Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase 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 Louie 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 of mine that I just think is fabulous, and I think really summarizes in a lot of ways what Louie and I were getting at in that talk.
Thank you for the interview with Louie Tapper. These are such tough conversations, but really important to have. Louie's 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 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 was so important. 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, 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 Louis was getting out there.
So, uh, put that in there, lodge that in your, in your brain, and, and, uh, have fun. Next thing I wanted to talk about is insurance. I have the article up on the website. If you go to cloudbasemayhem.com, just put in the search term "insurance," you can see the article there that 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'm 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 If you're 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. out, 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 medevac, something like that. I use Global Rescue, but you can use whatever you want. Then, hopefully, they—and they as 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, uh, the the search and rescue, so but this creates a dilemma for us because when you're hitting your SOS, uh, 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. 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 IRCC 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 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 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, pretty exceptionally remote. No injuries, nothing was wrong, uh, 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, they were—this person was being told by their friends that were back at base, back in Beer, that hey, you know, walking out of there could be pretty, 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, 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, I was called about this and the pilot who 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 is.
So make sure you understand also what these insurance things cover and what they don't. There's an argument here that, well, 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, um, you know, so the pilot wasn't using oxygen, which is, you know, makes it when you're up high in the Himalaya, 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 hands, so make sure you understand what they do and don't cover and... 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 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 Simm and Fabi and Aaron Durogati and Antoine Girard and Veso Ovcharov. 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 as an ascent tool with these amazing climbers, I said Fabi, Fabi Buhl, and 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 in a couple hours and 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 landing at high altitudes is is uh 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, he was curious about that, and how that all went with Red Bull. But he's working with some awesome people, Tom de Dorado and Horacio and and these guys, uh, 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 or for a climb, and then flying back down and being in 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 Jay Collin. Cheers, Jay.
Thanks for reaching out, man. I appreciate it. It was—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, freedom, uh, gorgeous with you and and the boys over in Pakistan this summer with Vaso and Medhi and Will and uh, and I really enjoyed your other film as well, which is out. I—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, yeah, as regards to the film, we went to Pakistan in 20 – well, I went to Pakistan in 2022. Obviously, a lot of people have been going there for much longer than that. Um, and we made a film called The The New Way Up, uh, which is kind of like a paragliding climbing combination movie, um, 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 uh, last year in 2023, we went back, uh, with a slightly different crowd of people, uh, made another film called The Magic Freedom, which is what I guess you were just watching maybe before.
Yeah, it was, it was, it was brilliant.
Man, it made me, made my head cold feel a lot better. I've told you, I'm fighting a pretty heavy cold right now, but it's—it made me smile, man. It's, uh, 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 bibby all those years ago, you know? So he's, yeah.
That guy was wild, legend, yeah. And to see 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? Uh, this is, you know, those who haven't seen your film with Fabi and Will, that kind of rocked the world, but there's probably people that haven't seen it. And it's, it's pretty remarkable what's going on. That just, just take, give us 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 Will both come at paragliding from perhaps a different side of the coin to a lot of people. Um, they're both exceptional, um, mountain athletes, sort of firstly. So Fabi was very well known as a climber, um, originally as a boulderer, but he's gone on to do some really amazing alpine climbing. Um, and then Will Sim, who's a British guy. Fabi is a German that lives in France, and Will is British, and he lives in, 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, 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 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 since back in the 80s, I guess.
But with the sort of relatively recent advance is 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, 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, 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 for 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 Alps well, but I, I feel like it's just a, 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 my clients. Yeah. Um, but going, 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 white water 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, at least not in the good cross country sort 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, good flight 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 Chamonix 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 white water 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. Oh wow, you're a serious paddler. Um, yeah. I mean, we, uh, we, I got to do a lot of kayaking. That was, that was really good. I didn't do so much anymore, um, 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, um, no, coming to Chamonix, I was 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 and
When did the filmmaking come along? How long you been doing that?
Well, I first, weirdly enough, my parents both trained as photographers, photographers, um, 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 um, I first picked up a camera when I was probably 17 or something like that. Um, I didn't know if I was inspired because that's what they'd 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 in some kind of way, and photos for me seemed like a good way. Um, I'm very dyslexic, so writing wasn't, wasn't always easy back then, although I enjoy it more now, but um, 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 for your little films, um, from, 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 films. 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, um. And then, since then, I've been kind of full-time freelance with the video stuff, and, uh, and sometimes photos, yeah.
We talked about this before we started recording, but I think it'd be fun to learn that the economics of filmmaking has always been really hard for me to get my head around. I, I got very lucky as a, as a, I got very lucky as a non-filmmaker. On the other, you know, the 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 even though I was in the film, that was, that was quite interesting, but we did that for outside TV and, but we had to spend a lot of our own personal money to get that done. You know, certainly didn't make money and, and that, that, but it led to some cool things. It led to both the Red Bull films that, that I did, the Rocky's Traverse with Will Gadd and then the Alaska, sorry, North of Known with, with Dave Turner.
And those were funded by Red Bull. So we didn't have to worry about it. That was, that was pretty amazing. But yeah, it was, you know, these days because that's kind of dried up, that they, that region of Red Bull, I think it was the Explorer Series, that they don't, that doesn't exist anymore. So, uh, I'm always fascinated by how you make it work as a job, from, from the, at least from paragliding filming, because it seems hard to get enough, uh, money on board to make it work, yeah.
I think, uh, if I just relied on making a living from, from making paragliding Moyes, then I would, uh, I'd be back in the camper van again pretty quick. But, um, I mean, that's not to say that I don't make some money from, from paragliding films through different ways. Um, as a filmmaker, 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. Um, and I'm sure everyone has found their own way in. Um, for me, I really think that I just, I quit every other job I had and I said, "Right, I'm just gonna make this work somehow." And it did start to work, but it was lots of small gigs of different things to start with and a lot of hustling.
Um, it's still a lot of hustling as a freelancer. I think anyone who's a freelancer will be able to relate to the fact that there's always a bit of insecurity and always a bit of a worry of what's going to be, be next. But yeah, I guess for those last sort of six or seven, seven years, it's always worked out. So, a lot of my 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, cool.
Your, your film new way up, uh, when it, when it tours and it goes to Kendall and Bam, for whatever, I don't know what, what, uh, film festivals the other ones, it's done, I'm sure many, but, uh, does that lead to a lot of work? Do those, do you, do people end up reaching out? I would
Say, in principle, no, not really, which always feels like a bit sad, but it's nice to see your work out there. And it's really nice to know that people are getting to watch it on a slightly bigger screen than, you know, their phone or whatever. So, I think, I think the balance of film festivals, of for me, it works. For example, that film was kind of, I mean, we just went to Pakistan because we wanted to go to Pakistan, and at some point in there, we started to realize that that was potentially going to be a pretty cool story. And I brought some basic camera stuff with me and I did my best to sort of document it as a one band person. But at first, I mean, that was really just a passion project.
And it was great because Fabi, who's sponsored by Adidas, Terex, and also Petzl, those guys stepped up and they gave a bit of money towards helping edit it and make it and stuff. stuff. So that was kind of how that was commercially viable, I guess. Um, and it's, you know, as Fabio would say, it's important for him to have someone to, you know, document these things for them to have value as athletes. So your relationship as a filmmaker 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, 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 thing 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 up until 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, 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 not 30 at least, uh, you know, they're being really used as an ascent tool, and and it's really amazing the lines that you guys are opening up. And I mean, this has been done in the Alps for longer, but it's 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. For the climbing community, is this just blowing their minds?
I mean, are we going to see a huge rush of of fabby'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 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 Gin wing; they don't own anything else, and they'll use it, you know, regularly to get down off the mountain, be it on skis or after a climb or a quick, a quick flat 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 get somewhere. Where, 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 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 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, this before, but on my first really bigger bivy, this was 2012 in the Sierra. So I'd done a little trip with John Sylvester and Beer and was just, "Wow." And, uh, I got invited to join a group of pilots who were way better than 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 was, you know, one of the legendary Pakistan pilots, had gone in real hard and 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, and I remember, uh, you know, we were getting ready to take off and Nick Greece was a, you know, a friend of mine and a real mentor and somebody had worked with it.
He, at the time, he ran our U.S. magazine, uh, Pilot and I said, "How shouldn't everybody be, be doing this?" She 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, and 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. 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 talking about, you know, that you guys are taking off, putting your skis on in the air, which is still hard for me to wrap my head around and, and, you know, so you could land on skis when you're up high, which makes a lot of sense. But 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 trim speed's really fast. You know, and I have found in my own, you know, when there's snow, your depth is really tricky, depth perception. You know, 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 have a landing in the film where you're like, that wasn't my best landing, where it's actually pretty steep.
You know, you could stick it in. Ah, 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 have seen it yet because it's just going around to a few festivals, we're 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 Saint Helier—I can't remember, maybe 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 their paraglider like a helicopter and being able to go up.
And, yeah, anyway, I thought that was the coolest thing I've ever seen, um, and we're just basically trying to build on that in Pakistan. Um, 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 seven thousand meters in, when there's still, you know, a decent amount of snow on the mountain as well, because 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.
Exactly, yeah. So, but in Pakistan, you know, in sort of June time, you still have potentially pretty good snow on the mountain, and you have a cloud base potentially way higher than it, so you can actually, you know, use the paraglider successfully 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 wingtip 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. Um, 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.
Um, Anton, I think, has actually made a little calculation program to, to show it. Um, but rather than often, if you're 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, yeah, a good 20, 20 faster probably. Um, 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 what I've...
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 the skins on my skis—what we used 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 that Fabi and 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 like...
I didn't have a very good front-mounted reserve. I think I'd made a pouch out of a dry bag because 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
It's not that clever, um. So that year, I ended up, what would we do? I think we'd—we'd put our our 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 because then you can land with your your skis on, um, but it definitely involves a bit of yoga flexibility that I don't particularly—is it 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 well.
And you're trying to do all this while filming too, that's what I'm in Prague. I kept imagining 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, either fiddling with a camera or you got a ski in your hand or something stupid." But it's amazing how well a zeolite flies without your hands on the controls. That's what, 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. Um, 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. Um, so this year Air Design made me like a light version of their sock, and Will was using like a BV1. Um, 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, 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, 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 skin, and then on the launch you feel like a total cluster, you know, whatever.
Like, it's, it's horrible because the launch is hot in Karimabad; it's probably 30 or more than 30 degrees. It's super, super sandy. Um, 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 out there. Um, 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 here.
How heavy is your kit on the airplane getting all this stuff there?
Oh, heavy, yeah, yeah, really, because you've got drones and
cameras, and batteries, and skis, and ice axes, and crampons, I imagine. And you've got the whole kit, yeah, everything
Yeah, so Turkish Airlines, we can very much recommend. They, they don't publicize it 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 lift it 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, um
I don't know. I feel like modern camera gear and batteries do work pretty well, and the reality is of what we're doing in Karimabad. 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 Krimabad. 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 Krimabad, and you get back to the comfort of the hotel. And I think this is where the paragliders are really revolutionizing things, because when I, at least from the, the background I come from with the 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 a, you know, cuisine, and you get to understand what the culture is. Whereas on, on a lot of mountaineering expeditions, sure, you fly in, and you maybe have a night or two in a town, but then you go to a base camp, and okay, you get to meet and know your chef pretty well, but beyond that, you're just sat in a cold glaciated area, trudging up and down the same mountain until you finally manage to climb the thing. Whereas with the paraglider and current bad, what's amazing is, is that, you know, we take 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 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 the trip.
Amazing, where would you say, you know, scale 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 risk tolerances to a lot of people. 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 you go 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 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 and you, 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 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, really big, and it can be really strong, 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 form 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, well, I mean your
Your option ABC reduces really fastly 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—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 and ski quite a lot of different lines 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, um, 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 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, hits? Is it, is it, are you getting a lot of snow in these big storms we
Definitely, we're 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 there. 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 Goldmatt Tower with Fabi 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 could ever want to really
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 as 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, just outrageous. So, those, the these drones, how, what's the difference in flying 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 Goldmatt 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. 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 cooler, and then it leads to some pretty technical, um, mixed, uh, climbing to the summit. That, and I joined them to to the coal. I was now, I was so ill 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 get up, you know, a few hundred meters and film them, but 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, 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, we're really, really stoked to sort of be able to do this first descent 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 had 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 Baltore that you already did a podcast with those guys and and some of them were in um Groomabad 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 tandem pilots and obviously pretty pretty good pilots, and then some of them were really good climbers and a couple of them were wingsuit base 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 is 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 writing me saying like, "I really want to go," and And I feel like the films are maybe bringing the place more attention with Anton's films. And, you know, it's not just me that's made films there. So I do think that there's going to be a sudden influx in people this season, for sure, all looking to do probably similar sort of silly adventures.
Tell me about the French. 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, and well, I mean, but you said Fabi's German. I didn't know that, actually, but, uh, you know, it's, it must be quite fun to hang out with folks who are just constantly dreaming, yeah.
I mean, I think, I think as you kind of already alluded to 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, back in the, I don't know when, 90s or something like this past spantic, 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't 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 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, to do stuff. And yeah, Meddy, who was with us this year, he's a French mountain guy. What a character! 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 Medi, um, and yeah, 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're just trying to fly over and survive.
And yeah, it's just a, I don't know, a spirit to these people that they bring 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 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, we hung out 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 Back in 2011, they drove the length of Africa, finding flying spots all the way down. And a place that they had spent a bit of time in was Tanzania. But they hadn't really got to spend as much time as they wanted to there. And they managed to do some flying and it was rowdy. But they thought the potential would be pretty high 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 Maasai 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, loving people.
And, uh, I mean Tom and Horatio were even able to take some of them on a tandem paragliding flight, which is really cool. And, yeah, I don't know, it was, it was a special trip. It was somewhere between a paragliding trip and a cultural trip. Um, we, we landed on, uh, the Old Delalungay, which is the only active volcano in Tanzania. It's about 3,000 meters, and it, it looks like the kind of volcano you'd draw as a child, you know? It's like, great, like kind of like classic like thing. And we were able to fly more or less right over the top of it in the end, and 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, 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 of
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 being able to make it his career, 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 it, 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, 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 going to 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 filmmaking, it's great to fail. 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 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 that 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—it's been interesting since the Alaska one came out that, you know, 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 it was a pretty wild week for me, 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 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 butting your head 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 plus 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, or anything like that. And I think with the most recent film, actually, it was, it was funded by grant, uh, by Kendall Mountain, um, film festival and, uh, Kailas, which is a Chinese, um, outdoor equipment brand. They, they put some money into this grant and I applied for that thinking, not in a thousand years, that would, that would win it, but, uh, 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 here. That's interesting. How can you, you don't, I mean, what do you, how can you have an opinion here? 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 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 learned a 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 good decisions," versus like, "Now's a good time to get the camera out and 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 being like this gradual, gradual, slow process of making 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 mine here real quickly. How much, how 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, fun things, um, and we also went to the Baltoro and flew in the Baltoro 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, 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 footage from. People are going to buzz off, and this is what we're going to 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 head cam footage and stuff, that you just don't even look at because it's not relevant to the the scene that 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 Caracorum 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 would 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 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 stuff 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, so 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 were. 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 in 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, 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 no..." 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—you know, you have to execute them the day before.
We never knew 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 there. 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 When we were sitting there at that camp on the edge of the park, you know, basically snowing, it was just obvious that, okay, this is not a flying day that we're going to have to wait. This is not a flying day we're going to have to wait. Well, Dave was running out of time. And so he started really shifting his mindset that we got to walk out of here.
We got to get to the Denali Road where the bus people come in to see Denali, which was only maybe a two-day hike. Uh, on the north side, and so he was really, "That we got to 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, we'll make it. We've seen that it works. Yeah, just gotta get
It's 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 where they—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, 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, 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 flights and, of course, some very scary moments in there. It wasn't that scary; it was, it was, uh, I mean...
there was the last day getting to getting to goal and you know and 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 I left, uh, I had a flight light 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 20 K, but I landed in screaming winds going backwards and, and really scary. I mean, it was just tundra. It was the most gentle terrain you could ask for in those kinds of conditions. But 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 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 smarter 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—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 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, uh, 22, 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 the conditions did come 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, um, Fabi 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, 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 on the docket there that it actually wasn't that good. Uh, is that I mean, it, what, what does that require in terms of? I mean, you've got to be there 40 days every year to get that day, or uh, no.
I mean, well, interestingly, this 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. There was always 15 or 20 kilometers an hour of wind, which
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 days that Aaron had for making those big flights, 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, with a bit more knowledge on the place and with his mindset set 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 because it's kind of flat, you'd be a long way from anywhere.
Um, and that's not to say that 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 of it 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, that maybe aren't your passion project 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, and yeah, there's ideas always bubbling up in there. So I
lied. One more question. I forgot to ask you. 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. Not really. 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 Veso 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 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 Veso, 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, a
Lot of experience with that, yes.
You probably know all about it, but otherwise, I think oxygen—you know, if you were 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. Thanks a lot.
Thanks very much. And thanks for 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 that we all do. It's a pleasure. Thanks, man.
Talk soon. See you at Cloudbase.
I hope so. If
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