Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. Got a really special one for you today. My guests are Chrigel Maurer and Peter Von Cannell, who just completed, quite a bit ahead of schedule, their X-Peaks challenge. Many of you, I'm sure, followed that on the social medias. I did every day. It was just amazing. But they set out from their hometown in Frutigen, the north side of the Rhone Valley near Interlaken, and summited all 82 4,000-meter peaks in the Alps, and they did it with incredible style. Their style was to do all of this via foot or paraglider, and all of it connected.
And so they were allowed to go home in periods of really bad weather, but only use public transport, and wherever they started that journey back home was where they would start when they came back to the project. In all, it took 51 days. They were only able to top land nine of the peaks and only fly off 14, so there was quite a bit of mountaineering involved. There was lots and lots of bad weather. And in the podcast, we get to hear some of their adventure. Obviously, it would take hours and hours and hours to hear, all of it, but we heard about how the project was, how it became a dream and how it was, how Peter kind of imagined it and then reached out to Chrigel, his friend,
and how they put it together over the last year in kind of preparation, both from the mountaineering side and the flying side. We hear about their gear, the trials and tribulations, and the magic moves and the scary times and the food, the all-important food. It's just great. It's a great story and a very legendary trip. This is quite inspiring and a lot of fun to watch from afar and a lot more fun to hear kind of the more intimate side from these two. They were together in this, so we'll release this now as an audio podcast, as I always do, but I have the video as well. So at some point here, we'll release the video portion as well so you can see.
The two of them and all the smiling that went into this talk. So without further delay, please enjoy this talk with Chrigel and Peter about their X-Peaks expedition in the Alps this summer. Cheers.
Guys, Peter, Chrigel, thank you for taking the time to talk with us about your epic adventure, the X-Peaks 82 summits. Chrigel, you and I had a chance to talk about this just before you set off, at the World Cup in Interlaken and in Grindelwald, and you seemed less optimistic then that you would be able to get this done in this period of time, but you guys did it in less time than you originally thought. I was following very closely on the social media. What an epic adventure. It just looked amazing.
Yeah, thanks to you, Kevin, to speak about. And yeah, in preparation time, I was a bit unsure, especially about the snow conditions in the Alps this year. But when we start, we saw it's possible to do some peaks and then we go step by step. And finally, it was fast because we got really good weather, especially in the end, and then it was good fun.
It was interesting. I was just out in Turkey last week for the World Cup and everybody was talking about how bad the weather has been in Europe for flying this summer, this season. And I just read Tarquin's article that's not out yet, but he was kind enough to show that to me. It sounded like you had a lot of bad weather, but what was kind of interesting is that you were able to often be above the weather. In other words, above where we typically fly, you were above cloud base because you were so tall and that allowed you to do things that maybe you hadn't anticipated.
Maybe you have to ask some of us to know where we have to answer. Yeah. But yeah. And the weather was really special for us as a paragliding pilot because below the conditions was not too good to fly big distances in cross country. But above to fly from peak to peak, it was often quite good and it was not really too windy and it was not too cloudy. We had no thunderstorms, so conditions was okay.
Peter, I understand this was your concept to begin with. How did this all... come together? How did it happen in your mind?
Well, sometimes I ask myself, what can I do actually? What I am good at? And looking back on my life, there's not so much. It's like two things. I'm a good paragliding pilot and I'm a competent alpinist. So I tried to find some way to combine those two disciplines. And so first I started thinking a bit smaller. I aimed for the 48 peaks in Switzerland. And then I asked myself, what would be the maximum, the full blast of such a plan? And I came up with the 82 peaks.
Next, I asked myself, what would be the most elegant way, the most adventurous way to do that project? And I thought, well, if we could do it autonomously, so without external support, and just carrying all the gear with us, this would be very cool. But I didn't have a clue whether this would be realistic at all. And so I dared to write a text to Chrigel and asked him if we could. He would be interested in doing something like that this year. And I... I literally ran in open doors with Chrigel because he had similar thoughts about mountaineering and combining with paragliding.
And so this was our starting point. And from there on, we just started defining cool rules for our project.
And Chrigel, when Peter reached out, you were still kind of in the throes of your Lyme disease issue this winter, as I understand. Was that still just, ah, I'll get over this. We'll make it work. This is something I have to do. Or did you feel pretty positive that you would be healthy by then?
Yeah. The time he asked me, it was July 3rd. And it was just before I got sick. So I said yes before. And while I was sick, the planning for competitions was really difficult. So I canceled all the competitions. I was in the World Cup since 2024 except with the World Cup. And the project for me was a good motivation to at least get healthy and get ready, but not that much on the road as I normally train for. And it was a good combination and for me the best way to recover.
Peter, you've got quite a history in paragliding. Obviously, no slouch in World Cups.
You've got a lot of history there and then it sounds like you did a big switch to mountaineering in kind of the early 2000s or late 90s, as I understand. But reaching out to the best of the best, was it intimidating for you? Was it scary to take on this project with the Eagle?
Well, we know each other for quite a long time and honestly, I didn't think so. I think as for, I just asked myself with who I would like to do this project. And Chrigel was about the first coming in my mind. So I didn't think much further and just asked him whether he would be interested. And for me also saw a big chance to get back into the paragliding business a lot, thanks to Chrigel's support. So this was. A slightly egoistic motive, maybe. And on the other hand, I knew that in alpinism, in climbing, it would be more on my side to manage this thing.
What kind of training went into this, if any, before the project started? You know, Chrigel, I know you and I discussed it at the World Cup, the decision on the wings using the Theta instead of the Omegle. But, and we could talk about more about gear here. I really want to talk about clothing and cold and how you guys manage the various altitudes. But Peter, was there, was there a lot of intense flying and training in that regard? Or, and was there, were there, were there training days before you actually set, I know you set out on a training day and then that actually became the start of the expedition, but was there, was there a lot of time spent together? Yeah.
Before the project started?
Definitely. Yes. We did a lot of preparation. In 2023, Chrigel gave me his X-Alps Omega glider. And I experienced something like a second spring in paragliding of my life. Cause the last 20 years, my paragliding was just doing hike and fly in tandem flights. So I really had to invest a lot to get back. And to a thermal and cross country flying with a state of the art paraglider again. And I really did a lot of flying from summer 23, when we decided to go for the project
until the start of the project. And I did a lot of takeoffs and landings in the Alpine terrain. The only thing looking back, I could have invested more. Yeah. It was the strong wind taking off there. I did have indeed some weaknesses and I was really glad for Chrigel to support me on the, on those exposed high Alpine takeoffs because we did have quite a few times, a lot of wind and challenging conditions, and this made me nervous and well, so I was really dependent on Chrigel's support. He held my glider.
He held my glider and explained to me exactly in detail how to handle it. So yeah, this is about how I prepared myself on for the paragliding part.
And Chrigel, Did you also spend a lot of time working with Peter with glacial travel and rope team travel and things that maybe weren't in so much in your wheelhouse, or did you feel pretty prepared from that side of things?
First of all, we, we spend a lot of time in the gym two to three weeks, two to three times in a week. We train in the gym and try to keep our body ready and for sure I was training climbing and we, we did some training tours, but it was finally not so many as we wish because of the weather and snow conditions. I think it was three, three or four. Yeah. So we had some training tours, we did together, but I know a little bit how mountaineering works. So it was not completely new for sure. I just was not really experienced. So we had, we had trainings that we got a good feeling and especially we trained the combination with flying from home.
I mean, I can fly from home to the mountain, do a climb or a tour and flying back. And already. This. This experience was for us really interesting and beautiful. And we thought if we're not going to do the project to the end, for sure the preparation time was already good for us.
Tell me a little bit about the gear, you know, it was obviously very Alpine style, super lightweight. You weren't supported, you weren't putting in base camps, you weren't doing anything like that. Only using public transport. So I imagine weight was the, the big factor here. And then that always means you're less comfortable.
What, what was the, how were you deciding as you went along, what came, what didn't?
Yeah, the, the goal for us was to leave our home by foot and then fly by paraglider from mountain to mountain, and then do mountaineering to the peaks and back. And for that, for that, we, we decided for the advanced gear, the Theta and the Whiteless harness. Light rescue. Um, similar that, that I know from, from the X-Alps. So already this was a compromise because the equipment it's seven kilo and the backpack it's quite fragile. So mountaineering needs normally good heavy, uh, clothing and, and we, we always, always have to be really careful with our equipment in the Alps.
For climbing equipment, we got a lot of information from friends. Um, on which mountain we need, how much, uh, safety gear and, and how long the rope have to be. But in the end we, we was always, um, yeah, with the minimalistic equipment on the, on the way.
Yeah. I understand. For example, you, you, you cut the rope, uh, to, um, um, a less, you know, less than a standard rope because you, you don't really need to, you weren't planning on rappelling very much. You, you need it for ascending and then hopefully you can fly off in the end. Did the gear equipment.
Did it all, obviously it worked, but what are the, were there things where you would have, ah, we really should have changed this. This was made it too scary or too difficult.
Yeah, it's of course we knew from people smiling, we, we knew from beginning that it would be a compromise regarding the Alpine gear and the stuff we take for protection. And it is a bit like that. When you are. In an act. Actual difficult route, you would wish more protection, but on the other hand, you know that most of the time you carry all the gear in the rucksack and it's just ballast. So we did really think a lot. We spent times with the day we spent days and we had a lot of discussions with, uh, other people about what to bring and what not to, to bring to the mountain.
And looking back. I think we found a very good compromise regarding our gear. So finally we took five totems, rather small sizes. Those are canning devices for rock protection. I would have preferred seven for some, for some routes, but, uh, I knew that I could do with five, um, then five screw beaners, five quick draws. And they're like, I don't know. Two or three slings. And that was it more or less regarding technical gear, light access, light, um, light crampons with the crampons.
We did quite a lot of testing because we intended also to bring light shoes and the combination between light shoes and light crampons might not ideally work in all circumstances, but we, and we did not bring the lightest gear on the market. We just brought the gear that we thought would be suitable for our purpose. The lighter, the better, but we didn't pick the lightest gear, uh, available. We just picked the gear. We were convinced that it would work. And regarding rope, we decided to go with the 40 meters, uh, opera rope, this is the lightest single rope.
On the market.
And we, in addition, we brought a so-called X caper for upselling. You can upsell the whole 40 meters and pull down the rope after upselling.
And after the difficult peaks, we cut the rope back to 30 meters. So this involved, we knew that this would involve a lot of down climbing then because the rope would be too short for both to upsell. And finally this worked quite well.
So what were the, what was the total weight of each of your packs approximately? And I mean, I, I know that changed, you started off on skis that, that changed, so we could talk about that, but what was the average?
The backpack finally was between, I would say 14 and 16 kilos, depends on how much food. We also bring some snowshoes and carbon plates. Um, yeah. And with the full wood. Wood, water and, and food, it was until 16, I would say. Up to 16. Yes. So I, I really look forward to, for the X-Alps next year because the backpack then will be maximum eight kilos.
It'd be nothing. It's nothing. It's been a feather.
But what we saw is that the, the light backpack for paraglider was working for, I would say 14 kilos. It was okay. But for 16, it starts to be really uncomfortable for the long hikes. And for the X-Alps, less than 10 kilos, it's perfect. I
think I glossed over, I was so excited that I, we haven't really talked about the actual mission. Did you just summarize what, what you set off to do and, uh, in the time that you had and the style?
Yeah, I can try to summarize our mission. Looking back, it's, we do not need a lot of words to explain it. We basically wanted to link all the 82, 4,000 meter peaks of the Alps with a continuous track. And we just moved on foot or by paraglider. And in order to handle bad weather, we decided to allow the possibility to go back from, from a village.
For example, we can land somewhere in a valley and travel back home and go to the exact same place to pick up the, the project and to keep a continuous track.
And we decided that in our view, this does not reduce the value of, of the project, because if we do it, we waste precious days. Yeah. When we stay at home. But finally, this really paid off a lot because we did have bad weather, real bad weather with huge storms that destroyed the infrastructure in the villages. We were, and looking back, this was quite a good and useful strategy and it still allowed us to experience a pure adventure.
And the, the start is. In the end is obvious it's, it's your home, it's fruit again, but how do you, how did you decide on the link? Was that more logistics and just makes sense to kind of go in a certain circle or was it more, way more driven by weather and spontaneity?
Initially, we wanted to start in the Mont Blanc area because there is a non-flying zone for paragliders during July and August. So. Always during summertime, you're not allowed to fly in the Mont Blanc area. So we wanted to go on June that we would have the option to fly. This was the original plan. And then we did have to adapt according to the conditions and the weather. And we postponed our, the trip to Mont Blanc area and we decided to start with the skis and with very. Basic harness for flying that we can carry the skis and
so looking back, we did change our plans very often. Even several times during a day, usually we changed the plans we adapted whenever we had time, we checked the weather and the weather forecast, and we constantly continuously thought about. What would be the most efficient to do. So this, we were really driven by the conditions and the whole planning didn't work as expected.
I gather from both of your smiles that that ended up being maybe part of the fun. It was that the things didn't work out. Was, was that a, you're both really smiling. It was either really funny or a real pain in the ass. No,
it was really funny. Big fun. This was what I was looking for. Actually, I did not, I was not looking for to do all the 82 peaks, not in first order. My goal was to experience an adventure. And my goal was to improvise and to adapt to the conditions. And this was what we were actually looking for. And looking back. I think we can stay. This was very self intensive. And we didn't, most look we didn't even actually, not we, just we realized that the best moves we did when we had the knife on our throat, for example, when we wanted to do two days of mountaineering from Sanvvie and we realized that we would only have one day with good weather.
The other day that weather would turn bad. This, this forced us to. do quite creative moves magic moves as we call them at least when they work and those were the funniest and most interesting moments in this project Chrigel
One of the things I learned, uh, going into the 2015 race, beforehand I sat down with Tom Payne and he said, "The most important thing for your team is to have some way to resolve conflict. You things are going to happen that you don't anticipate, mistakes, whatever, and you need to have a way to move forward." And we just decided on our team that, okay, we would do it with humor. We would laugh. We would, "Okay, this is a mistake, that's funny, let's move on." And it, for us, for me, it worked really well. But how did you two decide to? I know there's a lot of weight on decisions in these kinds of projects. Let's take this route, let's summit this peak, now let's go this way, way.
How did you two decide on who would make the decision? And if, if it was the wrong decision, how did you move forward? I
know this from from the team races as well, but um, in general, we was really lucky that Peter, it's the the expert in in mountaineering, and I'm a bit more in flying, and so there was the focus, um, set, but we was also, um, free to ask the other, um, if some other thoughts are around. So we had always conversations during during the day and for taking the next decisions. And interesting was that while walking and climbing, we was able to stop and to to have discussions about next steps. While flying, it's it's an unstoppable thing, so in before a flight, we had to discuss really good and exact what we do and how we do.
We was able to talk by phone in the air, but it was not not always easy. So we know before the project that we will do mistakes, and if if we make mistakes, that we have to to move on. And, uh, yeah, finally we say that nobody of us do a mistakes, um, because he is not happy, for example, you, um, and then mistakes can happen. So we we have to to watch above and, uh, and and go ahead and and finally we was really, I think we was lucky that that we was working together, uh, really well all the 50 days, and we never had stress, or maybe we had some, but we not speak about, and we was always, uh, motivated when we came back in the hut in the evening and we had food, and after I slept well and we was motivated again.
So there was never a problem, and I think it's, uh, it depends with with which person you do a a competition or a project like this, and sometimes it works better, sometimes less, and finally we was lucky that it was really well, I
I, uh, I could relate to. There were many pictures and stories as you guys went been along about food. There's lots of big smiles and this was the biggest surprise. I could relate to that a lot with the Alaska expedition, as we spent a lot of time on that trip starving. Uh, tell me about the food and the weight loss. I read in Tarquin's article you both had quite a bit of weight loss, at least early, and
For me, I really like to eat a lot and I not lost so many kilos, but for Peter, it was—it was a challenge. Uh, he lost in the first 10 days more or less seven kilo, and I tried to explain him how to eat a lot and how to eat
A lot, and he's like, "Oh my god, I'm gonna need 10 more days. I'm gonna need 10 more days."
fast, and how to eat calories, and um, and until the end he was, he had good practices, but tell
More, yeah. We realized at one point that we do not eat enough. When you get a good breakfast and you move for like 12 hours and you get a good dinner, it's just not enough to compensate for the loss of of calories. So whenever we had the possibility, we went shopping. When we have been on in a valley, for instance, we went shopping in a supermarket and we got a very nice food, like Pringles and mayonnaise and cheese and ham and stuff like that. And there was always some time for when we waited for thermals, for instance, and we tended to use this
this time to fuel up again, and from this time on, we managed to keep our body weight
Yeah, you need fat. Yeah, finally, lots and lots of fat.
Finally, this is a bit different when, when I do a race and, and with support, the support can, can bring every time bars and, and jails, and also the, the drink. I do a lot of carbohydrates in, in the water, so I, I get, I got always a good, good energy. And, in, in mountaineering, it's not possible to bring everything with us, so we, we was, uh, focused on the huts and, and the normal shops in the valleys. And to organize the food already takes time. For example, in a restaurant, you always have to wait until the food is on table, and sometimes we was really hungry. And, yeah, in the end, it's part of the project to manage all days
with, uh, with the food, with the speed you take, and with the difficulties, and um, yeah, for us it was clear that we have this problem, and we was watching out, and finally, yeah, in the end it was okay, but at the beginning it was a bit, uh, yeah, we lost weight, and this was, yeah, okay.
We did have to find the good rhythm, you know, not only with food but also with recovery. We did have a hard and long days, but you cannot do one and hard long day after the other; you just at one point, you just cannot do it anymore. So we did invest quite a lot in, in, in resting and eating and recovering and keeping up the good mood and memory. I'm also convinced that that we do the bed the better
So we did. We were very careful with our resources and with our energy, because that was another basic concept. We did not want to do the project with brute force, but we, we were always looking to do it in an elegant way. And I think thinking about it, and thinking about it, and thinking about it is the key for moving elegantly. It's much more than just, um, well, going for very tough and long and hard tours. We did have our share with tough mountaineering and long days, also with a lot of hiking, but there was always a purpose.
We knew that we have to go further in order to get to a good place for the next day to keep going. For instance, but whenever we did have the opportunity, we were... we tried to to stay lazy and to save energy. Looking back, I think this was one of the key factors of the success of our project. I
Love this word, elegant. Uh, the other one that seems to pop up is "is fun." You, you had this rule of one of you had to be having fun. Is that so? Do I have that right?
I have to tell you that in flying often, it's me that have fun, because Peter was a bit stressed when it was rough. So, but on the other side, on the ridge on the mountain, it was me. They, they was stressed often, but on the end on the, I think it was Gross Horas, there was the hardest ridge we climbed. And we found out that if at least one of the team is in comfortable and have fun, it's enough. So he can, he can push the other, but sometimes it was switching often in the day. But, uh, yeah, as long one of the team is ready and and the fun is there, then then it's okay.
When we was really hungry, or when it was raining, or when we had to walk on the road, and both of us was not not really funny, and then we had to do a break and to eat something.
I think it tells something about us as a team. We, we have decided, or we have learned very early in our preparation, that we have to take back our egos and to, to put the team in first place. So, and as long as one has fun and the other is out of his comfort zone, the one having fun can still support the other, and he can still do it—check for safety and for possible dangers and so on. I think it also has to do with, with the safety concept we did have, and we did discuss a lot about the things in the beginning.
And I was aware from the very beginning, for example, that Chrigel is the best pilot in the world, so it's not me by definition. And when for Chrigel some something just still works in very rough conditions, for instance, I need to think for myself if it still works for me too. So, it has to do a lot with self-responsibility, and I knew that it's a realistic scenario that Chrigel turns up, for instance, and I have to chicken out because the thermal is too strong, or I cannot properly center the thermal and just bail out and have to go landing, and Chrigel has to come down to me.
This was a scenario we have discussed from beginning on, and we decided to not apologize on the other. So, when I do a mistake, or when I just don't have the level to cope with flying conditions and I have to bail out and go landing, and Chrigel has to come to me, and we cannot do the planned magic move, for instance. Then this is not a reason to apologize because I did, I gave my best, and it was just not enough. And it's just the fact that the team is only as good as the weaker one, so we, we carried each other, and we helped and supported each other for supporting the team and to do the moves.
So this was something that also helped me to be able to do the moves, and to be able to do the moves, and to do the moves also removed a lot of pressure from, from me. I knew that it's okay when I, when I have to chicken out for good reason because I'm scared or something, and This took a lot of pressure from me, and it, it, it opened me; it opened the possibility for me to not do a move and to take a safe decision, for example, and not to push it too hard.
Chrigel was there. Did you find that having to be in charge, in a sense, for the flying side for Peter, did it change how you approached flying? Were there times where, for example, maybe you would have flown if it was just you, but because Peter, it was there, I don't think we should do this, or did you?
Just talk about that a bit. Was there, I would imagine, there was some weight on you in terms of the safety aspect in both, in both those instances? The flying instance with you, and also from the mountaineering from Peter, yeah.
Yeah, for us it was clear that on the mountain we are on the rope, so we we can help each other directly, and in the air everyone have to fly by self, and this is a big difference. But in the air, I was able to push um in the direction and try to do something, and Peter was watching from behind, and if it works he can follow, if not I come back maybe, or we try another direction. So I was always a bit trying to to get the solution for the next um crossing, and when we think about landing or top landing, often we was close together to to speak to each other, to to have a solution, or to make the decision together, because on the glacier we always landed together, to walk together on the rope, and especially on on the takeoff we had time to to think about solutions and
talking about the risk, and then, um, yeah, I was also able to help, um, when it was windy, for example. So we managed it really together, but for me, it was not the big pressure to, to fly in, uh, in front, but I realized that it's a big different to, to a competition like the Red Bull X-Alps when I fly alone, and often it was difficult to, to fly together, to wait to each other. Sometimes I bomb out and Peter continue and I try to catch up, and sometimes, um, they are we landed together to, to have, uh, the safety on the bro on the glacier, for example.
Peter, uh, just speaking from how I would personally feel about it if I had an opportunity to do what you did and spend so much intimate time with, with Chrigel, in, in the mountains, in the big mountains, and doing what he does best, I imagine it's, it's an incredible learning opportunity that you must be very grateful for, and, but also quite intimidating. Just talk about that, actually.
I did not think about this too much. This way, Chrigel is no, well, Chrigel is more like a friend and not my idol or or something. We are just partners in a project, and it's just the fact that he's a very good instructor and he's a very good and competent pilot, but I, I, I think it does, it did not influence me very, very strongly, or it did not intimidate me in, in any way. It was just like, well, useful to have such a competent partner in, in flying. And I, I used to do a lot of paragliding myself many years ago, and this helped me to handle rough conditions, for example.
And in regular conditions, we were more like flying together, and when the conditions really got harsh, I run out of resource to besides controlling the glider to, to do elaborate tactical decisions, for example. And then I was really happy just to follow Chrigel, and I tried to position myself a little bit higher and a little bit behind, so I could see how Chrigel does in when we flew through a big lee or through some wash machine, and I could—it helped me a lot to to observe and just to to follow him, but this was really only in very harsh conditions, and with regular flying conditions, we just, well, we We just flew together and had fun.
Chrigel, briefly tell me about the decision of the wing. I understand that was... That was something, especially at the end. You were both very grateful you made that decision. We talked a little bit about it in, in Switzerland, you and I, but that was... that was, uh, interesting, yes.
finally, I know from from the races, um, that in a PWC, for example, you need full performance and the flying time and the resources, it's not that high, so it's, um, it's easier to control, uh, a difficult wing in the adventure races like the X-Alps. You, you push more in every condition, you, your days are long and every day you have to to compete, so it makes sense to have an easy wing, a light glider to carry for sure. And I, I realized for the high alpism, alpinism flying, it's even more important to have an easy wing and because it was a project and not a competition, we, we also have had no pressure to to have or to bring high performance and, and finally, we, we was a lot comparing the gliders, I mean, the, the omega and the theta and, and we are, we realized that the biggest difference is the top speed.
It's less from the, from the easier wing for sure, but the performance, it's, it's really similar and the, the easiness and the, the controlling, it's much more a benefit for the, for the takeoff and the landings in high mountains and on the end we saw that we, we often had or we daily had takeoffs and landings which was really difficult and it helps us, uh, with the easier glider and the performance was good enough to cover big distances and we had no, um, not hard wind conditions that we flew backwards, so the top speed was in the end not really, um, a problem and we often flew full speed, so it's a good speed to cover big distances and in the end it was, it was the perfect gear
Peter, the the first day, which was not the first day, you you told the, you told the journalist to not come with you. It seemed to really set the tone. Tell me about that first day and and it it seemed like that was, ah, what a surprise. Let's keep going, but tell us about the first day when
I got up, in it was still raining a little bit. The cloud base was really deep, very, really low, and I was honestly quite pessimistic, but I, we knew that the weather would improve during the day, but I didn't expect, well, you know, from Frutigen, it's quite a distance to to get the first four thousander inside. It's not that you can just turn up once or twice, and you are on a, on your first four thousander, you have to do a cross country flight, and you have to do a to to get in the area. And in my view, the chance was really small this first day to manage somehow to to get in a region with four thousanders, especially also with the simple harness and the skis.
The performance of the glider is a bit reduced, so you have to take this into consideration also, and the journalist, this was a bit unlucky, but it set the tone of of the project, and I think for
...us, it was a super fun project with a lot of uncertainties and a lot of taking decisions, but for the people surrounding us, it was very difficult. It was nearly impossible to catch up with us, so we went up after in the afternoon above Frutigen and we took off with a quite low cloud base and the thermals were weak and it really didn't look well for this first day. And finally, we managed to to fly to the end of the Kandertal and enter the go further direction lurch and pass and land there and walk up, and I still thought, well, okay, we do a glide down to the train station and go home most probably and...
Then we had a little bit of a struggle to get to the end of the Kandertal, but we managed to get to the end of the Kandertal and we were already like a thousand meters above the cloud base, but it was scattered, so no cover, no no real compact mass of clouds you always saw down in the valley, and we had wind and we took off and in a miraculous way, which I still don't completely understand, we managed to get to the end of the Kandertal. We managed to get over the Hockenhorn on roughly 3,500 meters and suddenly we were really like 1,800 meters above the cloud base, soaring up, and we saw that in Lurchental the conditions would be much better with the cloud base of around 3,800 meters
And then it was clear to both of us that we would start the project and go for it.
Wow, that must have been really special, special. And that's, uh, personal to you as well, because that's where you came over the past to fly into Frutigen in last year's race. It's the same zone, yeah.
It's the same, same, um, it was turn point in Frutigen and we, we flew the opposite way and I remember well the area, but uh, our plan for this day was to fly direction Grindelwald and then climbing direction Munch from the, from the north and, and on the, on the afternoon when we was flying a little bit in Frutigen, I realized that it's no chance to fly to Grindelwald, but the chance can be big to fly towards Lurching Pass and climb a little bit to fly over the Lurching Pass direction Alexhorn. And this is exactly the interesting part of the, of the project, that you have to start to see how it works without starting, just without, just with the forecast and the map, you not see the solution, so you never got a solution to continue.
And while making a first step, you see where you can do the second, and then if you do this a day, you are on the mountain finally, what
Were you using for forecasting other than your eyeballs? We
used only the mobile phone and with different apps, but it's burn that app and some others where we can
We used, um, Swiss Metro, Swiss app for, for wind and cloud and rain, um, forecast, but for us it was really difficult to, to work with them at all in general because the weather forecast change calculation, it's every three hour new, and it changed really a lot. So to make a good plan with the forecast was almost impossible, or only on the good days. In the bad days, when it was raining, it was really difficult to find the best window to move, and on the end, we, we made different plans for different weather, so, uh, doesn't matter how the, the weather will be, we had a good solution.
Peter, what was the... what was the most elegant day of the expedition? We...
had quite a few, actually. So the first day was really, really—it blew my mind. I barely couldn't believe it, that being on 3080 meters, starting below a cloud, cloud base of about 17 to 1800 meters. So this was really something very special to me, and this blew my mind quite a lot. And there were quite a few more moves like that, and to me, the
other, I can, I can tell like half a dozen. I just need to choose, to choose one. I just need one of them.
Go for it; this is a podcast, the longer the better.
And anything that stands out? Yeah, let's hear. Yeah, really.
One that was really standing up out for me was the one in the Mont Blanc area. When we went for the south summit of the Mo Bla area, we took off above Modra after eating a lot, by the way, and we had a beautiful flight on the Italian side of the Mobla area. We could thermal up to a bit more than 4000 meters and cruise around, and we passed in front of the Aiguille Noire de Potere, and I know all those summits there very well from mountaineering, so a lot of memories popped up. And finally, we managed to land on the Col de Potere.
This was like a dream. We did discuss this scenario, but I rather mention this as a joke, so I was not really serious when I proposed to go landing on the Col de Potere, and I thought, well, this would most probably be like a dream, but it's always good to dream big. And as Chrigel said before, it's good to work in scenarios and to be prepared for different scenarios and to stay flexible and take what you can get. And finally, we really managed to land on the Col de Potere with ideal conditions, like 15 km per hour updraft, and we put the gliders and we climbed the Aiguille Blanche de Potere, and I think two hours or something later we were airborne again.
And normally to climb the Aiguille Blanche de Potere, it's like a three day project of mountaineering, and we just went up, we just took the summit, we took off again, and we flew to the Aigle bivouac and We landed and we really celebrated the nice day, but suddenly we realized that we would only have another day of good weather, and the next day, the day after, the weather would turn bad. So I think it's also a bit the emotions that goes like a rollercoaster; the emotions go high up, and then you realize, "Oh shit, we only have one more day, and we need two days for our mountaineering that we have planned." So the emotions go down again, like in the cellar, and we discussed a lot about
how to handle this situation. We knew that we only have food for two days and gas for two days. That's what we took with us because we were really limited in the amount of weight we carry, and we were really surprised to see that the day after the weather would turn bad. And bad weather in the south peaks of Mont Blanc area is not really the good thing to do mountaineering. If there is a place in the Swiss Alps you don't want to be with bad weather, it's this area. So at 10 in the evening, we had a plan, a rough plan we decided to leave the gliders in the bivouac and to climb the Brouillard ridge and
From the Pointe Louis-Amede, there is a first decision point. You can follow the ridge to the Mont Blanc de Courmayeur, and the dream would have been, or the top plan would have been, to down-climb from Mont Blanc de Courmayeur to Grand Pied d'Angle and to go back to Col de Potere and return to the bivy. So we, at midnight, we went up, and at 12:30 or something we started, and we really had a flow like I didn't have often before. We had super light backpacks, We only brought some food and some clothes and technical gear, and then we just really went for it, and we climbed the Brouillard ridge, and the conditions were not easy everywhere but manageable, and so we were on the Pointe Louis-Amede around sunrise, which was quite good, and we managed to climb to the Mont Blanc de Courmayeur in quite a short period of time, and so we were still good to down climb to Grand Pied d'Angle and to return to the bivy, and so we did in a 12 hours trip, we did two long days of mountaineering, but
We didn't have time to celebrate in the bivy because the cloud base was descending, and we had to hurry to take off near the bivy and to fly out in between the clouds to the Valveni, and then we went via
Col Ferre to Bourg Saint-Pierre. It's in Switzerland again. We chose this location tactically because we travelled back from there by public transportation, and it was an ideal spot to pick up again the adventure because we realised that the bad weather would last for more than one day. So we just finished this tour. So this was a double match in my view. The first day we had an excellent flight, amazing flight up to Col de Potere that allowed us to go very easily to Aiguille Blanche de Potere, and the next day we had an exploit in mountaineering.
And the flow, I think it's mainly the flow we felt during this tour; everything just worked and we were in excellent shape. And this is really a memory to last forever for me.
Crígel, do you have a memory maybe a flying memory that will stick with you on the project?
Finally, we know that there are three peaks which are quite difficult to reach because they are far away. This is Gran Paradiso in Italy, and then Bar de Secre in the south, and Piz Bernina in the east in Engadin. And we know that we need flyable conditions, and we need flyable conditions, and we made Gran Paradiso in a bad weather period because in Gran Paradiso it's not allowed to fly anyway. So we walked the road in bad weather and it was ok, and then Bar de Secre we flew in some days and back to to the Swiss Alps. And then in the end, we know that we have to do the Pernina, and we saw that when we were finished with the mountain with the summits in Zermatt in the Swiss Alps
We will have flyable conditions for the east, and then it was Friday and we were in Andermatt, far away from Bernina. It was 95 km in the morning, and the forecast they say the cloud base will increase in Engadin to 4000 m in the afternoon between 4 and 5, so I was calculating a little bit, 100 km with an average speed of 20, it needs 5 hours, and for these 100 km, and we took off at 11, and it was just possible to fly well. And when we saw the Pernina from far, we saw that the peak is in cloud and it's not possible to top land.
And we was coming closer and closer, and then it was exactly 4 o'clock. The cloud base was really increasing, and we was top landing just behind the peak, the summit on a glacier, where we know a friend of mine was sending me a message that he will take off in the morning with a tandem with his client, and it was brilliant. It was 15 minutes hike or climbing from the landing field to the summit and 10 minutes back, so 30 minutes after landing we took off again and flew back
and it was unbelievable after a 5 hour flight we top landed on 3950 m and had a 10 15 minutes walk, An easy walk to the Piz Pernina, which is normally a serious mountaineering day, and then the day wasn't over, we flew another 3 hours back to Chur to Flims, which was a perfect place for climbing the next day to fly back to home. And it was unbelievable that we felt to be on the right time on the right place, because the forecast show us in the morning that it will be possible to fly high but late in the afternoon, and after 5 the cloud base will drop down and we will not have the possibility to top land high.
And after 100 km of flying, we just was on the place. to land at 4, and this was unbelievable.
How about maybe the opposite of elegant? Sometimes scary can be elegant, too. Any really scary situations that maybe left a mark for either of you?
Maybe I can tell something from my flying that really scared me. We landed on Bar des Egres in the Lee, also just below the summit, and there, there is a relatively flat piece of glacier where you can easily top land in the Lee. And the landing went very well, and we climbed the two summits in a relatively short time, and we were aware that we are in the Lee, and that, but we thought it's manageable. We had gusts of like maybe 70 km per hour when we climbed the summit, so we thought, okay, this should be manageable, and I took off
and I really had a hard time. I flew 2 km and I lost 900 m in those 2 km, and I had a few real serious collapses. So my main job during those 2 km of flying was to keep open the glider, or to keep the glider flying, and to recover the big collapses. And by the way, in this opportunity, I was really happy to fly the Theta and not just the Omega as usual. And so I had to go down and land on a flat glacier underneath. And Chrigel, he also took off a bit later and he found a little bit of a better line, and he would have had managed to fly over the glacier plateau, but he spiraled down and landed on my spot.
And then we walked
A few hundred meters where the glacier gets steep again, and we took off again, and it was the same shit. We were still in this lee wind, and we had strong sinking and very rough flying conditions, and I saw the camping on the foot of the Badesecra closer than I would have liked, but finally we managed; we caught a very strong and a bit brutal thermal that carried us up again on 4000 meters, and this was really a bit of limit flying for me for
me as well. Finally, it was on the snow, and it was really efficient. And as soon as we were back up on the base, it was manageable, well, to fly back north to Mont
Blanc, yes, and we did a long flight back. We covered a lot of distance, and we finally landed not far from Bote Saint Bernard. And I think it's a skill to manage fearsome situations and to still perform afterwards and to
get back in the right mental state to perform and to handle all of it, but I was a bit shaky after the flight, honestly. During the flight, I managed well, and after the flight, I was really impressed by, by this violent turbulence as we have experienced after taking off from Bote Saint Bernard
Chrigel, you and I have spoken in past shows and also just personally how difficult it can be to accomplish projects like this. It's wonderful to accomplish them; there's a real sense of pride and confidence and excitement, but it's also—you're living a very wonderful experience and life for a period of time, and then suddenly it's done. You finished the project, it's over. You and Peter don't get to spend that intimate time together because life
where
You both now mentally, how do you end something like this? Maybe in an elegant way.
Finally, we were back earlier than we thought, and I was lucky to spend some days' holiday with my boys, with my kids. I was happy to make some mountaineering with my girlfriend and make some tandem flights with clients. So, back in life, it's good to have challenges as well. Also, I do some training for the next competitions, like Dolomiti's fly, Dolomitenmann, and finally, we got a lot of pictures and we celebrated myself almost every day to watch a picture, check the video we did, we plan to do some presentations.
And yeah, it's all day, a lot to do.
just stay busy, not
Really super busy. It's nice to complete a project like this and to celebrate it, but to have daily challenges and work, it's good to have, especially my family. It's here for me. It's going on. I got some experience 10 years ago with the X-Alps. After arriving in Monaco, I was really unmotivated. I thought, "Now life is over," but during the last 10 years, I was always focusing on next steps after projects. So this time, it was not a problem. I am
Still doing a lot of thinking because, during the project, I didn't have enough time to digest what I've just experienced, so I had postponed this stuff and I took notes on my phone. I wrote like a diary, and coming home, I dived deep into those notes, and I am writing a book about this experience, and this allows me to digest the whole thing and to relive the situations together with the pictures. This is a great way I found for me to get along with
the experience, and I enjoy a lot all the pleasures we did not have, like going down to the fridge and eat something, just stuff like that. So I get along well, very happy, very proud of what we did, and to me, this is definitely a dream came true, a lifetime dream, and something of the biggest
experience. I'm very grateful for this experience; this is to last forever for me, one
thing, maybe that is important to me is the risk management part. We did a lot of discussion about risk management, and we did not go all in in our project. I think that's important; we defined from the very beginning that we would take
that we would take risk, we would put on the rope in the high mountains, that we would choose simple forgiving glider, and that we would just work properly. So we really wanted to experience a great adventure while keeping the risk in in a reasonable on a reasonable level that is fine for the two of us, and we did also regularly discuss in the evenings whether we had the risk under control or not, or if we pushed too far and what to change in the future.
And I think this was, in my view, this was a real good style, and that appealed a lot to me. So we did not dare too much; we took risks, of course,
At the time, but we did not go all in; we always had a certain amount of reserve.
What was the post view, or the post the talk after the flight you discussed from the Ekrens, when it was really, really rowdy? Was that deemed afterwards? Would you have done that again? We
underestimated the turbulence. We felt the wind on the ridge,
We thought it's easily manageable. It will be rough to fly out, but we before the project, we flew in rough conditions also, and we were really confident that it would be rough flying. But, ok, but when I flew out and when I got hit by the wash machine, I was really surprised. So it was not—it was an inaccurate judgement of what we expected regarding turbulence, and this can happen. And, you know, we still had some reserve, but not much anymore. I could still fly the glider, I could still control the glider, I just didn't feel comfortable anymore.
But so the margin was just reduced, but we did still have margin in this situation. We got close to the upper limit of risk, but we did not get into the red area. For example, maybe I can give you another example: Monterosa. When we started from Monterosa hut, we knew that the weather would turn bad this day, and our plan was to climb four of the highest mountains of the Alps, but we just kept going, and we just had—we just checked the risk permanently during the whole day.
And when the storm hit us, we decided to keep going carefully and just to continuously check what we are doing, but we were fully aware, for instance, and no rescue would come for us if we would get a problem. And those moments are very intense, but you can really handle them. You start moving very carefully, and you start feeling very much alive in these moments also, and you really need to think what you are doing, and you know that you are—that you don't have so much margin anymore, but on the other hand, you know what you are able to do, what you are capable of doing, and then you can bring it home.
Chrigel, were there times during the expedition, especially when you were—it sounds like you had a lot of flying, kind of above where we normally fly, you are above the cloud base. You had so many videos and pictures of flying well above the clouds. I imagine it would be hard to think that you weren't building some amazing tools for future races. Was that going through your mind? That, wow, this is a great way. Obviously, it's physical training, it's obviously being in the mountains, but I imagine also some fantastic training for what you do as an athlete.
Really difficult to say, because we were focused to fly from mountain to mountain, and sometimes to connect different summits, and it was not a really efficient flying style like I do in a race, so it was different. And mostly, it was also the question about
Do we have an option to take off or not on the summit? Do we bring the glider on the summit or not? And climbing with the summit or not? And yeah, it's really difficult to say what it brings, but it was a new experience. It was a new challenge. We saw many different things, and to play with this—I mean, with the forecast, with the conditions we find with the takeoff and landing fields, we have to manage ourselves and to respect the nature and the conditions. It was just unbelievable, and I think we were learning a lot about this, to manage ourselves and to make something extreme as safe as possible, Peter.
Do you think this experience has it ignited more passion for future flying projects? Do you see yourself being more focused on flying than you have been in the last 20 years, or still more focused on mountaineering? I
definitely started loving flying again. I really
missed it during the last 20 years when I focused on mountaineering, and indeed, I love flying. I went flying today, for example, and I really love flying. Also, with the new gear and with the new knowledge I gathered during this project, I'm really motivated also to learn new things. I saw quite a few weak spots in my skills that I want to work on that I can improve, and this is really a nice thing and a nice perspective to me to
focus more on flying, and I think there's a lot of potential in the combination between alpinism and flying. We are more on the beginning of this, and we will see much more. I'm really convinced about that. Also, one real important point I have learned during this project: this is playing with uncertainty, and I learned that we did our best moves when it got difficult, so use the difficulty. I think this is more than just a phrase; it really becomes a lifestyle for me more and more, and whenever I run into a difficulty, I see a chance in proving
myself that I can do something out of it. It's always a big chance to do some move or some unexpected
Well, something unexpected you can... it's really fascinating to me to see where it leads when you let in the uncertainty and you start playing with it and you bear the uncertainty
and you see where this path leads?
There's two sayings that come to mind: one is, "Remove the challenge, remove the man," and the other is, "It's not an adventure until something goes wrong."
I like that. It seemed that you both really embraced the uncertainty, and that was where the magic happens—that line between certainty and uncertainty. The more you push into the unknown, the more special it gets.
And what another interesting thing I have observed is the intuition
Sometimes we took decisions without discussing, but it was just clear to the two of us. It was really interesting; it was a little bit like magic, but we didn't have to discuss certain things. Sometimes we just saw a possibility for a magic move and
Doing a lot of discussion, it was clear to both of us that we give it a try and seeking for those unexpected chances, those doors that suddenly open somewhere and provide you with a huge advantage of what you're doing. This is really like magic in my view; this is what we were finally really looking for, and those caused us some of the best moments of our project in
the Alaska project, deciding on going to a launch or just walking, was a really monumental decision because the terrain when we were on the south side of the range was really quite brutal. It required crawling and getting through thickets of alder; it would take hours and, you know, if you made the wrong decision, there was a lot of weight and
We had the rule there was never any blame, but we often didn't agree. If it was my decision, "let's try to go" or "let's not try to go," there was so much weight on it. As the project went along, we became more intuitive, or more in the flow. It's so much better when you're not thinking too much; you can really get bogged down and thinking too much. I
Think it also depends a lot on the goal, or on the focus you have. When you focus on achieving a goal, I think it blocks you; it does not help to stay, well, to stay relaxed and to do the good moves.
Quite a few times we discussed about scenarios, about best-case scenarios that were probably not very realistic, and we decided to go for a try, to give it a try. And we were not forced to bring the bacon home, you know? There was no pressure to succeed, but we knew when we do it, we will have—it's guaranteed that we will have a great adventure. So the success was unsure, but the adventure was almost sure all the time. And this was what we were looking for; we were really looking for the good moves and for the adventures.
And not achieving the goal was not a problem, or bailing out when the conditions were really too harsh. This was not like losing to us; it was more like an interesting experience, and it's something we can be proud of because we managed the situation properly and did a proper risk check.
So the 82 peaks, that's just a bonus. You don't stay focused on that; you stay focused on the next step. I
think we can state that, and this this paved the way to our success. Finally, looking back, we
Just spent, or we planned these 72 days holidays for us in the summer, and we had the 82 summits as a goal, and we want to see how far we can go and have the adventure and have the challenge every day, and finally we were back 20 days too early.
to finish the project, but it's also bad to be back too early.
because
You're having so much fun, love it! Perfect place to end. Thank you both for dreaming big and bringing this project to all of us. You guys are great, and I know you're busy, so I appreciate your time, and so do the listeners. They're going to be thrilled. Nobody knows I'm doing this with you...
I really appreciate it. Have a wonderful evening, and thanks for sharing your time. Same to you.
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