Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. I have been furiously building away here in Haley, Idaho, just outside of the Sun Valley, and I've not been flying since Columbia, so I'm getting the itch really bad. Spring has been terrible weather here in the northern Rockies. I'm seeing some good flights go down in Europe on occasion, but man, we are fighting it here, so I hope you're all having better luck than we are. It's been, I actually just got 16 inches of snow as we get here to June 1st, the last couple of days up in the mountains. So it's been wet and cold and hard building, but getting there and excited to have these conversations and keeps me excited about flying and I hope it does for you as well.
My guest today is Andy Baumelt, Swiss pilot who reached out and said the magic words, which were, Hey, I'm not somebody you normally talk to because I'm not that good. And I'm firmly in the grips of intermediate syndrome and just got into it in 2016, had a crash in 2017 after doing some dumb stuff. And, and I said, Hey, you know, I've been promising my listeners that I would do more shows with, with just the folks out there doing their thing. And so there's a lot of of learning here and we had a lot of fun with this talk. This took place months ago, so I'm sorry I don't exactly remember all the various things we talked about, but I do remember having some good laughs and talking to Andy about future vol biv adventures that he hopes to do and some of the funny things, the mistakes he's made along the way that I think are pretty instructive.
So So I don't have any housekeeping. I hope you're all getting some good air time and having fun. And thanks for listening. Enjoy this show with Andy Baumel.
Andy, welcome to the mayhem. I wish it was under a little better circumstances. I understand you're in a COVID quarantine. How are you feeling?
Yeah. Hey, Gavin. Thanks for having me. Yeah. I'm starting getting better from my COVID infection. Yes. Yes. It's been tough, but it's now it's better.
Yeah. Yeah. Bummer. I've been through that myself. It wiped me out a little over a year ago and wiped me out for a few days, but it's now we got to worry about getting it again, I guess.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. But I hope, I hope not to be honest. So three vaccines and one, one infection should be enough.
Yes, I know. I think we're all getting a little tired of this, for sure. But, uh, well, let's—let's talk about more, more fun things. I think the world's had enough COVID. So, uh, you reached out to me, and you know, we've got you on the show. You're a little different than our, our normal guest. It sounds like you're, uh, just getting started in the whole game. Do I understand correctly? You started flying in 2016? Yeah.
That's correct. Um, I started flying 2016. To be honest, I didn't fly much in the beginning, and now 2019, I had my first really short XC flight and I realized how cool this is and how much I loved it. So it really got me hooked, and I started flying more and more. And yeah, in one point, I got to the idea to make a project, which we will talk later on, I guess. And yeah, that's why I, why I tried Teruchi, and I thought that it might be interesting for the people as well to hear, uh, from someone who's not very experienced, who's not a top pilot, um, to hear about his thoughts about his progression and what, what he's doing.
Yeah, yeah.
and where are you based? And absolutely, you know, I think that's where most of the pilots lie. So, we—I've got to do this from time to time. We always get a lot of great comments when I have folks on the show that are going through what you're going through and going through what we all go through at some point. So, So, but where are you based?
I'm south of Zurich in Switzerland and it's already in the canton of St. Gallen. You, you passed my place in, in, in this year's X-Alps. It's very close to Santis to the turn point.
Yeah. That's a stunning part of the world. I was, I was just starting to pick up steam when I was going through, I had a really bad start to the race, but it was, we had a neat, I had a neat day with Cody there in, In and when I left left there, uh, you know, made some pretty good distance towards the valency, and man, I had a landing up at the pass up there. We, the cloud base was a little bit below the pass. We both tried to squeak through, and neither one of us made it, but he, he landed right on the pass, which was really nice, and I had to stick it into this. It was almost a, it was like kind of an uphill helipad spot it was. I wish I would have had it on video. It was, uh, really dynamic. I had to kind of wing over and then come down into the trees and do an uphill kind of downwind landing.
It was pretty exciting, but, uh, so yeah, I have fond memories of that place.
Yes, it's a—it's a really good place to live. I mean, I have three takeoffs in 15 minutes, uh, right? Wow. And, um, yeah, so it's—it's perfect for me.
Wow, let's talk about, uh, you—you said some funny things. I was just reviewing it before we got on the phone here that, uh, you know, you made some mistakes early on that, you know, of course, 2020 hindsight, they must be kind of, oh, what was I thinking? But, uh, go, go through some of that. You had, you had a pretty bad accident real early on. Talk about what, what happened?
Yes, so um, I made my license in 2016 and I flew with my school glider and for one more year, and I thought it, it would be good to change for a B glider at some point in 2017. And so I started testing gliders. And because I already thought, like, I'm a badass, I know how to pull in big ears, I know everything about ferry gliding. So I, yeah, I don't know what I thought, to be honest. But I had no fear. So I just pulled in big ears and tried to collapse the wing. And with one wing that I tested, It, um, I didn't know that pulling in big ears can make a deep stall in the wing, and that's what happened because I didn't pull the accelerator, uh, the speed bar.
So what happened? I got in a deep stall. I've never been there before; I haven't done any SIVs. And what happened? I just lost control over the glider, and I didn't know what to do. And so I, I just watched the glider reacting, and it did something, and suddenly it was below me, been next to me, and and so at one point I realized, okay, I don't have much height anymore, so I pulled up the reserve, which opened really quick, and I was happy about that. And then I realized, like, damn, it's going really fast down, and I didn't know why it should be like this or not, because I've never experienced it before. And I went down, and there, there was a huge forest, and I thought, oh, cool, I will land in a tree.
That shouldn't be too bad. But I had bad luck. There was a small piece where there was no trees. And, of course, I landed there in a really flat area. And I broke two of my vertebrae in my back. And that's when I realized, okay, this was not too clever what I did here. And yeah, there was... there was my first, um, and so far, I have to knock on wood, my first and last accident, which made me realize many things, to be honest. I, I tried to analyze that, and it made me realize, um, many things.
Let's, let's talk about the many things. Be specific. This is, it's, uh, I mean, one thing that I don't understand from this is why your wing went into a deep stall going into big ears. Uh, did you pull it incorrectly? Did you pull too much? Do you know?
No, no, um, to be honest, a few years later, they—there was a safety warning for this specific glider that it can go into deep stall by pulling it big ears. But as I learned later in in SIV courses, any glider can do that in certain circumstances if you just pull in big ears with no speed bar. Then, if you—it can change the angle of attack so that you can go into a deep stall. So, always, if you pull in big ears, just make it with the speed part. That's what I've learned later on, and I didn't know that, to be honest, by then. So that's, of course, one lesson, one point in the lesson learned, interesting.
Yeah, because I don't, I don't want the listener to be afraid of using big ears. Yeah, that's it. You know, absolutely not something you really use too much as you get better and better. You know, it's definitely more of a lower hours, but very useful maneuver, and uh, and of course, speed bar is a really important part of that equation, but I
think most of the gliders, most of the gliders nowadays, they don't go into a deep star as I understand it. And as I, I'm not a professional, but since I had this accident, I went to an SIV course and talked a lot to this SIV instructor. And he would tell me that some gliders can do that. So I think for me, it's really important to know that and to be aware of that. And just for future, I nowadays I still use big ears and I like them again, but I know that I always will use the speed bar with it, and then then you don't and
How are you doing it? Are you... are you getting on speed and then pulling ears? Because I've always heard it's the other way around.
Exactly, exactly. You should just pull in the big ears because of the because of the shark knows, apparently it's better to pull in the big ears without the speed bar and then pull, uh, then push the speed bar one steering, yeah, of
Course, so interesting. So, you okay? So, let's go back to the incident. So, you, you're in deep stall. Uh, you're, you know, you did the right thing. You weren't really sure what was going on, so you threw your reserve, but then you discovered another problem.
Yeah, damn, that's you're saying it. Um, unfortunately, I didn't check my my gear at all. I just, I just got it from from my teacher back then, and and I didn't really think about the reserve. It was just this red handle and at the at the seat which you can pull, but I'd never thought about what's in there, and I even, it was 2016 that I got the reserve. It was a round reserve, and I really think nowadays there shouldn't be any round reserves anymore, but that's, that's my opinion. And it was, especially, it was way too small, the reserve. So it was for 105 kilos, and I weighed my My start, my takeoff weight was 120 kilos.
So
you were coming down fast.
I was coming down by far too fast. And that's one point. I never thought about the reserve. And later on as well, I realized, okay, you should have reserved it bigger than what your takeoff weight is, actually. Because the takeoff weight is given at the sea level. So if it's made for 100 kilo, the reserve it's thought for 100 kilo at this sea level, but once you're in the mountains, because the air density is much lower, you must have a bigger reserve there than for 100 kilos. So you need 20 extra, and not not just less than what I have.
yeah this is this This is something that I think is really commonly screwed up across the spectrum is, especially these days with hike and fly becoming such a big thing and lightweight gear and everybody trying to shave grams and ounces. You know, that's, that's an area that I really don't think. And I say this doing the same thing in the X-Alps, you know, we're all flying the lightest stuff possible. Most of us are using rounds and I totally agree with you. Now they have these lightweight squares that are, most of us have switched over to, if not all, which is great. But, you know, it's one of these things where I think X-Alps pilots know the risks they're taking and they're pretty methodical about it.
But I think it's also something that the general flying public often screws up. You know, that's not a place to shave weight. You know, if you're, you know, you definitely want a glider that's above your, your all-in weight. You know, if you're 110, you want to be on a reserve that's at least rated for 125, you know, or 120 at least. And so, I, I think that, that's, you know, you want to be coming down slow. I would imagine you were probably coming down at six meters, or maybe even more on that, on a, you know, an undersized reserve, and that's definitely a speed that you can do a lot of damage, absolutely.
And yeah, it was fast, I have to admit. But um, yeah, that's one more point that I learned. It's not—it was not even, you know, what you said, you exiled pilots, you know what you're doing, and you know that you have a reserve that is really too small, so you know the risk that you're going in. But I didn't know anything thing about it, to be honest. It was not that I took the risk, um, on purpose because I just didn't know it. I
Don't want to throw your instructor under the bus here, but this sounds like quite an oversight. Yeah, I'm surprised that you were sold that gear; that seems like a pretty obvious, yeah.
misstep, probably. They just didn't know my weight, my takeoff weight to be honest, and um, yeah, yeah, but they should, they should, I don't know if
You need to give them that much forgiveness, but, and, um, huh, well, that's good to know. I, you know, I, I think of those kind of mistakes not happening as much in Switzerland, you know? I feel like the, you know, the instructor level is really high, and the schools are really good and thorough, and, uh, the education there is quite a bit more strict and methodical than what we have here, so I'm surprised that you kind of slipped through the cracks there, yeah.
Yeah. It was bad luck, but in the end, it all led to a really good thing that I did my first SIV. And so this is where the things changed, I think.
And how was your first SIV coming out of the accident? Was there a lot of fear going into it? Shall
I be honest? I slept two or three hours the night before my first SIV. I was so nervous, I... I just couldn't sleep. I really thought like, okay, this... what am I doing here? I'm so... I was so nervous and, uh, but I... my husband was the first person to tell me like, okay, you have to continue flying. This is such an important part in your life. Um, I will not let you stop flying. So I thought, does he fly too? No, he doesn't. He doesn't.
okay And
I thought I will quit, to be honest. But he said, no, I must not stop. So I said, OK, if I continue, the only good way to continue is just to be a safer pilot, a better pilot, and do a lot of SIVs. So if I continue flying, I have to do at least one SIV a year. That's what I wanted for me, to be a safe pilot. it
I'm curious, why? Why was he so motivated that you fly that? That seems like maybe some extraneous pressure that he just saw that it lit you up, or what? Yeah,
Absolutely, he—he knew how much this meant to me, uh, or still means to me, and he's like, he wants me to be a happy and good person, and and flying makes me happy, a good person, and he sees that, and and and that's why he—he wants me to continue flying.
How did you, what was the impetus to get into flying? What was the, how'd you start?
Actually, I've always wanted to fly. I think most of the people say that. But I never got there to make the course. And we went to the Pride Festival in Zurich. And there was a stand where they were making like advertisements for a flying school. So I went there and asked them for information and instructions and did my first training day with them. And that's how I started.
Wow, cool. And was it love at first sight or you just left from the beginning? My
first takeoff, I was addicted, yeah.
Absolutely. I just couldn't stop anymore. It was just, yeah.
I got away from what we were talking about there in terms of when you went back to the mistake, The things you learned there's, there's more than the reserve and the and the wing choice. I believe that it's kind of nice to forensically go back through these accidents. I've learned that from from airplane pilots, you know, when they have an accident, which is thankfully much, much more rare than in free flight, you know, they really go back to we they call it threatened error management, but they go back to a series of, it's usually a series of things that kind of went wrong, but I'd love to just hear more of the takeaways and how it changed. It sounds kind of the epitome of intermediate syndrome.
You were way overconfident and way under hours. Yeah,
this is probably the first, let's call it threat, the confidence. And just as I said, I really thought I have it and I know how I fly and how wings fly and I know everything about it. And this gave me just too much confidence. I never thought about accidents, to be honest. I just thought, like, oh, come on, these things fly, and why should I be scared?
And people were, they looked at me when I pulled, like, collapses and wings that I don't know. They were like, you are, like, really courageous, and this wouldn't make me stop, you know. I was like, oh, it's okay, I'm cool with this. They fly, these wings, no worries. And it was a bit stupid. If I think back at it, but it's, yeah, I think this was the first real big threat. Then, of course, flying a wing that you don't know. It was a new wing, so nobody really had any experiences with it. I wouldn't ask any experienced pilots about the wing. I think this is one of the takeoffs for me as well, because after that, I went to the SIV course and, and asked, after some SIV courses, I asked my instructor, "Okay, what wing do you think could fit me?
What, what wing shall I choose as next wing?" And I think this will be much more clever than just go and pick any wing and think, "Okay, this wing will be okay." Okay, so, so I think this is a takeaway as well for me: ask more experienced pilots, um, if they have a wing suggestion for your flying—how people that know how you fly, experienced pilots that can tell you, "Okay, I think this should be the next wing for you. This is a good choice for you." So, this is one of the takeaways as well.
Yeah, and and you said your your email, I don't know if you were serious about this or not, but you chose the wing because of the colors. It's
So stupid, right? It's so stupid, but this is—this was one of the criterias, right? It's so stupid, and this is just because I'm honest. And, and in retrospect, if I have to say, it's probably the most stupid thing that I could have done, but the wing looked really nice. I love the colors. So, yeah, why should I try any other wings? That's
I, I think, I think the manufacturers that are listening to this, will their ears will be perking up. We need to be making wings that are really beautiful and colorful, and we'll make more sales. That's pretty funny; I've never actually even thought about that. It's
healthier, not to think about it.
yeah maybe that sounds that sounds like So coming out of this accident and sounds like a little bit of a wake up and looking in the mirror type thing, which we all need from time to time. We've all got egos. How has your approach changed since?
So as I said, I did my first SIV and I met Daniel Loritz. I don't know if some might know him. He creates reserves and he's a really famous SIV instructor. Switzerland, and probably one of the most experienced pilots in Switzerland as well. And and I became friends with him through these SIV courses and learned a lot about flying, about the technical parts of flying, and and I think this was a huge step for me because I started to to realize that I know nothing about paragliding, and that I'm really a beginner, and that it will take me years to become better, and not just overnight, and not with one SIV a year as I thought I will.
And yeah, it takes many SIVs. It takes a lot of time above the water and to become a safer and better pilot.
You talked about, I kind of skipped over this, This, but you talked about being really scared and not getting any sleep before that first one. How, how was it then? You show up that first day and you get a little bit of theory and then get out over the water. How did it? Pretty quickly, did you pretty quickly settle into it and feel reasonable about what you're doing, or was it just scary all week?
Yeah, I... I think I read the day they he makes this manuscript with all the maneuvers, and I think I've read this manuscript 10 times before I even went there. And then this week, was it was a difficult week for me because I was not relaxed at all until the end. I did my first full stall even in this one week, and I was just scared, to be honest. And but it was really important for me to do that because I knew I stalled the glider, and so I just wanted to stall the glider again just to have the feeling again, um, and this was really important, and I was very scared of it, uh, but once I did that, I realized, okay, I think it's something that you can work with, it's something that you can work on it to, to, to lose the fear, and then you have just to become, yeah, not better, but repeat it more often, and then, then you will lose the fear eventually.
And that's something I realized there, and so it was a scary week for me, but it was a very good week for me as well because I realized, okay, I can work on it, it's scary, but I can work on it. Um, I still have a lot of respect, but I'm not, not shaking anymore, and I'm not scared of these maneuvers anymore, so I think this is very good, and
What has that done for your headspace when it just comes to XC and flying? I know you've got some bivy aspirations and
So I think I'm less scared for the... for the technical parts. Let's put it... put it this way, when I go flying, I don't think, like, "Okay, I got this," always. But... but most of the time I feel like very confident in my wing because I... I've this, let's say I've destroyed the wing above the water, and I know what... what situations I can capture, or what... what I can save and what not. And... and... and this makes me like more confident when I go flying, but I don't think it's overconfident. I don't think that I have to fly into really bad Lee situations or stupidly into everything because I know it's still a dangerous sport, but I feel much safer with the wing because I know what I can resolve and whatnot.
I'm curious. Maybe tell me what your instructor's – sorry, tell me his name again. I know I've heard it a million times.
Daniel Loritz, yes.
Loritz, yeah, of course.
Quite a few SIV instructors that I've had on the show have said that, you know, there's, for some people, it's not a good thing. You know, if you're going in really scared, it could just make you more scared. And that's not very good for someone's mind and headspace and ability. you know, you're not, you're not necessarily educating, uh, you're just freaking people out. Whereas, you know, what they want to see is there's always going to be fear, but what they want to see is that you're really excited, you know, that you really want to do it. You really want to push through the fear. Um, it sounds like maybe that first one, you were really scared. Do you feel like that would be, would you advise someone in your same situation to go do their first SIV regardless or maybe not uh
Really difficult, I think it's a very individual, um, choice. I know myself and I'm, I'm easily scared of things, to be honest. Um, even if the first part didn't sound like that, but I'm, I'm usually, I'm easily scared of something. And I know I've done, done many things before, like climbing. I was scared of height; I was really scared of height. So I went to a climbing course. I thought, okay, how can I change this, this fear of height? So let's go climbing. And I was really scared of climbing in the beginning, but I knew that if I overcome this fear, I will feel comfortable and I will feel more comfortable in my daily situations as well. I can, can walk over bridges, I can go to tall buildings, and, and so it's worth to overcome this fear.
I knew that. So even in paragliding, I knew that overcoming this fear will lead to something better. So, so I knew the worth of it. So for me, it Was good how I did it, but I don't think it's good for everyone. One, I think you have to have a little bit of rational view as well. It's not just the fear; if I had only the fear with not the rational expectation behind it, then I think it might be... it's stupid to do that. But I always knew why I'm doing this, so it was the emotional part, the fear, but the rational part as well, telling me, "Okay, you have to overcome this fear and then you will become a better pilot," and and you will be less afraid in everyday flying.
Tell
me about where you're at now with you? You mentioned you did a kind of a cool bivy effort this—it sounds like this last summer, yeah—and you had some cool things to say about expectations, just in terms of, you know, a lot of people do it and they're kind of setting themselves up for disappointment, and exactly because they're, they're, they set the expectation too high. I liked that. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Um, I, my first vol b, if I did, was, uh, two or three years ago, and it, I only had three days, so I went from the neeson, you know, it in bernice overland, yeah, and and the day was really good, and and people flew like far distances, and I just bummed out, and and so the next two days I was just hiking and flying and doing sled rides, and and this was my first wall biff, and I was like, it was not a good experience because I thought like, oh damn, I should have flown much farther, and this is so stupid. I mean, this was my first wall biff, and I should have enjoyed it from the beginning to the end because it was such a beautiful experience. I mean, I went with my glider and the tent, and and just camped in out in nowhere, and and I could hike up these mountains that I have never flown before.
It was such a good experience, it was beautiful. I had the most beautiful pictures made and most beautiful experience, but meanwhile I was like a little bit, let's say, embarrassed because I just didn't do the xc distance that I should have done. And this, I realized it in this first ball, with how stupid this is. Come on, I'm not, I'm not like like you, I don't have to earn my money with that. I don't have to show anyone what I'm capable of. And I'm just a tourist, to be honest, in paragliding. I'm a paragliding tourist. And my goal is just to enjoy the moments and enjoy the flying. And this doesn't matter if I fly 100K or if I fly just 1K.
It doesn't change anything about it. And I should be aware of that. that if ever I do this again. And so this year with a friend of mine, we went to Italy and did a four-day vol biv. And we flew, of course, we flew much farther, but we had no intentions. We just thought, okay, come on, let's fly today and let's see how far we get. And it was probably the four most beautiful days in my life. It was just an epic trip that we did. It was so beautiful and we had no pressure. we had no goals we just wanted to fly and enjoy our four days and this was amazing that's
A pretty nice, you went, uh, you learned that lesson really quick. You know, from the from the first one to the second one was was were you thinking along those lines during the first one, or was it afterwards and you got back to Zurich and sat down on your couch and went, "What the hell?" Yeah.
why why did
I, I have that approach.
Yeah, it was afterwards. It was afterwards, afterwards, yeah, absolutely. I didn't realize it then. I, I really felt like during this first wellbif, I really thought, "Oh, come on, what are you doing? Come on, this can't be true. You must be better." And, and, and, but after these three days, I, I did for myself like a short recapture of this, uh, of this wellbif, and I realized, "Come on, how, how stupid are you?" This is just stupid what you're doing here. And that's when I realized, okay, if ever you do this again, then just enjoy it and go from day to day and don't make yourself any pressure.
Interesting. You figured it out faster than many, I think. The beautiful thing thing to me about Volbib, you know, in many ways, Alaska physically was harder than, than the X-Alps and the X-Alps was pretty tough, but the beautiful thing is you're not in a race. You know, you're, I didn't have any desire to ever, I mean, I wanted to get there. That's a big driver is to finish it, but I didn't care how fast we did it. You know, it was, it was, uh, I think that's really important to take your time. We don't have much time these days in our lives, and so, you know, you've set aside these whatever days you've got for this adventure, and I don't know, I think it's better to—you've got the right approach there, for sure.
Yeah, yeah.
Definitely, and it makes just more fun, right? And well, if I want to be in a competition, I go to a competition; and if I want to enjoy my—I want to enjoy my time with well-being, and I want to enjoy my time and not compete.
Okay, maybe tougher subject, but not one I want to skimp on. You live in quite a conservative country, as I do in many ways, especially religiously. You're a gay man, obviously, and I'd love to hear if you've experienced much, if any, discrimination in this sport. And how that is, that has that been tough to negotiate or to navigate? I guess it's a better word.
Um, no, to be honest, um, I've never experienced any, any difficult situations with being gay, either in, in paragliding or in my private life. I, wow, I think I'm, I'm a really lucky guy, and uh, I've, I've never experienced any problems with that. But, of course, many of my friends, they have, and, and some of them have really big problems, and either with their families or with, with people attacking them. So, yeah, I, I know that there is problems, and there is problems even in, let's call it, civilized countries like US or Switzerland.
And, yeah, this, that's one of the reasons that made me make this project I want to do next year and
what is that
And I will do two weeks, well, beef and with no goals, with no, no performance girls, and in just two weeks, well, be that I want that people can, can watch it. I made a web page for this as well, and especially want to make aware on any kinds of discrimination, let it be for sexuality, like being gay, or for your gender, like especially what I still don't understand in Switzerland, women even still earn less than men do. And, um, yeah, or racism as well. So, I want to, to make aware of any kinds of discrimination, and that's why I, I started this project, cool.
And you're, you're working with Amnesty, or yes?
It should have been an NGO, and what kind of NGO is against all kinds of, uh, discrimination? And that's Amnesty International. And so I wrote Amnesty an email if they would want to support me and do this project with me. And they were into it and they wanted to support me. And so, yeah, this will be with Amnesty International together.
That's great. I mean, it sounds like a great project and a good excuse to go have some fun, too.
Absolutely. So that's how it was born, to be honest. I always thought that I, I want to go flying and have fun, of course. But meanwhile, I, I always thought I, I should, I should change a little bit in this world. I'm not, I'm usually not the guy who goes out and, and, and who shows the world what he has or he can do. I'm more like a shy guy, and that's why I'm still a little bit nervous for this interview, to be honest. But, um, but I thought every one of us has the possibility to change a little bit in this world. And if any one of us starts to realize, oh, what discrimination is, and, and, and, yeah, that we, we should stop discriminating people for, for things that they cannot change, like their color or their sex, um.
So, then, then, and everyone can change a little bit in this world, and it will become a better place, I think.
Seems so obvious, doesn't
it? It is. It is.
But, I mean, in a sense, you know, just hearing your own experience makes me really optimistic. You know, that's terrific. You know, you're openly gay and you're, you know, participating in life and you haven't experienced it in your own situation. At least not to an extent that's been some of the stuff we see in the media and you hear about that's just terrible, you know, so that's great. We're making progress, aren't we?
Absolutely, and I, I really do believe that we are making progress and, um, but I still think there is still a lot to do. For example, my husband, he was, um, yeah, he was, how shall I say, he was, um, attacked many times for, for being gay from strangers. His father wouldn't talk to him for 14 years and stuff like that. So there's still a lot of work to do, but as we see it, can become something really good and beautiful as it is in my case. So, so I, I see both worlds and, and I know towards which I want to direct it.
how will you train for this two-week trip coming up and you said you had There's no goals. You're just going to go out and have a good time. But I've often said and believe that bivvy is kind of the higher end of our sport. It requires different skills. skills and, you know, there are different approaches and the approach is what makes good calls from bad calls. You know, you can do it very safely within a lot of different skill levels. You don't have to be an X-Alps pilot to have a really good bivy as, you know, you've already learned, obviously. But I'm just wondering, let's talk about that just a little bit, your approach and how you prepare.
Yeah, of course. I thought a lot about top landing and and strong wind landings and and and stuff like that, but to be honest, if it's a really easy top to land, okay, why not? But if it's not really easy, come on, I just go down and and land somewhere where it's really easy to land, and then I hike up. I have no stress, so why should I risk my my my health for just a few meters of hiking? And and this is part of the fun, right? Hiking is part of it, so come on, why should I spare it? Just, yeah, so I think this will be very important to keep in mind during the whole two weeks, just not to risk anything and and just go land somewhere where it's safe and and don't don't don't mess with your health just for a few meters of hiking, will you?
Do it alone, or with a team, actually?
I started off alone, but then two of my best, uh, flying buddies, they said, "Okay, they would like to join me." So one will join me for the whole two weeks, and the other one, he has no world biff gear, but he wants to join us, so he probably will just hike with us and fly with us and and sleep in hotels or somewhere in a camping pink car. And yeah, so we will be, it, it will be a big improvisation, probably this
Is the beautiful thing about the Alps, isn't it? I mean, you really don't need anything. No, you could, you could have a really good bivy and just stay and stay in huts and hotels and, uh, you know, you, you don't have to carry too much and still be really comfortable. So that's a great place to go, have fun. The
last Last World Beef we did in the Italian Alps, we had not even a cooker. We had just like just for one day food with us and that's it. And wherever you land, you just hike one hour and you're in the next hut and you can get supplies there. You can get food there. You can get a cool beer there. And what else do you need?
Tell me about the hut system. them, and I know it's different in different countries, but you know, one of the things that I have not found personally difficult—I haven't done it, but the but I've heard that, you know, it can be quite tricky, for example, in the Dolomites because in August, because it's busy, you know, to are the are huts typically the kind of thing where you've got a book in advance, or can you just top land and show up and and get a room? It
In Switzerland, it really depends on what kind of huts you want to visit. The famous ones, they're usually booked in advance. Yeah, okay, but normally they would serve you some food and water and
You can just camp off to the side. Absolutely, yeah.
Absolutely, so we will have our bb equipment with us, so we're not dependent on the huts. But, but you will find some food and water there, and
The food, oh, it's incredible. At some of these huts, I'm always just so blown away just showing up and, you know, you've got this menu that's just mouth-watering, especially if you're, you know, bivvying, you're done some hiking and you're hungry. That's just, oh, it's
So good, it's too good, isn't it? That's too good, you
just don't want to leave, no.
and you don't have to, so yes
Exactly, and they've got the saunas and, you know, bottomless really cold beer. Why would you leave? No.
Absolutely, and you don't have anything like that in the states, right? We
don't have much of a hut system there's there's you know there's yurts in colorado and we in various places we've got a few yurts here but they're not really accessible flying wise uh it's just you know know, we don't have the infrastructure. We really don't. It's really tricky that the bivvies that we do are pretty self-supported, you know, you can do a pretty easy way to, to take out a lot of the logistics, you know, cause carrying a lot of weight can be tough and a pretty easy way out of that is to have a chase vehicle, you know, so if you have a vehicle that can follow along and have a bunch of jugs of water and a bunch of food, then, then you, Then you can get away with carrying less stuff, but it's, you know, we definitely don't have the hot infrastructure that you do.
And the other thing we have is, especially in the west, is typically a lot of wind. And so in the high mountain regions of the Rockies, and that kind of thing, it's unusual to get a string of days like you have in the Alps. You know, one of the things that's constantly blown me away in the race is, you know, the weather. Especially this year, the weather could be atrocious, but you can still fly. You know, there's most days you can still get some, and this is often not recreational flying. I don't think this is, these are days that, you know, you would be out and fly. You just stay in the hut and have a nice hike, you know? But you can still fly a lot. And, you know, there are, we just have a lot of days where flying would be suicidal. You just wouldn't do it at all.
It's just too much wind. And you can get, that can sustain for days on end. And so, bivvying can be harder.
Yeah, sounds like. Now, this is really nice about the Alps. You can just go there and take your camping gear with you and go out and you have a good time. And yeah, it's really easy and it's accessible, especially in Switzerland. I mean, you have public transports everywhere. You can land anywhere you want. You will have at least a bus picking you up there and you'll be back home in an hour or two. Yeah,
it really is remarkable. I also have, I love that each country is so different. I find that, I always find that fascinating, you know, that, you know, the food, sorry, you know, compared to Italy, you know, but everything, you know, the transport in Switzerland is just, you know, you can land at a bus station or a train station and you see it from the air. Oh, I, you know, I'm going to go there. I don't know how many times I've done that. And, you know, whereas in Italy, it's a little bit more challenging, you know, it's, it's just fascinating that there's, there's still these huge cultural differences between the countries because it's so easy to, you know, tag three of them in a day, you know, a big triangle, you're going to be good, which is, which is, I love it. I mean, culturally, it's still very interesting.
It's not very homogenous. that's
True, and that's one, one of the beauties about it, right? You can just, uh, within two weeks, you can see so many different cultures and eat so much different food. So this is one part of the beauty of it; it
Really, yeah, it really is. It really is, Andy. Thanks for sharing your story; I appreciate it. This has been a lot of fun. I think it is good for us to tap into, you know, that where where you're at more often. Cause that is where, you know, the majority of pilots are and I wish you the best of luck with your project next summer. And thanks so much with quarantine. Yeah. But yeah, thanks for sharing your story. I appreciate it. This was fun. Thank
you so much for having me. It's a real honor. And yeah, I really hope that people can take some messages out of this and to fly more more careful become better pilots and yeah cool
thanks buddy thank
you if
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