Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. Start this one right off the top with an apology for being so late with this one. I did a whole bunch of recordings back in August and had a bunch laid out for the future. And then I race directed for the ex-Red Rocks and have just been buried in this house build here between Haley and Ketchum, I'm trying to get my family out of the trailer that we've lived in for the last five months since before the X-Alps. It's actually the day after my crash back in May and then X-Alps and then back here. And that whole time we haven't had internet or even cell service on the job site. So it's been really tricky to record and set up recording. So I apologize for being late with this one.
We will get back on schedule as always. And my guest today is Eduardo Garza, a really good friend of mine. Team Mexico in the last two X outs, he's had really good races in both, and a really, really awesome performance this year. He was kind of hanging tight with the middle of the crew, and then had a breakout flight, took a totally different path, went north like Regal did, I think, a day or two before him, and really made it work, and made it through Piz Paloo, and to come in 14th place. And we talk a lot about the race; this is basically dedicated to his thoughts on the race four months post-race, which is fun. I think we all go through a little bit of post-race trauma depending on what's next and what's in the future, and he and I are both pretty firmly in the camp of not doing it again, so I wanted to ask him about that, and but we get into his experience, which was all good, and talked a lot about the weather and the wind and some of the scary stuff that we had to deal with this year.
And those of you who are fans of the race, I think you'll really enjoy it. Eduardo's got a great attitude, he's an awesome pilot. I think this year was, I think he was first of the non-Europeans, which I've gotten a couple times in my X-Alps, and you know, it's just tough to go do battle with the euros because they're, they're on, they got a massive home field advantage. And so we talked about that, but we had a lot of fun with this, a lot of laughs, and I think you're going to enjoy it. We've talked about the training quite a bit as well. He and I both have the same trainer, Ben Abruzzo, who's also supported me and been really integral to my team since the beginning, since the 2015 race. So enjoy this talk with Eduardo Garza. Cheers.
Eduardo, thanks for taking this last minute invite. I know you've been buried in work. I think the last time I saw you, we were turning circles in Chelan, which sounds like that's a little more fun than what's going going on in your world right now what do you guys what are you and bianca up to what's happening out on the east coast well
First of all, Gabby, thank you very much for the invites. This is, this is an honor, really, because I really love what you have been doing with the podcast, so it's awesome to be here chatting with you. Thank you. So, here, the East Coast, we're trying to fly as much as possible, actually. Uh, weather has not been cooperating that much, really, lately. But, uh, well, yeah, staying in the the air as much as possible. Cool.
and you're tell the audience what you do because they, a lot of people that follow the X-Alps, obviously know you from that, and you're done the x-period a couple times, and this was your second X-Alps, but what's your, what's your business? What's your background? That's, that's not related to flying. How do you, how do you, how do you pay for flying? I
Should ask, I think that's a very good question. Actually, uh, I'm an engineer; I'm a mechanical, electrical, electrical engineer, and I work for a manufacturing company that makes fiber optic cables for telecommunications. So this is an office, just
Got fiber optic brought to my house. Yes, you make the stuff that made made this possible. In some ways, I haven't had internet for the last five months, and I tell you, it's a—it's a blessing and a curse, yeah.
so so we build infrastructure exactly for for all the Netflixes and videos, et cetera. So it's a very demanding job, and trying to marry that with paragliding has really been a struggle, I should say, lately.
One of the things I wanted to talk to you about is how did the training look this year? Did anything change? Because we both have the same trainer. We both use Ben Abruzzo. I've used him for all four of mine, and you've been using him for years now, and using it for your first X-Alps in 2019, which you did really well at as well as this one. So I wanted to ask you what changed, but one of the big differences, I always think about you and always feel for you. In some ways, when we look at the top 10 this year of the X-Alps, they're all what I would consider professional pilots. This is what they do and they get paid to do it and that's their job. And, uh, you're, you're one of the few actually in the race who, uh, you know, you have to find the time outside of a full-time job to prepare for the race.
And, you know, I always feel like I've got a lot of luxury in that I can just focus on the training going into it. I mean, I still have to, I have my job and my work, but it's not a nine to five, like you've got, and it must be incredibly hard to find the time. I mean, that's one of the reasons I decided I'm not doing another XOPS. It's not just the risk and everything I put out in that article. It's the time. It's the dedication to this 12 days that goes into the year in advance. That must be really tough with what you do. Totally
agree. I couldn't agree more, Gavin. That is where the real struggle marrying my profession as an engineer with preparing for something as large and involved as the XOPS comes from. Normally, in my day, when I am training for the X-Ups, you're talking about starting training at 6 to 7 p.m. So you work a full day, eight hours. Then you start training at 6 or 7 p.m. And as you know, with Ben, it's not exactly a walk in the park.
No, it's no joke, man. And he
really tries to destroy your body because as a Nelson, actually, I was talking to Nelson the frame before, uh, before my first race. And he said, you either go to war before the race or during the race. So if you go for the race, you're going to enjoy it. Otherwise they're in the race is going to be destroyed. So, uh, I tried to put in as much effort and time before the race. And this time around, since you asked about the changes, I asked Ben to increase the volume, not substantially, because I really cannot afford to be training for two, three hours every single weekday because, in addition, obviously you have the weekends, which are normally six to seven hours, and in addition to that, where I live, there's
really not very high mountains, so 70 of the vertical meters that I did in training were done on a 200 meter hill that you cannot fly off
Oh my gosh, you're just going up, down, up, down. You're just yo-yoing all day.
up and down, up and down. You can ask Ben for, uh, for some of the tracks. It's just like a, like a scratchy line up and down that, uh, incline. I know every single rock, every single tree, even by name.
Hello, Fred. Very disappointed to see you.
Again, yeah, so so it's really, really challenging. We have, uh, taller mountains if, if I drive between hour and a half and two hours, but that's not something than I can do during weekdays because I'm working, so that's where the show, I mean...
I feel for... I see your posts. I follow you on Instagram, obviously, and I, you know, and I talk to Ben regularly every day. And, and uh, I see your posts of, you know, snowshoeing in the fog and the ice. And, you know, I get to go out and, you know, and ski tour. That's my training is going out and really having fun and getting a lot of vertical and, you know, doing all the hell that he puts us through. But, uh, it's... you're in a much more challenging zone to, to get the vertical and to get the hats off to you, man. I mean, because you're obviously coming in super fit, yeah.
No, thank you. Yes, definitely challenging, and uh, that's why I'm always trying to find an edge. You know, how—how can I compete against some of the best hike and fly athletes in the world with limited time and limited resources in terms, you know, the vertical and also the fact that we're in America, which is a huge, I think, disadvantage just because we are not in tune or flying with the weather conditions or the valley systems that are a world of difference when it comes to staying in the air and just making easy kilometers. For example, we don't have that second like nature of knowledge that comes with living in the Alps.
So it's definitely challenging, but I have really appreciated that challenge. And that's why every time that we do or we finish in a decent position is really rewarding.
Yeah. That really hit me in 2019. Not so much this time because it just seemed like the weather this time was so brutal, man. It was just so bad and all of it was so bad and still very fun. And we flew every day. It was fascinating. Fascinating. I think what, you know, I was just talking to Ben, I told you, I was talking to Ben earlier today. And the, the thing that this is always the time, you know, it's been four months since the end of the race. This is always the time where it really starts to hit me that to not do another one is, is starts to feel really scary. I don't know. That's not the right word. It's just that race puts you in places with your team that you're never, ever going to be able to replicate.
And I don't mean just locations. I don't mean places in terms of that spot on top of that mountain. I mean, places emotionally and physically and the beauty, all of it. It's the intensity of the experience that I can't replicate. I know I can't replicate it. If Ben and I got together and went and did a vol biv in the Alps, that's going to be really fun and very rewarding, but it's not going to be the same. You're not going to get out of bed and go do the stuff that we do day after day after day. And there's something very special about that. And, uh, yeah. So let me turn that into a question that you've had now that you've had this time of reflection, you know, I did see you very briefly at the awards.
Um, you had a really bitching end to that race. You made some awesome moves. You had an incredible move to the North and then that put you nicely in position to get Piss Paloo turn point and leapfrogged a bunch of people at a really good end of the race. And so, you know, you, like all of us at the end are kind of on a cloud nine at the awards, but also, you know, I saw the same look in your eyes that I did with everybody, which was kind of Jesus. That was intense. Um, I'm sure it was the same look you saw on me. Um, you know, you're exhausted, you're thrilled that you're excited to be alive, or at least I was. Um, but what's, what have you had, you know, what's been the reflection since? sense. What, what are the kind of emotional roller coasters, if you've had any?
I know I have since then. You know what, do you kind of go through it because now you've done it twice? You're a proper veteran. I'm curious because I think we each have our own unique experiences after the race, and that's always... after has been really tough for me. You
know, Gavin, I agree with you that after a few months pass after the race, you, uh, you forget about the painful bits and you start thinking, "Oh, this would be really cool to do again, right?" Yeah, and, uh, certainly after this race, after all the weather and everything that happened, uh, you put it in perspective. But to be honest, I don't, don't regret a thing. And this reminds me a lot about a book I read. And most likely you're familiar with it. It's How to Get in Flow. And it's written by this now famous person, Mijaili. She says Mijaili, right? Yeah. And I'm sure I butchered that last name by the way.
So I followed it. No, no, that was good. But in this book, he has a quote that says, the best moments in our lives are not when we are passive or doing nothing, just relaxing. That's not where your best moment is going to be. Your best moment in your life will happen when your body or your mind or both are stretched to its limits, trying to accomplish something that that is difficult and worthwhile. So I think that we accomplished that. So this goes down in my experience as something that I'm going to remember for the rest of my days. And it's one of the best moments in my life just because we pushed the limits, we passed the limits,
and we're still here. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if you saw that recent article I wrote in Cross Country I haven't actually seen it, but Ben said it's out, you know, about this being my last one. You and I talked about it briefly at the awards that night, you know, geez, man, should we, could we do it again? I really felt like the risk was absurd this year, you know, and we're all in different places in the course. I mean, I know, you know, Aaron Durogati said that he had many times where he thought it was definitely life-threatening. You know, what he was doing was way beyond what even he trains for. And as you know, you know, he trains, he trains in some awfully nasty stuff because he wants to, you know, he's pretty fearless, you know, but I felt like, you know, so we all were, we were all in different positions.
But, you know, I, I specifically remember the day where Lori, you know, through her reserve, they didn't put this anywhere on the, in the media. They don't talk about bad stuff in the X-Alps, but, you know, she took off basically with you and Cody and a couple others from Laramouse that day. And about the same time, I, you know, I don't know exactly. I got there later that day and you guys were, you know, in my, from my perspective on the ground at Laramouse, you know, we're flying in a full on lightning storm and it was, it was vicious. The sky was insane. I mean, it wasn't, Revis was kind of like, yeah, man. Yeah. I think you should, you know, you could probably get up there and make it work. I don't know. I think it might be a good time to just walk for a bit. And that was the day that Lori, you know, went parachutal cause the rain, um, through a reserve to, you know, cause she was coming down on high tension power lines and, and you were making it work that day in the air, man, it looked dicey.
And, and it was just, you know, the next day and the next day and the next day I flew in stuff that looked just like that. It was just over and over and over again. We were in just vicious weather, really traumatizing. And, and, but it wasn't, it's, but it's weird. It's not, it would be traumatizing if we were just normally flying, but it wasn't, it's not traumatizing because you're in the race. Yeah, bring it. Um, but what do you think? I mean, is it acceptable? I mean, did you, when you finished the race, when you were done? I mean, because that day at the awards, you were kind of... yeah, I don't know. I don't think I'm gonna do this again. I'd be curious, where are you sitting on it now? Are you still thinking that? Are you thinking, yeah, yeah, better do it once more? You
Know, I'm still thinking that I don't think I'm doing it again, uh, just for simple reasons because it's, it's just too much, much time that you need to invest in right now. I don't have the time, and I did it twice already, so pretty much check, uh, but not, not a lot about the risk though, uh, it's more about the stress that went into preparing for a race with COVID times and again with, yeah, that's, yeah, that, that was, that was the worst because I didn't have any plane tickets, uh, a month prior to the race, so there was a lot of preparation at the end that had to go through. So the only way that I would do this again is if I live in the Alps, there's no other way, uh, so, uh, that's, uh, that's a definite.
Now, regarding, regarding risk, you know, let's, um, let's just be truthful, you cannot play conservative, conservative, and still try to finish in the top 10, top 15, not even top 20. If you play it conservatively, you have to risk it, you have to fly. If you have 60 kilometer per hour winds from the north and you're launching south, you have to manage. That's, that's, I think what you have to do every single day. Uh, you mentioned the day that I flew with Cody, with Theo, uh, Laurie and, uh, Nicola actually from Lermos. I remember that day vividly because we were at lunch together and Laurie launches first and she just goes up like, okay, so it's working, it's perfect and beautiful.
At this point, we didn't know if we were going to take the northern route or the southern route or southwestern route, uh, through the Albert Pass, so, uh, I told my team, I'm going to make the decision once I'm in, in the air. So I launched at the end because I was missing a cable. So there's four gliders in the air, everyone getting really tall. So when I launched and I passed the Grubichstein Peak and I see to the north, it's pretty much like you described. It was just nastiness, lower cloud south base. There was darkness in the valleys; there was, it was a dark omen on the north side. You know what decision made, we're going south and actually to the south, it was, it was pretty nice for the beginning.
It was mellow, two meter per second. We're just scratching the peaks. I was with at this point, I didn't see Cody, which later I learned that he had taken the northern route, so he was going towards the darkness so I couldn't figure that out but Theo and Nicola were team flying with me, so we got to a point in Imst
that someone flipped the switch, it's from mellow conditions to nuclear conditions so I'm in a thermal, I'm entering this thermal and I'm gladly going up, but I remember that we have airspace on top, right? So yeah, um, Nicola and Theo are around me and they start spiraling, so like, okay, you know that's where is
That where Theo got his airspace violation, or no, that was where he's on that
Nicola, yeah, Nicola got his airspace there. Uh, yeah, so I start spiraling as well lightly first, and I'm still going up. So now I crank the spiral even more, and I'm still going up. So I'm from 300 meters, now now I'm 200 meters from airspace. It's like, this is not letting up. So now I have to crank whole spiral, full G-force. And unfortunately, I am still going up. So at this point, it's just so much noise just going up from the Vario and also now from the airspace alarms that I just keep the spiral. But I get to a point where now I get sucked into the cloud. So now I don't know where I am, and as you know, that area is big picks everywhere, yeah?
So I have all this noise around me. I don't know if I'm in airspace, and I'm still cranking probably five G's. And when I think that nothing else can go wrong, I hear a loud snap, but it was more of a crack. I sink into the harness and I feel a sharp pain on my lower back. It's like, now I'm in trouble because something is happening with my harness now, and I cannot keep this g-force going on for so much longer until I fall from the sky. You broke your harness? The harness, yes, because of the g-force. It was so nasty. The thermal was just bouncing me around, and this is—this is not a harness problem.
This is a conditions that I was in, cranking the spiral problem. So probably I was two minutes, or—or it seemed like forever, but I think it was more like probably 30 seconds. But I get dumped finally behind the mountain. So I get released from this monster thermal and I know where I am now. Fortunately, I didn't spiral into a peak. So now that I see where I am, I push forward. And the crazy thing is, and this is what VXAlps does to you, you just keep flying. You're probably shaking a little bit. You're, you're scared. You're, you're thinking that, but you're thinking, "Where can I get my next climb so I don't have to land and keep hiking?" So...
And after that, we got downwashed in the arbor class, uh, with the west wind, so I land, uh, middle hill, and then we just walked and walked and walked and walked, but, uh, but yeah, that, that day was definitely a scary one. And by the way, I regarded the harness, uh, I thought it was the, the air bladder that had burst, but, uh, but no, it was one of the rods, uh, in the back that had broken. So that was, that was just, uh, pretty much sticking out, and but it was all, you know, it was still flyable, obviously, uh, but, uh, obviously it was all wobbly and not proper for control, so
You were able to just fix that on the fly? Did you have a spare or something? What
I did, was I shifted my body so it was not affecting me for or too much for my flying, and in the air I called my team and said, "You know what, guys? I need, I need a new harness, so you know next flight." That was all set. That was it, yeah.
It's, it's funny what we do in the air, isn't it? You just, you do all kinds of stuff up there that normally it'd be. Yeah, it's, it's I have some pretty amazing conversations with Revis while I'm cruising around in the, in the chaos, sometimes where the hell am I? Um, yeah. So when you, when you look back and maybe this was the same at the end of the race or now, but what was that? When you think about the X-Ops, do you have a standout? You know, what was the best experience that you had in those 12 days during the race?
You know, best experience I have, I have many, many really good experiences, experiences, uh, that you can catalog differently, because when you see people go out and greet you and help you and feed you and try to help you in any way they can, and they have a huge smile on their face, and you have just walked 80 kilometers and you are devastated physically, but you still find the energy to, you know, what, you feed from their energy, and now you feel great, and nothing, nothing bad has happened, and it's all, you know, it's all amazing. It's all great. So I had a few experiences like that. I remember in Berbia, so Yael's hometown.
I land down in Berbia, a little bit lower, and this guy comes and greets me like, oh, you're ex-house, okay, yeah, I'll show you the way. You can just hike here and then you can launch and you can keep going down the road. I go, okay, sounds good. So we keep hiking and then more people start coming. Actually, his brother starts coming. So it's like, okay, I'll take you. I can take you from here. I'm the pre-radiation relay. So we'll go up this road here and you'll get to launch in about 30 minutes. I don't think you can do it today, but we'll find you a place to sleep. Nowhere. I'm like, all right. Next thing I know, this person's father, and I believe his name, the guy who actually hacked me, is Joshua. joshua and i'm sorry if that's not the name but joshua's His father comes out with the biggest biggest cowbell that i've seen and he's cranking it bang he's super excited and he's giving me tea he's giving me he's like anything else if your team is not coming
because I think that they are a little bit far away because because they were watching the race, and they knew that I had launched from Mont Blanc on the Col d'Enclerc, which I think that you flew from the same one? Yeah, exactly. So Jason had Hype with me and he couldn't launch because he had crazily, this is why we called him the Mule. His nickname was the Mule. He was carrying two backpacks, his wing and then another backpack with winter gear because it was pretty cold. And also rain gear, because it was thunderstorms rolling through, so he couldn't fly with that, so he had to walk down. So they were like three or four hours behind me, and so I get to the top and we go to this little restaurant and they find us an actual, uh, connection for the Tesla, because because our other car was a Tesla, and we were just running out of juice.
So they didn't only find that, but they brought us, you know, beer and food. The father actually cooked everything. It was sumptuous. It was a really, really good meal. So I have really, really good memories from that day, just because of how the people behaved with us. Well, part of the reason was that no one went through there. yeah, it was only Maurer. And they were like, Maurer came through here, but he was 1,000 meters above us.
A typical story about Maurer. Yes, I guess so. I get those along the way. Yeah, Maurer came through here two days ago. Yeah,
we know, we know. No, no, but they were super cool. They were super cool. So on that, let's say, category of people, It's, it's always, uh, very good stories from the 2019 race and from the 2021 race. The people are amazing. The Alps, they really follow the race, so I love that. Now, from a, from a flying perspective, you know, partly why I do this race is I love those mountains. I'm constantly impressed by what I see. So, in this race, I flew, or we flew, in areas that I had no idea that they were so beautiful. Like, for example, uh, after Santis, that you fly south and now you have to launch and cross Valencia in
order to get to Klaus and pass just flying that area, I had never seen it before. Like, I was impressed. I even did a few, a few turns just to, you know, to gather everything, thing, uh, take some videos, pictures, etc. And then I kept going because it was just so beautiful. Same thing happened with the back side of, uh, Innsbruck, you know, north of Innsbruck, flying from Agensee towards Lermos, towards Gadmisch, let's say. So, I flew the, the southern part that didn't take the, let's say, the smaller mountains in the north. I was just impressed at this wall that just appeared when I rounded the corner, probably 800 meters high, 800 meters high, completely vertical, extending for 10 kilometers. I was just, uh, dumbfounded of such beauty, you know?
So, so many days like those, uh, just, just looking at the sites, it's, it's just amazing. So that's another category that's
A stunning place to have that kind of event. It really is terrific. I mean, just the the opportunities for top landing and side hill landing and relaunching, and you know, you can just put it down almost anywhere, launch anywhere. And basically, if you go up, you're going to find something that works. And it's, yeah, it's really, it's a labyrinth too. You know, this time when I got to Laramie this year, you guys had just gotten in the air and, you know, we made the call that, nah, it'd probably be better to walk. And I just started walking down the road that was on the north side of where you were. And and that leads to the the valley that leads up to the wharf pass, which was what was kind of my plan, a you know, before the race.
You know, you look at all the routes and that was kind of what I was planning to go through, and I had no idea until, you know, that night just turned into a catastrophe of epic fun. It was, it was, it, and I use catastrophe specifically because it was, you know, I walked and then we tried to, you know, I found this launch in the ski area that was... It was really dicey getting off. I had to run down. It was completely cross and all covered around in trees and just a classic exile experience. It was really fun. And then I literally went about a kilometer. And, you know, the winds just were totally opposite of what we wanted. And, you know, so I spent all this time going uphill and went nowhere, which had been at that point my race. And, you know, just a series of bad luck and bad decisions. And then, but that put us in this position of launching off the castle. I don't know if you saw that footage.
I launched off this castle that night and got a 70 to one glide in this sky that was just, you knew it was going to unleash at any moment. And it did, as soon as my feet hit the ground, you know, I just had this insane glide and, you know, covered a bunch of ground and, and almost caught up with you guys in terms of the distance kind of thing. Uh, Laurie was right there, and you know, so we'd had a pretty good day, even though a lot of it was, was on the ground. And the next day, it put us into this Worth Pass zone, and I had no idea that's where Firebird used to be, and Robbie Whittall, you know, cut his teeth there, and he used to say that that was the most complicated, most dangerous place to fly in the Alps. And because it's just a super convoluted, it's almost like the Furka Grimsel type of scenario where you've got a lot of different, different passes, a lot of different stuff coming in.
That's right before the big jump over to Santus. And, um, and I, it was just fascinating to be up in there and, you know, I had studied it and studied and studied it on Google earth. And I got in there and literally just couldn't get my head around it. It was, it was just, well, where are we? Which way are we going? And, uh, you know, it was, but beautiful, stunning and, you know, chairlifts all over the place. And, uh, you know, it was definitely one of those kinds of days where it wasn't very flyable that day. It was pretty nasty, but it was one of those days where you had to just stop every once in a while and go, this is really neat. This is a really cool zone. I don't know if I'll ever be back here.
Exactly. It's just mind-numbingly beautiful, stunning. And by the way, I also got lost. I didn't know exactly where to go. When I got to Arlberg Pass, there were so many little canyons or valleys that I could go through. It's like, okay, wait a second. I studied this. Why can't I figure it out? So you said it's elaborate? That was the perfect description because it was like that. But now I have to say that us not being from the Alps, obviously, are a little more foreign to all those nuances. But how we try to get through that is not only Google Earth or just checking maps, but we also try more on a simulation-based.
So with a VR headset and flying a glider in a simulation. Wow. How do you do that? traverse the route. I think I did the route two or three times. How
Do you, how do you do that in Google Earth, but with VR? Or how do you, you can do it, you
Can do it in Google Earth; however, the app just gets you dizzy, so there is this, uh, piece of software. It's, it's a simulator, really. It's a, it's called a Condor Simulator. They, uh, they use it a lot for, for sailplanes, so you're really flying and a sailplane, so you cannot really learn how to fly an area because also the weather models, you can see it, but you can see it exactly. So the topography and the textures used are actually ultra realistic, so you can really learn all the, the nuances, the little spots, little hills in front that might be triggers, or you fly on the high side and how that connects to the next valley and everything.
You can do it on a, on a 2d screen, obviously, but if you really want the immersive experience, you can get like an Oculus 2 headset and just fly, fly with that. And you're, you're sitting in a cabin, right? You're seeing your glider and you're just flying around doing circles. You know, you still have thermal, even though the weather model is, is very simplistic. It doesn't have valley winds, and you know, you see a cloud, you're going up, kind of thing. So it's not, it's, it's not that difficult, let's say. It's a really good tool to learn the topography. And at least in my case, you know, we explore the fact that we don't have a lot of big mountains here. And for me, the psychology aspect of being immersed in only, you know, probably our highest mountain that we fly here is 1,000 meters.
You know, and 1,500 meters is the highest that we have in the area that we fly kind of regularly. So you being in front of walls that are 1,000 meters high and then the peaks are another 1,000 meters and you're already 1,000 meters high. So that psychology, it can be really intimidating for someone who's not in that world. So if you use virtual reality, you can get past that threshold where now you feel confident about flying among such scenery and such big mountains.
When you, when you came into this one, you, you talked to a little bit about, you know, increasing the volume on your training to the extent that you could, cause you were working, but did you come in? I remember in my first, you know, my going into 2015, I was terrified initially before the race. Cause I hadn't done, you know, you had done the X-Pyr twice or once before, twice before the, before the X out. So you had some, some serious hike and fly experience. I had none. I was just going in kind of cold. So I had done all the physical training, but I was just terrified in terms of, you know, am I just going to be totally left in the dust? Am I going to get eliminated at, you know, I had, I really had no idea what to expect. So I'm assuming you came in with a little more confidence than I did because you'd had those X-Pyr experiences.
But what was the frame of mind difference between the first one and the second one? You know, because your first one, I can't remember exactly where you placed, 16th? 16th, yes, behind Nick, yes. Yeah, so it was, you know, you had a really good race and lots of fun. You know, unfortunately, you were with me. We were in that gaggle that didn't make it to Monaco. go, but you know, it was, it was a very, by, you know, comparison standards, insanely tame compared to 2021. Um, you know, we had our, you know, you had that gust front experience, but we had hardly any wind. We didn't have any fern. We didn't have much weather other than, you know, in the middle of the race, we had a lot of that rain and, you know, it wasn't very thermic, but I wouldn't say it was scary, you know, or is this one was really scary, but how did the, how did going into the two races, you know, did you feel a lot more confident?
Did you feel different? Did you feel, what were your goals going into this one?
I definitely changed the goals in this one. 2019, I was more worried about, well, how am I going to be competing against this crowd? And I was a lot, I would call it more uptight or more anxious about how that would play out. 2021, I knew I was going to be able to keep up and I knew the pace that everyone had. And so that was, I think, one of the big shocks in 2019. I was just surprised about the insane fast pace that everyone had. There was no weak team. Everyone was pulling at the same speed. So 2021, I was prepared for that.
And I knew that I was going to be able to keep up. So what I try to do is remove the anxiety and say, you know what, guys, let's have fun. let's try to have fun and do the best we can. That's all we can, because obviously we had a lot more challenges with COVID and everyone was kind of an edge and it will just happen or not. So I said, you know what, let's take it easy. Let's try to have fun. And that was our, our approach, obviously, you know, some days were not as fun with all the weather that we actually had. And you know, all this the scary situations that we were immersed in uh but that was that was a different approach for sure
What was the scariest situation you had? Was there a standout, or, or maybe scariest or worst? I don't know, you
know that, uh, situation around imps that was pretty, that was, that was up there, but that was, that was only a part of the flight. After that, it was fine. Before that, it was fine. And it was not a long flight. I think it was only 50K. Where I had a lot more opportunity to get scared was on the flight from Verbier to Bellincon.
So we started the day. We knew that the North Fund was going to be around 7 to 8 or even higher if the pass goes. So we knew that it was a risky decision to actually go north. but I felt a lot more confident of taking the north route because I know the Sion Valley, and I know that the mountains are high, so as long as we stay high, it shouldn't be much of a problem. What I didn't take into account was that we were going to have 50 kilometer per hour winds from the northwest, and the mountains on the other side of the Rhone Valley—let's say the the Hmong Jungfrau Eiger Massif on the other side was,
in my opinion, going to block a lot of that air. Well, that definitely didn't happen.
So I tried to stay high. We did a few hops in the morning. We started early. It was classic hiking fly. It was beautiful. Just practicing that in Switzerland is just gorgeous. Because you launch, and now you're now in the next ridge. you hike up again another 300 meters, you do that again and keep doing it until conditions get good. And now that you have some altitude, now you can actually go to the south faces on the north side of the valley, but at this point, I was, I was feeling really tired and it was shaded on the south side. So once the sun started hitting me, once I started transitioning to the north side of the Rome valley with this warmth, I just, I just went to bed, I just fell asleep.
And and I'm not talking about closing your eyes for five seconds and then, you know, startle, just, uh, regain control again; no, I'm talking about deep sleep. You know, I was dreaming, actually. I was probably out for one minute or minute and a half. I was dreaming that I was back in Mexico and my mother was, was actually cooking food for me. All of a sudden, I I start feeling that something is hitting me and I, I wake up. Now I'm close to the, to the actual faces, huge faces, and, and by this, by this point I'm in loik, loik, you're bad in that valley, and it's hail, big hail coming down, so I cover my instruments because I think that they are going to get broken, but the hail doesn't let up and it just starts getting, getting louder and louder.
So now I look up to my wing and I just hope that this hail is not going to puncture the wing, you know, and I'm going to be falling from the sky, so I just want to get out of there quickly. And by the way, I'm trembling at this point because it's just so cold because now I'm under the cloud, so I press bar, get out of there as soon as I can. So after two, Two minutes, hail just subsides, and now everything's fine. But now I'm heading to these big faces, and we have the north wind really acting on at this point, as well as the northwest wind. So I am heading into a big, nasty trap, and I don't know about it, but I do see an eagle that is probably 100 meters in front or 200 meters in front, 50 feet below me.
And then I see this eagle in seconds, 200 feet above me. I'm like, "Okay, hang on, the rodeo is coming, it's gonna come." And the eagle was out of shape, right? So it was like, if that eagle is not really maintaining the wings open, I I hope I'm, I have good luck on this one, so I hit the thermal and whack! It's just the wing disappears, totally disappears. After seconds, it just comes forward, but it has a huge cravat. At this point, I don't think we can call it a cravat. It was like completely in on the right side. So as you can imagine, it just starts winding and winding and winding quick, and I don't have much control at this point.
So I'm thinking about throwing the reserve, but I'm not going to do it with that rotation, So I need to stop the rotation first. Yeah, yeah. So I buried the left break, I stall the wing, so now I'm falling and I look down. I still have some altitude, uh, to to play around and try to save it, uh. So I release hands, up wing comes up, and now it's only 30 percent in, so like, okay, this is more manageable. Weight shift, break on the on the open side, pump the the outer, and it releases and and now I'm flying again.
So I start thermaling after that. And now I start feeling the effects of the northwest wind. There was not a second that I could actually stay in the thermal without feeling the texture in the air. Huge textures between two meters per second to four meters per second. And then I'm sinking on the next half of the circle at three meters per second. So every single meter was, was gained, uh, with huge lift and then huge sink, so it was a combination of fun and the northwest wind, and it actually was a very good lapse rate because I mean, if you see hail, there's a lot of energy in the air, but that energy is being revolted down, down in the, on the ground, and that nastiness is just coming up and it's hitting you.
So I get in contact with my team because now I'm at fist and I have to make a decision whether I Can stay on the northern route towards Andermatt, or I should cross Simplon Pass towards Domodossola? So they get back to me and say, "Weather for tomorrow is definitely better on the south," so now you can cross. And by the way, this is the reason why I decided on the northern route. I was definitely more confident on the Sion Valley because I knew it. But also, I could actually divert at this point without being less efficient, take that southern route or keep on the northern route. If you take the southern route, there's no way you can go to the northern.
So, you get stuck down there, you pretty much have to traverse all those bunnies that are south of the Matterhorn, Dufour Spit, et cetera. So, now I'm heading towards Simplon Pass, well, a little bit to the east of Simplon Pass. But I look at my speed and it's 90 kilometers an hour without bar. So, I know that big bounces are coming. You're
going to take a spanking.
Yes. So, I see this huge wall under the mountain. But I was probably 3,200 meters, and I'm just cruising. I'm just whistling by. I get to the peak a little bit after, and the sink starts. It was not rowdy, but I was going down at 8 meters per second. Four, six, eight, all the way almost to the ground.
So you're on the south side now. You've cleared the Simplon or wherever you want to cross. Correct. You're on. So I'm on
the south side. I'm a little bit north of Domodossola, and pretty much I'm looking at crossing that last ridge. You know, the Domossola Valley takes you to Locarno, where Lago Maggiore is. So the problem with that route is the airspace. And normally how you fly it is on the north side. But with this northwest wind, there was no chance that I can take the north side without bumping into the airspace. So I have to take the southern route, but not after saucering and flying backwards for at least, I would say, 10 kilometers, just trying to gain altitude again after the huge sink. So I was almost almost at the ground, but I'm saucering.
When I point into the wind, I'm going backwards 10 kilometers an hour, but it lifts still. And then I go down, saucer, saucer, saucer, all the way to the last ridge, where now I'm put in this little canyon with only a river. There were absolutely no landing stones out there, uh, for sure, uh, but somehow I was, I was clear in my mind. You, you know, I was not worried. I just wanted to figure out the situation because now I didn't feel any northwest because I was low enough. But now I was feeling the wind coming down from the high mountains on the east. So once I figured that out, I saw the western face and then got out of there and kept on going.
You know, it was one of those situations in the exiles where your brain is so used to flying in these conditions that, you know, you're rising above it. It's all
making sense. Exactly.
You start making sense out of this. Your body's like, yeah, no worries. We'll just keep on going. So now my team tells me that I need to get to a certain height to cross Lago Maggiore without a problem. I get to that altitude. We cross it. And now it's almost the end of the day. and I'm heading to Bellinzona on the south side. And as you know, the airspace, and this is the reason why people fly the north side, because the airspace on the south side encroaches you to the mountain. But I've never flown there. I have no clue. So I just keep on going until I notice that it's a little too late to find a landing zone because the west wind is pushing me and I'm not penetrating west again.
Again, so I'm heading towards this trap, this literal trap, though landing sauce against the mountain, so it's I have two options: airspace or trip. So I just keep on going, so you know what, I'll find something, I'll figure something out. So my brain is still trying to figure out
That's a very treed area. I know, I know, this part of the world really well. That was Belen Zone, is a place I've flown a ton and, uh, yeah, the south side is all trees, thick trees.
big trees exactly so there There was no clearing. Big, thick
trees. There's no clearings. There's no openings. There's no, wow, what did you do?
But I didn't know that. So I just kept going to see if the trees were actually blocking a small landing zone that I was not seeing from afar. I just keep on going. I'm getting lower on top of the trees. Like, okay, well, I guess I'll have to figure it out once I get to the end. So the airspace, I was literally five meters from the airspace. Okay. And I finally see. The
CTR, the bad one, the one that goes all the way to the ground there. It was past the CTR. Because there's the wings on. It was past the
CTR. So there is a hole. So you're in one of the wings. Because the steps actually are a little bit higher every single, I think it's two kilometers, three kilometers. So the step that I got to, now that opened up a small gap between the airspace and the treetops. But the landing zone that I found was a tiny thing that was below airspace. So I didn't really know if I was going to be able to just go to the treetops and then scoot under the airspace and then land. So I was like, you know what, this is my only option. So let me try it. So I park it into the wind. So I'm facing west. My wingtip is five meters from the airspace, literally, because I was, I zoomed in and my instruments all I could.
And I could see that any small movement changed the line. You know, it's like, oh, okay. So I'm four meters, no, three meters. Okay, no, no, the other way. So now I'm sinking on top of the trees. I'm going down to the trees. I just see the trees coming up and I don't see the airspace in my instrument letting up. It's like, you know what? Might be a tree land. So I just keep going down. And at the last second, literally, I probably had 20 meters that I can scoot under the airspace. And then five seconds later, land. No way. That's awesome.
No way. You did. I had that exact flight. I started in Bellinzona in 2015 and ended in Orsieres, which is right across the pass from Verbier. So you did the reverse. So I know exactly what you're talking about. And I didn't take the Simplon. I was a little bit north of that, kind of between the Simplon and the Newfoundland. But going the other way, and I was battling a hell of a headwind in 2015. But I watched you on live tracking a lot that day. You just had one. When you decided to go North, I thought you made the biggest mistake. I just thought, man, I don't know that, you know, Chrigel did it and he really made it work, but I saw with that North fern coming, I thought you were just, you know, usually North fern, it's, it's not very flyable on the North side when it's a strong North fern cause it's low cloud base and rainy and, and nasty.
And that's what got all those, that's what got Maxime and all those guys, you know, being on the South, uh, in that, in the South fern day, Chrigel later said he didn't think it was very strong south fern, but you know, I can tell you, when I was, you know, in the op, I was in the same place as he was, but further north that day. When he was having his breakout day, I was trying to get to fish, uh, on the, you know, basically backdooring into Titlis, kind of what we did the year before in 2019, because, and, and I could see the south fern just dumping in over the andromat in that area. I mean, it sure, it certainly looked like south fern to me. It was a nasty day. It was, it was, you know, 50K plus at the peak tops and really ugly. But, you know, and those guys were on the south side, whereas, you know, usually when it's south fern, it's not very flyable on the south side because it's just, you don't have the sun.
It's rainy. And so I thought you were putting yourself in a terrible position and you really made it work. That was genius. That was great. I mean, that's a hundred and you did about 180K on course line that day, I think, right? Yeah,
something like that. Something like that. It was a big day. Yes, I was just drained physically and mentally because, you know, mountains in Switzerland are not exactly small. So we did a lot of little hops and the little hops means like, you know, you do 800 vert every single time. And then just as a mental drain of, okay, I need to figure out what to do, right? So I think that was all in all, it was a good day, although it could have turned bad really easy, very easy.
Hmm. What a breakout day. That must've been so exciting and so fantastic. And I would imagine too, you know, that route doesn't lend itself very easy to the chase. Were you way out ahead of your team? Were they able to stay up with you? Because that's a very roundabout, uh, it's, it's hard to keep up. Yeah,
you certainly know what you're talking about because my next comment was going to be, well, my team was three hours behind.
Isn't that awesome? Yeah, crushing my team. They can't even keep up.
Normally, when your team cannot keep up with you, it was a good day, for sure. That's a good day. For sure. Yeah, that's
a good day. That's a good day. Eduardo, you mentioned, um, you know, the kind of—this is what really, it didn't hit me so much in the first couple races, but it really hit me in 2019, was the lack of, you know, I think, compared to the Europeans, you and I have—have, are sorry, compared to North American pilots, you and I have quite a bit of experience in the Alps, but compared to the Europeans, it's just a joke. And in, in 2019, it really, it was actually really discouraging. I came out of that race because, cause I really felt like that in a lot of ways was my best race in terms of the decision-making and, and the ground game and, and the fitness and, and, uh, and still, you know, it was, we had one bad day and it just wrecked us, uh, in terms of getting to Monaco and stuff. And the bad day was up here.
It had nothing to do with the terrain, but it did, you know, there were a number of days before that, that really just, it just really came down to local knowledge. Often it was just, I just consistently found myself in places where I really didn't know what to do. And, you know, there's an argument that that's just piloting skills and, you know, you get better as, as you fly more and, you know, you can figure it out on the fly like Chrigel does. But it was also just, it really struck me that year that, man, we are really at a disadvantage, you know, just not having the races there and the time and the, just knowing the lay of the land. Cause it is a labyrinth. It is a very complicated place. You know, we, you know, flying here in the Rockies, you get up and you go East, you know, and, and there's not, you're not dealing with a lot of fern.
You're not dealing a lot with, you know, the Valley winds are very predictable. They're not complicated. And anyway, my, it's a very long way to ask a simple question. You know, do we have a chance? You know, do the people that are, you know, hopefully going to follow in our footsteps and, you know, join up for races like the X-Pyr and the X-Alps from over here on this side of the pond. Because, you know, I think you were the first non-European this year. I've had a couple of those. Nick Manans is always a hard one to battle. But, you know, for the most part, it's a European's race and certainly at the top 10. You know, is that discouraging to you? you is it encouraging does it bother you you
know, it can, it can sound discouraging. Uh, we still have our experience, and we uh establish our goals based on that perspective that, you know, we don't know the area, and you know, being happy with your performance means, uh, how close you are to your expectations, right? So you have to tame your expectations, but uh, having always expectation, expectation that you're going to be outside the top 10, or it's going to be tough to finish can, can really sound discouraging. Now, if you go back and I've heard, uh, in your podcast, ex-alps athletes talking about, well, I don't like to scout. I don't, I don't want to scout because I want to fly the day. I want to get to that point and figure it out.
Uh, and I think that's really valid for people who fly in the Alps, because in my opinion, they already have the database in their subconscious. You know, they've flown around the Alps a lot, so they can extrapolate the situations that they have already been in and apply it to, you know, the particular challenge that they have in the route. But we don't have that. You know, I don't fly with a valley system, so I have to figure it out and potentially bomb out at a higher probability than them. So I like the scouting. I feel a lot more encouraged with the scouting. So to answer your question, I think it's going to be very tough for a non-Alpine team to actually place top five.
And I'm not saying it's never going to be done, but it's going to take definitely more effort than teams that are already in the Alps training there and knowing where to fly and where to go, et cetera. Yeah.
I think another, um, another aspect of it is just flat out hours in that kind of endeavor, you know, until we have, you know, when you look at Chrigel, he went from the X-Alps to the Eiger to the Verco to the, I mean, he's done over a half a dozen since the end of the race. I haven't done anything, you know? And it's, it's I think there's also that aspect of it that, you know, the other side of it is, you know, the young guns that are coming up into this, you know, we didn't have to worry about them too much in 2015. You know, it was an experience thing. And now, you know, these young guys are really good pilots and they really know.
And this was a uniquely hard year on the rookies. That was interesting. I thought it was really interesting. But typically, you know, the rookies historically have been able to do pretty well. And, uh, anyway, that I, I think it's the other, the other thing that's hard for me emotionally or that because it only happens every two years, you know, I come out of this with a ton of takeaways and a ton of things that, okay, I would do this differently and I'll change that. And, you know, this year I went in with a ton of mental coaching from Tom Thomas, uh, you know, Chrigel's coach and, and, uh, and I, you know, I really tried to rejigger my head around, like you said, expectations and goals and all that kind of things. And then you get to try this and you don't get to try it again for two years.
It's a, you know, there's, there's a, there's a limited time that you can really, uh, anyway, what I'm trying to say is it's hard to improve enough because you've got 30 other people who are improving really well and, you know, and they're doing it there and they've got, you know, they've got the Dolomiti and the Bourns and the, and just so many events that it can help sharpen those skills that, you know, we can just do it visually. We can't, we can train, but we can't train like that. And I think that that was the other thing I did write this in an article. That was the other thing that I'm just finding, you know, it's tough. I was, I was given a little piece of the goods in 2015 and I came away from that thinking, gosh, you know, with more, you know, if I really put a lot of effort into this, I can can hang with these guys but that hasn't proven correct because it's just it's they're getting a lot better too yes
And I don't know, uh, if it also happens to you, Gavin, but the more races you do, your body gets more resilient, right? So people who race constantly—and I'm not talking only the, but just racing constantly—they are really, really beasts on the ground, because I felt it, you know, on my first X-Pyr, for example, I walked probably one-fourth of what I walked during this race, and I was completely destroyed.
After this race, I mean, I saw you at the award ceremony. I was feeling fine, actually. I was perfectly fine. Feet didn't hurt. I was a little bit tired, obviously. But other than that, I was feeling really good. Yeah. And that does –
No, I mean, I was the same. It was exactly – I didn't have any blisters. I did 590K on the ground. I just wanted to keep going. No, it's – yeah, you do get more resistance. you get a lot more durable you get a lot more resilient so
That's that's on the body side, and on the on the flying side, absolutely. I mean, in order to compete against that, you have to be living there, you know? Um, yeah, there's I I don't think there's uh, there's any other way to do it.
if you had a different scenario with work and life would this be something you know if you lived in the alps say for example could you see yourself doing all those and keep doing the X-Alps? Is this something you'd love to, you know, in an alternate reality, something you'd love to pursue as a profession? Because a lot of these guys do, you know, a lot, like I said, the top 10, you know, most of them are test pilots. Most of them work in the industry. This is what they do. This is their life.
I can definitely see it just because again, I love the mountains and I love the sport. You know, it's, it's really, it's really a passion. You really have to love of it in order to keep putting yourself in these situations. So yes, I think that if I lived there and I had the resources to just do it as a living, I think it's a high quality of life.
Last question, bud. For those who are listening who have the X-Alps as a maybe aspiration, inspiration, something that they'd like to try to tackle someday, what advice would you have for them? And let me add to that. And I'm trying to ask shorter questions. I'm doing a very terrible job with you. I'm asking very long ones because I'm so passionate about this subject, but I was, I'm always a little, not surprised. I don't even know what the word would be, but you know, live tracking is phenomenal. I don't get to watch it that much, but that's what everybody but he tells me that, you know, you can get in the cockpit and the whole thing. Obviously there isn't the weather aspect. People don't see the weather, but you know, I'm a little nervous just to think what people actually think about the X-Alps.
Cause when you're not in it and not experiencing it, I think, I think people have pretty radically wrong views about what it is and what it isn't. Do you, do you feel that way? I mean, I, I, I, I run into a lot of people that say, yeah, you know, I just learned how to fly and I'm thinking about doing the X-Alps in a a couple of years, you know, or four years and you just think, yeah, you're batshit. I
think we're on the same page there. My recommendation, my advice would be know really well what you're getting into. It's not, you know, there's no glamour. It's not only the media. You know, there's a lot behind the scenes that needs to happen to prepare for this race. You know, not only from a physical aspect, but, you know, flying skills, routes, sponsors, transportation. If you're not from the ops, you know, you have that burden on top of everything. So there is a lot that goes into this.
And the problem is that if you go, let's say, half-assed in this case, once you're really prepared, once you know what you're doing fully, you might not get selected because you already burned your ticket. So just be really, really conscientious about getting all the information you can, you know, through podcasts. And I don't want to scare anyone, by the way. I'm just, uh, detailing my experience. I love the experience, and this is something that I'm taking as, as one of the best moments, let's say, in my life because of the adventure, the challenge, the scenery, the camaraderie, the people that you meet. So it's, it's an awesome adventure, okay?
But really, know what you're getting into, how
are you gonna fill the hole what what do you uh uh, I haven't figured that out. You know, I, I think about it a lot and, and I think about it a lot before the race, knowing that I'm going to be in this, you know, in this place after, you know, I think some of the athletes Chrigel and you know, they, they have filled it by just constantly training and looking forward to the next one. You know, he talked about, I've talked about this quite a bit on the show, but you know, he talked about going to a pretty dark place after his first too, in 2009 and 2011, because you're at this, you're pent. I mean, you are maxed out. You're just, you're having one, whether you're having a bad race, like I did for the first few days in this one or a good race, like I did at the end or whatever. We all have these amazing experiences,
but you're pegged. And you're, like you said, your chick sent me high. You're, you're in, you're in flow for sure. Whether it's good or bad for 12 days and, and then it ends. And and then, you know, you you go back to the East Coast and go back to your work and your job and nine to five, and now you guys are trying to find a house. I mean, it all seems—I'm just just finished building a place—it all seems a little less exciting than, you know, than being in that race. How do you, how how do you think about the future and what's next, you?
know what I thought about doing is definitely more of all the after seeing all this beautiful scenery that I had not known known until this race, I want to visit those places again and and probably in a kind of a non-hardcore mode, you know, taking trains here and there, bus, etc. But but really going where I want to and exploring the area. It's it's just, uh, just huge, you know, and there's many many places that I have not visited, so I'm going to take a step back from hiking flight competitions just to be able to explore more, you know, be more on my own, you know, camping high and then launching from there and going from, I don't know, Chamonix to Tolmin again, doing that kind of trip.
Yes, absolutely, but definitely there's some flying involved, you know? It's just as it's our passion, we really love it. We love the scenery, we love the flying, so
That gap is gonna be filled with a lot more flying, just a little bit, you know, toned down.
any
any World Cup aspirations and competition type stuff, because I know you're quite keen on on racing as well.
Uh, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Um, I just came back from, uh, pre PWC actually, uh, where Maxime was there. Uh, we had a, we had a nice chat. Uh, so yes, definitely competing, competing, uh, race to gold, uh, heading down to Monarca, which hopefully I'll see you there, buddy.
Oh, of course. I never miss Menorca.
Yeah, that's an awesome place. So we haven't really defined the schedule. You know, I'm normally traveling with Bianca. And she's a lot more into race to world competitions than I am. But it's really fun to actually fly together, you know, experience these competitions together. So definitely, you know, PWC and other race to world competitions are in our future as well. Yeah,
I got to get her on the show one of these days as well. It's cool. You're one of the few couples who are really making it work. That's very exciting. And she's an awesome pilot. So, hey, Eduardo, before we wrap things up completely here, I'm sure you've got some people you want to thank. This race is not just about us. It's our teams and they're so critical. But who do you want to put a shout out to?
Absolutely, Gavin. This is not Eduardo Garza going through the Alps. This is Team Mexico. And I know that, you know, websites, etc. focus on the name of the person, right? The name of the athlete. But this is a team effort, as you well know. So I would like to thank my whole team. So we have, uh, Jason Wallace, uh, aka the Mule, who hiked with me. Oh my goodness, uh, I don't know how he did it, but, uh, but he was hiking with me all the time. Anton always
with a smile, knowing absolutely
absolutely you know from the red drugs he's an awesome guy uh awesome driving the van you know So driving a van, any van in the Alps is quite a hassle. And that was Anton and also cooking, Anton Salewski. So complete appreciation to him as well. Now we also had in the team, Peter Grice, a.k.a. Magic Hands.
Don't go into details, that's fine. Hey, it's on PG-13 here. He was a massage therapist, and he did a really, really amazing job. He actually works in Switzerland in clusters, so I really envy that that part, but he was instrumental in in getting us as far as possible down the course line. On the other hand, remotely, we actually had Paul van Liu in Hamburg, so he was in our time zone and he was feeding us information so readily, timely, and accurate that I was really, really impressed with his work. Was
that weather? You were getting weather stuff from him?
Weather, what other people were doing, hiking routes. So he would send us GPX files for us to traverse efficiently because sometimes you don't have any signal or you just don't have time to look for it. So so he was he was doing that. And well, of course, Bianca, who has, you know, always supported me. And in this time, in this race, she was not there with us because I don't know if you know this, but in 2019, up to that point, she had been four times national U.S. national women's champion. Right. So she forfeited that during the 2019 race just to support me because she missed a couple of, well, one competition that, you know, was the nationals.
So I didn't want that to happen again. So I was actually pushing for her to come back to the U.S. Just help me on the, let's say, prologue and that week prior. And then she actually had to go back to the U.S. So I, I, I definitely owe her a lot of, you know, this, uh, you can call the success that we've had. She's been a huge part of the team, and she was also helping, uh, with weather, and you know, it was, it was a lot of moral support. You know, sometimes you just need someone to talk to when you're walking endlessly. So, so yes, so very grateful to the whole team. I appreciate everything, everything. Oh, and I really want to thank my supporter from such a long time, Skywalk, because since I started hike and fly competitions,
they have always been very supportive of me and my team. So thank you to Arnie Verling, who, again, has always been supporting me. And we'll see what happens in the future.
Well, Eduardo, what a treat, man. That was fantastic. Fantastic! It was great to catch up with you and see you, and uh, can't wait to see you in Dubai. We didn't talk about Dubai; we've got this crazy race coming up over in, uh, United Arab Emirates that looks pretty exciting. I just started training two days ago. I think you got a little jump on me there, but yeah, I'm, yeah, geez, uh, I'm gonna get myself in shape in what, three weeks counting here. So, um, but we'll see you there, and then we'll see you at Monarca. That'll be great.
absolutely well Well, Gavin, it's been a real pleasure seeing you, talking to you.
And I guess I'll see you soon. See
you soon,
bud. All right, take care.
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