229. The Exit Point Podcast interviews your Host - Exit Point Podcast

Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the CloudBase Mayhem. Quite a different one for you today. This was actually a show I recorded with the Exit Point podcast guys, Laurent and Matt, over in Europe and here in the States. They have a fantastic podcast that I've really gotten into lately with a really good name, Exit Point, about base and innovations in base and wingsuit base jumping and risk and everything that goes along with that sport. And they've both gotten too recently into paragliding and Laurent follows my show and the book and reached out and said, hey, we'd love to have you on the show. And they asked a lot of really good, sometimes pretty tough questions, which I really enjoyed.

And we had a fantastic conversation. This one's a little bit longer. It's about an hour and 45 minutes, but everything very relevant to flying, to free flight and risk. And what I've learned over the years, we take a rabbit hole deep dive on my past, which many of you know from various stories in this show, but just had a really good time with these guys. They asked a lot of thoughtful questions and had some great perspectives. And. Originally, I just thought I would release it on Exit Point and let people go find it there. And then I thought, that's just a really good show for the mayhem as well. So we're going to do kind of a co-release. We'll release it at about the same time and you'll find all the links to their show in the show notes and some recommendations there.

And yeah, I hope you enjoy it. I had a lot of fun with these guys. Cheers.

See you down there. Yeah, my brother. Have fun. See you at the last one. I can't get it. All right. I'm just going to kind of push from here, I think. All right, brother. See you down there. Three, two, one. See ya.

Hello, friends. You're listening to Exit Point, a podcast about the advancement of base jumping and the exploration of its culture. Join us for valuable insights and gripping stories from the world's most extreme athletes.

So, Gavin, welcome to Exit Point.

It's good to be here. We've been looking forward to this.

So I consider paragliding like the old. I'm a regular cousin of base jumping, and I wanted to bring you on because, for one, I've gotten a ton out of your podcast and your books, and not just for my own paragliding, but also the knowledge that comes behind listening to these top-level pilots about mindset, risk management, and so on. And so I thought it would be a really great opportunity to introduce our audience to you and your podcast and then get into some of these overlapping subjects that. You know, that really transition really well between the two sports.

Yeah, it's kind of all the same. It's all the same stuff, isn't it? You know, we're participating in sports that have risk and, you know, that the end result is, you know, the education and the learning is the same stuff. You're dealing with the same things.

Absolutely. So before we get too deep into it, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Yeah. So my name's Gavin, and I guess I would call myself. I'm an adventurer before anything else. I grew up out in Tahoe. I grew up ski racing and got really seriously into it and had a very brief run on the U.S. team in my late teens and then destroyed my knees out in a downhill in Aspen and tried to come back and kind of get ready for the. My goal was the Olympics in Norway. In ninety four and came back the next year and destroyed my left one again. And and the doctor said, yeah, I can put you back together. You can keep doing this.

But unless we get some technology that I don't know about, you're not going to be walking when you're 30. And that was the first time. I mean, I was in my teens. You're invincible, right? You just don't listen to this stuff. But that really hit me. I thought, wow, it seems like you'd want to walk when you're 30. So I went. I went out to school and went out to Boulder and just transferred in to see you and immediately got really into climbing and then not too long after that, got really into kayaking and started doing really pretty serious stuff. My paddle partner back in the day was a young kid named Tao Berman, who went on to be a big Red Bull paddler and did a lot of the Twitch films. And the first Twitch film was actually he and I and this guy, Brett.

We were down in Mexico. We were doing a bunch of first descents down there and we're just shooting footage with I don't even remember what we had. And he was doing these drops that were just mind blowing, dangerous, gnarly. And then the guy who was making the Twitch films needed some footage. Some of that footage ended up in Twitch, the first one. And Tao went on to big bad things with kayaking for a while. And I nearly died on that trip. And. It's a long story, but it was it. I truly actually died in the river running a big drop and and should have not come up. It was a miracle that I did. And that changed things in a big way for me with with paddling.

And I still consider myself a paddler, but I just it really shifted what I was able to do and have fun doing it. And so. Not too long after that few years, I guess, but not too long after that, I set off to sail around the world and that became a business because I was broke. I didn't have money to sail around the world. So eventually that this wasn't really early on, but eventually we started operating kite surfing expeditions and it was the financial model was really timeshare. And we ran the first boat. It was a monohull for about eight years. And sold that boat in Thailand after the first search navigation and then developed this timeshare concept that was, you know, we we surf and dive.

We did all the stuff, but it was it was the clients were really kite surfers. And that was pretty early on in kite surfing. This was 2005, 2006. So it was just becoming a thing. And so our timing was was really fortuitous. And and yeah, I lived at sea. Ended up. Living at sea for 15 years, almost 15 years. Did a couple of circumnavigations. That was my life. I didn't come home for Christmas for 10 years. I mean, I was buried in this and the good and the bad. You know, it's not all my ties and sunsets out there. You know, it's a ton of work. It definitely put a lot of gray hair on my head or actually maybe no hair on my head. If I took my hat off, you'd see that. But yeah, that was really my life for most of the 2000s into the early kind of 2011.

2012, but about midway through that, it's a whole nother story. But I started dating a gal who grew up in Alaska, actually Alaska and Saudi Arabia. But she she was a paraglider kind of self-taught, which isn't really much. That's not a great thing. But she and her brother, her brother also lives in Alaska. He's a bush pilot. He can do anything. He's just the most capable person I've ever met. So, you know, they taught themselves how to paraglide. She taught me how to paraglide. When we were down in New Zealand on the first boat and I became just an instant addict. And so but we were running this boat and you can't paraglide very well from a boat. So whenever we would get a break, which wasn't often, but we'd get, you know, a little bit of time here or there.

I'd go to beer and the Himalayas and paraglide and I'd go to the Alps and paraglide. And I just would do it as much as I could whenever I could. And so when the boat kind of wrapped up in its. Actually still going, I sold the business during COVID, but I in 2011, I stepped down from being the captain. My first mate took over and I took over kind of the back end, boring stuff, the marketing and the members and the sales and all that. I wasn't running the boat anymore, but that was for a couple of reasons. One, I was burned out. I was done being on the ocean. And then two, I really wanted to paraglide and I wanted to see what this thing was all about. I mean, in the beginning, I didn't even understand that you could go places paragliding. I thought you just launched. You know, you could just get off a mountain and landed at the, at the parking lot and went home.

And then as I learned that you can really cover some serious ground, I got really into it. I started getting pretty fascinated with this race called the Red Bull X-Alps. This is a very long answer to your question. I'm sorry. I'm rambling here, but yeah, I got into, I started watching the X-Alps when we were actually on the boat, the second boat up in Scotland in 2011. The, the, the race happens every two years. It's called the hardest adventure race on earth. It's just maddeningly crazy hard. And you race across the Alps under your own power. You, you're either, you either paraglide or walk or run. You carry all your stuff. You used to just have as much time as you needed to get to the end.

And then whoever got to the end first, they'd leave it open for 48 hours and that'd be the end of the race. And, uh, but very, I think it's got an 11 % finish rate. And as an organization, they decided. They just can't have a race go potentially that long. I mean, I think the first one lasted 18 days or something, and it used to always start near Red Bull headquarters in Salzburg and, and down in Monaco. And you'd kind of run the spine of the Alps, go around the north side of Mont Blanc and all the way down the Maritimes down to the, uh, the Med. And so that was the race I did in 2015 and 2017 and 2019. So I've done it four times. And then in 2021. They changed it and now it's kind of an out and back race, we call it in paragliding.

So it starts now, it starts at Kitzbühel, you know, the site of the famous downhill, and it goes out around Mont Blanc and it comes all the way back and lands in Zellensee or ends in Zellensee, Austria. So it starts and ends in Austria, usually goes across five to seven countries. It's a 1200 kilometer race. You have a support team and they can water you and feed you and strategize you and, you know, keep you on your feet.

And, uh, and it's just nuts and it's, it's a wild race. So really a decade of my later life, cause I didn't get into that until my early forties, uh, was, was dedicated to this race. And, uh, in the 2015 race, which was my first one, I was the first American to ever make it. Like I said, it's got an 11 % finish rate. Not many people make it to the end. Uh, but. In 2015, I did. And that was the first year they changed it to just, you just had 12 days to get there. Uh, you know, regardless of when the first person got in and there's a Swiss guy named Chrigel Maurer, who's, you know, the Kelly Slater of paragliding. He's, he wins everything. Uh, he's now won it eight times in a row.

His first year was 2009. And so in 2015, he won, he got there in, in eight days, uh, which was pretty fast. And I got there a little. Less than 48 hours later. So by the old rules, I still would have made it, but it was, uh, that was pretty exciting. So I made it in 2015 and thought I was hot shit and then I'd make it every year. And I had, I never made it again. That was the only time I ever made it, but, uh, but that was a fun, really fun decade. Uh, the race is just incredible. It puts you in the most amazing places in the Alps. And of course it's very intense, very hard physically, but you also, you have these flights. Some. Some of them just little sledders. We call them when you just launch and land a few minutes, you know, in the mornings before things have gotten thermic and stuff, but you'd have these amazing flights in really beautiful areas that you just normally wouldn't, if you're going over there to paraglide, because you're picking the best days and, and you're trying to go big all the time.

And, you know, when the weather's bad in the race, you gotta keep moving. You gotta still keep doing it. And there's always times in the race where the weather's pretty bad. So, um, yeah. And now I'm back in Idaho. And living here, I've been living here since 2011 and, and I have been running comps, both world cup type stuff, and also hike and fly races, kind of like the X-Alps, but smaller here in the, in the States and trying to get that whole thing going here on this side of the pond. And, and I still race a ton paragliding. I just got done with a world cup out in Turkey and yeah, still love flying. So this one's, this one's kept my attention longer than all the rest. Hmm.

Can I ask you? A question about skiing back at the beginning of this whole thing, because holy crap, man, that is a really interesting road that you've taken since then. And I'm wondering how much of that do you think you'd have gotten to if you had stuck with skiing and not gotten injured?

Yeah, it's a good one. Isn't it, Matt? I mean, I, I'm so thankful for that injury. Of course, at the time it was just devastating and my life was over, you know, that was, that's all I knew was ski racing and the U S team and the Olympics and the whole thing. And I mean, I still had quite a ways to go. I had just barely made it, you know, I was pretty new into the whole, I mean, new into the kind of high level ski racing. And so I was devastated. It actually happened January 15th, 91. That was the day that Gulf war broke out. So it was a day of course I'll never forget because of that. But yeah, it just, you know, that injury allowed me to see, it just took the blinders off in a sense with the rest of life. I, I, I had never thought about. Going to school.

I had never thought about anything except racing. And so it allowed me to just go, Whoa, there's all this other stuff out there. And I think, you know, the training and the coaching and growing up, uh, in that kind of intense bubble in a sense did play out well for future endeavors. But, you know, thank God I got hurt really. Cause I think, uh, I, I, I, I still, you know, all those 15 years on the boat, I never touched skis. I never saw snow. And of all the things that I pursue these days, I mean, backcountry skiing still blows away paragliding. I mean, I'm a, I'm a paraglider. That's my job. That's my profession. But you know, backcountry skiing to me is just the most beautiful thing we can do in the outdoors.

Uh, so I'm so thankful I have that background and I learned how to ski when I was a kid. And, uh, but. Yeah, it's a great question because thank God I got hurt because it did allow all these other things, which are, you know,

wonderful. I gotta ask you trashed your knees younger. How are they doing now?

Another great question. I mean, you've taken

them out and back all over the

Alps many times. I mean. This'll blow your mind. Uh, this'll blow your mind. My, I've had nine knee surgeries, three full reconstructions, uh, and the rest of the other six were cleanups. Yeah. You know, but I got to the point kind of early thirties where walking off a curb was dangerous. You know, that things would lock up and meniscus, I have no cartilage in either knee. And then, you know, if you understand the Red Bull X-Alps, you go how in the war, and I was never an endurance athlete, I was a ski racer, you know, the longest thing would be, I was a downhill or I was a speed guy, but you know, a long race would be a minute 45 and a very intense minute 45. But I had never. I'd never been a runner. I I'm a trail runner basically because I couldn't, I mean, I can't play basketball.

My knees are still, my knees are stable, but they've got no cartilage in them. And so when I started watching the Red Bull X-Alps, A, it was just, how are these people going so far? I mean, I didn't understand that you could use a paraglider to travel that far, uh, just using thermals, but, but also just, there's no way I could do this. Okay. I was on my knees and the timing was crazy, but about the same time, a couple of years before the 2015 race, I became really good friends with a, with a guy named Ben Abruzzo and he's down in Albuquerque. Uh, he was also a pilot, but his, his dad, he comes from a big family of skiers. They own the Santa Fe ski area down in, in New Mexico.

And his, his dad's big skier, his dad's dad was a big skier. And, uh, and they invited me up. To Canada to go heli skiing. This is I think 2013 and, you know, so Ben, my buddy, uh, just a few years younger than I am, but a professional trainer and a professional uphill athlete trainer. So he owned a CrossFit gym for a long time, but, but his, his jam is, is getting people, you know, doing the MTM MB and stuff that they do big uphill races, which is basically what the X-Alps is other than the flying, you know, you, you, you go uphill and you, you, you pound it out on a ton of pavement too, but it's, it's, uh, you're doing typically kind of one and a half to two marathons a day, but you're doing it with all your gear. So you've got to build a different kind of body, you know, because you're carrying a pack, which is not the same as just jogging.

Uh, you know, it's, it's metric tons over the, over the course of the race. And so he trained people to do that and he saw me ski and he saw my fascination with, he didn't even know what the race was. I should have shown him all these clips and he got started getting really excited. Yeah. And, uh, and I said, yeah, but I've got these bad knees, man. I mean, I can, but there's no way I can walk 10 K on pavement and you've got to do hundreds of kilometers in that and say, I can't, there's no way. And he said, man, I've seen you ski. We can train all that pain out of you. We can, you know, we just got, we got to get you in the gym and we've got to get you doing mobility and, you know, a bunch of Kelly star at stuff, you know, the supple leopard guy and, uh, you know, bands and balls. And, and, but mostly weights, you know, we got to get you in the gym.

And I had been in the gym my whole life with back in my previous life, ski racing. So I knew how to lift, but that hadn't really been a part of my go-to for years. And we just built the blocks starting at ground level. And I mean, literally, I think the first time I went out for a 5k walk, I barely made it. And I just, I called him up almost in tears and just, this was almost a year before the race. We're just getting into the training because it takes about a year, a pretty intense training to get ready for it. And so, and he said, don't worry, trust in the process. You'll be fine. And, you know, by April I was doing 60 K on the roads with the pack, you know, I'd walk through rivers first to train my feet for the, you know, so they wouldn't blister because the Alps, you know, here I live in the desert, it's really dry over there.

It's really wet. We knew blisters were going to be an issue and they were, my feet just fell apart in the race. That's a different thing. But, but yeah, he just trained. Yeah. He trained and knock on wood. So that was 2014 going into the 2015 race. I haven't had an ounce, I have no pain in my knees and I'd had pain my whole life. Just miserable pain too. Just always something I was thinking about and I just don't even think about it anymore. So he saved my knees and there, I don't know what's in there these days. I mean, again, cause I don't think cartilage really grows back, but you know, so far no arthritis. No pain, you know, very, very strong joints. That was basically it was training my muscles to take the punishment instead of the joints.

Can you speak a little bit to the feeling of loss that, you know, we all get a sense of when our bodies change so dramatically like that and what your mentality was to really get back into shape and you know, not just assume or, you know, kind of resign yourself to being in pain for a while. Oh God,

it's just, I mean, I'm like, I'm tingling right now and thinking back to it because it was, what a gift, right? It was just such an amazing gift. I mean, to have pain and really just lack of mobility for 20 years. I mean, you know, I could surf, I could free dive, I could do a lot of things. It wasn't like I was a, you know, immobile or handicapped really in any way, but, but I just couldn't. I could use my legs for 20 something years like I wanted to, and to suddenly be able to not only use my legs like I wanted to, but to use them in a way that I'd never fathomed was possible. I mean, when you're, when you take those 10 months of training and then you put it into this 12 day of the most experience, the most intense experience you've ever imagined, it's mind blowing.

You're just, you're going from 5 30 in the morning till 10 30 at night. Every day for 12 days, except I actually, I got top three in the prologue that, that you're the prologue is kind of like a tour de France prologue type of thing where they do it. It's a marketing event. Basically you do a little mini race three days before the main race and I placed third in that. So the top three in the prologue got a second night pass so that every, every race you have a night pass where you can go all night. Well, I got two of them. Great. Right. So I, I could go all night twice in the race. So, you know, there's, there's a couple of times in the race where you just go. So 24 hours, you don't, you don't stop. And so it's anyway, it's incredibly intense and you, you start at the end, you add up all the, all the meters and feet and miles.

I mean, in all four of the races, they all ended up in, in terms of total output, pretty similar, even though the weather was very, very different in all four, but no, it was between 16 and 20 marathons. You know, for the 12 days, I climbed the height of Everest four to five times, you know, so 32,000 feet, four to five times during the 12 days with a pack and you, you just start going, no, that's my local hill here. Baldy, that's 3,000 feet. So that's climbing that thing five to six times a day. And it's just even when, even when I was training, you're going, I can't do it. There's no, there's no way. I mean, but you get you, you train hard and then you do this race.

It's a labor. and you're like, my body is doing this. This is incredible. And like I said, I'm not, I'm five foot eight. I'm built like a gym rat. You know, everybody else in that race, they look like marathon runners. They're tall and lanky and skinny. And they're built for endurance. I, when I train for endurance, I just keep putting on muscle. I don't fit the, I don't fit the bill whatsoever. I, my Ben calls me a mutant and I am a total mutant when it, for that kind of thing. So I'm not built for this kind of race, but you get to, you start to, your body does fascinating things when you train hard. And yeah, so it was a beautiful thing. It was incredible to just be able to move into my fifties so much healthier than I'd been for most of my life.

That was actually one of my questions for you was because I followed along with some of your training and the races and the ex-alps. fan you look jacked for an out for an endurance guy and so that wasn't part of your strategy as far as longevity as an uh an air sports athlete or anything it's just you look at the weights and the the weight comes on

yeah it does uh you know the other part of it though is you know for the if you see i have a 2021 kind of highlights reel where i hit the ground pretty hard a number of times you know we were that this whole thing started a few years ago with creagle and this guy patrick von cannell where they were landing downwind uphill and it just wasn't something you do in paragliding you land into the wind you're like an airplane right you're supposed to land into the wind and you definitely don't land uphill that's you know that's just if you get the timing wrong there the consequence is really serious but but it allows you to put your glider in into even more places you know in a paraglider we can land in really tight spots but but with with those kind of skills you can just stick it in on the top of the peak you know that's rocky and kind of nasty and you know but again the timing's got to be really good and i trained this really hard for the 2021 race but then you're in the race and you're tired you're exactly whatever you you blow it and uh but blowing it when you're durable and really fit and you're you're kind of a wombat then you know you just you walk you walk you walk you walk you walk you walk you walk you walk you walk you walk you walk away from stuff that would typically break an ankle or or at least do a sprain or you know it would be a race ending injury uh and so part part of it part of all the weight training and a lot of the other guys would you know the guys that don't look at all like me they look way more like endurance guys you know their their training was much different than mine it's it's uh doing a lot of running and you know a lot of uphill um but not a lot of gym time but for me

because my because my knees and because i'm older you know i'm now 52 but i was racing these things you know my late 40s and going up against guys that are in their 20s uh i just needed the strength training for the duration of the event i i needed to be durable i needed to be resilient and that's what ben really determined for me that was that was necessary i i'm just very very weird when I train like that, I pack on muscle, even though I was also doing a ton of endurance, you know, just a lot of road miles and a lot of going uphill and a lot of, you know, heart rate stuff in that kind of high one twenties, you know, just aerobic training for hours and hours and hours and hours.

So you wouldn't think you'd be putting on muscle mass, but that's just how my body's built.

Can you speak a little bit to the advantages of being fit for people that aren't doing these extreme races? I mean, in our culture, coming from skydiving and going into base, I think that fitness is not really paid attention to at all. I mean, it's, it's really rare to see somebody even stretch before they go skydiving or base jumping. And certainly like it's rare to see people that are training their bodies for any of this stuff. So if you're not doing like these, world-class races can you give us a little bit of insight into the advantages of being fit when it comes to the flying world? I

can give it to you exactly. Cause I'm going through the opposite end of that right now. You know, the last two years I dedicated to building this house and building a house, you stay fit in other ways, you know, on your own ladders all the time and you're carrying heavy tools and that kind of thing. But I've lost a ton of that kind of aerobic base and conditioning and, uh, endurance. And I just, you, it's also a habit, right? You build the habit of training and those 10 years were in, in many ways, the, the most fulfilling years of my life, not just because of the race, but because you feel good when you move.

And, you know, Will Gadd did this great film a bunch of years ago called move and he's just dead on, you know, you, everything works. Right. You sleep better, you think better, you solve problems better. You're, you're just more adept at everything, relationships, self-care, self-love, uh, everything. And so I, and I haven't had it like I had for a long time, you know, the last couple of years, cause I've been buried in this house project and I noticed a huge difference just in everything. And so I, and I haven't had it the biggest one, just being way too lenient on myself for, I'll do it tomorrow.

You know, the procrastination has become the biggest evil because I'll, I'll go tomorrow. Whereas it used to just be, you're getting it done. And I, I highly recommend having a trainer. This was the big shift for me. And it brought me kind of back to my ski racing days. I hadn't had a coach. I hadn't had somebody that I was accountable to since those ski racing days. And, when I got into racing and to your point, it doesn't have to be the X-Alps. It could just be life, but people are one of two things. Typically in my experience, you're either, you either overdo it or underdo it. Most people underdo it, but you know, more serious athletes can often overtrain and, you know, we get strong and we, we get more powerful when we rest, you know, we've got to recover.

And so, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, over-training is, is actually more of an evil than under-training in many instances. And so having someone you're accountable to, whether it's just, you're going to do your first 5k or you're skydiving and just like paragliding, you know, when we, when we go fly world cups, you're driven up the hill, you launch off the mountain, you fly a task, you land somewhere, you pack your bag and you get picked up. There's very little physical aspect of, of paragliding what's called race to goal. So at the highest level. So same kind of thing is jumping out of an airplane or really even base where you're, you know, it's a, it's a pretty quick flight. There's not a ton of physicality to it. You know, you're, you're, you can get away with not training a lot.

But I think we're leaving out what it does for your brain. And, you know, these sports require a lot of consumption, you know, a lot of calories with our minds. But, you know, that was actually when we ran the figures on the Red Bull X-Alps, your brain's burning more than your body. If you can believe that it's unbelievable because there's just so many decisions, thousands made every day. And so, I mean, I think if we bring that back to whatever activity we're doing, whether that be, you know, something very simple and basic, I think that having someone you're accountable to that can,

you're just, you're going to do the work if you've got somebody that you're accountable to, but you're also going to do less than you think needs to be done. That's, that was always a big surprise for me is, you know, we'd have these real weekly grinds. We did everything in four week segments. So the first week would be the easiest and harder and harder and harder. Then we'd have a deload week. And I was always surprised with how much rest there was and how much dedication there was to sleep and chilling out and recovering. And so, if you do it on your own and you have somebody that can guide you, man, that month, that's, that's worth gold. It's, I really think that that's part of the process that most people skip. I don't want to pay for that. My, my wife's a trainer. And so, you know, I see what she's able to do and to offload that I think is a good thing.

Yeah. Those deload weeks can be one of the most difficult aspects of training, just as far as being diligent and, and, uh, getting back to the back to, uh, recovery.

Yeah, it absolutely is. And you just, you need it both mentally and physically, don't you? You really do.

I wonder if we could piggyback on Matt's question there in terms of decision-making because being fit in the mountains, uh, plays a big part in base jumping and the decision-making that you make when you get to the top of the hill. And that's for sure something that plays into paragliding, especially in the, uh, in an event like Red Bull X-Alps, the decision-making of, to fly or not in certain conditions.

How do you see fitness playing into your ability to make decisions?

Good question. I haven't thought about it directly like that. I think that being fit and training makes you confident. It just, it, it, it puts the, the endorphins and hormones and all the things that make you feel good. It becomes part of your daily being. It becomes part of who you are and performing at a really high level, uh, in whatever sport there is, you know, I'm a, I've become a football nut, which is really weird to me. But in the last few years, I just, I'm so amazed with the athleticism of what these guys are doing on the field. And

confidence is a huge chunk of that. What percentage? I have no idea, but I think that when we're standing, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're standing on a launch or an exit or doing our, doing our jam, whatever it is, if there's a nagging doubt, probably should walk down. And, and I think that when you're strong and you're physical and you're confident and you're feeling good, then when things are ripe and they're not recreational anymore and things are dicey and, you know, you're definitely taking a step into your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, some really serious risk. You know, you want to be, you want to know you've got it.

And part of that comes from being physically prepared and ready, you know, knowing you've got the durability, knowing you've got the resilience, knowing you've got the moves, you've trained this, you know, these are wins or Lee conditions, or, you know, these are, these are conditions that normally I go, yeah, I don't need to do this. I don't need to do this. I don't need to do this. I don't need this today. I'm going to walk down, but I'm in a race and I've trained for it. And I've trained for conditions that are worse than these and I'm feeling good. I'm feeling confident and I'm going to go. And you know, that there's a, there's a frame of mind that one of the reasons I got so addicted to the race and I kept doing it and, and I really miss it now is that frame of mind that you get into.

It's 12 days of just magic, magic flow time. You know, you, you are in it and there's nothing else going on in life. There's no bills. There's no arguments. There's no, there's nothing except pushing and going and doing it. And, and I would fly. I got to actually see this in real time because the last one, the 23 race, they brought me over as a journalist. So I was in the air every day and I was doing a ton of filming and I was with all my friends, you know, they're all, I know all those guys and girls. And, you know, I had some terrific flights with every day with, uh, you know, the, the, the, the competitors, but I could, I wasn't even close to that frame of mind. You know, when it was gnarly and dicey, they had a few days in the middle of the race where it was really windy.

I would film them launch. I didn't launch. And I kept asking myself, God, would you launch in the race? I wouldn't have even thought about it. It wouldn't have even been an, I wouldn't even thought, wow, this is kind of hairy. It was just, you just get in a different frame of mind. And that is a, a beautiful place to be. I think it could be, obviously it could be dangerous, but you know, not that many people get hurt in that race. And, and I think that's because, I mean, there has been injuries. There's lots, there's lots of people that have to bail out because of blisters and that kind of thing. But I mean, actual crashes, you know, into the mountain, you know, career ending kind of stuff. There hasn't been any, uh, there's been some close calls, you know, guy landed in a lake, guy got his face ripped off in the rocks. I mean, there's been some stuff, but, but, you know, for a race that's been going for 20 years that subjects pilots to those kinds of conditions day after day after day, you know, it's pretty remarkable what's happened.

And that just has to come from confidence and, and, and people being so deeply in flow that their, their minds are operating at levels that weren't there the day before the race and are gone the day after the race. It's just, it's a very, very hard place to get into. Uh, I know that for myself, you know, getting into that kind of flow is pretty rare doing anything else. You know, when I go fly a world cup or something, I'll get into it a few minutes during a task or something, but it won't be all day, every day.

Yeah. That's a really interesting point that, uh, was brought up about, uh, having the tools to walk off a jump. I don't know, uh, how many jumps I've been on where people, have, uh, decided to jump in like, uh, not ideal conditions because the walk-off actually they've, you know, regarded as equally dangerous. So like, you know, you're at the top of the Eiger and walking down tired is more dangerous to them than jumping the thing in a quartering tail. Um, and the importance of, uh, I, uh, having that good decision-making and fitness, I think, um, is, is a great point to, to reiterate, uh, because like, man, if, if it's a non-factor for you to walk it off, uh, because you're fit, then you're more likely to make that decision in that moment and, um, more likely to have a fruitful career over a long period.

Yeah. You guys must have the same saying that we do. I mean, the best pilots are the ones that stand down, you know, the best pilots that are the best pilots are the pilots that don't fly in a sense. Uh,

I think that's the sentiment, but I don't think that's the common, commonly, um, you know, I think most people that are out there doing it right now, um, kind of brag about the, you know, the amount that they don't walk off. You know, I've heard that over and over again over the last five years of like how many, um, you know, jumps the person did without having to walk off. And this is actually really common in, uh, skydiving too, where, uh, we start bragging about things that I don't know are bragging points. Like, uh, 5,000 jumps and I don't have a single cutaway, you know, and, uh, rather than that being like something that is connected to good decision-making the next generation hears that and starts thinking like, well, okay, if, if I'm going to be an expert, then I shouldn't have any cutaways and I shouldn't have any walk-offs.

I should be able to execute at every single point because like I'm top tier.

Yeah. I think that's a dangerous frame of mind, isn't it? I get it. You know, that, that sounds a lot, like peer pressure and the, the inability, you know, people don't like to be inconvenienced. Uh, you know, you want to land at the LZ. You don't want to land a mile down the road where you got to hitch or you got to walk, even though a mile down the road is, is a 100 % safe place to land versus the LZs and a gust front. And we just saw this last week at a composting down in Utah. I mean, we had a dozen people try to squeeze it into this LZ during a gust front, rather than just running down wind. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and landing in zero. Um, and I think that we really need to step back and go, I mean, those, those are the kinds of things where you that up and you're in the hospital and go,

what did I do? Why did I do that? What the hell? I mean, all my buddies ran downwind and hitchhiked or got an Uber or walked and they're fine. You know, you're a long time hurt and a longer time dead. And we've all done it. I've done it. You know, we've all done it. But I think that, you know, I think you should have some kind of rules that you play by. I like rules when it comes to that. And I said, in some things like the X-Alps, the rules go out the window and they shouldn't. And we're all going one of these days, something bad's going to happen. And it is, you know, it is, it's inevitable. But, you know, I think if we play by some rules, then, you know, and we've got to celebrate walking down.

We've got to change the culture when it comes to that type of stuff. And, you know, and it's not cool to fly in a quartering, you know, and downwind. And, you know, that's just, man, you're walking a razor thin wire anyway. And so if we celebrate that, and, you know, and I'm a living example of this, because for a long time, I couldn't walk down. I literally could not walk down. I just didn't have the knees to go down. And so my whole thing was, I'm flying, no matter what, I'm flying down, because I can't. And, you know, thankfully, I built a body that could. I still don't like going down. But, you know, I really had to work very hard at changing my attitude that, well, that'd be pretty stupid, instead of taking an hour and a half to walk down slowly, because I suck at it, and my knees hurt, or be in a hospital for six months.

I wonder if you could walk us through that mindset, because if I might have the years wrong, but your last Red Bull X-Alps, everybody was flying in horrendous conditions.

And, you know, we were all, you know, all the spectators were sort of holding their breaths, you know, thinking maybe something bad was going to happen. There was a couple of tree landings, and some close calls. And how did it work out for you? I mean, you kind of alluded to it before, saying you were in flow state, and you just kind of pushed it out of your mind. But as a father, as somebody who has a lot of respect for the sport, how did you differentiate between risky and just plain out dangerous? I mean, was there a line that you drew for yourself? Did that line become squiggly? Yeah. Take us back to those moments, and where your mindset was at.

Yeah. I had a bunch in that race. Thankfully, a lot of them were on film, so we could put them together and just remind me of how stupid I was a bunch of times. Most of the stuff in the film was pretty benign. I think, you know, you talked about one time I was flying really low in just a sea of trees, and, you know, I'd blown the move, you know, three moves before that, and ended up in a place where really the only place I could land on was a road, but it was pretty busy. And it was surrounded by power lines. And then trees. And luckily, as I was getting lower, going, you know, trees are usually pretty safe for us. You know, we got to hang our wing on in a certain way, but you don't really want to do it in the race because then you're hanging from a tree and you could damage your wing.

And so I'm trying to get to the ground and not get hurt. And, you know, there were some littler trees in one area that was not a meadow by any means, and I had to do some pretty kind of radical maneuvers before. So I could kind of squeak it in, and I kind of ended up hitting this little tree and, you know, walking away. And so part of that is, you know, being really tuned into the wing and making the right moves. And I have a very weird fear response that's, I don't think this is trained. You guys have talked to a lot of people about this kind of thing on your show. But when I, back in my kayaking days. I was kayaking with a guy up in northern Washington on this river called the Top Tide, you know, kind of a classic class five, some small waterfalls, pretty punchy run.

And I got off the river and there was one of the paddlers came up and he had been doing a bunch of studies on psychology and other things in Bastyr. And I was with that kid Tao, who again went on to be this big Red Bull paddler. And. And he, he looked into my eyes and said, you know, there's, this sounds weird now, but he said, Tao and I had very similar eye characteristics. And then they ended up doing all these studies on us. And when things get really dicey for me, my heart rate plummets. And so when, when things get really scary, I get scared. Tao actually didn't experience fear, according to him. He was total mutant, but I get really scared, which I think is really good.

Because fear keeps us alive. I think fear is a great thing, but, but when, when it happens, my heart rate plummets, you know, so there's, there, there can be times where it'll, it'll go up, but then it, and when, if it gets really serious, it just plummets. And I get incredibly calm and I don't, in other words, I don't do the whole kind of fight or flight thing. I, I, my, my options widen when I get scared rather than narrow. Typically they really narrow. And you get, you just get fixated on one thing and you, and you lose the, you lose the vision to, well, I've got that exit and that exit and this plan C and this plan D and, and all this. So for some, whatever reason that happens naturally for me, thank God, because I use it a lot.

Um, but I think that in the race, you know, the combination of that and the flow and the just pure love. Um, because some of it has to be, uh, there were so many times in that race, this was not on film. I'll tell you another story. Uh, after we rounded Mont Blanc, um, it, when we got up to this coal where we had to cross over on foot and then get around in the backside, you know, it was blowing 60 miles an hour. Um, and I'm going over to the Lee side. So the backside of that. And so these are. Not flyable conditions, you know, this is just not something you fly in, but as we kind of kept walking around in the Lee and we're, you know, we're skiing down on our feet on, on the snow and in the glades and we get further and further around in the lease.

We're in this big bowl and to walk where I needed to go was going to take three hours. You know, it was 20 K tons of descent, tons of ascent, but it's right there. I can see it. I've got to get to this other coal just on the other side. It's a three K flight. Four K flight, just quick. I knew it was going to be nasty. I mean, I knew it was going to be just really, really, really on the edge. If it wasn't in the race, I wouldn't even consider it. It's non non-point this is not flyable. Um, and the habits is going to save three hours. I got to go. And so launched, it was instantly just banger. I mean, it's the wings just all over the place and just, you know, everything I can do to keep the wing open.

And. Yeah. Yeah. I started making the move and I get around to this other coal and it was a big Fern day. So Fern is in the, in the Alps is a pressure gradient between the German Alps and the Mediterranean. It's a North Fern day. So we've got North winds and I'm going North. So I'm, I'm not, I mean, the Lee of this medial wind that's cranking from the West. That's, you know, 60 miles an hour at the top of the coal. And then I've got this North Fern that Fern, you just never know when it's going to hit you. It can, it kind of stacks up on the mountains and then it breaks. And when it breaks, it goes through these passes, which is where I'm heading. So I know I'm going to get my ass kicked when I get to this pass. Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. So far it's feeling okay. And then I go through the path. Now I'm on the North side in my mind.

Okay. I don't have to be worried about Fern anymore. I'm on the windward side. Now I should be okay. And as soon as I did, there's a hundred people at the past that are, you know, hiking that day. And, and they're 300 feet below me. So I'm, I'm not very high. You know, I'm, I'm definitely something happens. I'm in reserve mode and reserved by reserve. I mean, reserve parachute. I don't have, I wouldn't have a lot of time to recover if something happens to my wing at this point. And so, but I'm pressing through the pass. It's working. It's fine. And all of a sudden, just, I just start dropping like a rock. My wing is perfectly open. I've had no collapses. Nothing's, you know, I just, I'm just dropping it 15 meters a second, you know? So at a, at a rate that would break me.

I, this is way too fast going down and instantly in my head. I got, well, there's no point in throwing my reserve. Something's just throwing me out of the sky. And, and I'm looking down. I mean, this all happens in seconds and I'm looking down going, I'm going to break both my legs. Definitely gonna break both my legs. And I'm just, I'm just preparing for, I just, the old, my only move is a PLF, right? I get, I got to keep the wing open over my head. Cause that's, it's gotta be doing something. And I got a PLF. And as I'm going down, I mean, I have no steerage to the canopy. At all. I'm not, there's no forward progress. I'm just going down and, and I'm looking down. There's these patches of snow and, and dirt. And, uh, and I think, okay, please just land in the snow. Please. And I'm just trying to do steer it as best I could to just land in the snow.

And, uh, and right at the last minute, it moves away from the snow. I'm going on the dirt and my mind's two broken legs. Fuck. And, and I hit the dirt and it's like 12 inches of mud. It's just the softest. It's better than the snow. And, uh, and you know, I PLF and, you know, roll into the mud and just get soaked in mud. And, and on the ground, it's blowing way more than 60 miles an hour. So I was just in this weird Lee rotor awfulness. And, uh, and it was all I could do, just hang onto the wing, not get blown off the side of the mountain. So I'm pulling the wing and just, holy shit. I'm totally okay. Not even a bruise, nothing, you know? And, and just.

You know, so what can you chalk that up to? That's just pure luck, you know? And, and also a really bad decision. You know, I, I just saved myself three hours of walking and almost ended up in the hospital, you know? So there's those kinds of things that are just chalk up another nine life, man. You got lucky. So I don't, you know, you come out of the race going that happens in the race a lot. That's the weird thing. You know, I probably, if I hadn't been in the race. I probably would have hit the rocks. You know what I mean? It just, sometimes you're in the right frame of mind to handle that kind of stuff. And, and you do it and you do it repeatedly. I had so many, I could tell you stories for an hour from that, from that 21 race.

I mean, there was three times I landed literally seconds before either a massive gust front or a mass. One time I landed before rain that was so heavy that 20 minutes later, it washed out the road below me and a paved road. I mean. I mean, my team couldn't even get to me because it was raining. That was when all those floods were happening in Europe. I mean, just a hundred year, thousand year floods. And I mean, I'd be having these epic flights, 70, 80 K down the road. And now it's time to land. There's lightning all around me. I mean, it just, it was time to land four hours ago. Okay. I got to put it. I really got to put it down now. And I'd land and just, and, and I, you know, but it was 30 seconds in time. I mean, if I'd been in the air. If I'd been in the air, there's no way I could have kept my wing open in that kind of rain.

I would have been driven to the ground and really hurt, you know, and it was just, that's just pushing it way too far. But, you know, in the race, we all do it and we do it again and again and again and again. And somehow you mostly pull it off. But I think, you know, the, the takeaway is always for me, a, I can't get in that frame of mind at any other time. So I would never make those decisions and also be okay. You got away with that 10 times. Now you have to really fly safe for the next year and not do shit like that. And, uh, you know, stop relying on luck. Cause there's definitely luck there. Wow.

Um,

I want to steer this conversation a little bit towards your podcast because, um, man, it's been a massive service to your community, to our community. And personally.

What has it been like for you to have all these conversations with the top pilots in the world and how has it shaped your own, uh, perspective on the sport and the way you practice it?

I could just say, and go Laurent, you say it because I'm sure it's exactly the same. Uh, one, I'm so grateful that somebody back in 2013, I had all this, this recording of Bill Belcourt. Uh, we were doing this film called 500 miles to nowhere. And it's a seven minute film and I had him on red cameras for an hour and everything Bill says is just amazing. And so I had all this stuff that, what do I do with this? And somebody said, well, you, you should make a podcast. What's a podcast. I mean, remember this is 2014 is a different time. And so I'll answer your question. There's, there's different pieces of it. One, I'm so grateful to, because it's paragliding mostly.

I mean, it's sailplanes, it's free flights. Like you guys. We, we brush into other areas, but no one says, no, I haven't had anybody say, ah, nah, I don't want to do that because you know, it's a high risk sport. We've all been through a lot of close calls, some too close, uh, for a lot of my guests, you know, many have had accidents, uh, or been hurt. And, and so you, you get smart, you get better when we get hurt or you have close calls. You know, we, we like to make cheap mistakes, of course, but. You know, it's one of the only ways you can learn is making mistakes. And so I get to learn from all those mistakes without making them myself, hopefully. And, and hopefully so do the people who listen in the greatest reward I have from this show are the emails I get on a really regular basis.

It says, Hey man, you saved my life. That is cool. And I'm sure that's exactly what you guys get. Uh, so, you know, outside. Outside of the time that it takes and, uh, the effort and the editing and all the stuff, you know, all the costs, all the things that go into it. Cause it is a lot, you know, that really keeps me going. And I, you know, instructors tell me all the time, Hey man, when I get a new student, the first thing I do, you got to listen to the cloud-based mayhem.

And that makes me super happy. But it's also, I get to learn just like everybody. And I get to sit down with people who they may be, you know, the, I mostly interview the best of the best, but not always. I interview a lot of people who just come to me with a fascinating story or they're total newbies or they're, you know, they've done their first hike and fly race or something. And they got a great story to share and man, we can learn from them just as much. And, uh, and so I just feel like I'm a crazy fortunate recipient. I just feel like I have a lot of knowledge because I, these days I find it harder. I mean, I used to be a complete bookworm when I ran the boat cause I had time and I, I don't seem to have as much time anymore.

So this is my time to kind of take it in and I hope I can do it forever. Uh, you know, I remember Bruce Marks, he was my supporter in the first couple, uh, ex-alps. Unfortunately, he's no longer with us, but you know, I think right around show 70 or something, he said, man, I mean, how are you going to keep doing this? There's, you're going to run out of people and I've learned that no, we're not. There's plenty of people out there. I mean, even in a tiny niche sport, like we're in, like you're in, you know, there's a lot of people with something, something to say that's interesting, that can help, uh, that it might just be a fun story. But most, most stories are come embedded with.

Something, some kind of takeaway that I think makes us better and, you know, we don't just pursue these things for the thrill, do we? And the adventure and all those kinds of things. We also pursue it because I think we recognize that it makes us better and it makes us more, more capable humans to deal with life, uh, when we're not in the moment and in the thrill, you know? And so I think that there are things that. People put in there and it might not even be right away. It might not be something you recognize then, but you know, when I went to do my book, uh, advanced paragliding, that was based on the first hundred shows and now we're something like two 30, but it was a bit brutal.

You and I talked about going back and listening to my voice for a hundred shows and transcribing, you know, we didn't have AI back then to do all the magic transcribing that we do now, but it was pretty brutal, but. It was also, there were little things that I completely missed when I did it live and, and it was, and then that became the book, all those little tidbits, all those little bits of information that we all could use a little more of. And so I got as much, I got more out of it than I think the readers do because I had to do it. And that's what the podcast is as well. I, I get a lot out of this and I'm very grateful. Of course, we couldn't do this without the people who listen to us.

Drone on and on, but so I'm, I'm mostly grateful to them, but I'm grateful that we, we got started. We got into kind of a cool niche space like you guys are doing. I don't have as cool a name as you guys do. I'm a little jealous of your name, but yeah, it's been an awesome journey. And I feel like in some way, I mean, we've been doing it for a little over 10 years now. I feel like it's just getting going.

Have you felt like it's moved the needle in the community at all? I mean, you, you're getting these positive emails and things like that. But I'm wondering, you know, having so much knowledge available to the paragliding community, have you seen the effects of it?

Yes and no. You know, there are things that were things back in 2014 when I started that are still things that drive me crazy. You know, there are, you know, we don't take aviation seriously. We don't teach very well. We don't. Especially here in the States. You know, there are other places who do it a lot better. And for some reason, we can't mirror what they do. You know, so we're having the same conversations about safety and instruction and separating out schools from gear sales and stuff. That's just, man, they figured this out 20 years ago in France and Switzerland, and we're still doing it here.

So there, there are things that big picture things that.

I find the needle hasn't moved as much as it should, but I think in, but that's not really what the show is about. I just, I'm just talking more in terms of the big picture about the sport in general. You know, hike and fly has certainly given a whole new life to this sport. I think many people thought it was kind of heading in the same direction as hang gliding. And which is. Yeah. Yeah. Tough place. You know, COVID combined with hike and fly combined with really, really lightweight gear. You know, in the Alps, people couldn't take chairlifts for a couple of years and hike and fly just went through the roof because people still wanted the paragliding, still want to go out fun. And so that has, in a lot of ways, saved the sport and given it a lot of life.

And I think we're in a really good place for a lot of things. But, you know, in some, in some ways, I still find where we are quite. Frustrating because we just, we just need to take it like they do, you know, learn how to fly a plane. It's aviation is dangerous. The ground is hard. You know, we could do it better. And so, but in the, in the big scheme of things, you know, in terms of just personal decision-making, let me just wrap that thought up. We send people out with very little knowledge and they have their P2. We have in the States, we call it a P2. That's their kind of their beginner license. So you're no longer flying with. An instructor in your ears and in your honor, you're on your own. It's remarkable how little they knew.

No. When we send them out to do that, you know, so it's kind of a miracle that they get through their first 50 hours. And, and that's, I think a shame that that's something we could fix as a community, I believe, but in terms of pilots, whether you're at. Our one or our. Our 5,000, I think there's a lot of knowledge here in this show, you know, some more than others, of course, but that can really help you navigate that with the same thing. You guys and your listeners are navigating that huge realm of not knowing what you don't know.

You know, how do we learn to not hit the deck when we don't really know how to not hit the deck? You know, so there's just, again, I. I would, it'd be awesome if we could rely less on luck. And I think that that's what the, I think that's what the podcast hopefully does.

It's really interesting to hear you say that about instruction. Over the last several years, I have started to tell people to get into paragliding rather than get into skydiving as their primary mode of learning how to fly, because I see paragliding as a much better education than you get in skydiving. Like, I say the same thing about skydiving, especially when it's skydiving to base, is that there are a bunch of people that have insufficient information for how dangerous the environment is. And my question is, what changes do you think we should make across the board in either our methodology or in our standards when it comes to teaching people how to fly in the United States that might put us in step with the European marketplace or might put us a little closer?

To a place where people aren't woefully unprepared for the dangers that they're facing.

God, I wish I was more prepared with a list because I could give you a whole bunch of things. I'll try. I'll try not to. Yeah, what's with the top? Yeah, I'll try not to miss some of these. So, and I could do some comparisons. One, in France, to be an instructor, you've got to be a badass. And what I mean by a badass is you've got to be a pretty accomplished World Cup pilot. To become an instructor costs a lot of money. And a lot of instruction. So, you're a really good pilot. And you're really dedicated to this profession.

We are missing all of those here in the United States. I can go call myself an instructor tomorrow. I go take a multiple choice exam that was written 20 years ago. And I'm an instructor. Same things when it comes to tandems. To become a tandem pilot here is woefully easy. It's a joke. It's a joke. In Switzerland, pretty much everybody fails their tandem exam. And that's pilots at the highest level. I mean, they take this stuff really seriously. You know, so you've got to do skills on a tandem wing that most solo pilots that have a couple thousand hours can't do. And so, just upping the bar. You know, one is, you know, there's just a lot of people that are instructing because they dig paragliding.

They've been flying for a couple years and they want some free gear. You know, so that's allowing a threshold that's way too wide than what we should have, which are people who have gone through very strict, very monitored regimes so you can be a competent instructor. Then, what we have is we've coupled gear with instruction. So. You own a shop. The easiest way to make money in a shop is selling gear. This stuff's pretty expensive. You know, wings, instruments, helmets, you know, harnesses, those kind of things.

So, you're automatically motivated by gear sales to get this person their rating. That should be totally decoupled. That is totally decoupled in most parts of the world. You can't have a shop and a school. This is just basic, right? Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Motivated by the wrong thing. I got to get this guy to be a P2 as soon as I can so I can sell him this stuff. Now, that's not giving very much credit to humanity. And hopefully, most people are not doing that. But I'm just saying the incentives should align. They shouldn't disalign.

Ratings should be hard to get. They're not hard to get here because we want to support our organization. We want to support our shops. We want people to become pilots because you make money from that. Again, you got to decouple that. One way you could do that is your instructor can't give you the exam. The exam is done by a regional examiner. You know, we have four or five in the country or something. They're paid from an outside entity like USHPA. So, our flying organization in the United States is United States Head Gliding Paragliding. They've been with us forever. They're, you know, big lobbying effort. They keep sites open. They do a lot of good stuff. And what if they pay for it? They pay the regional examiner, whatever it takes, 200 bucks to give the exam. So, that regional examiner is not in bed with the school.

They're not in bed with anybody to try to get this person signed off when they're not ready. You know, the instructor goes, my student is ready. Now, he failed. Back to the instructor. Fine for the instructor. The instructor is going to make more money on better education. The instructor is also going to learn what they've got to be able to do with their pilots. So, it's not just a multiple choice. It's a multiple choice exam. And, ah, we didn't really have the weather for that one. I'm going to tick you off anyway. No. You've got to do it like they do in Switzerland. You've got to go to an examiner. This examiner is not associated whatsoever with where you've got your education or you're getting your gear. They're paid independently. And they can look at this pilot and go, you suck. You need to go back to school. Or, yeah, you've got the skills.

I'm going to sign you off. It's got to be at that level at every step of the way. We don't have SIV, which is, you know, situations on vols. So, that's where you go fly out over a lake or in a controlled environment and you screw up your stuff on purpose so you get better at handling your wings in a combat environment. Right? Super critical. I've done dozens and dozens of SIV trainings. Many people have never done one. Why? Because it's not required. That's crazy time. That's just insane. That's not part of our P3 or our P4 license right now. Our P4 is our advanced license. People come to me all the time. They write me an email. Hey, Gavin, I'm coming to Sun Valley. I'm a P3. And I respond in my mind, I wouldn't do this.

That means nothing to me. That means it's actually worse because you're saying you're a P3 and you should know already that that means nothing.

I set the national record distance here when I was only a P. I wasn't even a P3 because I hadn't put anything into those. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean you've done any training. It doesn't mean you've taken a test. It doesn't mean anything. It means somebody has signed you off somewhere. And when I got my P3 and P4, I did it remotely. I asked my original instructor, hey, I've been doing all this stuff. I know you are. You're fine. I didn't have to do anything. They just gave it to me. And so how many people are getting that that hadn't done what I had been doing? I was for sure at a P3 or P4 level. Absolutely. But most people, especially if not, if they're telling me they're coming to Sun Valley and they got a P3. Again, it means nothing. It means less than nothing. And so they should mean something.

These ratings should mean something. And our instructors should be awesome. And our schools and gears should be decoupled. We should have regional examiners. We should rewrite the whole entire book. We keep taking and it has been done. We've got, you know, there are there are methodologies and systems that are that are out there that are terrific. That make great pilots. And we all we need to do is cut and paste. And we've been fighting to do it for years and it still hasn't happened. So, you know, what I can say for your what you're you're right. You're going to get way better canopy skills learning how to paraglide than you are skydiving. And so that's step one.

That's that's a great move. There are great schools here and there are not so great schools here and they should all be great. And so what what matters is sending people to the right place. And we all learn differently. And so, you know, it's finding the instructor that you work with. Well, you know, some people are kinetic learners. Some people are brain learners, you know, that we have to learn from people who we mesh with. And, you know, some instructors can't be all those things. And so we've got to find the right people, too. And that's different. I think that's a you know, there's there's always going to be good teachers. Right. My my my little one had the best kindergarten she's ever had. And she's struggling like crazy this year in first grade because she doesn't like her teacher. So that's just a thing.

But I think we can I think we can do better.

Well, I'm going to pass it off to you after I interject this one thought that's connected to the standards of instructors.

And it really does put a point to what you were saying about having a separate examiner examine instructors. When I came up in skydiving. And I was getting my first instructor. Rating the course started with the course examiner saying, don't worry, everybody. You're all going to pass.

Yes.

I think that attitude, Matt, isn't it just so wrong when you when you get into this sport? What I have people tell me all the time. They come to me in the show that I had no idea this was so dangerous. What the fuck? Yeah. Seriously. Really? Where did you learn that from? I mean, really? That's what somebody told you. I mean, that's the first thing we got to do is get over that stupidity. I mean, that's just not right. That that's how we, you know, again, and that's the coupling of the sales with the instruction. You know, how many people are going to keep doing this when you when they show up and go, hey, I'm really excited you're here. You could die doing this and you're probably going to get hurt because just about everybody does.

OK, let's go to the training. Grab your stuff. I mean, OK, I get it. That's a hard way to start. But we got to start somewhere. I mean, the people have flown, you know, twenty five hours and gotten their P2 and have no idea that it's dangerous. Wow.

We're missing something there.

Yeah. I believe totally that we are selling a lie in the air sports world when we talk about the sport as safe. And I think it's it's not just ingrained in our culture. But it's actually literally written into the manuals of skydiving in the United States. Like if you open up the skydivers information manual page one, it will say that a safe skydive is totally possible and that the sport is only potentially dangerous, which is just completely untrue. And I've questioned a lot of people within the community about it that are responsible for those manuals in that language. And their response off the record is no. And I think that is always that, you know, well, if we said that it was dangerous from day one, then no one would do it.

And like our industry would. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, with

one less minor interjection, I totally disagree with the language. I totally agree with you there. It can be safe, of course, because otherwise none of us would do it. You know, we're all doing it because we think we're going to be the one that's going to escape this. But, you know, so it can be safe. But it's not likely you're going to get. It's not. It's not likely that you're going to get through this without some kind of I mean, most people I know have broken backs. You know, that's a pretty serious injury. And so, you know, we call it the broken back club. That's that's kind of gnarly. I just think that when it comes to flying, I'm not a commercial pilot. I've never flown a cub or anything. But, you know, one of the first things they do is I understand when you're going through that is you go out and fuck it up.

You go out and, you know, you stall the engine. And, you know, when you're when you're learning how to fly a helicopter, you learn how to do an auto rotation. You do all this stuff. We're the opposite of that. We're we're we're the it's all going to be fine. No, it's not. We need to start there. No, it's not. It's you know, you are going to have a collapsed low to the ground at some point in your career. You're definitely you fly. If you fly cross country, you're going to fly and you're going to get into a place where you're in the lead. You're in rotor. You're in too much wind. You're going to get in a position where you're way above your skill level. And then it's just a matter of have you done the training or are you going to get lucky? And maybe neither. And that's a bummer. And so, man, yeah, we got to start somewhere.

And that seems to be a big piece that we're missing.

There has been a series of tension, not incidents in base jumping. We have a Facebook group where people share their close calls and accidents. And watching these videos. And watching people try to correct their tension knots really screamed that our sport needs something like SIV. And thanks to your show, actually, listening to Fabian and Malin. I've done seven days of training with Flyeo. Good for you. What a great experience. It is awesome. And anybody listening to this that has any sort of doubt whether or not they should do it, man, it's for one, it's ridiculously fun. And two, these ideas of your break range and how much input is required to get certain maneuvers out of your airfoil is really eye-opening.

In terms of releasing a tension knot or the best-case scenario of you interjecting on an incident like that is to deload the wing in a stall and then rapidly reinflate it. And we see people. And, you know. With all respect to everybody who's posted on our birds forum, it's, you know, massively helpful. There's little jerks of the wrist. You see little tiny inputs of the brake line. And what we need to see is full range of brake motion to completely stall. Feel the wind on your back as your parachute deflates. And letting it up and trying that multiple times. And you don't learn that getting your P1 or P2. You don't get that just, you know, flying, you know, coastal soaring.

You don't learn that as a skydiver. And most of the time you don't learn that as a base jumper. And this is a vital skill that can save your neck. And so when you're complaining or you're venting about the fact that SIV is not required, man, I'm right there with you. SIV should be required for all base jumpers as well.

I mean, it's just, it just should be, yeah, it just, it must be part of your regimen. Like you said. It's wicked fun. I've never seen anybody come out of an SIV that just doesn't have a better toolkit. And having a better toolkit makes you more confident. And it allows you to open up your ability to see. And the best pilots see everything. And so, you know, the more we are able to kind of, again, open those blinders to our surroundings just makes us better pilots. And SIV is just one of those things. It's one of the easiest ways to do that because it gives you tools that will make your day a lot better if you get in a combat situation where, you know, you lose 15 meters and fly away and keep flying your 100K flight versus having to throw your reserve.

That's the difference, really. And it's, in many cases, it's save your life difference. And if you fly long enough, as I have. SIV has saved my life many times. And so, you know, it's just when something happens, it's just instantly where my brain goes because I've done so much of it and so much repetition. And it's fantastically fun. God, it's so fun doing it. It's great.

It's ridiculous. I'm actually going for another three days in mid-October. Awesome. Good for you. One of the things that you talk about frequently on your podcast and in your book is intermediate syndrome. And I think that this is something that carries over really well to all air sports. I'm wondering if you could talk on that a little bit.

Yeah. And I learned this pretty early on in my career or my flying because, you know, hopefully, you know, as we get into this, we've got mentors around us, whether that's instructors or just people on the hill that are looking after us. And because of my background and because of my background. And because of my personality, I shoved into intermediate syndrome hard and long right off the bat. And just, you know, basically it's that mindset of feeling, knowing you're better than you are.

And it's a very dangerous place to be. You know, in the beginning, we're ignorant. We don't know what we don't know. And we're a little gun shy and careful and trying to take it all in because we know we're beginners. And hopefully we've recognized, we just talked about this, but hopefully we recognize that it is dangerous. It is aviation. The ground does hurt. At that point, you've already heard some of the bad stories. And so you're pretty, you know, you're leaning back. You're like, man, I got to learn this. And then you have some success and you enter, you know, you might get your first 50K flight or something or your first even 100K flight. And now you're the shit. Now you're good at this. And you've become less instructable.

You've become more, your ego is driving the ship. But you're still a very, very, very novice pilot. And in my mind, depending on, you know, this is really flexible. This isn't a hard number by any means. But, you know, we're intermediates a couple thousand hours in. You know, most people never even get to that many hours. Right. You know, I think we should put a really wide span on what an intermediate means. You know, I've heard 250 to 2,000 hours. But really to me, you know, intermediate can start as early as 10 hours in. You know, for some people that are just, man, I am good.

I am good. You know, I've done my SIV already. And I can fly, you know, I can thermal. And, you know, I can spot land. And, you know, I'm good at that. I'm good at this. Okay. You're intermediate. You suck. And you're definitely, you're really in this intermediate syndrome. And it can last for years and years, decades. And it can be, like I said, a couple thousand hours. It can especially be more than that if your hours are ridge soaring hours as opposed to, you know, big XC deepness hours. You know, where you're flying in eight-meter climbs and that kind of thing. So, and it's all dependent on how much SIV and how current you are and how many hours you're getting per year. You know, you can vault yourself through intermediate syndrome into kind of expert halo.

That's the final step, which is, can still be in some ways even more dangerous than intermediate syndrome. But, you know, you can vault yourself through intermediate syndrome pretty fast by, you know, if you're flying 300, you know, thermal hours a year. You're doing SIV once or twice a year. You're doing some comps. You know, you can bust through it and get really good, especially with the gear these days. You know, we've got some young guns in comps, you know, at nationals and stuff who started flying four or five years ago who are really good. You know, they're already pretty hard to beat. They're probably at the tail end of intermediate syndrome and maybe even beyond at this point. So, for everybody, it's different. But the mindset for everybody.

For anybody in intermediate syndrome is the same. You think you're better than you are.

And that grabs most people, doesn't it? Really.

It literally kills them.

It literally kills them. It literally kills them. It's an extremely dangerous place to be. And knowing you're in it is the first key. And knowing that, you know, and I was lucky. Again, I had mentors who. Were willing to put their arms around me and said. You're going to kill yourself. You keep doing what you're doing. You're going to kill yourself. What? No, I'm not. What are you talking about? I'm not going to. No. I'm really good. Exactly.

So, are the strategies for avoiding intermediate syndrome more for the pilot itself? Or it sounds like in that last statement, you're kind of saying that in order to avoid intermediate syndrome. We need experienced pilots to play a more active role in mentoring people that are coming up.

Great question. Yeah, I think it's both. I mean, I think that. Experts are people who are, you know, that have been in the sport a long time and seen it all. That's what you owe to the community. You have to serve. That's you. You have to serve that role now. That's just part of being a part of this community. And if you don't, you know. That's you're not contributing because someone's done it for you. Absolutely. We've no one gets to being really good without lots of people helping them along the way. And so that's just, you know, that's your shift now. And that's your, you know, you're checking in. We always say, you know, with the intermediates, you know, your shift, you know, how you have to contribute is you have to be a retrieve driver.

You know, so we all go fly off the hill. You're going to land first because you're not very good yet. And you get in the car and you chase it. You're going to get in the car and you chase us all day. We've all done it. We've all served our time. That's how you're going to learn. And once you pick us up, we're going to regale you with stories all the way back home. And that's a great way to learn. You know, so I think, you know, at every stage, we've got different responsibilities to our community. And the intermediate, the way you phrased it there is, you know, can you skip it or can you miss it? You can't. You just can't. You know, it's just something everybody goes through. Some people longer than others. I think it's just a, it's a forced, we've got to force humility on people. And keep, I love talking about it because it's so important.

And I think it's just something that it's hard to be humble. And I think we have to, we have to be when we're playing with aviation. And so you're right. It's a personal thing. And it's a community thing.

We've been receiving a string of emails recently or beginners asking. How they can find mentors because for one, they're few and far between. And then also they just don't know how to go about luring the, the mentor into that mentee position. Rather than be sitting into that. But you alluded to it really well. First, like the driving. I mean, anybody that's asking that question is volunteer your car and your time to shuttle and do that kind of stuff. One. It. It helps give something that when you're asking for something. So it evens the playing field just a little bit, but also you're going to listen to those conversations at landing about how the flight went.

You're going to start absorbing how the guys who are good. We're talking about things and how they felt about things. And all of those conversations in the car or rat at the landing area around the campfire are absolutely valuable. Now, when you're talking about, you know, to somebody who's. Looking for a mentor in, in this kind of environment. Do you have any other suggestions on things that they should look for ways they should act?

Yeah. I mean, part of it is, you know, extroverts are going to be. It's easier for them to do it because they're just naturally outgoing. And I think most people that struggle with this are more introverts. They're, they're, they're more shy. They're a little more. You know, bug eyed at getting into this and going, oh my God, that's so-and-so over there. There's no way he's going to talk to me. So first off, just recognize that everyone is going to talk to you. Everyone. We, anybody that has done something in this sport has been through it and has seen it. And like I said, it's just part of the culture and no one I've ever asked to come on the show has ever said no. And that's how it is in the LZ. That's how it is on launch.

You know, if you're doe eyed and new. Go up and just say hi. I'm Joe. I'm doe eyed and I'm new. And I'd sure love to, I'd sure, you know, can I take you out for a coffee or a beer? Can I have you over for dinner? Can I drive your car? You know, I've got wilderness first response training or, you know, I've, I've done these other things that make me valuable in this community. And I'd, I'd love to, you know, and man, you're, you just opened up a whiplash. You're just going to get so much information from that person. Now, if they're just getting ready to launch, they're flying. They're going for a 300 K triangle or something, then maybe not right now. But I don't, I've never met anybody in this sport who isn't really good. And, and they desire to help their, their, they want to impart their knowledge because it's taken them a long time to get it.

And they know how hard it is to get it. But, you know, the, the, the overall thing is just contribute to your community and you're going to get way more back in return. And that's like you said. That's driving. We just, I just ran these two comps. I just ran a world cup and a us national. So two back to back week long comps down in Utah. And we rely 100%. We had 30 staff for both of them, 100%. They were volunteer. So we had drivers and camp coordinators and launch coordinators and, you know, retrieve coordinators. So we had the big positions and then we had all the people that were just driving and doing all this stuff. Man, there's jam sessions at night. We, you know, three meals a day. We gave chalk talks on days that weren't flyable, that we didn't task.

And they're just getting to hang around with, in the case of the world cup, the best pilots in the world. They're going out and drive and retrieve and picking these people up and hearing a van full of people talk about their day. And you wouldn't believe the stories. And so, you know, that's a week of time where they were able to get months and months and months of knowledge for free. So. You know, be a part of your community. You know, out in Santa Barbara or at the point or God, every single LZ over in the Alps, you know, just go hang out and help, you know, just offer to do anything. And you'll be amazed at how fast you learn. I mean, Chrigel will talk to anybody and he's the best in the world and he's totally approachable.

And he's just, he wants everybody to be better. You know, that's almost his mission. So he, cause he wants people to be able to compete with him. And so he, he tells, he doesn't hide anything. He, he, he tells everybody everything. And I've never met anybody that doesn't do that.

Well, Ron, do you believe that that's the case in base jumping? Do you believe that the majority of people at the top level on the cutting edge want everybody to be better?

I think it's anybody who's worth talking to is going to share their time. I think that there is a lot of trauma in our community where people have been in a mentor position, lost somebody and wall off now to potential mentees. And this is a, this is a real problem. And, you know, somebody asked me just the other day about toxic behavior amongst seasoned base jumpers. And, you know, I had to agree with them. And I recognized even some of the same behaviors that he was mentioning. And, you know, it's, it really hurts to lose somebody that you put time and effort into.

And it's a friend. It becomes more than a friend because it's a personal reflection of the instruction that you've given. And when that person dies, it's, it's brutal. And that might be an element that changes things slightly. I think one of the things that I've noticed specifically between paragliding and base jumping or wingsuit base jumping in the Alps is, is that collective trauma. And, you know, that's something that we as a community need to work through and have better tools to communicate about because it's not working. There's a lot of people that are being pushed away from instruction or asking for information. And instead of them going like, ah, I'm going to try again.

They go, well, fuck those guys. They're just trying to gatekeep my fun. And they go out and do it. And, you know, we're seeing a run of accidents of people in this, not even intermediate phase, in this beginning phase, who are just not listening. Because either they've had somebody on the other end give them a bunch of gatekeeping bullshit, you know, based on the trauma that they've experienced.

Or they're just not in a position to listen. You know? So it's, it's really hard to get the pulse on the entire community on what's going on. But it's convoluted and it's difficult.

Yeah, that's, it's interesting to hear that. And obviously different phases. I mean, I was, one of the first podcasts we did was with, was with Jeff and he, Shapiro. Jeff Shapiro. And I mean, he'd lost, he'd lost 43 friends. You know, this was right after Dean and Graham. And, you know, yeah. I mean, we, we, we don't have the trauma numbers that you do. And I, I'm, it's interesting to hear you say that because I often feel that, and I mean, it happens in our community pretty regularly. You know, not the same numbers for sure. And, and, and, you know, base is a smaller community. So percentage wise, it's, it's, it's worse. But the, when

it happens, it seems that there are cases that are different than this. But it, it seems that we're, we avoid it in a, in a kind of a community sense. It's more, let's look the other way. I don't know. Maybe that's not fair. But it's, you know, trauma is something that when it's, you know, I, I lost my best friend this, this, this spring in a, in an avalanche. And, you know, when it's that personal and it's that, that is some serious trauma. And, you know, I'm still very much going through it. And so that's just hard. You know, but when it's in, when it's kind of more of a community thing, yeah,

I don't know where I'm going here. It's just, it's, it's, I think communities can often just kind of brush it away and you want to, you want to keep moving. You want to keep doing your jam. You want to keep jumping. You want to keep doing your thing. And I think I'm sure avoiding is often the easier thing, maybe not the right thing, but it probably is the easier thing to do.

What would you say about that? Matt?

Yeah, I think there are components of us avoiding the trauma. And I think there are also components of the people at the cutting edge and base jumping, at least understanding at some level that they got lucky to be there because of how many friends they've lost over the years. And so in a sense, they're, you know, resistance or reluctance to bring people along is not just protecting themselves. Yeah. But, you know, born from an idea that they are protecting the next generation from the carnage that they experienced.

It's kind of a downer topic, huh? But, you know, I want to, I want to reiterate or emphasize that base jumping and the domain that I practice mostly in is wingsuit base can be done in a sustainable fashion. And it really goes back to what you were talking about earlier. And that is to be humble. Approaching it with a humble nature. Because in reality, Matt's going to hate if I say it's safe, but it's a whole lot safer to jump off of a cliff, fly away, fly straight away from the cliff and deploy your parachute and land. There's oftentimes I'm in my car where I feel like it's a lot more danger than actually just doing that. And so every other part of that becomes this exercise in restraint, self-control.

You know, understanding where you are with your training. How you're feeling that day. The personal awareness of being honest with yourself. And what are the conditions like? What can I do? What can I really do? Do I know if I know what I can do? All of those things makes it very complicated. And a lot of times, like you said, luck plays into it, whether or not you're going to survive that beginner and intermediate phase. But once you come through that, it's, yeah, it's up to us to pass on that knowledge so that people don't have to have that rough ride. Yeah. Gavin, I'm curious, since we've touched on sustainability, how long do you think you're going to be flying? Is this going to be like something that you think you're going to be doing up until you die?

Or is it going to be something that you maybe, you know, leave off in the next decade or so? Good

question. I will do it as long as I can do it well. And what I mean by that is, you know, what I see getting a little scary, I guess I'll do it as long as, it depends on how long it takes. As long as I live is the answer to your question. And by that, I mean, not that I expect to kill myself paragliding, but I, you know, I think at some point, you know, you're going to have hard landings. And at some point you just become a little too fragile to do that in a sustainable way. And then, you know, breaking a hip or breaking an ankle when you're 85 is way more serious than it is, you know, at my age now. And so I will, the answer is I will do it as long as I can do it well. I like to be good at things. You know, I'm having, I'm competing better than I ever have in terms of kind of the race to goal type stuff, you know, not X-Alps anymore.

But, you know, as long as I can do it well, and like Lauren said, in a sustainable fashion, I absolutely, I've been doing this a long time now. I've been flying for 20 years. And I totally think you can do it in a sustainable fashion with the right training and prep and mindset and all those kinds of things. And so as long as I can keep that going. I'll keep flying. As long as it's, as long as it's fun. You know, I have gone through, I asked this question a lot with people on the show who have flown for a long time. You know, how do you keep the passion? How do you, how do you keep enjoying this? Because for many, many people, me included, at certain times in my career, it becomes a X contest deal. X contest is our database.

So, you know, for flying cross country, we upload our flight to X contest. And there's a yearly thing. And there's the longest flight. And it becomes numbers. It becomes data. It becomes a point of glory. It becomes a point of bragging. And it's no longer why we fell in love with the sport originally, which was just, oh, my God, I'm a bird. You know, your first flight off the hill where you go five minutes tops is just, your mind is blown. And then you get better. And 10K doesn't mean anything. And 50K doesn't mean anything. And 150K doesn't mean anything. And you're stomping on your helmet when you land because you didn't go 250, you know. And so pretty quickly we start losing perspective.

And I think it's hard to come back to the correct perspective. That takes a lot of mental gymnastics that I think many of us don't have. And so, you know, there were, there were times, there have been times where I've gone paragliding. It's my job, you know, because I need to get better. I need to train. I need to, you know, I just need to do it. But I'm not doing it because I just love paragliding. And so that, there have been times where I've gone, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is too dangerous to do something when that's the attitude. What's going on here, dude? And rein it back. What's happening? Maybe you need a break. Maybe you need to go find the joy in ridge soaring. Maybe you need to just go do some ground handling and fall in love with your wing again.

You know, maybe just, you just step away. Have you done that? Yeah. I haven't really stepped away. I've been, you know, mostly, for the most part, been able to maintain my love of it. You know, there's always been some new aspect of it, whether it's acro or whether it's race to goal or whether it's hike and fly that's just kept me in it. But there have definitely been times where I've been in the air and going, yep, not having any fun. And those have been thankfully few and far between. But, you know, usually it's in the spring where it's kind of rowdy and the edges are sharp and I don't have the currency. I haven't been flying a lot in the winter. I'm coming off my getting out of ski season and I go for a flight.

Jesus Christ, this is scary. And I'm not really having much fun. And, you know, but thankfully it's always come back pretty quick. You know, I get a little bit more currency and I enjoy it again. And I like it again. But, I mean, to specifically answer your question, I've never really gone through a down point. You know, not severe in any kind of way. You know, one of my mentors lives across the street from me, Nate Scales. He's been doing it twice as long as I have. And he did the X-Hops back in 2007. And he just, every once in a while, he'll just, I quit. I'm done. And we all go, oh, okay. See you in 18 months, you know. And he does. And he quits. He sells all the shit. And he's not going to paraglide ever, ever, ever again. And then 18 months later, he gets the old gear and he's all fired up and he's ready to go.

And he's totally stoked and he's really good. And, like, it's, you know, he hasn't skipped a day. And so, you know, there's those kind of people, too. And I celebrate that. That's fine. But, yeah. Let me ask you

this. You've done some of the most extreme flying, you know, in the world. What if I were to propose that we go and, like, ridge or, you know, soar some dunes in Southern California? You know. Do you still find that that would be enjoyable for you? Yes.

Because I'm doing it with you guys. Right? So, or, you know, as long as there's mystery and emotion and stoke, I don't care where I'm doing it. You know, just being around that, that's, there you go. You hit the head on the, you know. That's the answer is, you know, you're feeling a little humdrum and down on the whole thing. Just go be around people. Because there's people out there that are stoked. I mean, all these people I just worked with this last week. You know. All the volunteers down in Utah. You know. They're at the very beginning of this whole thing. And just being around that energy and watching them just go, just eat every word I was saying. A hum-num like salad. You know. It was, you know, that's so awesome. And punching them off the hill in the morning before these comps would start so they could fly down.

And then they'd tell you about their flight. Which in my mind, you know, not that exciting. But in their mind, it was really thrilling. And I'm on board with them. 100%. It's so neat to be around that kind of energy. And so, yeah. That's an easy way to get it back.

Isn't that the truth? I've been fortunate enough to do some filming for the world's only wingsuit tandem operation. And being there, right in the face, flying with people who have never even skydived before. And they're strapped to a wingsuiter. The stoke is so high. And, yeah. It's infectious. Yeah, it is. It's terrific. It kind of reminds us of, man, this is really something we're so lucky to do.

And, you know, I've never done any instructing. I've never done any tandems. I have tandem kit. I take my family and friends and stuff. But I've never done any commercial tandems. I've never done any guiding. I've never wanted to make paragliding my job in that sense. I mean, it is my job in terms of sponsorship and racing and podcasts and stuff. But I've never made that part of it. But I'm actually really considering quite seriously. This will be the first time I've said this publicly. But doing some guiding in the Alps because I know the Alps really well. I've done all those races, all the training. I've flown there a ton. And the Alps can kind of be a big move for someone's first trip over to the Alps because it's overwhelming. They're huge. And so I've been thinking about doing that because just to be around that kind of stoke. I mean, I could show people places in the Alps where you're top landing and going into a hut and having a coffee or, you know, staying in a refugio and the Dolomites.

And, you know, I could show. I could show them an experience that would be absolutely mind-blowing. And, you know, these are all places I know like the back of my hand. And, you know, I think that would be a great way to just shoot a whole bunch of adrenaline in my veins and get all ramped up on this, you know, if I ever needed it. So I'm thinking about doing that. Probably not this next summer, but maybe in summer's future. But I think that, you know, it's also, again, it's back to the obligation. I think it's part of what we've got to do is, you know, coddle. The people who are new and getting into it and that have all that stoke because in a lot of ways we get more out of it than they do.

Well, Gavin, I think this is a wonderful place to end it. Before we go, can you plug your podcast and your book because they're both fantastic resources?

Yeah. And I think that we'll put this out whenever you guys go live with this one. We'll go live on the Mayhem too. But yeah, the podcast is, I think this will be fun for our listeners. And you guys are awesome. Love it. And a great show. The podcast is Cloud Based Mayhem. The website's cloudbasedmayhem.com. And you'll see right there on the homepage, you'll see the book and all the other stuff we sell. We sell a lot of Patagonia stuff because I've been with them for longer than I've been flying actually. So, but yeah, that was a treat. You guys are awesome. I appreciate it. I hate you for having a better name than I do, but keep it going. Well, we could

easily do this for hours and hours. You're absolutely fantastic guests. Thanks for agreeing to do this.

It was a real pleasure. And an honor. Thanks guys. I appreciate it.

We hope you enjoyed this episode. If you have any thoughts about what you've just heard, please don't hesitate to hit us up. A big shout out to Mark Stockwell, our sound mixer and co-producer. We love you, man. If you'd like to learn more about the podcast, please visit exitpointpodcast.com. See you on the next one. If

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