Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. Got a great show for you today with Kinga Masztalerz down in New Zealand. You all know her from a couple of X-Alps campaigns. She's a guide and instructor and been all over the world. Her website is girlgonewild, and that kind of fits how she approaches life. life and a lot of fun with this. She was highly recommended by a number of people and, of course, I interviewed Kinga after her first Red Bull X-Alps, and she was eliminated in that one. And so we talked about some of the mistakes she made in that interview, and that was kind of a roundup with a whole bunch of the athletes that year.
So this was a chance to kind of sit down and do a longer one with what she's been up to. I wanted to talk to her about her hike and fly race in Wanaka, that sounds really cool. She's got a race similar to the one I organized, the Global Rescue X Red Rocks, but different format. It sounds like a blast. I'd love to get down there and do it someday. But we cover a whole range of things in this interview. We talk a little bit about this year's X-Alps. I got to spend some time with her at one of the launches, I think day three above Kimsey, and interact with her team a little bit. But we talk a lot about how she got into the sport and her travels and getting into guiding and her rather scary brush up.
And she was kind of in the heat of the moment of, I'd call it intermediate syndrome. I think that's what she called it as well. But just being awfully aggressive early on and getting lucky and having to kind of reset how she approached the sport and risk. I think some of that's going to be really valuable for many of you. So, yeah, enjoy this talk with Kinga. A little bit of housekeeping right before we head into it is just as this comes out, this will be one or two days after registration has opened for the Red Rocks Flight Open, U.S. Nationals comp that I run down in Utah with Logan Walters. And we've got a great team on that, and that'll be the kind of warm-up event for the World Cup.
which we haven't had a World Cup here in the States since 2012 in my hometown, Sun Valley. So that's exciting. That's middle of September. You can find out information on the World Cup at the PWCA website and for the Red Rocks Wide Open on civilcomps.org's site. Just do a search for either of those. And it's also on Air Tribune, but the registration will be through Civil. Hope to see you all there. It's going to be awesome. Awesome. And, oh, and we've also got the application period is closing pretty soon in a couple of weeks for the Global Rescue X Red Rocks. Some big names coming from Europe this year, and it's going to be an awesome event, as it always is. So check out all those, and we'll see you in September in Utah.
Hope you're all getting some great spring flying, and enjoy this show. Cheers.
Kinga, welcome to the Mayhem. We're having some technical difficulties here, so I can't see you, but I trust you're still there. You're down in New Zealand. Sounds like you're doing some guiding. And I want to spend most of the time talking about this very cool hike and fly race you've been organizing the last few years. It was one of your participants who reached out and said, you got to get Kinga back on the show. And I said, yeah, I've been meaning to do that forever. So that was a good reminder that I needed to get you on here. But I thought where we could start was the last time I saw you, actually, physically, was at the launch above Kimsey in the last X-Alps. But we'll talk about that. But welcome to the show. And thanks for joining me.
Hi, Gavin. Amazing to be here. Thank you for inviting me. Your podcast has been a never-ending source of inspiration for so many pilots worldwide. So it's really good to be here again.
That's good to have you back on. And the last time was, uh, right after the 2017 race, I think? They all kind of gelled together. Was do I have that right?
2019, yeah, it was my first, very first Red Bull in 2019 for me, yes.
19, okay, yeah, 19. And then 23, okay. Oh, yeah, of course, I was thinking 2017 with all the bad weather, but uh, well, much has happened since then. You were a pretty new pilot back in 2019, as I recall, and you're kind of just getting into it. And and the adventure game was was big in your soul, and so you you stepped up to the X-Alps, and I know that in some ways, on a disappointing note, you know, getting eliminated, but you had a you had a good run.
Yes, so when I, uh, when I applied for my first Red Bull X-Alps in 2019, I was pretty fresh pilot. I was flying for four years and I felt so new and so overwhelmed and so inexperienced, and I was so inexperienced comparing to all the legends out there, you included, who've been doing it for a long time. And you know, meeting, even meeting all these amazing pilots and athletes out there in the start line of Red Bull X-Up was such a big thing for me, meeting all these legends and being able to race with them and mostly learn from them. So for me, it was mostly a learning experience and an adventure. I obviously didn't try to win anything, and most of my racing I've done also some other races, not only the biggest and and and baddest Red Bull X-Alps, but the X-Pyr and Eiger Tour and Born to Fly.
There's plenty of really fun races out there, and all of them I've done mostly with focus on adventure, adventure, and learning experience, because what we can learn from pushing ourselves day after day with this very laser focus toward, you know, moving toward our destinations, and while having all the great pilots and athletes around us doing similar things and seeing what choices they make, how they fly, how they use the day and conditions, having having all the safety network that's provided by your team, by the organization of the race, yeah, that's an incredible opportunity to learn. And this learning curve on my first 2019,
in particular, this first big race, 2019 Red Bull X-Race, was immense. So, as you said, I was pretty disappointed to be, basically, at the very last elimination round on the 10th or 11th day, I got eliminated with this just absolutely silly mistake with navigation, Basically, we we we we turned in the wrong, we took the wrong turn basically. And and and after after this incredible chase and growing and grow growing race not to get eliminated, I was so heartbroken, but also to do such a simple navigation, right? And navigating the kind of mistake after the after 10 days of Red Bull X-Ups, who hasn't been there racing, hasn't been so overwhelmed and exhausted and with the whole team on sleep deprivation and kind of not knowing also for the first time what I was really signing up for.
It's very easy now to laugh at it but back then it just showed how exhausted we all were, How overwhelmed I was, and as a result, I was pretty heartbroken, and it took me actually weeks, if not months, to get over this. This race, I was just so exhausted, I didn't even want to fly anymore after the... after first Red Bull X-Ups, it felt like it was just too much. And also, now I understand, and we all to some extent have it, it's like Olympic blues that after such a big event that has been in your center of your focus, attention, training for so, so long, you've been preparing for it and thinking about it and focusing and for so long in the time leading to the event.
After, after it's done, it's like, well, now what? So you really need to learn to, to, to, to keep rolling and find other goals, and also learn to, learn to relax after, but also learn to come back and find other goals and adventures to it. So this first Red Bull XL was definitely life-changing in this sense.
As I recall, you were planning on doing the 21 race, but you had an injury. Is that right?
Yes. So 21 was a particularly difficult year because we were still in the lockdown. New Zealand was for quite a long time, you know, it's an island far away from everything. And it was quite a long, not lockdown in the sense that we couldn't do things. We could do things within New Zealand but moving in and out from New Zealand was very complicated. It was basically no planes, coming back was complicated with like expensive and long lasting quarantine and etc. But also then training for it, on top of it, training for it, I got a stress fracture of a little tiny bone in my foot. I was experimenting with different shoes, and it didn't go very well.
And so, and it was misdiagnosed for a long time because it was very weird type of fracture, and and I got to the point at some—I got to the to the point where some some doctor asked me that maybe it's in my head. And of course, I knew that it's something. You know, you know your body, you know that something is wrong there. So it was finally diagnosed, and and and and because it—it was misdiagnosed for so long. It wouldn't heal itself. I needed surgery. And then with all the COVID issues around traveling, it just really felt like the universe wasn't cooperating. Wasn't lining up. Yeah. But at the same time, it meant that I did 2019, that I missed 2021, and I did 2023.
So basically, I choose the years with better weather.
Yeah, no kidding.
because 2019 was
Amazing 2023 was really amazing, and the pace was, uh, it was insane. The pace in the race
becomes more and more, becomes you think, oh, it can't get any faster, and then you see those guys moving faster and and going for it even more. It's just getting what what you think it's really redefining again, again what's possible for the great athletes, great pilots, with the this this extensive support of the good team, how fast they can move through through the Alps with the good weather. It's pretty mind-blowing, yeah, let
me ask you something that maybe I don't, I don't know, you know there's so many emotions and so many things that go into the race and, like I said, I mostly want to talk about this hike and fly race that you're organizing down New Zealand, not the X-Alps, but the the last time I did see you, it was, it was quite an interesting time to be an observer. You know, I wasn't I wasn't in the race this time. I was covering it as a journalist, and I had flown down kind of with the lead group from their launch before the Kimsey turn point, and flew down with them to the turn point, and then kind of got set up at the launch that most of you went to above the just south of the Kimsey, or I guess just west of the turn point. but it was kind of the beginning of the chain on the way to Lermous.
And when I got up there, it was windy, but it had been quite a bit stronger for most of the last, I'd been up there for a couple hours when you came through and you were either in just not a great mindset or, you know, it had a difficult day. I mean, obviously I, I wasn't privy to any of that. I didn't see, but when you showed up, um, it, it seemed like a pretty emotional point for you and Chris and, you know, that had having watched the other participants, the other athletes go through, it was kind of a one out of 10. I mean, it was windy, but it was pretty, it was very manageable. And, uh, again, I, I'd love to just know where you were and if that played a role in, uh, how you felt about the race later on, because it was, you seemed quite overwhelmed.
Do I have that right? Was that fair?
Interesting. Yeah, I remember when we met. It's interesting that this is the impression when we gave, because I didn't really feel overwhelmed. Yeah, I remember this time. I mean, I took quite a bit of time to kind of take off, but not so much because I was overwhelmed or because I was afraid of the wind, But because I wanted to kind of make sure that what I'm doing makes sense, and there was a moment when quite a few pilots took off and landed basically back where they started. Uh, there was a—there was a couple of pilots who actually got away and started flying and just kind of flying. There was also a couple of pilots who hiked higher and flew off. Yeah, and there's also a moment that Ellie, uh, flew off a little bit higher, and I thought like, well, uh, like you know, just kind of this decision-making process, a little bit.
Okay, let's—let's not rush it, because if I go back to where I started, I can always do this, you know? That's easy to—to go back to Chemza and and, uh, to be honest, um, this 2023 race for me wasn't too emotional at all. If anything, I was—maybe it's funny to say it about Red Bull X-Alps, but it was maybe too chilled when it comes to—to this particular race, it's the same way. And it was very interesting to observe myself in it, because in 2000, you know, I had—I had two races and four years in between them. And because I started as a really fresh pilot when I came to 2023 Red Bull X-Ups, I was a completely different animal, completely different pilot, and I've been through so many more places and adventures and and and and mountains, you know, since 2019, that in some ways the racing and Red Red Bull X-Up itself didn't turn the same string in me, didn't overwhelm me in the same way, didn't feel like it's...
It just felt, and I know it's an unpopular thing to say about Red Bull X-Up, but it just felt like a race, you know? It just felt like, oh, let's see and play without much kind of pushing myself. In a weird way, I... And you can see it in the result that also, Because at the end, I placed similar to my 2019 race, and but the whole dynamic of it, first of all, I was a very different pilot, but the dynamic was so completely different. And because of it, you know, Red Bull X-Tops is in general any big race, but Red Bull X-Tops, the biggest we have, requires this constant laser focus and real strong belief that it's worth it, this is worth to take a little bit of risk, that it's worth to push farther than you would normally, that it's worth to, you know, hammer it on the ground day after day, hour after hour, and it requires this constant high energy of like making fast decisions and going for it, and of course meticulous preparation and all these other aspects that happened before the race.
And honestly, honestly, I realized in 2023 that racing per se somehow served the purpose for me within this time leading actually to 2023 and doing, you know, Xperia in 2022 and all these other smaller races which can be smaller but can be as fast and as demanding as the bigger races, just in a shorter term. And I And I really felt the aftermath of the race in 2023 for me was really like, well, I actually happened to push myself and do more exciting things when I go by myself somewhere in the Himalayas or in the New Zealand Alps doing things that I found kind of in a way more committing, more exciting than what I've done during Red Bull X-Ups.
So of course this approach, when you approach the Red Bull X-Ups with this kind of mindset, you're not gonna perform super well. And also in this particular race you could see it, I could see it multiple times even when I was racing, That, for example, we're coming to to Lermos from Chiemsee, and I was flying from wherever, some random mountain, and there was, you know, Zugspitze on the way, and I had this beautiful cloud base, and of course I didn't need it. I didn't need all this altitude, but how often can you fly above Zugspitze and wave to people? So I did this one thermal, more, you know, wave to people and Zugspitze, cruised around, and then had to spiral down all the way from like 3,000 meters to land in Lermos and run back up, and and this is something that you shouldn't be doing if your main priority is, you know, performing as well as possible in the ranking.
But I had so much fun doing things like this. Flying from Lermos then, you know, there was this famous, infamous little convergence that we basically hiked on 80 meters up and took off, you know, you take off. And if you don't get the very first, very first climb, then you can as well get out of the harness and land immediately. It was a very very low take-off and very fast store and there was a local pilot who just took off From from it just just in front of me and immediately bombed out. So, wasn't very, very encouraging. But, but I took off and I was the cloud base and went basically all the way to Switzerland from, from, from there through the some stunning, stunning terrain and Tugging table turnpike in the air and, and then I could have made a and race-wise, I could have made a kind of more civilized decision.
But then I decided to land above the snow line, walk to the pass, and slip on the pass, you know, wrapped in my wing. Which also was more like, oh, let's live an adventure there. I was really craving adventure. And it wasn't great for my ranking, neither, because then my supporter, Chris, had to get to me. and I didn't eat and I slept wrapped in my wing over Silvretta Glacier, rather, in the high terrain and there was a lot of issues with communication because the phones didn't work, you know, my batteries went flat, my inridge was still working, so the organizers knew where I was, but at the end I got a yellow card for it. Like, you know, this was like reckless behavior. I was like, what are you talking about? It's the best, for me, it's the highlight of the race.
Even if it screwed up my ranking even more, For me, there are like those adventure, and then I realized that my head is really in there, more in this kind of curiosity and adventure of going different places and and not quite in racing. And you just shouldn't approach Red Bull exams if you want to perform well; that's not the way to go. So, so yeah, I wouldn't say I wouldn't say that those overwhelmed this time. I was just really in this funny way, taking taking my time and kind of exploring different options and uh, and it also told me that probably, at least for now, the racing racing stories maybe not what I'm what I'm going for, like what I what I what I what my flying needs or what really turns me on.
There's so much to flying. Of course, I can fly racing; it's one of the massive beautiful things you can do, but but there's also so many other things that flying is, it can be. And, you know, there's so many wild mountains to fly out there and so many beautiful places, so many adventures to have that are not necessary. So, racing for me always has been about learning and adding to my confidence and to this toolbox, because you can learn so much and then you can understand the mountains and your surrounding better as a result, fly better, and go for bigger adventures. But it was never truly the the the goal itself that I want to, you know, become the world champion of hike and fly or something like something like this; that was never goal itself.
The goal was always to learn as much so I can go for bolder and more beautiful adventures. so so so yeah I think it's all part of the journey Red Bull X-Hubs itself has been changing dramatically within years, and you've been doing it for a long time, so for sure you saw these changes even more, but even within these four years, you know, it doesn't go through the whole Alps anymore, it's more like a loop through the half of the Alps, there's more turn points, more turn points where the athletes have to land, so it's becoming more like a set of shorter tasks, less this like big open lines, which are still there, Like in Italy this year, it was like more open, but the... but big part, big part of it is really about like set of tasks which become make it a kind of faster racing, but also racing that you can more like plan more precisely and so move faster.
But also, there's a little bit less wild adventure in it, and meanwhile... And meanwhile, which, which again, just like everything is changing, and as we said at the beginning, the fact that that it's happening faster and faster, this itself is mind-blowing and super impressive. But at the same time, my flying and my soul goes a little bit more toward... I even lately, interestingly, started, you know, like the sport is so focused on flying kilometers, and the sport is so focused on, of course, on rankings, which we compete, but even if people don't compete, when we go cross country, value is in kilometers. And and at the beginning, especially, and also for many pilots, forever, it's super important to fly kilometers, and this is where they find challenge and and joy.
But for me, I found at some point that it's so much more fun and so much, so much more interesting to fly things that I found simply like, interesting, oh, let's try if it works. Because if I have some really good day and very obvious line to fly, and I know that I can pull it off, then it's kind of planning and execution, and then you just kind of want to do it as fast as possible, fly as efficiently as possible to maximize your distance. But if I do something that I'm like, oh, let's try to go into this valley or to this mountain. I haven't been there yet. Let's try to fly like this a lot in the sun up, that when you go a little bit deeper, it means potentially like days of walking or night out. And let's try to do this with this condition.
And then it brings so much more joy and fun toward me, But it's pretty difficult to translate late one-on-one kilometers, so yeah, I guess it's all part of the journey and we all find our way of flying and and and and and finding finding. I like to talk to my when I coach, I like to tell my pilots that we fly the where we live and it translates in so many in so many ways if of course if we are overconfident, it will come and bite our butt very quickly, but also if we are super shy, we won't go anywhere if we are in some ways dishonest about ourselves. We can cheat it, we can hide it in the real life, you know, blame others or pretend that it's not us or create some narrative that builds over it, but in the air it all comes out pretty quickly.
So in the same way as we change within years, I believe that I want to think that we grow and develop and and and change in this way as humans; it also will affect our flying, but I also like to think that this journey of flying can also be very confident building and and can grow us as humans, so well, that's all part of it, yeah, when
Did you get into coaching, I...
Got the very first, the very first, uh, little group I did. It was just before, uh, just before Covet started, a very lucky time to start anything. Uh, in 2000, it was the total beginning of 2020, and, uh, and it was in New Zealand, and, uh, and it was, uh, it was really, really interesting experience, and I realized there's so much that pilots and also, so the inspiration for it was the fact that when I learned to fly, and I was already, you know, signed off and theoretically an independent pilot, I still had no clue what I was really doing. And you cover it a lot in a podcast talking to pilots that, you know, that, that, that we just don't know what we don't know, and we make all these random mistakes, mistakes, they're often really risking our lives because we just don't know.
Because flying is quite a complex story, and first we don't know what we don't know, then we also think that we know, but we don't know, and then we go through our intermediate syndrome that we know it all. And in particular, I went through my intermediate syndrome in a very explosive and potentially dangerous way. I was, I kept making mistake after mistake and just couldn't understand that it's potentially dangerous. I was just, "Oh, let's go, let's go again, let's go further," you know? And and and finally I got, I pushed it so hard, I got so scared that that it basically like traumatized me, let's say, for next years to come.
Like, I would say that next three or four hundred hours I was flying constantly questioning my decisions and and and and and thinking, "Am I doing anything stupid?" And I'm like, "Am I, is it, is it okay what I'm doing there? I'm doing something completely random and I'm gonna die." So it's like flying with this kind of trying to question my decision every time, especially coming from being when I started flying I was pretty fearless and and getting from this to that was was was pretty harsh. So, uh, was that
Due to, uh, was that due to a singular incident, or was it just a a cacophony of incidents? Was it? Yeah, you said you're making a whole bunch of decisions that were pretty questionable, and it kind of added up, or was it? Did you go in hard or something? So,
Just, just a kind of quick story, quick story. I, uh, when I started flying, I discovered that that flying is my thing, I was completely hooked, so I left everything, moved to Italy to Bassano del Grappa in autumn and was flying there for whole autumn and winter. And it's a very particular place to fly, you can fly thermals in autumn and winter, but it's all very weak, there's not much wind, the wind is anything, it always comes from flatlands, then they have this obvious ridge, yeah, the wind is always coming more or less from the south, there's no valley winds, It's not really mountain flying; it's all pretty mellow, and you fly low, scratching close to the trees in winter, in autumn and winter, because, uh, yeah, because it's all, it's, it's weak, so you get, so you get pretty, uh, pretty used to these conditions and quite, uh, and I, and after, after winter there, I got pretty confident and pretty efficient in this, in this type of flying.
So when the first spring came, I, I was in this horrible place to be when I thought that, oh, I'm already flying similar flights that local seasoned pilots fly on a given day in this winter, autumn conditions in the place that I knew very well because I was flying there every day. So I'm actually quite a good pilot. Like if you need a typical intermediate syndrome on steroids, that was me on my first spring. Way overconfident and way underprepared. Absolutely. I knew it all. I was already super current in this very particular little bubble of conditions in this particular place, and then the spring came, and and my spring of obviously this not only spring in Bassano was very different than autumn and winter, but also just to mix it up. I went to Switzerland.
I went to Swiss Alps in April and one of them, and then I and I started making this like mistake after mistake. I was just, I was just just to make, to make a long story short, the first, the first thing I did actually was to go, go over the lake, and I knew at the Villeneuve, it's a place where people train across. I was like, "Oh, I stole my glider for the first time, no clue what I was doing," so I just told it, it's obviously dropped behind me. I panicked, I released it, shot in the worst moment possible because it was exactly behind me, stalled, so it went like into twist, etc., and I flew out. And then I'm talking to locals about it as I was, I tried this thing, and they look at me like I'm completely crazy. But, "There's no boat, you had no, no jacket, what if you went to water?
Would die. What are you thinking?" I was like, "Oh, okay, right. That's not, maybe, maybe that wasn't as safe as I thought it was. Maybe actually water wasn't, wasn't such a, such a safe, safe option." And then basically the next day I went to Verbier and, uh, and, and, and I did 2,600 meters. I thought, "I'm so high," because in Basan you always fly so low, but here you have Monta is almost 4,000 meters, crossed the valley, put myself in the like little, behind little spur in the in the lee side of the valley wind and got a collapse, overreacted, spun the other side and crashed on a tree. I had no clue about it, about valley winds again, it's like didn't know that low, what low means, how high I should be, what I was doing.
So yes, Getting off this tree was a cold story, because it was 20 meter pine and there was a lot of snow. I was 2200 meters, so it's still in April, a lot of snow. So the whole operation was pretty, pretty complicated, but make, making long story short, I got off this tree with the help of a friend, a very capable friend, way more capable than I was. I spent the next day detangling my wing and like, and reattaching the risers that became a bundle of like, the whole lines became a bundle of shame, of course. So after this whole day of drying my wing and the touch and reattaching everything, I took a train back home and I came back in the evening to Bassano. And back then, home was in Bassano.
I had this little apartment there, rented from a friend, and I kid you not, I thought at this point, for the first time, I, I thought, OK, Bassano maybe a little bit like not quite enough. I need to new places. I need to learn new places and learn how to fly. But also Swiss Alps in April. That may be a little bit too much for me right now. So I need something. I need to find a way to progress through my flying. And so tomorrow I'm not flying. It was a very important moment in my flying journey because I was talking to myself.
Tomorrow I'm not flying. weather looks rubbish, in the afternoon the weather forecast looks like it's gonna rain, there's no reason, so I'll just spend some chilled day and process things and decide what I want to do, how I want to progress with my flying, because that was the first moment when I felt like, okay, if I keep doing it this way, that's not a great, I mean, an important place to kind of decide what I'm doing with my flying in the future, this spring and summer. And it all sounded great, I woke up in the morning and I had this little apartment, one window was going to the takeoff, another window was over, kind of over the landing, so I saw the whole morning pilots, you know, Bassan del Grappa, very popular place, so I saw the whole day people coming to land.
And finally later in the morning I was like, no I can't, just a little flight, just a little flight, I have to go. I was so addicted to flying that even after all this, all this conversation with myself, the bad weather, where the focus, I was just so hungry and so greedy for air time at this point that I just, I have to go. So I hiked up, it took me another hour all together, you know, sort my stuff out, so I took off. So already I thought, okay, that's not a good place to fly. I need to process, I'm not a good mindset. Then, uh, I'm late, the weather forecast wasn't great. I still, I still put myself, put myself there. I'm flying, and then the sky was covered with this kind of stratus cloud, and, and that's okay, in winter we fly like this pretty often, that's not a big deal.
And, but it's winter, spring is a little bit different. And, and I was maybe 10 kilometers away from her, from the takeoff, and I felt a little drops of rain. And even then, after all this, what happened, I could have just flown, I could have flown out and landed on the flatlands and just, there plenty of fields there, and just hitch back home like I done multiple times. I was landed on, I've landed in every field there around, around Bassano del Grappa, because this is where I started thermaling and started, you know, going for my tiny cross country flights. And, but given then, I was like, no, I don't feel like hitching, I'll just go back, I just fly back just this 10k. And, and I never made it back because when it came, the storm, that was the massive like cell that was over, building over the strata that we didn't see.
When it finally, finally, finally, you know, developed, uh, then I put myself basically in the, I was still in the air in the, in the midst of spring storm, and I was trying to spiral dive. Then, that was my spiral diving was pretty rubbish back then, so it was putting me toward the trees. And I just, two days ago, I peeled myself off the tree in the Swiss Alps. I'm like, I'm not going to the trees, so I like big ears and speed bar, beep, beep, beep, going up and again and again, and took forever. And finally, finally, when I put myself on the ground, that I was, I was pulling ears on this wet glider. Oh my god, that was just such a mess. I had no clue what I was doing, seriously. Finally, it went into parachutal that I didn't recognize, and just, I hit the ground pretty hard.
The glider was so wet that, uh, basically this dust, like I thought it would pull me because it was so windy, but instead it made this like, this wet sound and just fell down. And I was, and at this point it was just, you know, I had to take off my glasses, I didn't see anything, everything was wet, it was blowing and I'm laying on the ground, I hit pretty hard and I'm laying on the ground in this rain and thinking I think I didn't break anything, but now I will lay here for a moment and think about my life choices and this really changed everything. That was such a close call and very very slowly, it was 5k from home yeah, so very slowly I packed everything, The glider was twice the size because it had so much water in it. Very brave to hide, it was still four liner.
You know, we're flying gliders that will would go through everything unless you really try super hard to pull, you know, big ears on a very wet glider. By the way, if anyone's listening to it, if you ever get into rain or or some get your wing wet, don't pull big ears. Don't be hard on brakes, as much speed as possible. Speed bar and stay on speed.
all the way to the ground.
Obviously not to, not to the bigger angle of attack, the the worst it becomes, so so that changed, so so still in the helmet, I walked last 5k home and this really kind of shook me as it so answering this question, question, yes, there was a lot of, a lot of events leading to it, but the same time there was this one final, it was so I was so lucky, it was I made so many mistakes on this day, from the very beginning of the mindset and not flying all the way to, to, to recognizing the weather pattern, trusting the weather forecast, being vigilant to the way to handling my glider, not understanding how the actually, like, the fact that I didn't even know, you know, like I'm a physicist by, by, um, by education, and the fact that I didn't even connect that pulling big ears and and being hard on brakes is not a great idea on the wet glider.
All together, it was just so mind-blowing to me. And it took me a long, long time to trust myself again. And actually, this time, build the confidence. Start from zero and build the confidence that is justified with experience and actually knowing what you're doing. You were
firmly in the grip of intermediate syndrome there, big time. Oh, so heavily. It had to hold on you. Yes,
so my intermediate syndrome was really, really full on, and it took me a long time to rebuild from it, and it was a long and bumpy journey, because we like to think about progression as some linear line, that the more we fly, the better we fly, and the easier everything becomes, and usually it's anything but linear, it's bumpy and crazy, crazy line going up and down, And while traveling this line, I realized how much it's involved both mentally and on the level of understanding the weather and topography, and handling your wing in different conditions, and understanding the physics of flying, and emotions, and mindset, and dealing with fear.
So I've been through all this because I put myself in the really, really heavy way at the very bottom of this line of fear and confidence, after being overconfident at the beginning of my flying, and once I finally punched through, and again, it was a long journey, it's a never-ending journey really, It just changes, but once I came to the other side and gained some skills and confidence, that was this time actually justified and supported and backed up by experience and and things that I that I had done. I thought, "Wow, that would be that would be so cool to have someone during this journey who would guide me through it.
Would be, it would have been so much easier." So my coaching, basically the idea of it, basically came from this aspect. Meanwhile, I got quite a bit into Volbivac, flying and venturing into the mountains in this multi-day way and also understood that of course it can be going for weeks and making the big trip, but can be also your night out and travelling through the mountains, just going out there for a flight and deciding that we are not coming back for dinner. And and there's so many ways to to explore the mountains, and so much to so much to do there. So so coaching basically came from from this, from this concept that we that now, after after processing it all within years and hundreds, it's not thousands, now thousands of hours of flying.
That's something that I'm pretty sure other pilots might might be useful for other their pilots, and yeah, and I started from there with a little group that were designed for kind of vol biv clinics. So we would start with with with with with flying as much as possible, flying cross country, understanding the mountains environment, doing top landings, super important, and and and and takeoffs in different different places that are not necessarily, you know, astroturf and the windsock, but the new places, and and and making pilots understand what's what's involved, what it means that they have a good place to take off somewhere in the wilderness, what's a good place to land or top land safely, etc.
All the skills that usually when we just fly cross country, or when pilots come out of school and fly in, you know, in the usual spot, they don't necessarily necessarily think about it, and also there's not so much well-structured knowledge out there because for a long time, when I started flying Volbivac, was basically this concept that it's only for some, you know, the best of the best, the boldest adventurers in the world, and to kind of bring it, bring it to this level that it can be a fun thing to do and different ways for pilots who are relatively slush, you know, you have 50-hour pilot and a good mentorship, you can take them for a cool adventure in the mountains, and basically you can see it again and again.
I take sometimes I work with, I've been working with 30-hour pilots, I've been working for with 2,000-hour pilots, and of course the adventures change and what we do and how I design these adventures, this changes with the level and capacity of the pilot and the weather and the terrain, of course, depending where we are, but the fact that you know that that even relatively fresh pilots can go out there and have a taste of this mountain adventure, and then get some tools and build on it to start growing towards bigger adventures and create their own uh, their own way of flying and enjoying the mountains, that's incredibly satisfying and a lot of fun to me to do.
So yeah, I'm
Curious to know, I've always been very hesitant to make a business out of something I'm really passionate about. You're obviously incredibly passionate about flying, but you've also created this—is how I'm assuming you're... you're paying the bills, is you're guiding and taking people on these adventures. It sounds like it adds to it for you, but is it, do you ever see, do you ever feel like there's a, you know, you're kind of, it's working against your love and your own passion for the sport, or does it add to it?
That's a very, very good question, Gavin. And yes, we see it again and again, that when you make your passion into work, it just kills the passion and it's easy to do. I've seen it also among friends and pilots who started flying tandems commercially and doing other stuff. In this case, I really feel at this point, and again, we are all—we all change as human beings, as pilots. So, so at this point, I really feel like it adds because it's about, you know, you get with your flying to the point you at the beginning, and or for some pilots, forever, you just pursue these personal goals. And flying, it's a very, very solitary and very egoistic sport, if you wish. It's really about your goals and your, your performance and your dreams, and very often you can see that it happens at the cost of other parts of your life or relationships.
Or it's not a team sport, really. It's really about, there's a lot of ego in the sport. There's a lot of "me, my flying," you know? I'm the pilot, and it's also justified because, at the end, it's all our responsibility, our safety, our decisions. You are this little aircraft somewhere in the mountains, you know? We are flying a piece of cloth through the mountains, and of course, it should be all our, you know, with all our fame and glory for little and bigger successes, but also our risk and and and and our responsibility to make it right. So sharing it and sharing it, sharing it with pilots who, you know, who come to learn and seeing how it can affect their, not only flying.
Sometimes I have pilots who keep coming back, you know, to different different places with me, or even the same places, or even same trips, because and and to see them again and again and see how they connect to different things that we work through. And it can be, of course, about flying because part of part of what we do, what I try to do with pilot, and again depends on the pilot, pilots come with different goals and expectations and skill level, but What we... what I usually try to do with pilots, it's not only about the time that we spend together that we go from some cool adventure. Of course, I want them to fly as much as possible, and I always ask, "Very, what would be this perfect trip? Is it more about flying your first hundred K, or is it more about spending this night in a beautiful place and flying off into the sunrise?
Is it more about, you know, beauty or challenge or kilometers or some... or some other aspect of flying?" And then we try to make it happen. But it's also about giving them tools and and knowledge and particular mindset and sharing the passion and and focus into particular things, whatever, you know, I see that made the most beneficial for them. And then seeing them, and then I get sometimes, you know, messages, or sometimes I see them again after months or the next year they come back and and I say, and they tell me that it was... sometimes I really, they say that was life-changing, that it's shifted perception of flying, of relationships, of that. There's some really crazy stories that happen on the way that...
that again can be, it can be only about flying and flying, you know, and and going for some a mission, I want to come for three days, I want to go vol biv, it's like, okay, that's what we're gonna do, but sometimes it really becomes this incredibly complex and satisfying journey to observe that they go through, and just being able to guide them through it, I also do a little bit of remote coaching with a couple of pilots, so I actually haven't met them, but I give and different tasks, and we discuss different technical and and and mental and and emotional aspects of flying via, you know, via Zoom every week, but also with different tasks and different things to focus on to train or to listen to; and of course, your podcasts are also usually on the list of of homework and and and and to see how it all comes together and how after this, you know
after this ups and downs of my own paragliding journey and rebuilding my confidence and actually building the whole set of skills, how I can help and guide others through it, that so adds to my flying. And yes, Sometimes it means that I have a 30-hour pilot on a record-breaking day, and I would like to go deep and and big, and meanwhile we are just kind of taking it slow and easy. But but the same time, I fly so much, and I've been flying also for a few years that at some point you you realize that, uh, that that's really like a small small price to pay for all that you get get in return.
So definitely at this point, it adds, it doesn't burn me out. It can be exhausting thing because it's a big responsibility to take someone, especially in the kind of wilder mountains when we go to. I do it in the European Alps, I do it in the in the New Zealand Southern Alps, and I do it in Birbilink in the Himalayas. So so depending also where we are and and how how deep we go, of course, sometimes, and how complex the weather system is, and especially when I just meet a pilot, this first day is always a little bit of a, you know, getting to know each other, because I I I only know what we can truly do after I see a pilot flying. So it can be pretty stressful. I feel a big responsibility for making right decisions.
But at the end, it's incredibly satisfying. So for now, it's been working incredibly well. So yeah, I think I may be this exception for this rule that, you know, if you make work your passion, it will kill your passion. For me, just adding to it at this point.
I'm always fascinated by people's stories are often similar to yours, especially in that intermediate syndrome. We all go through all these stages, you know, the ignorant stage, the intermediate syndrome stage, the expert halo stage. We've talked about it a lot on the show, but it's, you know, your mistakes and your awakening are pretty, I've heard that from, you know, in obviously different ways. not everybody lands in a tree and is okay and not everybody you know does a full stall over the water and doesn't realize how daft they're being you know but we've all done stupid stuff and we've all, hopefully—you know, many people don't, but you know, hopefully we can count on these cheap mistakes that to advance our confidence and risk tolerance and all the things that go into participating in in this sport outside of a body bag, you know, you, you have, we don't learn anything from success.
We learn from failures. And so it, but the, the penalty points for failure in this sport are so high that I'm not saying anything new here that people haven't heard on the show. I mean, I just find it fascinating to, it would be, you must be in a fascinating position to be guiding people who potentially haven't had a cheap mistake yet. And you're trying to keep them from having mistakes, but it's hard to learn from success. It's hard to learn without going in the tree. It's hard to learn without landing in a full stall with a soaked glider. You know, that I had that happen in the last race, going to Waugh Grind the first day I was on, you know, I'm a pretty, Pretty, I've—I've done 4x Alps.
I've been at this a really long time. I was on a brand new glider and I was flying underneath the cell, crossing the pins gal, and you know, everybody, the lead gaggle was—was heading into Wagrine, and I needed to be on the ground to go live. And I was going under a cell that was, you know, it looked like it could be a little nasty, and but in my experience, it was not—not that bad. It was, you know, it was pretty light rain. And I had just watched the video that Chrigel had put up just right before the X-Alps where he was purposefully flying in rain to go through various ways to get out of it. You know, so, I mean, that's, that's kind of next level education, but he was, you know, he was showing, he was showing, you know, the use of speed bar and how the glider spins earlier when it's wet, and you know, going parachutal, how to get out of parachutal when it's soaked.
And so I had just seen that when I was pretty low on the terrain and just turning and, uh, you know, wasn't even, but it was, it was, I, it was the first day I'd flown that wing. It was that, it was the climber three, uh, and I'd only flown the climber two and was, was loving it. It was fantastic. And the glider went parachutal on me and it was, you know, it was, I was low enough that I thought I might have to throw my reserve here. That'd be pretty embarrassing, you know, as a journalist, the very first day and end up in the trees. And, uh, but I hammered speed bar, got out of it, started turning again because I was, I needed the thermal to get out of where I was and went parachutal again, you know, spun parachutal, had to do it several times and it ended up everything, everything was fine.
But I later learned, I was really surprised with how easily the wing went parachutal. And I later learned, I mean, this is 20 years into flying. I later learned that when wings are brand new, they're much more susceptible to, to going parachutal with a little bit of wet because the friction surface is different than after you've had a glider for even 10 hours. And so, I mean, this was something that I'd never heard, didn't know, and could have been a way different outcome. You know, that may not have been a cheap mistake because I was pretty low and the trees were not that thick, you know, so I may have spun it in and gone in, you know, between trees and really gotten hurt, you know?
And so it's, it's one of of these just there's an infinite infinite number of these possibilities in what we do where you hope for a cheap mistake but maybe not that's
Really interesting, yeah. That's really interesting what you're saying, because you know, we like to say, "Oh, never fly in the rain," but in part, but it may happen in the mountains, and to be honest, it happened to me multiple times. And actually, when I was, um, coming for a first, um, not for the first Red Bull X-Alps, I was flying a different wing, but, but when I was preparing for the second one, and Hannes Pappas from FI was making Scala, the first Scala, I was like, can you please make it fly in the rain? And he was like, well, that's pretty difficult to test. How do you want me to test it? But this being said, it's actually been flying through rain pretty well. And again, you don't want to push it too hard, but at the same time, so part of it for sure depends on the construction. That's really interesting. You're saying that the gliders that are new, I never heard it, But also, I never noticed it because I flew two different gliders, brand new, for the in the rain 2019, and then in 2022 they were all new for XP.
XP, the first four days were absolutely rubbish. We're basically wet all the time. We're hiking and we're wet all the time. Two weeks leading to XP were amazing. Four-seven cloud base, mind-blowing, and then started raining, and of course, it was raining for first four days of the race, and I was basically wet all the time. And I was pretty surprised that the two-liner can actually lightweight two-liner can fly so well because it also depends. We like to, we mostly fly the two-liners, lightweight gliders. They also behave a little bit differently, but I like to think that this B or C gliders that most of pilots fly, it can take a little bit more water and can keep our pilots safe even if you know, even, yeah, I think
From what I was told, it's the viscosity of the fabric. When it's brand new, it's, it's almost, you know, totally weather waterproof, and so the, the water will, will stand up on the fabric, yeah? And, and basically just destroy the, the flow of the air of
the air, yeah, yeah.
Exactly, detach it from the from the wing surface. And so, yeah, it was, you know, I would I would not have even considered that I was in a dangerous position. It was not raining that hard; it was, you know, I'd flown through much much heavier rain and never had even a sampling of the problem. Now I'd flown through heavier rain and been, Ooh, I better, you know, be thinking about this and been on speed bar and, you know, doing all the things that you want to be doing. But this, this really caught me off guard and it's not, I don't, I don't bring that up for that specific equation. What, you know, what I'm more curious in is, is how you have taken, you know, those, those series of incidents that were kind kind of a smack in the face, like, Hey, I got to wake up if I'm going to survive this, how you,
it's just, it's an interesting thing to, I don't even know if you don't even need to answer it, but it's, it's an interesting thing to then be guiding and, you know, try to navigate people through not making mistakes, but it's hard. It's, it's hard to, it's hard to learn without making mistakes. It's impossible, really. So
basically what I truly believe in, and this is how I guide, I give my pilots as much knowledge as they need for this particular day or trip or situation and try to build it with them. This is why it really helps if I have at least a few days or if I have a clinic that goes for 12 days, we really add structure to it. So I give them as much understanding at the beginning about, for example, how to land safely in different ways, what to look for, depending what terrain we are at. For example if we are in the Southern Alps we'll discuss really in depth the slope landings because this particular terrain has the pretty deep valleys with strong winds but slopes of the mountains are tree-free, tussocks, forever, you can basically land anywhere on the slope but you need to understand how to land on the slope.
If you've never done it, we'll train for it and and practice in this way. And then, when we actually go out there, I want them to be as well equipped as possible for this eventuality, so they are not surprised. So I try to build a structure for this particular task, so they can, you know, they can, they can be as because when it actually comes to it, when it comes, for example, to landing out, or when they put themselves in some, some situation that involves top landing, for example, then if it's the first time they are doing it in a high-stress environment, it's not great. Yes, I want to them to be able to learn and get used to the concept, and big part of it happens actually on the ground while talking about it. And sometimes pilots tell me that, "Oh, this flight today, literally yesterday, my pilot told me, oh, this flight was nice, but actually everything that we talked about on the ground, it's just life-changing for me.
Everything that we discussed on the ground, there's life-changing completely. No one ever, no one ever told me about it, you know." And there are sometimes, there are really basic things: how to, how to manage your gear on the takeoff, how to hold your wing in the strong wind, how to, how to, how to, you know, approach different, how to understand the wind gusts, and things that, that May be obvious after many, many years of flying, but the first our pilot, very often, they just have no, no space and no opportunity to learn it. So it's more about giving them as many tools and and understanding what's waiting, and then a little bit of giving them space to do it. And can you avoid any potential mistake from your pilot? Of course, I have them on the radio, etc.
I mean, you can't, yeah? Technically, they can always do something, you know. Everyone can do something random.
But excluding this really kind of moment that you don't think clearly or get overwhelmed with something, think then, uh, that I, that that I really believe that the more we understand the environment and want, the more we can visualize what can potentially happen. Let's
Let's totally switch gears and, uh, leave that for another time. But tell me about this race, because it sounds awesome. You've been—I think you're—this is the fourth year, is that right? Yes.
It's the fourth year, this year our fourth edition, uh, Wanaka hike and fly, uh, we call fun event hike fly socialize. It's a, it's a hike and fly event that I organized here in New Zealand in Wanaka and the Southern Alps in Otago. So the concept is that we have a list of term points. There's a map of term points and the easy term points or the pair points that are close to our start and finish line. I wish one point, then two points, three, four points for far and tricky or technical term points. And of course, the concept is that you gather as many term points as you can or as you are bold enough to go for, because some mean that if you go, you know, it's New Zealand, so some mean that if you go to the inland, you will never not only make it to the goal, which is 10-point penalty if you don't make it back before the cut of time, but also it can mean a really long walkout, you know, and quite an adventure itself.
And so it is because it's a little bit different environment than, let's say, you know, European Alps when the X-Alps happens. So it's not one route, but it also means that we can have, and usually we have, very well-seasoned pilots, and bold and self-sufficient who happily go in VOLVIVAK mode out there and go for this four-point turn point. And we have pilots who are, you know, 20-50 hour pilots who just want to go for the first night out, or want to go for the for the first kind of cross country with the safety net, and we do extensive safety and extensive weather briefing, and we have daily weather briefings, like a lot of support for pilots who are either new to the area or new as pilots.
So my whole concept behind it was to, of course, to challenge the public, because to win the whole event, you have to go pretty deep and you have to fly really well. And usually, the podium is taken by, you know, by pilots who went for some really, really cool things. And sometimes I was like, "Wow, they really, they really went for it." With the weather forecast that was maybe not so great, but this, and so it kind of shows you again what I love about races in general: that they show you what is possible within a day when you're not thinking so much about, "Oh, I want to go back for dinner, I don't want to walk out," but you're like, "Okay, I'm going there for this turn point." It shows you that what's possible, but also we're set
You, yeah, you're set waypoints, are they fixed? You know that people can look at them weeks in advance, are they fixed no matter what what the forecast is? So when you, you have a start and an end, and regardless of the forecast, people can go for whatever they want
Yes, so we have a start and the end, and the start is mandatory. And usually, the first takeoff is like, naturally, everybody go to the same mountain, even different places, higher, lower, right, left, because this is the closest takeoff to to the start line. Finish is also also there, always the same in Wanaka, in the center of Wanaka, but and turn points, we change them. So I change them every every year a little bit to make it more interesting, especially for local pilots who keep coming back. So it's not always the same, but they are published a few weeks in advance, so pilots have time to get used to them, and and kind of have different concepts for different weather conditions.
But then we brief on the weather, and to be honest, a usual like, for example, this year on briefing, I told them what I would do. This is as an idea, mostly for less experienced pilots, you know, if you are really bold, you may think about going this way, and then the wind is changing, so may want to be on this side of the of the range, or or something like this. So we try to kind of support it as much as possible, especially for lower, uh, lower airtime pilots, but of course the higher airtime pilots have their own concept, so they don't need so much support from, um, from our side, and you've got
two days to finish it, so
that three days, two nights out, three days, and to make it, because you know that my heart is, as you already, as we already said, my heart is more in bivouac and adventure part of racing than actual racing. so there are bonuses for we have two night term points, which is like a social part because if you, if you get there you get five point bonus if you spend the night there, which normally attracts pilots, especially lower airtime pilots, because if you go somewhere deep and you know spend the night out somewhere away, then it may be still worth for you not to come for this five points but for especially lower airtime pilots and in general for everybody may be worth to go for this five points. So you have 10 pilots in the camping spot, you know, sharing the adventures of the day coming from different places. Some might have just did a little sleddy and hike up and then another sleddy and hike up and then term a little bit and get to the temple, some might have flown, you know, 150 kilometer on the day and get to this standpoint.
So there's a lot of a lot of sharing and the social part of it, and there are also bonuses for spending a night out away somewhere somewhere, just in the tent. So it's one point for bivvying in your tent somewhere and two points if you are bivvying with another athlete. So we are trying to kind of, you know, make people socialize a little bit and find race buddies. And again, it's really fun for pilots who are lower airtime pilots that this one extra point will be of course worth it. And again, if you are going for some really big term points and big flights, You may be focusing or something else, so this is like, you know, the way of making it as much fun and as accommodating. So still, you have to fly and hike like a beast to actually win the thing, but we also want to have as much fun for pilots at different levels, and the weather there's no
between the different levels, there's no... it's... it's everybody's together in this race. There's no... everybody's together. There's no pro and no...
We don't do divisions; it's a small race. We have 30, 40 pilots participating and, but we have a lot of cool spot prizes, so it's not only podium, but also we have the best adventure of the year, which is always cool, very cool prizes, which is usually a pilot who went somewhere. This year, it was a pilot who, who just flew really bold and really deep and then bumped out and spent the next whole day trying to walk out and never made it to go, but went through some absolutely mind-blowing terrain and, and was so like, "Oh my god, this is what, what is, where is the trail?" It's like, well, welcome to New Zealand. It's a Czech pilot, very, very, very brave, very brave, went really bold and really deep. We have a mud hiker award that also usually goes for part to a pilot who, who, uh, you know, hiked the most, so probably maybe didn't fly so well during the event, uh, but was had the grit and stamina.
So, mud hiker award, uh, sponsored by the local outdoor store and stuff like this, so, so we try to make it as fun and plenty of spot prizes sponsored by local companies and businesses. So there's no categories per se, but a lot of celebration of going out there and going for adventure and creating memories. So we really try to give both point bonuses for these nights out and spending nights together with other pilots and and socializing in this in this beautiful environment and sharing the the knowledge and and and emotions, but also but also celebrate this celebrate this personal, you know, newcomer of the year, best flight hiker of the year, etc.
So so try to celebrate flying in different ways. Yeah, so it's been it's been really fun. So I would I would strongly encourage to come. We would like to see what, for example, you would be able to do with the predates in the sudden odds, and the weather has been progressing better and better and better every year. So we are really really we always climate
Change is helping New Zealand, I guess. Apparently, well, I'd love, I'd love to. It sounds, it sounds amazing. It's a very cool concept. It's neat to see all these pop up all, all over the world. And, uh, well, I'll put all the information for not only your guiding and your company, but the hike and fly stuff in the show notes. But Kinga, thank you very much. Thank you, Gavin. It's great to catch up. It's great to see you again. Absolute pleasure to talk
to you. And
good luck with your race and your adventuring.
Thank you. Thank you. Cheers.
Cheers. If
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