for both. And that is just have a plan.
And are you able to identify those days in advance? Or is this something that you're seeing? Yeah. In the air. And how do you have a plan for the difference? Or how do you adjust to that difference?
You can identify only so much in advance. And you have a plan and a couple of contingencies. And then based on the day that you get, you can adjust. And if you've thought about a big flight in a variety of different ways, then you always have a contingency. You always have an idea of what else you can do with a day besides what you thought might be what you were doing. If that makes any sense. And you just have to have looked at a lot of maps. And you have to have given it a lot of thought.
Talked it over with your flying buddies at times.
And then when the conditions present themselves, even when they're in the air, the solutions are obvious.
Last year at the World Cup, you talked about the concept of bringing it. Can you speak for a moment about risk? What that meant to me was that if you're thinking about flying big, you can't be thinking about landing and being tired or being dehydrated. Bringing it meant willing to put yourself in compromised places and having the skills and having the mental acuity to deal with it. Can you talk about that a bit?
Yeah. What I meant on bringing it, which is basically bringing a mental attitude, a mental focus, a degree of commitment to the flight, and staying on the offensive. And it's another way of putting it is you can fly offensively or you can fly defensively. And a defensive position in flying has to happen at times. But, but if you can keep mentally on the offensive, you can be pushing it.
You can be going for what's next. And knowing that you'll have to ultimately switch at times between flying offensive and flying defensively based on the conditions that present themselves. But you always have to be thinking about the goal, which is to fly, to fly a significant flight, and to do it within a reasonable degree of safety. But these are not safe sports. And there's no guarantee of a safe outcome. So you have to use your skills and what you know to protect yourself, but at the same time to be pushing it.
And it's, it's a fine line at times. And you learn where that line is via experience. And if you're not out there, if you're not out there training all the time, which is trying to fly these flights, then you're not going to have the experience and you're not going to have a good sense of the line. So, so you have to, you have to go a lot. You have to test your theories. You have to have that attitude of, of bringing it when you're going for it. And you have to know when to, when to switch from offense to defense.
Last summer, we had in kind of short, short succession,
a series of just remarkable flights. It started off with Matt Beechner's flight of 193 miles from Sun Valley. And then shortly after that, Nate Scales went 193 miles from Sun Valley. And then shortly after that, Nick Greece went 204 miles from Jackson. What's going on? What's, again, what's, what's changed here?
Well, I think the reason those big flights were happening was,
there's a few reasons. One being, we're a fairly tight group of friends. We talk all the time about trying to do something that's not going to work. And so, we were talking about something big. I was talking to Farmer about 200 miles with a two liner, you know, two for two is what I was calling it. And, and how that was an exciting thing for me to try to, to try to get to as a goal. And if we could all try to get there, it'd be, be hilarious if a bunch of us were focusing on the same thing. So that was happening. We were talking about it. And then, the competition scene had dramatically changed with,
the banning of open class gliders and, and most every competition in the world. And, the fact that, that, to me was a signal that, there was, there was a bit of an end to the amount of freedom that we had when we were flying competitions. And, in order to, you know, to experience, something similar, we were just going to have to switch gears, no longer focus as much on, race to goal competitions and start to focus on, big mountain free flying. And,
and I saw evidence of that in other sports, for instance, for years, in skiing, in this type of skiing that we were doing, and I think that's what I was more into, which is back country. It's gone away from,
it's gone, it's gone away from, safer lines in the trees. It's gone away for years now from ski racing, which, when I started skiing, it seemed like that was everybody's focus. And now you, you see, more people just, riding big lines in the mountains. And, I, I took a little from that, in my shift in focus from flying competitions, to just trying to fly big lines in the mountains. Because as an alpinist, you're, you're looking for cool lines, to climb. They don't have to be the biggest or the longest. And, you're just looking for an aesthetic aspect, a commitment, a,
something that's just inspiring, to you personally. And, and you try to find something that, reflects those qualities, when you're out looking for something new to climb. And, with flying, I see it much the same way. It's not the longest line. It's not the, it's not the records really. It's trying to find an aesthetic line to fly, that is personally inspiring. So you just focus on, that. Do
you think these big lines, is there a maximum? Is it just going to keep going?
Is there a maximum? It depends on what the definition of maximum is. If the only metric you're using is kilometers, then yeah, sure, there's, there's, probably a maximum. But, if, if, the metric that you're using to judge the quality of the flight, is something other than just ultimate kilometers, then there is none. You know, there's, there's cooler lines to fly. There's just deeper lines, more spectacular positions to be in. And, that, in my mind, is, is the number one quality I'm looking for. I'm not necessarily looking for, just measuring it, the quality of the flight by the distance of the flight.
Have
we touched the surface? You know, I know in the Alps, most, not all the lines have been done, but, have we touched the surface here in the, in the Intermountain West?
We're scratching the surface, as far as big lines go, in the States.
I use a climbing analogy to describe this.
When people ask me about paragliding, and what I'm doing with a paraglider, and I say, I feel like George Lowe in the Canadian Rockies in the 70s. And that is, if you look at the significant, ascents done in the Rockies in the 70s, George Lowe is usually, the man to have done them, with various partners. And, it's a really great place to be, if you realize that, you're there. And, I think we're here. And, that's why,
we're having such good success, because, a lot of this hasn't been done before. And, to be there to do it, and to figure it out, is a very special time.
Have you ever been hurt paragliding?
Have I ever been hurt paragliding? I tell people, I only broke my neck once. So, yes, I have been hurt paragliding, and I did break my neck, crashing a paraglider in a competition.
And, did you throw your reserve?
No, it was too low to throw it. I didn't throw the reserve. I just had one reflexive shot at recovering the glider. And, did so for the most part, but didn't have the glide
away from the hill, as the glider was recovering, and ended up, you know, tumbling across the terrain. And, at the time, I had one of those fairing, mildly fairing helmets, like a time trial helmet. And, it was what all the cool guys were wearing. So, so, we had them as well. And, as I tumbled across the ground, which I didn't impact, very hard, the, the helmet managed to catch the ground, in the crash, and twist my head around and break my neck. But other than that, I didn't have a scratch on me.
Have you ever thrown your reserve?
I've thrown my reserve once, and it didn't help.
Did you ever throw your reserve? It didn't help.
No. What happened? You really want this story?
Off the record. Okay.
You can have it on the record. So, was, PWC in the mid-90s, near the,
what was it called?
It was the one near the town of Lecco in Italy, Lake Como. There's a PWC that happens there quite often. And, it was, I don't know, maybe the second or the third task. And, there were some signs of vertical development earlier in the day, but then it just grayed over. So, anything we saw had become embedded. And, while we were seeing the vertical in other valleys, when it grayed over, we didn't notice the vertical in the valley that we were in. And, we were just, I was flying with Dave Bridges, who's an old buddy and a two-time national champion, who was, you know, killed with Alex Lowe on Shishapangma in 99.
And, Dave and I were, maybe, 5K from goal with three-quarters of the field over the town of Lecco when the cumulonimbus above us embedded in the gray dropped out. So, we had one quick turn point to hit before we could glide over the goal line. And, suddenly, I was going down at about, I don't know, 24, 2500 feet a minute. And, I was thinking, man, this is some big sink. So, I pointed the glider towards the last sun patch, figuring I'd just fly over there and, and wait this one out. And, all I could do was point the glider in a different direction.
But, because of the sink, I couldn't glide anywhere. And, and then, you know, I could feel the air get cold. And, I knew that it was a cell and it was dropping. It was the very first stage of it dropping. And, it was going to be trouble. So, uh,
the dropping air turned to wind. And, I, at that point, creeped out to the first soccer field. I saw another glider just landing in. And, before I could get into that soccer field, the wind started to pick up. And, um, and blow me past it. So, then the glider, I was flying a Firebird Colt at the time, which was one of the hotter gliders ever made. And, was very susceptible to some dramatic frontals. So, the glider would just disappear. So, the glider disappears. Um, but at this point, I was kind of used to that with this glider. And, I just get it back. And, and then I arrived at the next field I could land in.
And, then I got blown past that one. Glider would disappear. I'd get it back. And, now it's coming up on the town to let go. And, I said to myself, the glider blows up one more time. I'm just going to toss it. So, at this point, I'm maybe a few hundred feet. The glider blows up one more time. I just instantly toss the reserve, uh, as the glider, uh, recovers in a steep spiral within asymmetric. And, the reserve, is, the reserve weather vanes behind me, but doesn't come out of the envelope. So, it's, it's not, I can't reach the bridle, because it's just right behind me as I'm, as I'm in the spiral from the glider. So, I just go back to the glider.
And, I recover the glider. Uh, into the wind at rooftop level. And, at this point, it's, it's raining, lightning, hail. And, and for a moment, everything stops. And, I just see this rooftop to my right. Glider comes into the wind. Everything stops. And then the reserve opens. So, the reserve just opens, like a gunshot. And, starts,
dragging me at a high rate of speed through the neighborhood. Um, and I'm still off the ground. So, so in a moment later, um, I get, I get pasted against this chain link fence, which was good. It was like, because it had a lot of flex to it. So, I just hit the fence. It flexes. And, I grab onto it. And the reserve is on the other side of the fence. Uh, and it's just pulsing with the wind. And the wind is blowing, um, at like 40 miles an hour. So, the reserve's pulsing with the wind. And, I've got my hands through the chain link, like this. And, I've warmed my toes underneath the bottom of the fence. And so, and I was climbing a lot at the time.
And I was really strong. I could do one arm pull up with either hand. And so, I'm thinking, nothing's getting me off this fence. You know, I don't care how hard it blows. And so, the winds, just pulsing. And, the posts for the fence are in asphalt. And, then I'm looking, I'm looking at the post, cause the fence is flexing a lot. And the concrete cylinders are starting to crack the asphalt and come out of the ground, on either side of me. So, it's just splintering. And I'm seeing the cylinders just kind of start rising, um, on the two posts. And I'm going, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no,
no, one hand and, uh, and then managed to unclip the buckles, uh, and then just raise my arms really quickly until the harness just got sucked off me. And, uh, and the reserve blew a couple yards, a couple houses away and, and just got caught in some tree. So I was, I was out, I was standing in the hail and the lightning and the rain, um, on, in somebody's driveway, you know, and there I was. So I gathered up my stuff and while I was doing so, um, old Italian ladies were coming out of the houses going, Oh, Madonna, Oh, Madonna, whatever that means. Oh my God, I guess.
So, uh, so one of them brought me like a double whiskey and, uh, and I just drained it and I could really have used another one, but my Italian, wasn't that good. Uh, and, and then she opened the garage for me to stand in while, uh, uh, while the, until the rain stopped. So I'm standing in this open garage, I've gathered up all my kids, stuffed it into the bag and the cops show up. So it's some Italian cop with a, uh, VW GTI. And he just motions me to throw my stuff in the car. And, and I, I do, and I get, I get in the front seat and he doesn't say a word and he just drives down the wrong side of the street, runs people off the road with his lights on and he drives to meet headquarters.
And he doesn't say a word to me. He just pulls up on the curb in front of me, headquarters, and just gets out of the car and just walks in. So I just kind of gather my stuff and I'm walking in like 50 feet behind him and he finds the meat organizer and he just starts laying into him in Italian. Um, and there's a lot of hand-waving going on and a lot of yelling and then the cop just leaves. And there I am. And I just check in and, uh, and that was it. But the reserve didn't help me that day. And, um, I haven't thrown it since.
So that's my one reserve.
Bill, can you compare the flying here in the American West to other places in the world? I know you've flown comps all over the world and you've flown in Europe a lot. Um, what's the, what are the major differences between the flights that we do here? Um, versus other places that you've flown?
Flying in the U.S. versus Europe? In the U.S. it's burlier. There's more winds. I think the thermals are, uh,
are rougher.
Being on the speed bar for any length of time requires a lot more glider management. I've just been amazed at times in Europe where I could be well into the speed bar in a really complex, uh, kind of, uh, kind of, uh, kind of, uh, kind of, uh, kind of, uh, kind of, uh, kind of, calm piece of air and just being shocked by how calm it was between thermals. And obviously there's, there's no place very remote in Europe. You're going to find roads and cell service virtually everywhere. And in the States, uh, as, as indicated by Guy Anderson's Sun Valley experience, there's a lot of, uh, a lot of, uh, a lot of, uh, a lot of, uh, a lot of, uh, a lot of, a lot of places that you can be where there's no cell coverage and there's going to be, uh, uh, you're going to be difficult to find if something should go wrong and you're out of communication.
So, so when you're flying in the West, you're largely on your own. And, um, and there's, there's also, uh, there's mountain lions, there's bears, there's rattlesnakes,
uh, there's usually more wind. So, so there's a, there's a lot that can, uh, can present additional challenges when you fly in the West versus Europe.
Do those changes that you just talked about, does that impact your kit? Tell me a little bit about what you carry when you do say big flights on the Uintas or in the Wasatch or other places that you've flown in the American West. Do you, uh, do you carry a different things in your, in your harness than you do in other parts of the world here?
Perfectly honest, not really besides bringing some food. Certainly if you're flying at altitude, you have plenty of clothes with you. Um, you've got your glider. I'm not, I'm not bringing much in addition to, uh, I'm not bringing camping gear. If you will, because as a, as an alpinist, the amount of stuff that we have with us just to go flying is more than an alpinist would have. Uh, and where you could potentially be sleeping is going to be less harsh anyway. It's not like you're high on some North facing ice climb on some tiny ledge shaking, shaking all night because, um, that's, that's really what, uh, the high end of alpinism can involve.
Uh, if you're landing out in the middle of nowhere, you're, you're not as high. You've got this big paraglider you can sleep in. And, uh, if you've got a GPS, you can find some trail systems or whatnot and, and just walk out. It's just like, it's like a long approach, uh, for going climbing just in reverse. So it's, it's, I don't really think you need to have, uh, a lot of stuff with you besides the basics, food, water, and your gliders, your shelter.
What about oxygen? Um, we're really the kind of only group of pilots in the world that have tanks in our houses and stuff. What do you think about oxygen?
It's a necessity out here. You're getting to the legal limit, which is about 5,500 meters and, or 18,000 meters. As a helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter! As
a helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter! a helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter helicopter decisions in order to stay warm and to have some visual acuity to pick out either climbing birds or good places to land or power lines or whatnot. You need that O2 to stay sharp enough to stack the deck in your favor as far as making good decisions and staying out of trouble. You've
inspired a huge number of people over the years. Who inspired you?
Well, who inspires me?
I've said this before and that's anyone pushing hard for nothing.
That's what paragliding to me has been about. That is, here's an obscure sport just like climbing used to be an obscure sport.
You're trying to realize your own potential in a place where no one sees and no one cares.
There's a purity in that. There's a lack of distraction that goes with it. It's just you and the elements.
That's it. It's a pure thing. It's a real personal experience. So an alpinist before me, like some of the names I've mentioned earlier, whether it be Bouchard, George Lowe, or Todd Bibler, George never got into flying paragliders, but Bouchard and Bibler did. And they came from alpinism and that was a sport which the basic premise was doing the most with the least. And I see a paraglider as the ultimate flying machine because it is really the least.
So you're doing the most with the least with a paraglider and you're doing it in a very similar way to alpinism. And you're far from the public eye when you're doing that. As a paraglider, that's the other you're doing it and there's no there's no corruption from that and you're just doing your craft for you and when you have some friends you can do with it makes it all that much more special but but anything I've done relative to inspiring anybody else is also doing is passing the baton as it was passed to me
and and it's the obligation to pass the baton next to whoever gets it and that's you know that's how it goes well
that is it for the inaugural cloud-based mayhem podcast I hope you enjoyed all that I certainly did and next up well I don't know who I'm going to be interviewing next we've got quite a few candidates a couple things in the hole maybe we'll talk to Nick who is our U.S. champion and just return from the world down in Columbia recently but anyway stay tuned and hope you enjoyed it and this is over and out from Gavin McClurg cheers
if you find the cloud-based mayhem valuable you can support it in a lot of different ways you can give us a rating on iTunes or Stitcher or however you get your podcast that goes a long ways and helps spread the word you can blog about it on your own website or share it on social media you can talk about it on the way up to launch with your pilot friends I know a lot of interesting conversations have happened that way and I hope you enjoyed it and I'll see you next time
take care
$25 a year so way cheaper than a magazine subscription service and it makes all of this possible. I do not want to fund this show with advertising or sponsors. We get asked about that pretty frequently, but for a whole bunch of different reasons, which I've said many times on the show, I don't want to do that. I don't like having that stuff at the front of the show. And I also want you to know that these are authentic conversations with real people and these are just our opinions, but our opinions are not being skewed by sponsors or advertising dollars. I think that's a pretty toxic business model. So I hope you dig that. Um, you can support us. If you go to cloudbasedmayhem.com, you can find the places to support. You can do it through patreon.com forward slash cloudbasedmayhem. If you want a recurring subscription, you can also do that directly through the website. We've tried to make it really easy and that will give you access to all the bonus material, little video casts that we do and extra little nuggets that we find in conversations that don't make it into the main show, but we feel like you should hear.
We don't put any of that behind a paywall. If you can't afford to, support us, then just let me know and I'll set you up with an account. Of course, that'll be lifetime and hopefully you're being in a position someday to be able to support us, but you'll find all that on the website. Uh, all of you who have supported us or even joined our newsletter or bought cloud-based mayhem merchandise, t-shirts or hats or anything, you should be all set up. You should have an account and you should be able to access all that bonus material. Now, thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate your support and we'll see you on the next show. Thank you..
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