Hi there everybody. Welcome to another episode of Cloud Based Mayhem and Happy New Year. 2024 is here, incredibly. Before we get into this show with Jake Holland, I think you're going to really enjoy. He's been doing some pretty marvelous stuff over in Pakistan with some of the boys over there. A couple of them we've had on the show. But anyway, before I get into that, a couple bits of housekeeping. We've gotten a lot of really great feedback on the show we just put up last week with Louis Tapper and the New Zealand Risk and Accident Report. Pretty fascinating stuff in that. And I wanted to read you an email from a listener and a buddy. Mine that I just think is fabulous.
And I think really summarizes in a lot of ways what Louis and I were getting at in that talk. Thank you for the interview with Louis Tapper. These are such tough conversations, but really important to have. Louis' comment about the risk reward equation really resonated with me. Before I started my instruction, I tried to do some research on the relative risk of paragliding versus other things I'd participated in. Rock climbing, scuba, dirt bike racing. Etc. I really couldn't find anything that was helpful. So one of the first questions I asked my instructor was just how dangerous is this? He replied, well, you drove here, right? The most dangerous part of the day is over. This particular myth was quickly debunked as in the period of a month, three pilots from the area burned in and died. I also really hate that driving analogy.
I was really at an inflection point in thinking that I might quit. During the same time I visited my parents, I can remember very vividly sitting in their living room and talking with my mom. She had stage four lymphoma and the dementia was really kicking her ass. When it came time for dinner, she began to psych herself up for the one rep max that was getting out of the chair and standing up. In that moment of observing her, things became very clear. If I end up at that stage of life without having done this thing that engages me mentally, psychologically, physically, and at times provides moments of transcendence, I will regret it bitterly. If, on the other hand, I don't make it to that stage because of the same thing, well, I'm at peace. I'm
at peace
with that. This is not to say that I approach flying with indifference to my life and health. Quite the contrary. I have a goal of taking my last flight sometime in my 80s. Maybe a sledder on a mellow morning. Maybe a chill flight of the dumps. I will come to the realization that, after 30 plus years, I started late as a 50-year-old, of amazing flights with amazing people, I had reached the end of that chapter and it was best to pack the gear away for good. This is why Louie's back-of-the-napkin estimate that there's probably some 20 % of the risk that is only avoidable if one never flies. I'm not sure if that's true. It implies a route forward. Be clear about your why, and if you find that you're upside down on the risk-reward ratio, move on to whatever is next. Relentlessly work on your kiting, launches, and landings. Stay current with your SIV training. Be a competent armchair meteorologist and be smart about the weather you choose to go fly in.
But once you've done all that, be at peace. Don't let the fear gnaw away at your psyche. You've done what you can. The world is an imperfect place. And no one gets out of this bitch alive. Really liked that and appreciate it. And as I appreciate all of your comments, and again, I think it really summarizes what Louie was getting at there. So put that in there. Lodge that in your brain and have fun. Next thing I wanted to talk about is insurance. I have the article up on the website. If you go to cloudbasemaham.com. Just put in the search term insurance. You can see the article there. It has been up for years and that I update very regularly.
I just updated it again today on all the various aspects of travel and insurance and SOS and inReach and all the things that I am suggesting you should look into, especially when you're traveling, if you're away from home. This is getting home. This is medical in-country. If you've been hurt somewhere out of your country, most insurance doesn't cover that. If you're... You know, in Brazil or Colombia and you're from the States or Europe and you need medical attention in-country there, usually your own insurance isn't going to cover that. So that's what this article is all about. I have put in there for years that because this is what I was advised to do, that if you put in your emergency notes, if you hit your SOS on your spot or your inReach, that you have global rescue or equivalent, some MedJet or Medivac, something like that.
I use global rescue, but you can use whatever. You can use whatever you want. Then hopefully they, and they is Garmin now. It used to be the IERCC. They still use the IERCC, but it's all controlled by Garmin, would see the notes and call global rescue and let them take over. But there's been a lot of gray area there. It depends on who you talk to and they may, they may not. I still think it's not a bad idea, but now global rescue is officially saying that if they are not the first point of contact, then they are not going to be responsible. For the search, which makes sense. You can't have two parties going in there to try to do the search and rescue. So, but this creates a dilemma for us because when you're hitting your SOS, you're probably, it's an emergency situation and you probably don't have cell service.
That's why you're hitting your SOS. So I would still leave it in your notes, but just know that it's going to Garmin and they are most likely going to perform. The search and rescue also global rescue is not search. It's just rescue. But if you have a in-reach device, you have your Latin long, so there isn't much need for search. But anyway, just to be clear, if you hit your SOS, most likely it is going to be the IERCC controlled by Garmin. That's going to be the search, no matter where you are in the world. And you must have the high risk benefit, which is only available through Garmin. It used to be 199 a year when it was IERCC or GEOS. And now it's 299 a year. So it's a little bit more expensive, but still very cheap insurance.
And there is flying exclusions. So if you, they're going to come get you no matter what, even if you don't have any of this insurance, but you could be up for a very huge bill. So make sure you have that high risk benefit. Make sure you have something like global rescue to get you home and make sure you have some kind of insurance. What I use is IMG signature, but again, you can see this all in the article for medical in country. There are three different things. I know that's annoying, but that's the best I've been able to find. There are some other insurances like world nomads and others that you'll see in the article that have kind of bundled those, but there's no way to bundle the high risk benefit with your SOS. And sometimes you may need to use that. So make sure you understand how this all works.
Reach out to me. If you don't, I can help. I'm not an expert, but I have put a lot of time into trying to understand this. Some clarity on this actually. Just came across my desk a few weeks ago. A friend of mine was flying in the Himalaya in beer and they went pretty deep and had to land out. And where they landed was really pretty exceptionally remote. No injuries. Nothing was wrong. But the decision to land was influenced by hypoxia. This pilot was not flying with oxygen and was really, you know, hey, I've got global rescue. And once they landed was, you know, hey, this person was being told by their friends that were back at base, back in beer.
Hey, you know, walking out of there could be pretty dicey. And it's definitely going to be more than a couple of days. Most likely this person was really remote, like I said. And so called a helicopter and they came in and got the pilot out of there. So it all went exceedingly well from that standpoint. But the global rescue isn't going to cover that kind of thing. And I was called about this. And the pilot who had the global rescue coverage was pretty upset about this. But I agree 100 % with the call. We can't be using insurance to get us out of making bad decisions and going too deep. That's, you know, that's a personal choice.
There was no medical reason for the evac here. And that's what global rescue. So make sure you understand also what these insurance things cover and what they don't. There's an argument here that, well, if they'd walked out, it would have turned into a medical reason. And shouldn't we try to avoid that? Avoid that. Yes, absolutely. But again, paragliding is dangerous enough. I don't think we should be relying on insurance to create our own margin. You know, that's the same thing as flying really low when it's really turbulent. If you don't have enough margin and your only way out is throwing your reserve. That's just not smart flying.
So, you know, also the pilot wasn't using oxygen, which is, you know, makes it when you're up high in the Himalaya or when you're really tall. You don't think very well if you're not using oxygen. So, again, these are all things that I believe and I'm just a person, but I believe don't really fall on insurance. So, make sure you understand what they do and don't cover and think about that, especially when you're in places that are really remote. Which brings us to this talk with Jake Holland. Jake reached out to me because he's been, he lives in Chamonix. He's a British pilot, lives in Chamonix. He's a filmmaker and skier and he has been making these awesome films. I'm sure you've seen them with Will Sim and Fabby.
And Aaron Durogati and Antoine Girard and Vesso Avkarov. He did a new way up last year, which has done really well on the film circuit scene. And I got to see his, it hasn't been released yet, but The Magic of Freedom, his new film about their exploits this summer in Pakistan. And they're using, it's just really cool how paragliding has gone from, you know, back in the day it was used as a descent tool to now it's being used. It's a descent tool to now it's being used as a descent tool. It's an ascent tool with these amazing climbers. I said Fabby, but Fabby Buell really accomplished climbers who are becoming really good pilots. So they can avoid walking in, you know, four or five days and just fly in a couple hours.
And land up super tall and do these amazing routes and then fly out. So it makes it way more efficient in the mountains. In some cases, much, much safer. In other ways, more dangerous, of course. You know, top speed. Top landing at high altitudes is not an easy task sometimes. But the films are amazing. The films are in the show notes for this episode. And the conversation I have with Jake about his history and filmmaking. And we talk about some of the stuff I did in Alaska because he was curious about that and how that all went with Red Bull. But he's working with some awesome people. Tom DeDorado and Horacio and these guys, these amazing French climbers and pilots. Who are really pushing the boundaries of what's possible.
And really setting an example for some amazing things that are going to keep happening. And I'm sure will be happening in the future. With the advent of doing this. You know, they're taking off from low, putting on their skis in the air. Landing deep. Going for a ski or for a climb. And then flying back down and being at home in bed. In a comfortable bed and back in town. So a lot of fun with this one. Very, very inspiring stuff. Please enjoy this talk with Jake Holland. Cheers.
Jake, thanks for reaching out, man. I appreciate it. It's kind of fun to explore a little different topic as we head into 2024. I just watched your terrific film. Which I realize hasn't been released. So I don't know how much we can talk about that. But the magic of freedom. Gorgeous with you and the boys over in Pakistan this summer. With Veso and Mehdi and Will. And I really enjoyed your other film as well. Which is out. I understand doing the touring a bit with the project from the summer before. Is that right? It was two different summers?
Yeah, that's right. Well, yeah. Firstly, thanks for having me on. I'm looking forward to chatting with you. But yes, the regards to the film. We went to Pakistan and 20. Well, I went to Pakistan in 2022. Obviously, a lot of people have been going there for much longer than that. And we made a film called the new way up, which is kind of like a paragliding climbing combination movie with Fabi and Will. That's actually available on YouTube. And it's been sort of. Touring around at some festivals. And then from this year and 20. Well, last year, I guess now because we're just into 2024. But last year in 2023, we went back with a slightly different crowd of people and made another film called the magic of freedom, which is what I guess you were just watching.
Maybe. Yeah, it was. It was really made
me made my head cold feel a lot better. I told you I'm fighting a pretty heavy cold right now, but it's it made me smile, man. It's that. This. Um. It's. It's an amazing place. Every time I see images, I got addicted to Pakistan back with Sylvester back in the day and his his tandem films and just he he was really what got me into Bibi all those years ago. You know, so he's. Yeah,
that guy was. A legend. Yeah. And this kind
of next step of of what? Well, let's start there because a lot of the listeners might not even know what we're talking about. What are you guys doing? I mean, I think it's a really interesting topic. This is, you know, those who haven't seen your film with Fabian will that kind of rock the world, but there's probably people that haven't seen it. And it's it's pretty remarkable what's going on. Just just take us gives the summary of of kind of the the mission in these in these projects. And, you know, we're going to talk about your filmmaking a lot. But what are you guys doing?
Sure. Um. So. I think. Fabi and we'll both come at paragliding from perhaps a different side of the coin to a lot of people. They're both exceptional mountain athletes sort of firstly. So Fabi was very well known as a climber originally as a boulder. He's gone on to do some really amazing alpine climbing. And then we'll Sim, who's a British guy. Fabi is German, but lives in France. And Will is British. And he's a British climber. He's got a really good reputation. He lives in Chamonix. And Will is an amazing character. I mean, he I think before we went to Pakistan the first time he had maybe been flying for like three years or something like this.
And the kind of flights he was doing in Pakistan. And I could be getting that wrong. It could even mean less. But Will has an amazing amount of like ability combined with thoughtfulness. And I think that's why he's such a great alpine climber. um but he's also a mountain guide so that's you know what those guys have a background in and myself i'm a skier and i wouldn't call myself a great climber by any means but i like being in the mountains and i've done a fair amount of of climbing over the years um and i think through probably not really we definitely can't take credit for it because people have been using paragliders to get off mountains in the alps um since back in the 80s i guess but uh with the sort of relatively recent advance is in in paragliders becoming such efficient machines for flying and how light they are what we wanted to do in pakistan was to start to use the paragliders as a way to be able to access these amazing mountains and take enough gear with us to then sort of play in in that playground that's that's there so that's yeah what we've been doing over there and
it looks what is your own personal background with with flying is it you know the from the films the these are these are big peaks it's you know strong climb strong flying i haven't flown in pakistan i understand in a lot of ways it's similar to people that have gone to beer in terms of you very often are flying without a ton of wind obviously sometimes you you get you get in bad situations as we do everywhere but uh i understand for the most part it's it's uh would you say reasonable and reasonable flying uh even though that's really big mountains i
mean i feel like the best way to describe pakistan is a bit like the alps but bigger i really feel like it's working kind of like the alps which is the place i know well at least i know the area around chamonix pretty well i don't know all of
the places but i feel like it's
just a bigger version of that um that's not to say that it can't get windy and scary just like the alps can get totally terrifying you know on the wrong day but when it's working it kind of just feels like a bigger version with higher clients yeah um but going back to your previous question um flying for me my my dad's a sailplane pilot um so from a young age i've always been kind of interested in in flying in the sky and i did a little bit of that when i was you know kind of maybe in my mid-teens or something with him um but never really fully got into it somehow and then i did a ski season when i was 20 and my roommate a guy called michael mondoon who's a south african uh guy i think he lives in new zealand now acro pilot um he was going off and doing acro flights and stuff and i was immediately like wow that looks amazing and uh i persuaded him to sort of literally push me off and with with a friend's wing and that was how i got into it and then i kind of left it alone a little bit for a few years and then when i moved to chamonix in france for skiing um i really kind of got back into it then and bought all the gear and since then have been been pretty and how long
ago was this so when did you get into it
well i probably hmm that's a good question i think i must have done that first ski season maybe 14 years ago when i was 20 i'm 34 now um and then i guess probably nine years ago being back in chamonix was when i started to you know fly more and i was working as a whitewater kayak guide which i know we have something in common there in the summers so i wasn't actually getting to fly all that much for the first few years um at least not in the good cross country sort of but i was working as a whitewater kayak guide for a couple of days but i was flying quite a lot in the winter and we have a very reliable like lift and we can fly a lot in the winter and i was getting to do some good springs and good flights in the spring but then probably i don't know the last six or seven years i guess i've been putting a lot more time into my flying and and trying to fly a lot around the alps and enjoying the various different aspects of flying so i'm a terrible acro pilot but i like to dabble with that because i feel like it gives you a good base um and i love to use the wing in any way i can in the mountains um because i think it's a it's a great tool and with these single skins how small and light they've got now like i recently got a new uh air design ronin and and that thing there is no reason to take it out the ski bag it's so tiny you can just leave it in there and you never know you know you can just take off whenever you whenever you get bored of skiing and the ski line the snow line runs out
right the uh you said you moved to the alps and you moved to the alps and you moved to the alps and you moved to the alps and you moved to the alps and you moved to the alps and you moved to the alps and you moved to the alps and you for the skiing was that to guide or was that just to ski or is that is this a profession in any kind no
not at all i mean my original sort of first career was um in outdoor education so taking people climbing and hill walking and kayaking in the uk but i i really got bitten by the whitewater bug since i was young that was my main sport to start with um and that took me on loads of adventures around the world and lots of amazing rivers in the Himalayas and in Canada and Africa. You're a serious paddler. Yeah, I mean, I got to do a lot of kayaking. That was really good. I don't do so much anymore, probably because of the paragliding, I guess. But I would like to occasionally break the boat out and wash off the cobwebs, as it were. But no, coming to Chamonix, my first season, well, probably my first five seasons, I was just driving a bus from Chamonix to Geneva Airport.
And I would normally do two days of that. And I was living in my camper van in the winter and just trying to ski as much as I could.
Dirtbag living. Perfect. And that sounds
wonderful. No, those were great years. When
did the filmmaking come along? How long have you been doing that?
Well, I first, weirdly enough, my parents both trained as photographers. And my mum carried on working as a photographer, but in a bit of a different sense to a normal. She was working in hospitals as a medical photographer. My dad left the industry like years and years ago when he was much younger. But I first picked up a camera when I was probably 17 or something like that. I don't know if I was inspired because that's what they had done. But I was already starting to travel. I'd already been to Nepal with my kayak at that point. And I knew I wanted to try to document these trips. And some kind of way. And photos for me seemed like a good way. I'm very dyslexic. So writing wasn't always easy back then. Although I enjoy it more now.
But yeah. And then I think I have a vivid memory of the first GoPro coming out. And thinking that was a cool thing to have on kayaking trips. And started making goofy little films from then. And then, you know, kind of got a slightly nicer camera that had a video function in it. And we started making more kayaking. And then at some point or another, I finally decided, like, you know, I really like this. I'd like to make this my job. And that was probably seven years ago, maybe. And then since then, I've been kind of full-time freelance with the video stuff. And sometimes photo stuff.
Yeah, we talked about this before we started recording. But I think it'd be fun to learn. The economics of filmmaking has always been really hard for me to get my head around. I get very lucky.
I got very lucky as a non-filmmaker. The thing that kind of set it off for us was this little short film we did called 500 Miles to Nowhere. And I was very much involved in the production side of that, even though I was in the film. That was quite interesting. But we did that for outside TV. But we had to spend a lot of our own personal money to get that done. Certainly didn't make money. But it led to some cool things. It led to. I
think it was both
the Red Bull films that I did. The Rocky's Traverse with Will Gadd. And then the Alaska. Sorry, North Unknown with Dave Turner. And those were funded by Red Bull. So we didn't have to worry about it. That was pretty amazing. But these days, because that's kind of dried up. That region of Red Bull. I think it was the Explorer series. That doesn't exist anymore. So. Yeah. I'm always fascinated by how you make it work as a job from the least from paragliding filming, because it seems hard to get enough money on board to make it work.
Yeah, I think if I just relied on making a living from from making paragliding Moyes, then I would be back in the camp pretty quick. But I mean, that's not to say that I didn't make some money. I think I made some money from from paragliding films through different ways. As a filmmaker, I mean, for anyone looking to get into the the industry, I would say definitely go for it if you've got the passion for it. And I'm sure everyone has found their own way in. For me, I really think that I just I quit every other job I had. And I said, right, I'm just going to make this.
We're done here.
We're
done here. We're
done here. We're done here. We're done here.
We're done here.
We're done here. We're done here. We're done here. We're done here. We're done here. We're done here. We're done here. We're done here. We're done here. We're done here. We're done here. We're done here. We're done here. We're done here. We're done here. We're done here. We're done here. work tends to be with outdoor brands making films for them for marketing purposes um try to in general take on projects that are more like people and athlete orientated than product orientated in its principal form um yeah i guess a lot of my work comes from climbing brands and ski brands that's that's where a lot of my films are but i've worked on tv things i've worked on commercial things i've worked in cinema stuff um and it's great i love the variety of it and i love all the people you meet and because especially in the adventure sports world you get to hang out and meet really cool people
your your film new way up uh when it when it tours and it goes to kendall and bam for whatever i i i!
!
We're done!
We're done!
We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done!
We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! We're done! maker with athletes is really, really important because often they're the guys that can help find money through brands to, you know, promote the brand, but also get to get these wonderful projects off the ground.
So how did you connect with these guys originally? Was that, was this the first one was the new way up?
Yeah. Um, well that was two years ago now that we went to Pakistan there and I had never met, uh, Fabi before I was good friends with, with Will. Um, um, but at least I don't think I've met Fabi at that point. Uh, but yeah, I think Fabi had been speaking to Will and I think I've maybe reached out to Fabi in the past and said, Hey, we should maybe try and do something together at some point because Fabi at this point, I mean, not on the Pakistan trip, but before that I had kind of seen his rise to paragliding and I'd seen this cool climber doing a lot of interesting flights. Um, and I think I'd even flown past him in Annecy or something like that. And I've been like, Oh, that's Fabi. Uh, so we've been chatting a little bit, but often we're going to Pakistan.
We didn't actually know each other, but Fabi's, uh, he's great. He's so easy to get on with and he's such a nice guy. So we hit off straight away. It's really
cool to me that, uh, you know, the original paragliders were really seen as a descent tool, you know, for alpinism and, and now, you know, 40 years later, uh, you're, you know, 30 at least, uh, you know, they're being really used as an ascent tool and it's, it's, uh, it's really amazing the lines that you guys are opening up. And I mean, this has been done in the Alps for, for longer, but it's the, the lines that you guys are opening, you know, from Karimabad looks like pretty small little hike and, you know, gaining thousands of meters and just picking stuff off, uh, for the climbing community. Is this, just blowing their minds?
I mean, are we going to see a huge rush of, of Fabi's come into the, into the fold?
That's a good question. I mean, I think Fabi is a very unique character and I think, you know, he was probably pretty obsessive about bouldering and got very good as a boulderer. And then he really got the flying bug and became very obsessed with flying and he's put thousands and thousands of hours in. And, and now he's a, he's not, you know, just a great combination sort of pilot who's using his climbing skills, but he is an amazing pilot full stop. Um, and I, I really feel like the descent stuff, you know, it's only going to get more and more popular as wings become smaller, more accessible. Um, and I think in Chamonix already, there's many, many pilots who own a single skin wing.
They don't own anything else. Um, and they'll use it, you know, regularly. They'll use it regularly to get down off the mountain, be it on skis or after a climb or a quick, a quick flunk lap. But then I feel like there's a very big difference in mindset to the sport to become someone who's, you know, a capable pilot who can fly in a place like Pakistan and, and use those strong thermals to, to get somewhere. So I think of course, there's going to be more and more people get into it and, and using the, the paraglider to do these combos, but, and
using the, the paraglider to do these combos, but
it's not the low hanging fruit of the tree. You know, it's, it takes some work to, as you more than know, to, to become a good pilot, who's safe and skilled and can make good decisions and understand what the hell's going on. I remember, uh,
I've said this before, but on my first really bigger baby, this was 2012 in the Sierra. So I'd done a little trip with John Sylvester and beer and it was just, and, uh, I got invited to join a group of pilots who were way better than me. And I was like, oh, I'm going to me, uh, to, to try to kind of go from the South end of the North end of the Sierras. We did a little film on this. And I remember one day we had, we were getting ready to take off some peak and, you know, there, there'd been some pretty amazing things that had already happened. One, one guy, Brad Sander, who's, you know, one of the legendary Pakistan pilots, uh, had gone in real hard. And, uh, another guy who was an ex-Alps pilot had gotten scared by bears. And, you know, so we were, the team was getting whittled down and, uh, and I remember, uh, you know, we were getting ready to take off and Nick Greece was, uh, you know, a friend of mine and a real mentor and somebody I'd worked with it.
He, at the time he ran our U S magazine, uh, pilot. And I said, how shouldn't everybody be doing this? He said, are you out of your fucking mind? No, not everybody should be doing this. You know, this is the tippy tippy top. And since then, you know, this was back when we didn't have light gear and, you know, I mean, since then, and then COVID really changed everything in terms of hike and fly, especially in the Alps, because, you know, the ski lifts were shut down. And so, you know, hike and fly has just exploded, which is super exciting, but it's, you say in your film in the magic of freedom that, you know, top landing is, is, is really dangerous. It's, it's a really, you know, you don't just stick it in. And especially I wanted to ask you about that, especially at really high altitudes.
I'm impressed that you guys can do that. A lot of the top landing you were doing. I know Aaron, when I had him on the show recently,
he was doing a lot of the top landing. And he was
talking about, you know, you guys are taking off, putting your skis on in the air, which is still hard for me to wrap my head around. And that, you know, so you could land on skis when you're up high, which makes a lot of sense. But a lot of the, a lot of the landings, you know, you and Antoine and others I saw in the film where, you know, you're just sticking it on feet at 5,000 plus, which, you know, your, your trim speeds really fast. You know, and I, I have found in my own, you know, when it's, when there's snow, your depth is really deep. Depth perception. You know, you, you, I often get in that kind of frame of mind where I'm going to stick it in right here. And then you realize you stuck it in, you, you haven't, you have a landing in the film really. That wasn't my best landing where it's actually pretty steep. You know, you could stick it in and, oh yeah, I'll be able to stick this, but then what if it's super icy, you're going for a ripper.
You know, anyway.
Yeah. So in the magic of freedom, just because not many people would have seen it yet, cause it's just going around to a few festivals. We, we kind of, as I was talking about earlier, we're using the paragliders to be able to kind of thermal up and then fly some distance, uh, and land on a peak with our skis and then ski something and then take off. And I think I would definitely not say that I've been a pioneer in this in any way. You know, there's like lots of people that have started doing this. And I remember watching a film from something. Yeah. I can't remember. Maybe. I think it was called like poor man's heli or something. And it came out years ago, but I was so blown away by this concept that they were basically using the paraglider, like a helicopter and being able to go up.
And yeah, anyway, I thought that was the coolest thing that I've ever seen. Um, and we're just basically trying to build on that in Pakistan. Um, and what's unique about Pakistan is that the thermal, like the cloud base goes up really high, you know, it's not unheard of to be flying at six and a half. Maybe even 7,000 meters in when there's still, you know, a decent amount of snow on the mountain as well. Cause that's of course the important thing. And in the Alps, it's, I mean, I got to do a little bit of it last spring, but most of the time, by the time the cloud base is high enough that you could land on a mountain, the snow's like already turned bad and rotten. Totally isothermic and crap and the
stuff we're dealing with. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. So, but in Pakistan, you know, in sort of June time, you have potentially pretty good snow on the mountain and you have a cloud base potentially way higher than that. So you can actually, you know, use the paraglider successfully to, to access this stuff. And for the landings, I am, you know, I wouldn't consider myself the most technical pilot in the world. You know, these guys who can put a wing tip on any point of the mountain they want and do these crazy big swoop landings. Like I've been trying to practice that stuff more and more, but I'm definitely not a connoisseur of it. So the top landing stuff does really scare me, I guess. And you've got to be paying attention with the winds. And like you said, you can end up coming in really fast.
So your trim speeds are, well, your just general flying speeds are higher. Anton, I think has actually made a little calculation program to show it. But rather than often, if you're flying at six and a half thousand meters, you're going to be flying at six and a half thousand meters. And if you went on full bar, you would probably be saying maybe 65 to 70 kilometers an hour. I don't know what that is in miles an hour, but you know, a good 20 % faster probably.
So, but the glider just continues to work somehow and it still flares good. And, you know, provided you land a bit into wind, it's not normally a problem.
The carrying the skis part has been, I feel like that's, well, we've all been experimenting and changing. The first year I went, I really just typically flew in a little string harness, which wasn't that comfortable. And it's actually string harness is really cold. When you don't have that big piece of foam under your bum, you get cold quick. So I was doing things like taking the skins on my skis, what we use to stick to our skis to go uphill and putting them under my bum for a bit of insulation and stuff. And some of the days, like on the main day, the first day of the day, I was like, oh, I'm going to be flying. And then I was like, Fabian will did their climb on that day. We were, we needed as much weight as we could get, you know, to get all the climbing gear and the tents and everything like that. And that day, I think I didn't even fly with the reserve because I just,
I didn't have a very good front mounted reserve. I think I'd made a pouch out of a dry bag. Cause I'd forgotten mine on that trip, but you know, you start flying around and seven meters, second thermals without reserve and skis hanging from your feet. And you'd start to in a string. Bikini.
Oh man. Yeah.
And it's not that clever. Um, so that year I ended up, what would we do? I think we'd, we'd put our, uh, rucksacks on with the skis between us and the rucksack with one piece of elastic with the binding, stopping that from sliding down. And we'd have the arm straps of our rucksack, uh, clipped to the carabiners with a bit of cord. So as soon as we'd take off, we'd then like get out of the rucksack and let the things slide down under your bum with your skis. Between you and your bag almost. I don't know if that's going to make sense to people, but it meant that you didn't have the weight of the rucksack pulling you back. And then you also get a bit of protection. And from that position, the interesting thing is the boys had sort of developed the system where you can pull the ski out and then put it on your foot.
And that's pretty cool. Cause then you can land with your, your skis on. Um, but it definitely involves a bit of yoga flexibility that I've
had. Um, but it definitely involves a bit of yoga flexibility that I've had.
Has anyone ever dropped their skis? Um, I don't know, like people have been using, some people have been using a little strap on them. I think I never really particularly, or maybe I have one on one season. Um, but the possibility of dropping your skis is definitely like that for sure. And you get good at flying with one hand and you try to do all this when you're a bit out away from the, the, Well,
and you're trying to do all this while filming too.
That's what
I'm in Prague. I get imagining. Yeah. Putting myself in your position. I don't think I'd be very comfortable with this.
Yeah. The boys laugh at me because they're like, yeah, man, most of the time you don't even have your hands on the controls. You're fiddling with a camera or you got a ski in your hand or something stupid, but it's amazing how well a Zio like flies without your hands on the controls. That's what I would say. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Just kind of trust it.
Yeah. But you get good with one hand. You can do a lot of piloting with one hand with a bit of, bit of practice. But this year I was, I was less impressed with the string harness idea. Like the more I did it, the more I started to think this could go pretty wrong. So this year, Air Design made me like a light version of their sock and Will was using like a BV1. And I don't think I flew in a string harness once this year. I just accepted I was going to have a bit more weight on my back when I was skiing. I was going to have way more comfort being in a pod harness. And way more safety because you have protection, you have a properly mounted reserve. And then what we do is we hang the skis going down the side of us. So you have one kind of loop on your shoulder strap hanging off that you put the nose of the skis into.
And then you have one loop, which is openable by like a buckle or something like that, that you can slide the other part of the ski in. And then on the launch, you feel like a total cluster. Yeah. Whatever. Like it's, it's horrible because the launch is hot in Karimzad. It's probably 30 or more than 30 degrees. It's super, super sandy. It's really, it's a bit gusty and unpredictable. Sometimes it's not the smoothest place to take off. And then you've got your feet slopping around in plastic ski boots that are just getting super sweaty and you're dressed up in all your down jackets and everything. Because once you get to six and a half thousand meters, it's cold. Yeah.
And then, yeah, you're like trying to inflate your wing without getting your skis that are slapping against your leg caught in the lines and ski edges are sharp. So you don't want to snap a line or whatever. And then once you get into the air, the skis actually do just hang there quite nicely. And it's, it's fine once you're in the air.
How heavy is your kit on the airplane getting all this stuff there?
Oh, heavy. Yeah. Yeah. Really heavy. Because you've got drones and
cameras and batteries and skis and ice. Ice axes and crampons, I imagine. And you've got the whole kit, right? Yeah. Everything.
Yeah. Jesus. So Turkish Airlines, we can very much recommend. They, they don't publicize it that well, but you get a free ski bag on a lot of the international flights. So as our main bag, I normally take like a ozone tandem rucksack and fill that as much as I can up to the weight limit. And then with the ski bag, then that's the same. And then I think this year, my hand luggage was like 26 kilos or something. I was like desperately trying to weight lifted up, making it look light.
That thing's like heavier than most people's checking bag. Amazing. How are you, how are you
keeping all that going in the cold?
I don't know. I feel like modern camera gear and batteries do just work pretty well. And the reality is of what we're doing in Korea. I'm a bad, and I think this is what I want to talk to you about is we've had very different experiences of the films we've made because the crazy stuff, you know, you did on your Alaskan traverse where you're out there for 38 days or whatever it was. Um, versus in crew and bad, sure. Maybe we'll sort of sleep out and up there for two or maybe three days at the longest, but normally you can just, you know, fly straight back to crew and bad. And you get back to the comfort of the home. And I think this is where the paragliders are really revolutionizing things because when I, at least from the background I come from with a kayak, I always felt like traveling with a kayak was a great way to see a place, especially in Asia where you're putting it on a bus.
You're traveling for 20 hours. You meet loads of people. You get on the river. You paddle down the river. If there's any villages along the way, you meet people, you get to eat that, you know, cuisine and you get to understand what the culture is. We're much more
!!! a short jeep ride up towards the takeoff walk for 30 minutes um take off you know and that morning you've probably had a really good breakfast that's been cooked you for you by someone take off fly into the mountains make a camp do what you want to do and then come back down and eat curry that night and you know and then maybe do 10 of those in a trip rather than just one thing in a trip
amazing where would you say you know scale of one to ten uh risk factor there's a segment of your your latest film the magic freedom with antoine at the end where he goes up to you know he does a very antoine-esque thing he goes up summits by himself what was the name of that mountain uh you know it's over 7 000 meters he spends the night up there flies down the next day right before the gust front you know looked like he was pretty unhappy about how that kind of transpired you know he was obviously putting himself in a lot more risk than even antoine wants to be in which is probably probably allows the most risk of anybody i would think in general
yeah he definitely has different uh risk tolerances to a lot of yeah that's for sure but
how would you compare what you guys are doing i mean is this something obviously you wouldn't do this but would you go back year after year after year and keep doing this or do you feel like you're really you know pedal to the metal every time he goes and do this what i'm what i'm looking for is how accessible is this to the listener to the normal pilot to the you know because it it sure it doesn't look easy what you guys are doing i mean it sounds easy but it's it's there's a lot to it you know there's all this there's all the gear and it's high mountains and it's you know it's mountains we've got to we got to respect them
yeah i definitely got to respect the mountains and the flying conditions around them i i'm definitely not going to say that what we're doing is totally safe like you can't say that it's safe it's um it's taking several things that are already kind of dangerous and then adding them together and adding all sorts of extra elements in there um but i think usually when you go about it in a logical way i'm not going to say that it's safe but i'm going to say that it's safe and you think about what you're trying to do and i mean i've spent my whole life like you have processing risk and trying to understand risk and make good decisions um you know i think it's it's achievable for the for the right people with the right skill set for sure
but there's always that extra factor with the mountains and and flying and most adventure sports is there's elements of things that you won't ever fully understand or there's elements of weather and you know you're not going to be able to do that in the future so i think it's that you won't always entirely be able to predict and we're human and we're filled with mistakes and we make mistakes um so i don't know i think that extra factor with the weather probably more than anything can can catch you out there in pakistan i i don't know if i would really recommend it as a flying destination for it's definitely not a place for everyone it's definitely for advanced pilots who are looking for a venture i mean the crazy thing is there's local pakistani guys who are wonderful wonderful people who are learning to fly in this place so it's kind of accessible in that way but i've not flown in beer but i don't think it's the place that intermediate people should be going to do cross country flights because it's it's big like it's really big and it can be really much more We're done!
wrong um and it can it's often this year it was rare to be flying in less than 15 kilometers an hour of wind and sometimes we'd have 30 kilometers an hour of wind up high so it's not like the winds are always super light and you get some strange phenomenons that you need to get your head around um for anyone that's seen uh john sylvester's film birdman of the caracorum there's a part in this where he says there's like hunza's speciality is these cloud bursts and it really is like they happen regularly and you have to keep an eye on it and when they go they just boom like it just suddenly the sky just jacks up and now after spending sort of i don't know uh maybe three months in the place i have a better understanding of when that's going to happen but you you need to uh you need to be paying attention for those things yeah yeah yeah well i mean your
your option a b c is really fascinating when you're thousands of meters off the ground you know if you're not not reading the sky well and get caught out i imagine it'd be awfully terrifying it
can be yeah and i think having the ability to land on those mountains um because there's a lot of top landable places if you understand snow slopes and crevasses and where's good and where's not um and you know we we top landed a lot in that thing in the mountains and we've got a lot of different lines that are not always shown in the film because you only have so much time but there's been definitely times where it's got quite strong and we've just landed and let the thing blow out and then carry on going again and if you don't have that sort of mountaineering background then you you know you're not probably going to do that or if you do do that then you're probably putting yourself in a bit of a situation so more and more i was just enjoying always flying with skis because it gives you so many options how
important it is you know a real backcountry understanding of snow there then it looked in the film i was you know the most of the skiing you guys were doing looked really stable um you know just looked like spring skiing it didn't look you know are you guys digging pits is it is it are you getting a lot of snow in these big storms we
definitely were getting fresh snow and it is kind of sometimes a bit hard to work out exactly what is going on but um most of the time we are skiing was spring snow and most of your worry is like it getting too hot um so i think if you can understand the principles of spring skiing you can quite quickly apply them to that so so so your your main
hazard is is wet wet
slides wet wet slides i would say but that's not to say that we weren't skiing powder at times and i remember when we went to do the gulmet tower with fabio and will when they climbed it i didn't go all the way up it i just filmed it but um the the you know it had snowed quite a lot leading up to that and the core had like purged quite big and you're landing amongst loads of crevasses and there's seracs all around you and you can put yourself as in as wild a terrain as you can ever want to really
you you have a shot in there when those guys are climbing that i couldn't tell are you flying and shooting that or was that a drone
no that was a drone so um yeah i mean modern drone equipment is what are you using and on the first trip i had a mavic 2 and now i had i think this trip we had a mavic 3 pro with us um so it's not the smallest of drones and it's not the biggest of drones it's you know it's definitely some extra weight to be chucking in your bag which is already quite heavy um but it's not the biggest of drones it's not the biggest of drones it's not the biggest of drones someone who enjoys making films i feel like it's worth the trade because you just get shots you wouldn't otherwise be able to get some
of that some of that footage was just outrageous so those the these drones how what's the difference in flying in those kind of altitudes is normal are you just burning a lot more battery yeah
i mean i was really impressed actually how much difference there was between the mavic 2 and the mavic 3 when fabi and will climb the tower and for anyone that's not sort of seen that film yet um the new way up this tower is about 5 800 meters high and it had been attempted by quite a few teams in the past and what had shut down most of the people was actually getting to the route because the glaciated terrain is just difficult you know it's like really hard to get up there especially with porters to make a base camp um so many attempts had failed before they kind of even reached it and what was beautiful with the paragliders was to be able to fly you know within like an hour straight in and land at the foot of of the glacier which would maybe take like four or five days of quite treacherous walking um but yeah so fabi and will climb this tower um which there's kind of a long snow cool and then it leads to some pretty technical um mixed uh climbing to the summit and i joined them to the coal i was
getting up to that coal was one of the hardest things i've ever done i was i had a really bad chest infection and it's like 5 000 meters we were sleeping uh that night and i was barely felt like i was barely breathing but somehow i made it up to the coal and i was so glad i did and with the the mavic 2 i was like just about able to get up you know a few hundred meters and film them that you're desperately kind of like realizing you're running out of battery so you do a bit hopefully they're in a good position on the climb and
then you're like oh my god i'm so tired i'm so tired
bring the thing back down again as quickly as you can warm it back up again and then send it back up and i definitely didn't get anywhere as near as much drone footage as i would like to have but the stuff we got turned out pretty amazing
it's really incredible yeah
will fabi were really really stoked and sort of be able to do this first ascent of the tower and you know have this footage and this memento of it so that was that was really nice but the mavic 3 this year that definitely performed better in the altitude it gained height much faster and uh was you know the battery was lasting much longer so i feel i feel like each generation of drone that comes is just giving filmmakers better and better tools are
there other teams out there doing what you guys are doing you know since your film came out last year and i mean i know that your film last year you had there's a little bit of footage with aaron in it you know he went that's when he broke the asian record he had those two monster flights you got a big one yourself but uh you know is this putting it more on the map are you seeing more
yeah i feel this year there was several teams out so there was kind of like a south african team that went to baltoro that you already did a podcast with these guys and and some of them were in um grumabad when when we were and that was really nice to sort of meet them and see them flying and then there was also a swiss team that was there and they they had a real mixed sort of uh skill set uh i would say like some of them were tannin pilots and obviously pretty pretty good pilots and then some of them were really good climbers and a couple of them were wingsuit based jumpers and yeah they were trying to do a whole bunch of stuff um they got a bit shut down on the by the weather which was a shame so they they didn't get to kind of achieve their their final goal as it were but they seem to have a really good time and it's great you know it's nice when you go out to a place and you see see more people but i think this year i've had a lot of people riding me saying like i really want to go and i feel like the films are maybe yeah bringing the place more attention with anton's films and you know it's not just me that's made films there um so i i do think that there's going to be a sudden influx of people this season for sure all looking to do probably similar
sort of silly adventures tell
me about the french i i am always so impressed that it seems to be the french whether it's slacklining you know bass jumping music uh they're just fabulous aren't they they they really push it and always have it must be quite lovely hanging out with this group that any well i mean but you said fabby's german i didn't know that actually but uh you know it's it must be quite lovely to be hanging out with this group that any well
i mean but you said fabby's german i mean but you said fabby's german earlier anton definitely has a higher risk profile than than most people and i think probably more than anyone anton's flown in pakistan and just from a flying perspective you take the mountaineering out of it he's made tons of amazing flights there um john sylvester did a line um and he's made tons of amazing flights there um and he's made tons of amazing flights there um and he's made tons of amazing flights there um and he's made tons of amazing back in the i don't know when 90s or something like this past hispanic and anton went on to repeat that and me and beso did that line this year and that's like a wild line you go out sort of in this terrain where you know that you'll be walking for four or five days if you have to land there if you can even still walk um so i feel like you have these characters like anton who just have these big ideas and they just i don't know get a little bit of a feel for it and then after it and and do it and somehow i think these maybe it's people that grow up in these mountains you know they're they're influenced by them on their spirit and it gives them these big dreams to do stuff and yeah medhi who was with us this year he's a french mountain guy
he's a an amazing character he's a super nice guy um and a lot of actually just coincidentally this year a lot of my flights ended up being with medhi um and yeah he you can just see he really loves it and he's very skilled you know he's a mountain guide as well as a tandem pilot and he probably is more of like a free ride paraglider in this kind of terrain than anyone i've ever seen he's doing wingtip touches everywhere on peaks that you would he's just trying to fly over and survive and yeah there's just a i don't know a spirit to these people tell
me about your you just did uh tanzania trip with tom and harasio what what what went down there
yeah so that was fun actually uh red bull got involved to help us with this one so you know this is that's how that's being financed and at some point it should become a film on the red bull tv um before speaking with you actually i was just doing some of the editing towards it um but uh yeah tom and harasio i actually met harasio in nepal uh two years ago um we had been invited uh to climb manaslu and try and fly from it unfortunately the weather was terrible that year and it was yeah it turned into quite a disastrous trip with some uh big avalanches and several people being killed and stuff it wasn't uh it wasn't the best trip by any means but um so we didn't really get to fly unfortunately very much but i met harasio there um when we hung out with him and he was like oh my god i'm gonna a lot together in the base camp and it was it was super nice and he's he's an amazing guy um
and they did a big trip um they had this search project that ran for years where they did many great paragliding films um but back in 2011 they drove the length of africa um finding flying spots all the way down and a place that they had spent a bit of time in was tanzania um but they hadn't got to spend as much time as they wanted to there and they they managed to do some flying and it was rowdy um but they thought the potential would be pretty high uh if you were to go back and try to do more and i think probably even more than that the the masai tribes that they met there they just found these people really fascinating and they wanted to go back and spend more time that with these people and just learn more about their culture um and i think that had been going in their in their minds for quite some years and this year we made it happen um and they kindly invited me to come and and film the trip um and it was an amazing experience man like the the people that we that we met there these masai people who just live in this you know such a unique way with such unique beliefs that are very different to ours but really wonderful kind
of amazing
to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be
able to be able
to be
able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to or less right over the top of it and yeah and then it's got this amazing crater and at night time you can see it like bubbling orange lava and stuff so it was it was a cool trip
yeah i imagine that'd be really cool i really like both of those guys so much they're just amazing i mean obviously incredible pilots but again the dreamer side especially of tom and put these constantly putting stuff together and he has for a long time it's really impressive yeah
tom is a very unique individual he like he's a proper adventurer you know he likes going off on these big trips he's like you he's done a lot of sailing which i imagine must give you a lot of great adventures um but year on year he seems to keep finding these ideas and doing these big trips and he's got something about him you know like a certain level of i don't know if professionalism is the right word in the industry but he's been able to make it his career which yeah! which is you know making your dream a career is not uh not easy but tom seems i think you know in
paragliding there's got to be less than five yeah i i can't think of too many others you know maybe Chrigel there's not there's not that many that have been you know can just live on that alone and that's what he's been able to do it's very it's very impressive and it's yeah very inspiring but i
think it's for a lot of hard work and you know the right personality and he's he's a lovely guy and i think people believe in him yeah
yeah you start you start to develop a track record of you know pulling stuff off and yeah that was that that was that was kind of an interesting thing with the with the red bull uh the two films we did there were i was surprised how adamant that they were that you had to pull it off you know it was it wasn't pressure but it was you know that they want you to do stuff that hasn't been done before but they also want you to complete it it's kind of interesting because both of both of them with with canada we knew that line could go even no one no one had flown it uh well i mean sailplanes had flown it but so that that gave us enough of the this is just gonna take the time you know we'll get there but with alaska we really had i had flown quite quite a bit up there in a super cub and you know i'd gotten out of the cub and flown around a little bit and you know i i thought it could go but i definitely didn't have any you know i mean definitely you you see this in the film too i mean red bull just cut us off they just said okay you got to denali that's far enough you know we're we're pulling out we're not going to keep funding this and i said well i have to keep going but it was you know so that that was interesting but yeah they they uh it was just an interesting kind of approach to because i think in
i think it's fantastic to fail you know i mean we we we do fail a lot
yeah nothing uh nothing's guaranteed normally goes first time especially when you're doing stuff that's on the limit of and no one's done before like failing is much more likely than right yeah for sure
that's why antoine's you know the other thing too that i found interesting for working with red bull is the option of doing something alone wasn't an option you know they they just don't think that makes good filmmaking uh and and i think antoine has proven that's not the case uh you know you can you i think the audience can it's a more meditative potential film of just watching struggle and that can be fun as well you don't have the conversation you don't have the dynamic of of uh people but yeah i it was it's been interesting since the alaskan one came out that you know we we weren't really able to spend much time after dave left you know and that but that was still a third of the route but we only had 52 minutes so i think that last bit was only seven minutes long but that was a pretty wild week for me you know just being totally alone because i didn't have there was nobody there was no dave and there was no film crew it was just me
and uh and it's hard to tell that because there's all this great helicopter footage but that was actually done after i'd completed it we went back in there on an epic day i wanted to ask
you about that
yeah so that was it was fate really uh and yeah it was yeah i mean it was i think it would have been in in a lot of ways a more interesting film to have to have done more of that stuff and to to have done more of the being alone
yeah i feel like as a filmmaker this is always something that i'm not always something but something you're often budding at is that you're always something that you're always budding at is that you're always something that you're always budding at up against is that you know if you want this to be your career and make a livelihood out of it there needs to be some give and take and you need to find you know firstly a company that believes in the project and wants to fund it for for whatever reason that might be but you're then sort of sharing your vision with them and they're sharing theirs with yours so you might not get quite as much creative control as you you hope for but also on the level of the film you're working on i think that's a really good point i think that's a really good side you know like Red Bull funding your your trip and paying for all the helis and stuff and I think that's like a very different experience to what we've been doing in terms of I feel like the two films I've made they've been really made on a shoestring like we just go and try our best to film with GoPros and I try to get the drone out and I'm probably annoying and stick the camera in everyone's face all the time trying to construct a story but there's not any helicopter or anything like that and I think with the most recent film actually it was it was funded by Grant by Kendall Mountain Film Festival and Kailas which is a Chinese outdoor equipment brand they put some money into this grant and I applied for that thinking not in a thousand years that we'd win it but we did win it and it wasn't a huge amount of money but it was enough that it paid me my time to then come back and think about how I wanted to make that film and and edit it and and I didn't have as much time as I wanted to with other more commercial gigs and stuff like that in the end but was was really nice was being able to make something that I wanted to make and no one else to tell me like no you can't yeah that that was
something so you know Real Water Productions did both of the Red Bull films and I could see that there was there was always a ton of head-butting there you know Brian Smith was the director of both and you know so he was in charge of the story uh and it's pretty interesting I never had to deal with any of this but it was pretty interesting watching him at times be really frustrated with just being told from Austria what to do and just but you're not that's interesting how can you don't I mean I mean what do you how can you have an opinion here but you know
yeah I guess what was cool about the Tanzania trip and I don't know if I think our budget was considerably smaller like we weren't flying helicopters around or anything like that you know they just paid for me to be able to to go there and do a bit of filming but um the guy that I was working with from from that office he was super cool he never really like tried to interfere and even afterwards when I've been like handing off footage and and stuff I really appreciated the attitude he was like hey man you did a great job you're there by yourself like even if it had failed don't worry like you're just doing your best and We Understand These Things don't always always go according to plan but I wonder when you know you have more budget in there and helicopters flying around and lots of recce trips whether that starts to uh pull people's strings a bit I think so
I think it's just you know there's just more on the line I guess from the production standpoint and you know it's it was it was fantastic I I I I I lot from from will certainly of just you know hey how do we manage ourselves from the risk standpoint because we're making this film i was really really glad i did my first big one with him because it was i learned a lot from him because for him it wasn't his first rodeo you know he'd done a ton of them and it was it was quite nice i'm sure what you've learned filming these guys too you know you can stick the camera in your face too but i'm sure there are times where it's just okay we have to put the filming aside now and and this is you know we have to we have to just be pilots now or athletes or climbers or you know because this is we're now on the edge and that we have to
definitely and you as a filmmaker that's something you know as a filmmaker who's very actively participating you have to really know where that line is for yourself and be like okay now it's time to just focus and stay safe and make your decisions versus like now it's a good time to get the camera out of the film and of course there's moments that you like don't capture as well as you want to but you just can't do everything when you're you're trying to you know fly in these crazy places and and
you're you're doing all the editing as well
yeah i mean yes
yeah for those two films i was doing all the editing and uh i think the way i came into filmmaking by it being like this gradual slow process of making a film and then i was like oh my god i'm gonna do this and i'm gonna do this and i'm gonna do this and i'm gonna do this and i'm gonna do this and i'm gonna do this and i'm gonna do this and i'm gonna little things myself i feel like i'm a bit of a jack of all trades you know i've had to learn a lot of things along the way and of course a professional editor probably will do a better job than me um but there's not always the budget for that and you know on bigger productions i love to be able to pay for an editor who's going to do a great job but on these fun little paragliding Moyes it yeah tends to be so let's let's just blow
everybody's mind here real quickly how much how many
films have you made that you've made that you've made that you've made that you've made that you've made that you've made that you've made that you've made that you've made that you've many
hours of footage did you have and say the the new way up versus how many hours did you put into editing oh
i mean i wouldn't have any i'm pretty sure i had five i mean on that trip in pakistan we went away for seven weeks so we were away for probably the longest i've ever been on a on a on a trip and we also i mean we did loads of different really fun things um and we also went to the baltoro and flew in the baltoro and we did loads of different really fun things um and we and tons of that stuff just you know it doesn't make it into the edit and it's it's a horrible feeling because you know there's like other people on that trip who you would like to include more of their flying and show their skill sets which they have an amazing skill set but you can't you know you're just trying to make a film that people aren't gonna enjoy the most so as a director or whatever you just have to kind of be like right these are the main elements of the trip that i think i you know got enough of
and i'm just like i'm gonna do it again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again footage
from people are gonna buzz off and this is what we're gonna go with but i think to make that film i more or less spent like a month in front of the computer and sometimes those days were like 17 hour days you know you're just like without going outside or looking away from the screen and yeah you just go and go and you never think it could ever take that long when you start but it just does somehow it's all that
tiny little stuff just a little bit tighter and a little bit cleaner and a little bit better out a little bit better in and totally
yeah but i think in terms of footage i think we had about five terabytes of footage which is like one you know pretty chunky hard drive or whatever um but i'm sure there's loads of that footage like headcam footage and stuff that you just don't even look at because it's not relevant to the scene you're trying to make on that you know you know like i must have hours and hours and hours of jaw dropping flying from from the character room sat on hard drives that maybe we'll just never see the light of day i probably should put some youtube films together of it because it'll be nice to show people but it's you only have that's brutal isn't it
i mean when i i did a lot of the edit well i mean i sat there watching a lot of the edit because we had a bunch of bad sound for the alaska one and i had to i went up to vancouver and sat with brian for a couple days and you know so we had to go out and record some some voiceover stuff and so i watched him and i was like oh my god i'm gonna make it and you know we had i don't know 60 something hours of footage that ends up in a 52 minute film and man you lose a lot of darlings there's so much there that could be a completely different film but so much there that's just like i said when when after they left i filmed everything i could you know our sound guy just gave us pablo he's amazing just gave me tons of batteries and you know he said just record yourself all day
and i had all the gopro stuff and all the batteries and so i i recorded everything everything i did uh for that last week and like i said that's seven minutes at the end of the film and it's yeah there's some crazy montage that went down yeah exactly it's just a montage there's none of that gopro stuff but
you must have and i mean i've not listened to every one of your podcasts say tell me if you've already spoken about this a bunch but in that like seven because the first 30 days or whatever with dave just looked you know like a heinous suffer fest for most of the time where you yeah it looked really hard work and i think you both had a huge amount of tenacity and to keep going and i mean also because it's not one thing is doing these things an adventure but another is actually like filming them and turning them into into something that people can enjoy and watch and you guys obviously had helicopter flying around and stuff and probably landing near you i guess to film camp scenes and stuff were you guys close to any point to just being like take us out this is not i
i will say i don't know that dave would like me to say this but you know we had you see you see some real strife between he and i when we're at that we're right at the edge of denali national park and that was really the crux because we were there for eight days we got there and we had this amazing flight there and we had our we had our cash that was there and so coming into there we were really proper starving we hadn't been with the film crew you can't tell this from the film but we hadn't been with the film crew for days at that point because we we would only the helicopter was coming from a long ways away the filming helicopter and so we could only execute budget wise we could execute him eight days of the whole thing which okay was really stressful because you know you have to execute him the day before we never knew how to do it and we had to do it the day before and we had to do what the weather was going to be the weather forecasts up there were i was going to ask you about that in pakistan but we had no idea what we were going to get so it was often just oh god i hope this works and then if we we would execute him and flying two hours in which is a lot of money with a helicopter you know then you had then you had to get to fly for two hours yeah he was down in homer which is a long ways away from the alaska range and so it was a big deal and then we had to nail it and so uh when we were sitting there at that camp on the edge of the park you know basically snowing it was just obvious that okay that this is not a flying day that we're gonna have to wait this is not a flying day we're gonna have to wait well dave was running out of time and so he started really shifting his mindset that we gotta walk out of here you know we got to get to the denali road where they where the bus people come in to see denali which was only a
maybe a two-day hike uh on the north side and so he was really that we got to get to the north side get the fuck out of here you know this thing i gotta i gotta leave and and i just kept going no man that we you don't really we've got another week you know it's only one flight we only have one chance and you know if we get the decent if we get decent weather it's 100k we'll make it we've seen that it works yeah just gotta get
like four hours yeah and and so it was
but it was with each passing day of terrible weather he was just getting really you know so it was very much a battle of the of the solidarity you know i was just i mean we can't walk out of here what an epically shitty end for a film we gotta we gotta fly this thing and then so when we did we finally got the weather uh you know none of that was manufactured that was just day eight the sun popped and it looked like it was going to be epic uh you know but by the time we launched it was already going really bad and i actually wanted to stop i i didn't want to fly that day i wanted to just go no we need to go back down to camp and wait and so luckily you know he said well i'm not had the
heli coming yes the heli was there and so that was
that was the other thing the heli was there and so we had to give it a shot but i mean when we when we took off it was just holy shit we're not going to get 10k this isn't going to work and it worked and so we got we got really lucky but
that is the thing about paragliding you never know until you try like i mean some days you look at it and you're like obviously this is not going to work but there's so many days without days yes yeah for sure
and and you know the the interesting thing about alaska was that we i mean it's maybe i'm wrong here but it seems like pakistan from what i've seen of your films and the other footage it seems more like you said early that what's supposed to work works you know you can in alaska because of the angle of the sun because it was so low even in summer i mean it would be light all day but uh i can honestly say that i we never had a clue about how things worked when things looked like they would be epic we'd bomb out and when things looked bad we'd make it work it was just bizarre i mean i didn't really get any decent flying until after dave left and then it was incredible
that was something i wanted to ask you about because you made a ton of progress in that sort of like seven minute part of the film which is not really shown and i feel like you must have had some amazing flying experience and i think that's what i'm trying to say i think that's what and of course some very scary moments in there it wasn't that scary it was it was uh i mean
there was there was the last day getting to getting to goal and you know and again that's manufactured where they show me crying at the end of the film we went in those guys got on a plane that night after i'd already landed there and so i camped and then we came back to that field i had all that on gopro it was all totally that's exactly what happened but you know we had to film that kind of that emotion but that that last flight was was proper scary and again none of that's in the film i have it all on gopro but it was you know the footage of me landing in that baseball diamond is is real that's my gopro footage that's from that day but it was a battle but there you know basically after dave left i i sat for four days in a tent in horrible weather and then three days later i made goal uh you know it was it was and one of the days after
that i was in the tent and i was in the tent and i was in the tent and i was in the tent and i was in the tent and i was in the tent and i was in the tent and i after
i left uh i had a flight very late in the afternoon it was you know it stopped snowing and i could see through this coal and i mean i only made it 20k but i landed in screaming winds going backwards uh and and really scary i mean it was just tundra it was the most gentle terrain you could ask for in those kind of conditions but i i almost had a you know a nervous breakdown i just thought what am i doing i was by myself now you know man i was totally reliant on the wind and i was by myself now you know i was totally reliant on the wind and i was totally reliant on just me and uh that that was spooky and then the next day got up to this launch and sat there all day just throwing rocks at my shoes just it was blowing over the back i couldn't get off and then that evening made some huge distance part of it with an eagle flying over this this glacier and so again i could never figure it out but it was it was uh and then the last and then two days uh the last two days were i if i had been smart enough
to be able to do it i would have been able to do it but i was just i was just
about it and knew more about where i was and and how things would work it definitely could have broken state records that you know there was it was good it was really good it was like the day i mean the best day of the whole expedition was after i was done and we went back in with the helicopter and got all that footage that seven minutes of footage yeah you know it was i could have easily flown 200k that day i mean no without even thinking anybody could have flown 200k that day it wasn't me yeah you know so there there are days we just didn't get them but there are days up there that really work i just we could never figure out how
i i feel like pakistan or anywhere really in the world is a bit like that like every dog has its day kind of and it shows i mean you were there for 38 days or however long your film you kind of said and seemed like there weren't many good flying days out of that and if if you do a trip to pakistan i i would hope to think that you know you're going to get a quite a bit better ratio than that yeah but also maybe not as good as you might imagine as well like the first the first trip we did in 2000 or the first trip i was involved in at least in 2022
um the first few weeks we barely flew at all we were just doing like big hikes up into the mountain maybe a quick glide down lots of carrying heavy bags and stuff and trying to acclimatize for when good and then at the end of the trip there was a week where um we all flew into gormit tower aaron included and he did some skiing and then um fabby will and myself stayed to to climb the tower aaron flew out that day and and then the next day flew a huge flight whilst we were uh climbing and then the next day maybe after that he flew that monster like 311 or 12 whatever it was and then we had come back out and i think the day after that we were um due to be getting on a plane and flying home so we had one more good day of weather which is when i made like my personal best flight there when i
talked to aaron about it he he seemed to think that you know way bigger is on the docket there that it actually wasn't that good uh is that i mean it what what does that mean
to you in terms
of i mean have you got to be there 40 days every year to get that day or uh no
i mean well interestingly this year i never felt like we had as good of conditions for cross country flying as we did the previous year it was always windy somehow like there was always 15 or 20 kilometers an hour of wind which
isn't that comfortable allowed
us to do some great combo flights and you can soar up on things and stuff but it's not great for then making huge huge distances whereas i felt like the year before the the days that aaron had for making those those big flights i felt like they were pretty good you know for that but i i believe aaron when he says that he could go bigger or people could go bigger because ultimately you know he wasn't flying full out cross country gear there he was flying vol biv harness and and and wing and i'm sure if you give that guy like that day now he's going to be able to fly that day and i'm sure he's going to be able to fly that day now with a bit more knowledge on the place and with his mindset to it he could go bigger for sure or put put another
another few exceptional pilots in the air with them and they could really go big yeah
definitely definitely i mean i managed to fly 230 something kilometers fia triangle there and i wouldn't say i'm you know i'd call myself a pretty good pilot but i wouldn't say i'm like a pilot that can do huge huge distances and fly super efficiently and as a result that's my biggest personal triangle that i've ever done so i think the the ability to go big there is is it's there but the caveat of that is you know sometimes you're flying in some pretty out there places like there's one coal that you fly over on that where you're like you gotta scrape over the snowy coal and then if you don't manage to get over it because it's kind of flat you'd be a long way from anywhere um and that's not to say that
i'm not
flying in pakistan is always remote because there's tons of valleys and villages and stuff going up there but it's it's not like flying a big triangle in the house yeah you're right it was a coffee shop
and a bus stop and a train stop and everything everywhere yeah uh last question what's next what's what's on the docket
i actually don't know maybe to go back to pakistan again this year i'm not sure like still trying to work that out but i'm really inspired by trying to use the wings to do other things with be that skiing or climbing i think that's that's interesting it's kind of new people haven't been doing for so long feels like you're trying to work it out a bit yourself rather than necessarily be told exactly how it works and i think there's a lot of interesting ground to be made there um so yeah whether that be in the alps or in other places i'm i'm really keen to to keep doing that on a personal level but i think it's fun to capture and i think it makes interesting stories so kind of from a filmmaking point of view as well but uh yeah i don't know for the filmmaking stuff i it's my job so you're always taking on projects that maybe aren't your passion projects of it all but that you know they're still super cool but i've got a few ideas of some bigger things i want to try and work out a way of making
and uh yeah there's ideas always bubbling up in there so yeah
i lied one more question i forgot to ask you uh so this isn't in the right order but oxygen i didn't see you guys flying with oxygen were you were you using o2 yeah
uh not not really uh would probably be the the answer on the first trip not at all on the second trip we had some supplies for it and vessel used it a little bit but um i think the
weight and the bulkiness yeah
the weight the bulkiness coming from a mountaineering background maybe like you're less wanting to use something like that i feel and i i think the reason we're able to fly at more than 7 000 meters without oxygen is only because we're spending time camping at like five five and a half thousand meters and acclimatizing a bit not as well as acclimatizing on a proper climbing expedition but you know doing that and vessel who is not a mountaineer you know he was putting himself out there and doing that as well so um yeah i think in order to fly at those altitudes you either need to probably have a very good idea of how your body will cope at six and a half thousand meters not being acclimatized and know the signs to look out for when it starts changing because it changes pretty quick i don't know if you have personal experience with that but fly higher um
you have a lot of experience with that yes
you probably know all about it but otherwise i think oxygen you know if you're just going to pakistan for flying and not too worried about landing on mountains and playing in the mountains i think oxygen is a really good idea it's definitely a safe idea definitely jake
fascinating man i'm really glad you reached out and thanks for sharing your films with me they're amazing and beautiful and those of you listening there'll be links in the show notes to those so check them out if you haven't seen them yet and well the the most recent i realize isn't out yet but it will be soon and uh keep getting after it man i dig your work thanks a lot thanks
very much and thanks for uh having me on and yeah thanks for being that guy in the community that brings people together to be able to talk about this fun sport it's a pleasure thanks man talk
soon see you cloud base
i hope so
if you find the cloud based mayhem valuable you can support it in a lot of different ways you can give us a rating on itunes or stitcher or however you get your podcast that goes a long ways and helps spread the word you can blog about it on your own website or share it on social media you can talk about it on the way up to launch with your pilot friends i know a lot of interesting conversations have happened that way and of course you can support us financially this show does take a lot of time a lot of editing and i hope you have a great day and i'll see you next time bye bye a lot of storage and music and all kinds of behind the scenes cost so if you can support us financially all we've ever asked for is a buck a show and you can do that through a one-time donation through paypal or you can set up a subscription service that charges you for each show that comes out we put a new show out every two weeks so for example if you did a buck a show and every two weeks it'd be about 25 a year so way cheaper than a magazine subscription and it makes all of this possible i do not want to fund this show with advertising or sponsors we could advertise it to you and we could advertise it to you and we could advertise it to you and i've asked about that pretty frequently but i for a whole bunch of different reasons which i've said many times on the show i don't want to do that i don't like having that stuff at the front of the show and i also want you to know that these are authentic conversations with real people and these are just our opinions but our opinions are not being skewed by sponsors or advertising dollars i think that's a pretty toxic business model so i hope you dig that um you can support us if you go to cloudbasemayhem.com you can find the places to support you can do it through patreon.com forward slash cloud cloudbasedmayhem.
If you want a recurring subscription, you can also do that directly through the website. We've tried to make it really easy and that will give you access to all the bonus material, a little video cast that we do and extra little nuggets that we find in conversations that don't make it into the main show, but we feel like you should hear. We don't put any of that behind a paywall. If you can't afford to support us, then just let me know and I'll set you up with an account. Of course, that'll be lifetime and hopefully you're being in a position someday to be able to support us, but you'll find all that on the website. All of you who have supported us or even joined our newsletter or bought CloudBase Mayhem merchandise, t-shirts or hats or anything, you should be all set up. You should have an account and you should be able to access all that bonus material now.
Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate your support and we'll see you on the next show. Thank you.
We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Thank you.