Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. By the time this one goes live, I'm recording this a few days before it will, but by the time we get this one up, we will have seen the race course for the 2025 Red Bull X-Alps, which is very exciting. So I thought for this show, I've got quite a few in the can right now, and all really good. I feel like we've been kind of on a roll. They had some really fun talks, and this is definitely one of them. I recorded this a few weeks ago, but I thought we'd put an X-Alps athlete back on the show. This is with Juraj Koreň. Juraj's from Slovakia. He competed in 2019. He and I actually spent some time together east of Innsbruck near Ockensee Lake, a beautiful part of the world.
And I'd come off kind of a rough day coming up from Kronplatz and got stuck on the north side of the Alps. And a big overdevelopment. And so he caught me up there, and we climbed up together and dialed out, and I never saw him again. I flew from there down to the Lermes turn point, and he got stuck. He made a different move there. So we talk a little bit about that, and then, but mostly what you'll recognize him from are all the incredible expeditions and climbing and flying expeditions he's been doing the last five years. He did apply in the X-Alps in 21 and 23, I believe. But didn't get in. But he's in this time as a veteran and his second go at the race. So we'll find out what he's doing differently this time and what he learned from the last one.
And we talk a lot about his incredible efforts in the mountains and flying the last few years, including a solo north face climb of the Eiger and a number of other pretty remarkable ascents and attempts to fly off, sometimes successful, sometimes not. Talk about his big bivy across New Zealand solo. It was 1,100K. Out and back, all the way to the north end of the South Island and all the way back, just because why not? And talk about his tandem flying that he was working on a 3D filming project with Aaron Durogati in Pakistan this summer. And we talk about kind of the risk and decision making pendulum there, with especially flying tandem when there's all that gear in really thin air where you're moving really fast and certainly don't want to put in your passenger.
Hard. So we talk about that. I really enjoyed this. It kind of feels like a younger brother to me or something. We are on the same page, certainly on a lot of approaches to life. And he has quite a stoic approach to life and potential death and the participating in high risk sports. But a lot of fun and some really cool trips and things that he's been doing with his time. Including getting ready for the big one, this big race. As before with the Tom DeDorlodeau talk, I've lost that when I recorded these, the card I had in has failed. So I've lost a few of these shows in our original audio.
So you won't notice a difference on their end, but you might on mine because you won't be hearing sound from my end on the professional gear. You'll hear it through how we record these podcasts on the platform I use. But. Hopefully, as with Tom, which, by the way, had a ton of feedback on that one. People really loved that talk with Tom DeDorlodeau and his ongoing battle with the injury last year. So if you haven't heard that one, check it out. It's people have raved and really enjoyed it. And it's quite a good story about resilience and making a comeback. But without further delay, enjoy this talk with Yurei. He's a love his guy. It's going to be fun to watch him race this year. Cheers.
Yurei. It's great. To I say this to a lot of people, I feel bad, but it's great to finally get you on the show. It's always hard to schedule these things. It seems like, you know, you're you're roaming around the Alps and you're training for the big race for your second one and you're busy. And but you're in your van and I don't even know where you are, where you at.
Thank you for invitation for the first. And I'm really happy that we finally get get into into discussion because it was really hard to maintain our time difference. And everything. And right now I'm in Sutirol in Italian side of the Alps. And yesterday we climbed with my X-Alps supporter one big route and fly down with a tandem and we plan to do some similar stuff next days in the in the Dolomites.
Cool. Are you in kind of the Kronplatz, Brunico area or west or east of there?
I'm very close to Bosen or it's a little bit more southern. Yeah.
Yeah, that's one of my favorite places in the world. The food is great and the flying is great. And it's a nice spot. How's the snow over there this year?
Oh, this is very, very difficult question because this winter in the Alps is definitely not a winter. It's very few or very little snow. And right now down here, it's about around 12 degrees Celsius in 500 meters above sea level. Yeah. So yesterday, basically, we climbed as we as we call it as a summer version. So in a climbing shoes, you know, using our fingers and it's February. Usually I climb for the February like with a pickaxe and or ice axes with the crampons and in freezing cold. And yesterday it was like 10 degrees in the in the wall.
Jeez, that's not good. We don't like that. Hopefully, hopefully we'll have a big spring. We've thank you. Thankfully, I had a pretty cold winter so far, but just epic backcountry skiing. But we just had a big rain event last night and about 100 mile an hour winds on the peak top. So I think our snow just got smashed for a few days. But hopefully we'll get a we'll get a restart. But well, you know, you and I flew together a bit in the 2019 race. I remember having a hike up with you above. I can see there on our way to Laramouse. And then I never, never saw you again. But. We've got some catching up to do with the ex-Alps, but also just the last five years. I mean, since that race has been busy for you, you've been lighting it up on bivvy and expeditions and bunch of North Face climbing and flying escapades.
And just before we started recording there, you were talking about a really cool solo adventure you just had in in beer in back in the big 6000. Yeah. And I saw the peaks, the really big stuff way. You know, what do you say? 80 kilometers north of beer. So take it. Where do you want to start? We've got New Zealand. We've got Pakistan. We've got a bunch of stuff we can talk about. So where
would you like to start? So I will start with this. Why you didn't see me the rest of the race. You know why? Because because you have been so, so fast and you run away and fly away and I never saw you again. Just you've been in front of me. So that's that's the answer of the question. Why you didn't see me? In 2019, you've been in much better shape, man.
Well, you got to give us old Farks credit for something, I guess. But yeah, you know, I remember looking at, I remember talking to my team. I can't remember if it was that day or when I got to Laramouse because, you know, we hiked up together and then I think I flew, I'm pretty sure, I think I flew more direct and you went a little bit more north and just chose a tough line, which I had experience through there. You know, I went through in 2015 and 2017. That can be a tricky spot. So I remember somebody on the team said, oh man, you're right, I had a bad day, but I don't remember why.
Yeah. I mean, I flew a little bit more north and I came half an hour later into Laramouse and then I hiked up and it was a bit stormy. So I need to wait because it was like lee side takeoff and it was a really strong day that afternoon. And you've been able to fly really, really nice and we've been so slow and we need to fly or fly a change direction because of the storms in the way. So that's why I flew towards there from Laramouse more to the south and I was flying backwards and stuff like this, rain, you know, storm, lightnings. Yeah. Yeah. Quite a fun.
I remember I catch catching up with Cody. I think the next day he was, that was that day leaving, leaving Laramouse left him with a lot of questions, you know, questions about what am I doing here? That was, I think, I think some pilots had some pretty, pretty wild experiences that day.
Yeah. Yeah. Experience doesn't need to be good. They need to be strong.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Uh, so why haven't you been doing the X-OPS last couple? Yeah,
I was trying to, to be a part of, but, uh, they didn't choose me. I mean, the organization didn't choose me. So, uh, after 2019, I found, I found myself, uh, as, as men who is really enjoying the loneliness and, uh, like doing things by my own. And I started learning solo climbing or rope solo climbing, some of free solos, mostly in winter. And I started combining it with a flying bag. So at 2022 winter and early spring of 2013. I was doing the Alpine trilogy, the most big North faces of the Alps, which is AGA, Matterhorn and Grandes Jurases.
So all of them I did in one winter, only Juras is was the a hundred percent, uh, successful from Matterhorn. I was not able to fly off and, uh, I ended on the descent in kind of small avalanche. So, uh, I was able to do both flying back and the against mountain eel. So I need a helicopter pickup, but it was, uh, it was a an experience, yeah, strong one, because it was my mistake. I didn't, I was so sure about my skill. Ah, yeah, I will fly off. I don't need to check out the the sand route, you know, but I, I was trying one hour to fly off from Matterhorn and it ended in the situation and I was, uh, uh, in the carabin in the in the sling.
connected to the ice screw, which was screwed in this 60 degrees ice on the top, and my glider was below me in the vertical part of the wall. I was hanging down with the head in in front, or let's say down, and that was the point. And I was thinking like, "Man, probably you are not able to fly off this stuff," so I decided to do the same. But I, I did not know the the route, and I get a little bit lost in the east face, 40 meters from the bivak hut in 4000 meters, and I didn't see it, and I was not able to continue because it was really avalanche, and I started sliding. So I call with the as we say in Slovakia with a long nose, I mean, uh, I, I lose, uh, the situation.
I lost, uh, the control about situation, so I need to call the helicopter to pick me up. And once they pick me up, I saw the the hut, 40 meters, uh, traverse of me. I was like, "Oh man, really?" Yeah, but everybody's, uh, everybody's able to win, but to accept the the loose or the, yeah, that you've been, uh, how to say, not winning, it's not for everybody good humble us, right? Yeah. So, and the agar I did in four days, it was the biggest experience till that time. I was in the wall four days, one day below the wall. It was really cold. I had a lot of
frozen fingers on the hands, on the legs too, and on the on the on the top of the mountain was not so good wind, so I need to descend with the paraglider after four days in the freezing, really wet, really hungry, didn't eat for two days. I needed to descend by foot, but that was not so hard. The scent, it was okay, so yeah, but it was strong experience you
climbed the agar solo via the north face by the by the standard route, yeah.
Wow, four days of pure ragmarok.
i
can never think of the agar without thinking of the eg sanction with clint eastwood yeah It was quite cool. I don't know where you went through in 2019, but in 2019, after Grindelwald, I had a little flight that morning across Grindelwald, and I kind of stuck it in on the trail that goes up to the Eiger above Wangen. And I got a picture with some climbers right at that sign, you know, right underneath the Eiger, and the climbers were heading up. And it was quite nice. I got about 10 minutes to just stop and chill for a second and look and go, wow. I mean, I'd seen the Eiger many times. I've flown by it many times. But just to put my mind briefly in a,
that'd be interesting to attack it from that side. It doesn't look easy.
Yeah, it does not. It's really not so easy. But yeah.
Super intimidating.
Yeah, it was a beautiful experience. But yeah, experience doesn't need to be just good. It needs to be strong. So this was beautiful because it was strong.
By strong, you mean just an overwhelming experience. Yeah, I
was freezing. I was scared. I was tired. Not at all. I was everything on the bad side, but also really excited on the top. Yeah.
It's not much of an experience. Yeah. It's easy, isn't it? I mean, that's why the X-Alps is so terrific. I mean, if it was easy, no one cares. Yeah,
we love the, I call it the funny part, but yeah, the challenging one. And one of the things why I started with these things is to prepare mentally for the X-Alps and for kind of this style of sport, which I like is to face the fear of myself or the weaknesses. And that changed my life a lot, I can say, this A-Gear experience.
I bet. How old are you?
Mentally or physically, it's a big gap between the numbers.
Excellent answer.
Well, let's go with physically. Yeah,
it's 33.
33. Okay, so you were 27, 28 when you did your first one, first X-Alps.
Yeah. Right? Yeah. Okay. And
how long have you been flying? When did you get into this?
I mean, I was starting flying because of my father put me on really two-liner, nine-cell, whatever, really bullshit glider in 1998. So I had six years when I first time flying, I landed in the cow shit storage place. But then I really started at 18, the cross country, because below 18, I mean, I don't have enough physical knowledge to understand. So I had six years when I first time flying, I landed in the cow shit storage place. What the hell is going on up there? So from 18, so right now it's like, yeah, 15, 15 years of constant.
You've been at it quite a while. For some reason, I thought, okay. Yeah,
but that doesn't mean that I know how to fly. The number of the years doesn't, you know, it's different.
That's true. We've all got a lot to learn in this sport. Uh, that I have always said, and maybe this just made myself feel better because I'm 52. I'm a lot older than you are. And I didn't get into this until I was 36. And, but I'd often thought, you know, growing up, I grew up ski racing and I was really addicted to speed. And I was really stupid as most people are when they're young. And I always thought, man, if I had gotten into flying when I was, you're at, you know, when you did at 18, I would have definitely killed myself. Uh, you know, that in, in other words, I feel like being a little older and a little wiser and a little less durable, a little less, you know, less God syndrome, uh, that was probably good for me.
Was that ever, I don't know, when you were 18, were you really aware that this was a sport that could kill you?
Yeah. Uh, this is a really big question. Um, maybe I, I'm, I'm sorry if I will. Uh, answer it a bit longer, but yeah, I started in, in these years when, uh, mostly men are, uh, really like feeling undead or, uh, immortal. So yeah, my first years and still I'm, I'm with it. It's, uh, I'm really pushing by my point of view. So yeah, I'm flying and I have a fear, uh, and I have, I'm flying in Leaside and all of this shit. I was hanging on the tree. So many times and flying in thunderstorms and windy stuff and stuff like this. But, uh, yeah, I mean, I get into the understanding that, uh, I can die and I accepted it like in 2014, I think so quite early in, in the age.
And after this, I just accepted it. So it opens a new horizons to me to, to fly and to, to know like. Okay, this could be the last time maybe, or also with the, with the climbing, it's really, really connected. If you have the fee, uh, the experience that you, or I, I felt in free soloing and I stopped myself in the last second, I felt like eight meters in verticality. Then I start sliding on the snow with the head down. I lost my ice axes. I had my face in the, in the tuft snow. My bag of 20 kilos was on top of me. And I stopped with my right elbow on the second try.
And I was like a few meters off before the last drop and I will be dead. So after, after all of these experiences, it's quite important to understand that, I mean, uh, we are mortal and, uh, calculate with it. So, uh, yeah, that's what I want to say. I'm sorry. My English, probably in philosophical way is. It's not enough to explain, uh, the things which I have in my mind. I think
you've done a really good job. I was going to ask, you know, if you'd had a really close call and you just answered it, you obviously did, uh, did that.
I mean, it's one thing to say, I know that this can kill me and I'm okay with it. It's another thing to almost live through that because it's, it's not really so much us, is it that the, you know, the. We, we can leave this world and that sucks, but it really more sucks for your family, for the people who love you. You know, it's, it's, it's not something we can be cavalier about. And I'm wondering if that experience in 2014, uh, you know, did, did it change your approach? Have you ratcheted down? Have you given yourself more margin or is it more that, uh, you know, I'm at peace with this?
Uh, this is. Again, maybe a little bit long and, uh, complicated answer, but I found myself in antique philosophy called stoicism. Maybe, you know, a little bit about it. Yeah. And, uh, one of the most important. Pillars of it. It's memento mori. So remember you are dead. And after that, I was speaking with my family quite a lot. And, uh, yeah, you know, we live in, or my opinion is that we live in a free world, which means. Everybody's responsible for his deeds. And I mean, I'm not owned by my mother or my father. So if I die, it's kind of, yeah, it's, it sucks, but it's my life.
So, yeah. And, uh, one of the things is that, uh, my, my father already died when I was in, in Antarctica in 2017 on the expedition. And, uh, yeah, I mean, uh, with this in my family, we don't have. Uh, kind of problem, uh, that somebody is telling me like, Hey man, what I will do if you will die. That's why I'm still, uh, without the kids and single, of course. But, uh, yeah, I mean, parents or brother, it's all good with it. All good. I mean, they understand that I love this style of life and, uh, yeah. Many times when I was going for, for example, my first base jump, or when I was in India for the solo.
Mission. I was writing to my brother, like, Hey man, here is my car. Maybe if I will not answer in two hours, I'm dead. And here are the money I'm owed to this guy, this amount of money and bring my glider to a young talents or whatever, you know? So, and he's all the time kind of accepting it. So, but I didn't see in their, in their thoughts. So that's the answer.
That's a good point. Great answer. The, the, uh, the expedition in Antarctica, you were with your dad when he died?
No, no, no. I was, I was in that moment in a sailboat sailing back through the Drake's passage in the Belfort level nine. Quite wild, you know, about it. So, yeah. And, uh, when I was leaving, he was already kind of, uh, in the hospital in bed condition. But, uh, he's, uh, he become my father when he was 50 years old when I born. So it was quite old in that days, but yeah, uh, what I mean, uh, I want to say is that, uh, this experience quite open my, my thinking about this problem, which is in those days, probably be kind of on the side, but it's a part of the life.
So, yeah.
Hmm. Well, thanks. Thanks for sharing that. Sorry about your dad. Yeah. Um, what were you doing down in Antarctica? In Antarctica?
Yeah. Uh, we, uh, with one of my partner of, uh, climbing partner, we had, uh, we started the project to climb the Virgin mountain or do a first ascent on every continent, which we called, uh, as a seven Virgin summits project. And the idea was to climb the mountain and fly down. So we, the first. Expedition was to Antarctica. The second was in the North America and Greenland in 2019, just after the X-Alps and, uh, uh, part three was now in Asia, these, uh, Indian Himalayas, uh, stuff I did so.
Wow. Are you more of a climber or a flyer? I mean, I'm a flyer pilot.
Yeah, I'm definitely a pilot. That's my mentality. So it's, it's easy to even see in my, in my climbing. It's totally different approach to the situation. It's not like this hitting with the head, the rock, you know, like I will fight through it, but like a snake left, right. Finding, you know, uh, a doable, uh, route or yeah, kind of this stuff. And of course do not fall.
Yeah,
yeah. Do not fall. Um, okay. Before we have, we've already left the X-Alps, but we can't leave my favorite subject. Too early because we, we have to talk about New Zealand and the time in Pakistan with, with Aaron Durogati and the filming you were doing there and then also India, but I would love, and I think the audience would love to hear, you know, you had this experience in 2019 and I'd like to just hear more about, you know, did that go personally well, not well, were you happy? Were you sad? You know, how, how did that all go down? But also, you know, you've had. Typically, you know, many athletes will do it consecutively, you know, you, you have, you didn't do it in 21 and 23 and now you're back.
So you've had quite a bit of time to not only think about it, but probably get a lot of perspective from the first one that, okay, that's something I'm going to change. And that's something I need to do differently. I'd like to just hear your perspective on it.
Yeah. Uh, I was thinking a lot. That's definitely true. And, uh, the experience of 2019. It was quite tough because before the race, uh, uh, I got, or my relationship, uh, was how to say, and that it ends. And, uh, I was living in my car kind of on the street, not eating so much, like once per two days, just a little not sleeping. And I had really bad mental condition. I was really, you know. How it is, everybody get in the life gets through this kind of situation. And I lost like 10 kilos before the race.
Wow. So I was really thin. Yeah. 68 kilos and 183 centimeters. That's quite light. So it was one of the worst experience of my life till then. And, uh, I did a lot of things, but a lot of decisions have been really, uh, not clever. And I learned from that. And one of the most important thing to learn, uh, from 2019, it helps was finally to fly only in the Alps or mountains like that once, because before it helps, I had the experience only or only mostly flying in Slovakia, which doesn't have, uh, Valley winds, no fan.
So, uh, I, I really, I was confused. What? What the hell is going on in the, in the Alps? You know, the Valley winds is the most important thing you need to know how it works. And I, I do not know anything about it really. I was lost. So once I get in the Valley winds, I was surprised, like what the hell the takeoff was zero wind. And here is 10 meters per second from the north. And then I fly on the other side and there was 10 meters from the south. Like, what the hell, where the wind is going? Like, what the hell, you know, really. I'm really confused and I'm not telling nothing about fan. Yeah. That was totally, I just don't know, not know if
we developing standard
standard valuables. Yeah.
If I don't know anything about valuables about fan, I, I know like minus 20, you know, some below that. Right. So that,
I mean that race too, I think we have to give and remind people some perspective. That, that, what the weather in the 2019 race was really weird. It was, I had never, I don't remember. I don't think I, we, we, I mean, every team is different, but I don't remember ever going to a launch and having to be rowdy. You know, it was like everywhere up high was you could just take off from everywhere. But remember the first few days were you, there was no thermals. It was just kind of stormy and, but not stormy. Nasty. It was just tons of cloud and, you know, I mean, there was a lot of walking and then, and then the sun came out and there was no thermals.
Yeah. I mean, it was just so hot and so stable, you know, that big, that big sandstorm came in from Africa, from Northern Africa. And I mean, walking through Chamonix was over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit, you know, so that's 30 something Celsius. It was even more than 40. It was just crazy. I mean, I, yeah, exactly. Yeah. There you go. And I mean, just stupid. It was just ridiculous. And yeah, I mean, it was weird. I mean, in some ways it was the least dangerous X-Alps I've participated in certainly compared to 21, but it was just bizarre. It was just really wild. Yeah.
I was lost too, man. I really remember everything you said. That day with the sandstorm. Yeah. And I remember the first time, or like air from Africa hit me when I was on Titlis or yeah. And I was like, yeah, I was hiking up half of day because I landed in 2300 on the North side and I was not able to climb up. So I need to hike up. I was totally done when I get up on the takeoff and 3000 something was the Titlis and I took off and I, and I said to myself, hell yes. And now you. All in front of me. We'll see. We'll see how I will fly. And I just glide till I didn't even reach the Grindelwald.
Even the airspace towards Grindelwald was, or towards Eger turn point was, uh, turn it off. I was not able to glide there. I was just sinking. Zero, nothing, zero, nothing. No Valley winds. Yeah. Now I know that if you don't have Valley wind, that's probably a no thermals. But that day I was like, what the hell? And then I hike. And that day I was like, what the hell? And that day you said in Chamonix, a hundred Fahrenheit, I was, I was, uh, dead or the next day after it, I was hiking towards St. Hilaire, the two at the turn point. And man, my rubber on my shoes, it's gone. It's gone on the, on the asphalt. It's just melted really the, the glue, which connects the rubber to my shoe.
Melting. It's gone. I know. I know. I know. You're crazy. That
day, the day, the, I'm sure that you drew, you flew off Titlis. So I did a couple little moves out of Chamonix the next morning, and I was going down towards the St. Hilaire turn point and, you know, launched it 11 and it should have been booming and I didn't get a single thermal and I landed and I, and I decided, okay, well, if I climb again, it was a big client. It was like 2000 and that was 2000, it's probably 1500 meters. But it was a big climb. It was a big commitment to get up tall again. This was on the east side of the valley, you know, heading down to St. Hilaire. But it was going back up into pretty big terrain. And I thought, okay, I could either walk to St. Hilaire 60K or I could give it a try.
And so I'm going to give it a try. You always have to try, right? It was so hot that my buddy Ben and I, we were packing snow onto the back of our necks and onto our balls. I mean, it was so hot just to do anything to cool down. I couldn't believe it. And the temperature at the top of the mountain after climbing 1,500 meters was exactly the same as it was on the ground. There had been no very, it hadn't cooled one degree. And I thought that's really not good for the last year. I don't think this is going to work. And I took off at three in the afternoon, I mean, three in the afternoon in the middle of summer. And I didn't hear a single beep from my vario all the way to the ground. It was the most depressing flight I've ever had in my whole life.
I landed back down in the valley and looked at my, you know, remember I'd said it was going to be 60K to walk or, you know, I'd looked down and it was still 38 kilometers to walk to St. Hilaire. I just, oh my God, the wheels came off right then. I just thought there's, that's not even possible. What the hell just happened?
That was crazy, man. In the day when I lost my rubber from the shoes, I started in the valley north of Chamonix. It is, Val d 'Isère, I think it calls. There's a famous place for ski races because I was flying more to the north. Yeah. I took off at 12 in 2500 and I spent like an hour to cross slightly towards Passy. And there I get finally out of this, we call it a soup. Yeah. When you are below the, below the inversion, man, I was kicked out in seven or six meters per second up to 3800 and it wasn't still, it was not still in the in the, in the cloud base.
And it was flying like crazy, crazy, crazy good because I was above. Yeah. In that day, some of the people toppling on Mont Blanc, maybe, you know, people from three, eight from.
Remember that was the day that Toma got to, he got to 6,000 meters or something down by, down by Brienzone. I was walking, walking to St. Hilaire and Toma was at 6,000 meters. I've never been so depressed. I just thought, what the
fuck? Yeah, me too. And he was, he was flying without the gloves, you know, without the balaclava, without the gloves and without the sunglasses. I said to that, that day and that man is, he's a God. I cannot survive in 6,000 without the gloves, man. Probably was too hot too.
Oh, that's funny. And
you see it, it was again, very hard experience, but now we're logging because what was hard to survive. Yeah, of
course. Right. Type three fun. Type three fun. Type
three fun. Type three fun. And when you're
doing it, it's miserable. You look back and it's the best thing you've ever done. Yeah.
At the last moment, so till St. Hilaire of walking, walking to St. Hilaire, I remember that I have kind of not a blackout, but I was really not consciousness a hundred percent. I was just like, my supporters speak to me and I was like, really not answering. So they put me in the, like with a, with a force, they forced me to, to, to go in the water. Yeah. And after 10 or 15 minutes in the, I finally found myself that I can speak again because I was probably overheated. And at the moment we came to St. Hilaire and I was like, yeah, after it was 10 days, yeah, finally it's, it's gone. And now, now I want to continue, you
know, I was 10 days dreaming about the moment when it ends. And when it ends, I was like, Hey, I really want to continue one or two days more at least.
Yeah. Yeah. Always. I always, always feel that. I have a funny story from that night. So the very last night I was heading, I was flying through Le Grave and really having a good flight. I was, you know, finally that, like you said, the soup had passed and it finally gotten better. And I was up in big terrain and I was making good time. And then a huge cell blew up over Brienzon and, and I, I flew as far as I could into the storm. And then it forced me to the ground. The gust front was nasty. And, uh, so I landed and I started walking and I realized that Toby was just in front of me, but he, he had top landed. And I thought, man, he, I don't think he's going to get down before the cutoff. He's going to get stuck up there so I can get him. You know, the race was over the next day at whatever it is, 11 AM. I think, okay, I can get him.
And then Marcus Anders was in Brienzon and he, I didn't realize this, but he'd been hurt. And so he hadn't moved in a, in a long time. And I thought, man, I mean, he must be really tired. He actually was hurt. I didn't, I didn't know that until after the race, but. I thought, oh man, I can pick up two spots here. This is great. You know, so I hadn't pulled my night pass and I was all fired up. And I, so I, I walked all night and I get through Brienzon. So now I'm ahead of both of them. And, you know, but then you start in your head, oh, maybe he could fly over me in the morning, those bastards. And I got to keep pushing, keep pushing. And so I'm walking up to the pass. I'd said, I forget. It's not the cold on hell, but it's the, where they start those huge 300 FAI. I forget the name of that pass. It's really famous for the, uh, the tour. France too. But anyway, it's Brienzon, you know what?
Okay. Uh, cold. Yeah. I think it's called. And so I'm walking up to that and, and I start hallucinating and, you know, it's three o'clock in the morning. I'm out of it. And my, and I'm walking barefoot. My feet are so trashed and so mangled from all the heat from the days before that I'm not even wearing shoes because they hurt too much. So I'm actually walking barefoot and I'm not making any time. I'm barely moving, you know? And, uh, the next thing I know, Ben, my supporters kicking me and I wake up and I, apparently I don't remember this, but apparently I go, stop kicking me, man. Let me sleep. And he goes, dude, you can't sleep in the middle of the road. So they had been driving up to the pass and, and noticed that I stopped moving on the live tracking, drove back down. And I was right in the middle of the road, just passed out.
Not even on the side of the road, hanging out in the middle of the
road asleep, man. These are the experiences. Yeah. But I can say, I really love this in some way. It's not possible to do it every year and like once per month or whatever you need to get, get your stuff together and your body reconvalescence for one or two years. But then I cannot wait for that. This again.
Yeah. It's great. I mean, Nate skills, he's a friend of mine that lives right down the street here and he did it in 2007. And he said, you know, there's only one way to get there. And the X ops is going to get you there. I love that saying, I mean, we all, you know what that means by getting there. You get to that crazy place in your mind. That's just, it is exciting. It's terrific. It comes from that incredible combination of, you know, exhaustion and adrenaline and training and everything, you know, fear, all of it. It just combines into this cocktail in your mind of, oh, it's so
good. Yeah. It's so good. And I could say it's, it's addictive. Addictive. That's very addictive. Yeah. Thanks. Very, very addictive cocktail. That our bodies are not able to, to do it so often. So otherwise it's a deadly, deadly cocktail. That's what Adam told me. Yes, for sure. You know, man, that's kind of a gladiator fights of Rome, kind of this stuff. And I really, really get it in one way. It's a, we can see a danger or whatever, but it's, it's fun in, in strong way, but yeah, that's how I understood it.
Yeah, for sure. So, uh, okay. So second part of that question was what, what are you changing this time around? What, how, how has your approach changing because of your first experience?
So first of all, I was flying a lot in the Alps and mostly in the, I stopped, I stopped flying in my home country or like the countries where are, where aren't the, the Valley winds. And, uh, I was trying to, to fly a lot of Vivac flying, which means flying not the usual and not the best, uh, XC routes only. So to like simulate the, the X-Alps feelings in some way, of course, the Vivac flying, it's much more slower and stuff like this. But at least it have much more common with the X-Alps style than the classic XC flying, which I was doing before. Yeah. I was also thinking more about, uh, my supporting team and, uh, planning
of course, and learning to be independent in decisions and, uh, uh, how to say, uh, we, we call it like to, to. Sniff or to, um, to feel the air without the, without to, to see the weather forecast, you know, it's just, you wake up, you look and it's like, okay, today's a stable day because there's a sound wind. I can see in the air, something like soup and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, kind
of dirty.
Yeah. Dirty. Okay. Now it's cold front and, you know, like to be as, as little addictive to, to the help of the others, which. Yeah. In my, my opinion, in my situation was mostly, uh, uh, the most common mistake was to not, uh, I wasn't be, I wasn't able to make a big decision alone. I all the time asked my supporters, what do you think? How, where I should fly? That's, uh, one of the, the thing. And the last is, uh, did I, I flew all, almost all of the Alps, uh, by myself. So I basically. Basically everywhere or not, not everywhere, but I was in many places and now I'm training a lot and I will fly at least one or, or two times before the race by my own.
The route, basically the route, but we don't know exactly the route yet, but you, yeah,
but we will, we will get it in March, which is pretty soon. Yeah. We'll know the route and I have free time. I'm not working anymore. And, uh, I will, I'll just concentrate on, on. Observing the route and flying it as much as possible. So what
is your, what is your work?
Yeah, I'm a, of course, a tandem pilot, man.
Okay. And, and you, you did some, you did kind of a cool tandem project with Aaron Daragati in Pakistan this last summer.
Yeah. Yeah. We have been involved in, uh, filming some 3d movie in the Pakistan and I was a tandem pilot for the. Uh, for the cameraman and we've been flying with the 3d camera on, I think three meter long, uh, aerodynamically stabilized, how to say, uh, all, where was the camera? So three meters pole with a four propellers, which working as, uh, the gimbal and camera for 80,000 Euro with the 12th, uh, object. Yeah. With it, with the 12, uh, glasses. Uh, and we need to manage it in the air and I don't know how many times you've been flying in Pakistan, but there is on the rocks and glacier and both things are very dangerous to land.
And if you can imagine to land so high in such a, uh, dangerous place with no, almost no rescue possibilities with the, uh, EMC tandem plus, uh, uh, a lot of. Yeah. Crazy expensive gear with the skis and, uh, ski boots on. That's something I mean.
Jeez. That sounds intense, man. I'm sweating just hearing about it. Yeah. I mean, and you're also in really thin air, so you're moving fast.
Yeah. Yeah. That's what I said. It's, uh, you are landing probably in high, high altitude. Some, the best top land and a fly off with the tandem EMC tandem was in 5000. three hundred or five thousand five hundred, I'm not really sure now, but man, that was crazy toplan with the tandem, with the camera, with the skis, and took off too, and
What, what are you—were you filming, uh, you know, the kind of the combo thing that that Aaron's been doing and you've been doing, or is it more just the beauty of flight? What was the—what was the capture mission?
Capture mission was to, uh, film Aaron and his friend Matthias doing combos, so flying skiing together, and I was kind of following them with the cameraman and shooting in the air the 3D shots, which as I saw them, they are really, really awesome and beautiful. Really, oh
Man, I mean, that kind of, that kind of lens is going to capture it and amazing high def. It was the cameraman, a pilot as well, no
No, no, but Mountaineer, maybe you know him, Jonathan Griffith, oh.
For the name, yeah, was he totally cool with it?
Or was he spooked? Uh, we've been training and flying in the Alps too, before Mont Blanc area, and after a while he gets quite good. And you know what the funny thing was? He was most of the time, not most, all of the time, he was watching in the phone which was capturing or transferring the what is the camera capturing, and he was not puking in Pakistan in six and a half thousand meters altitude. We get thermaling like crazy, man. I'm I'm really impressed about this guy. How strong is his stomach? Yeah.
No kidding, I mean, and you're also dealing with cold and gloves and, yeah, yeah, you remember, you remember John Sylvester's film, you know, Birdman of the Caracole? That guy was puking all the time.
I was scared about this, but he, he never puked once or two times. He was kind of sick, but he all the time managed it. Yeah, pure fighter.
Yeah, no kidding. Uh, you must be... uh, you, you've got a, what am I trying to say? The, uh, I mean, I just think that I would be scared to death doing that. I mean, everything for me changes when I do that. I mean, I'm not scared to death doing that. I'm not scared. I've never flown commercial tandems, you know? I just fly my family and stuff. But doing that, that's a... that's some... that's a lot of pressure. You're, you're, you're good under pressure. I enjoy that. Yeah.
I was, you must, I mean, again, it's with this, uh, connection with the mountaineering and solo missions and long term and stuff like this, I felt really good there. It was a challenging, of course, but all of this responsibility and thinking about the situation and kind of, you know, pushing like, "Yeah, let's go, let's do it, let's try our best," and you know, in some way, we, we can speak about some danger, but, um, and some, uh, pushing the limits. But I was also discussing with Aaron and the whole situation and what is my opinion and stuff like this, and sometimes I, I was even the guy who choose like, "Hey guys, I think now like this, now like that, this is impossible," you know, kind of not really just head in front, but thinking and pushing when you know this is possible or not.
So for me, it was good school, and I was enjoying even this pressure which was putting on me because after, after the expedition, Aaron even told me like, "Hey man, I will never do this like you, like to be a tandem pilot there," you know, I would
Never do that, for sure, no way. Uh, tell me about the dynamic of working with Aaron. You know, I've done a lot with Aaron. I really like Aaron. I love his approach. I've done some training with him. I've never worked intimately like you did, uh, at all, but you know, I... his... his approach to... he takes a lot of risk, a massive amount of risk, and and he's incredibly confident. I would imagine, you know, working in that kind of environment could... did it... was it hard in terms of, you know, keeping to your own risk profile and what you're comfortable with? Did it allow you to push too far? I don't know, you see what I'm saying? I mean, is it a...
is it a dynamic that you struggled with, or was it pretty... uh, pretty straightforward? Uh...
I was working with Aaron even before, and I know for quite a lot of years. And the dynamic, I don't know how it really sounds in English, but in my opinion, it was all good. I didn't see any problem, and we did also before a lot of combo missions and free soloing and stuff like that. So I mean, uh, he chose me to be a part of this expedition because he know me personally, and we, we share some tough experiences together. So I'm glad, I was happy to be there, and I think we did a very good job without any kind of pushing one or another into something which we feel, uh, as something not possible, but we tried.
It was very bad weather, very, very, very bad weather, as the people said. It was very low cloud base, just six and a half thousand, windy, stormy. It was once we flew, it was like 70 or 90 kilometers. We
flew and
wind in in 7,000 meters, and we've been flying like tandem and shooting and stuff up the triangle tower because we felt it's all good, or it's doable. We also face—we have been facing some snowing there, and as far as we know, uh, snowing in mountains like Himalayas and uh, Karakorum, it's something super strong. It's not nothing which you can compare in the Alps; there's sometimes 100 kilometers wind because of the snow in the valley, and the the ground is flying. And once I was hiking and the rocks have been flying, small ones, but still they've been kind of more fly, more going to the distance than falling, you know?
The glide ratio better than one to one, so I was like, "Hmm, they are flying." So what I want to say, it was really nice experience. I I was pushing a little bit limits, but it was this X-Alp style, you know, kind of so oh good.
Sounds like good training. Oh man, all training for the race coming up. I mean, I guess everything's good training, isn't it? I mean, watching Chrigel and Peter last year did a 4,000 peak thing, I thought, well, Jesus, now nobody's gonna beat him. Yeah, nobody's bad again. Perfect training, yeah.
Yeah, it was awesome, awesome to watch it.
Yeah, that was awesome. That was us, okay? So we got to talk about New Zealand. You did a solo bivy? It was about a thousand k or something, yeah?
1100 yeah okay
Where'd you start? Where'd you end?
What were the cruxes? So, I started in Queenstown, and my... I, I'm usually setting like three levels of of goals. So, one is pessimistic, one is optimistic, and one is like god level. So, my is optimistic was 660 k's to the north, uh, close to the Nelson, which is, uh, as I see, uh, the last possible place to fly free only by paraglider without a lot of walking because there is a CTR which hits the ground or 300 above ground level, which is super low, and, uh, that was my my goal to not, uh, break the rules, uh, or or the the air airspace, whatever
So it's like a great, like, it's cool. So, so yeah, it was—it was extremely awesome because it was my top five favorite places because it was, uh, the longest flight of New Zealand and the longest last of X contest on New Zealand, like 220 k's, because it was good. Wow, good weather. Oh man, yeah, people say it wasn't good, but you know, I was in X-Alps. Good means something different. It was stormy, rainy, but big soft style. So then I, I sleep
flying 20ks, sometimes flying 100, 80, whatever. Yeah. And after, I think it was like 14 days, I came to Nelson, where I landed exactly on the most furthest point I can get by air legally. And then I said to myself, like, hell, I still have a lot of time. What I should do here? Should I drink or party or? No, I will fly back. Okay. So I didn't land in Nelson. I landed in Blenheim and I hitchhiked to Nelson. I'm sorry.
Okay. Okay. Gotcha. So Nelson's the top one.
Yeah. So I landed in Blenheim and I said to myself, hell yeah, I still have a lot of time. What I should do? Should I drink or should I fly? So I decided to fly back. I hitchhiked to Nelson where I can start flying again because even there is an airport, but their airspace is really designed to be able to fly. And I started flying. And as I knew the situation and I understood on the way, the fern, the welly winds there and also the sea breeze, which is quite strong in New Zealand mountains. And I flew in like a few days towards the highest peak of New Zealand. This Aoraki, how it calls in English?
Mount Cook. Yeah. I landed very close to Mount Cook. And then comes the heat wave, very similar as the X-Alps in 2019. Yeah. I was not able to over climb 1,700 meters, which is like 500 below the peaks. So then I just, I was just hoping or hoping, jumping like a frog a few kilometers per day. And after 27 days, I landed very close.
Yeah, 30 kilometers south of, of Mount Cook and it was 1,100 kilometers of world beef solo. So I ended that trip. It was really beautiful experience because I was except, uh, uh, one day of hitchhiking and one day of flying from Nelson, I didn't see the paragliders and people and stuff like that. So it was really beautiful experience and I'm really big fun. And let's say. And that of Lord of the Rings and stuff like that. And it was really nice to feel that feeling that I'm flying across the middle earth as, as the needle. It was really, really beautiful. Those who really want to have some feeling I have a document on YouTube, which have at, at least one hour, but it's worth it.
That was beautiful.
Yeah. I, I watched it before, uh, before we did this, I watched it last week, just kind of in prep to talk to you. It's amazing. No, it's really, really quick. So it was
a dream.
It's cool that you talk about the Lord of the Rings. You know, I was back in my sailing days. This was before my flying days at all, but I was in New Zealand for all three years. So all three releases of the Lord of the Rings, uh, I was actually there in New Zealand and I, and there was this tiny, I was up on the North Island by the Bay of Islands. And there was this tiny little theater that was a dinner theater. So you could go early and get dinner, have a nice lamb. And then, uh, and then what, you know, remember it would come out at midnight, uh, of the opening day, which was December 19th, all three of those years. And that was really neat, man. That was really cool to be in New Zealand and all the hype and all everybody's dressed up and, uh, you know, big books
of my youth. Don't tell me these, I will, I will sacrifice my left leg to be a part of that diamond place.
What the heck? It was neat.
It was really cool. It was, it was really, you know. You just felt like you were, you were in Mordor.
I'm jealous. Cool.
Well, finally, I get to say something that makes you jealous. I've been jealous about all the things you've been, you've been up to lately. Uh, fantastic. What do you think it is? You know, not a lot of people I used to instruct for our bound and we had a portion of our course. I often instructed 30 day courses. And you know, these were mostly kids. They were 16 to 18 years old and a big chapter, I guess, of a 30 day course on an hour bound course is solo. You know, we would put the kids out on solo for 72 hours would be the max three days, but you'd only give them a tiny little bit of food and really nothing to do. And you would tell a story. There's a story about Colorado outbound school back in the day in the fifties where a train gets trapped and they can't get resupply into them.
And the, the. Instructors were, were really smart and they, they decided, okay, we don't have any food, everybody's got to live, we can't break the group up. So we're going to put everybody on solo. So what they did is they put everybody out where, you know, you're, you're by yourself and you're, it would be kind of a navigational trick to see somebody else. And you would say, okay, you're going to be, you're going to, you're going to get bored. You're going to want to get up and you're going to want to go do stuff. But if you do stuff, you're going to burn calories and we don't have any food. Yeah. So the best thing to do. Is sit and be quiet and don't do anything, you know, don't burn calories. Just you're, we're just waiting for the train to come in. And what they learned after this was that not all, but, you know, six of 10 had a really powerful experience, you know, at the end of the 30 day course.
Of all the things they did, the river and the mountains and the navigation and leading and cooking and, you know, being, becoming independent in the outdoors. The solo was the most. Most important. It was the, it was the biggest piece because the thing that made them the most scared going into it, because most people, not just kids, but most people never spend any time alone in their life. You know, it's just not something humans are good at doing or do it and not very purposefully normally, you know, unless you're going into a 10 day silent retreat or something. So anyway, my, my point is we would put these kids out on, on solo and we had about, it was about that. Our patrols were always 10 students and, you know, usually six, it wasn't all of them.
Some of them just hated it, but six of 10, typically at the end, you know, when you kind of do your debrief at the end of this thing, that was the most powerful part of their experience. My very long winded question to you is, uh, why do you like being solo? What do you think has made you gravitate towards that kind of travel? And what are people? What are people missing that don't do it?
Yeah. Uh, as you said, it's a really strong experience and it wasn't the first, uh, solo mission at all. I was flying the first vol biv in 2014 alone in Romania, which is, uh, not the super wild country, but there are bears which can kill you. You can lost it's no signal and stuff like this, like for a Europe, pretty wild one compared to Alps. It's much, much more wilder. Even to my home country, Slovakia, which is, uh, like one of my neighbor in my village was, uh, destroyed by the bear, like a hundred meters from the house. So it's kind of, there is some nature, let's say.
Yeah. And
what the thing, uh, on the solo missions after Himalayas and many other places I've been visiting, it's that that's only on myself, everything. And these decisions. It's a game and I like that because I'm really thinking and, uh, comparing every, my, every of my decisions, one is, you know, you know, like to get the water, how you can get the water there and is this water clean or whatever, you know, everything you need to need to think so decisions and this game, it's a mental game. And I'm in that moments. I'm. Forgetting about any problem from home, you know, like paying the bills or whatever.
It's just you and how to survive and how to be as effective as possible. So all of the, the solo missions or experiences to me are, uh, a way how to find, uh, peace in myself and to understand myself as, as, uh, as let's say, uh, a spirit. Yeah. You know, what's inside, because when people are with somebody else, you can speak and if you can speak, you can forget the things, the bad decisions you did, not only by choosing a wrong water source, but I mean, the mistakes of your life, like you are angry with somebody else or you, whatever, you know, the, the classic problems and when you are alone, your, your mind will give it to you again.
Like, Oh, you made. This mistake and you make this friend angry or, you know, this wasn't a good decision and stuff like this. And not everybody can handle, uh, own mistakes he does or, or, or, uh, I'm sorry. I'm translating, uh, my thoughts in Slovakian directly in English. And I don't mean it's like you, but it's how we say. So, uh, yeah, this, this is a really strong. Mental game. And it, for me, it helps to be better person when I am much, uh, much or a lot of time alone because I can, uh, sort my thoughts and, uh,
uh, think about, uh, the things I made in the past. That's one of the, uh, important thing of the solo. And as you said, saving in the net, saving energy. When I came to New Zealand, I bring a food with me, which, uh, most. Like over 50 % was with the meat and, you know, importing the, the meat in New Zealand, it's forbidden. So, uh, policemen on the airport took half of my food and I became not, I'm not vegan. I'm not vegetarian. I'm not, I'm eating just everything in those days. And they took all of my meat. So I become vegan in one day.
And I lost 10%. I lost 10 kilos in 27 days. And I lost a lot of my hair, uh, from my head because it was, man, I had, I had plan of 50, 500 grams of food per day. Yeah. Uh, and I ended with 20, 250 grams and vegan.
I love God. Let this be a warning to vegans.
Yeah, man. I, you know, my. My body wasn't ready for that. And I lost, I lost, I was really, really weak. So I was basically really, really flying and land, uh, as close as possible to the next takeoff. Basically, most of the time I was taking off from the same spot where I landed and where I, where I, uh, camped. So I was really saving money, saving energy, but still I lost 10 kilos.
It's interesting what you say. I can really relate to that. And I, I've talked about it before on the show. So I won't bore you all, listen to all these the, and with the same story again. But I, I really got to see this very up-close and personal B's I had done quite a few big solo mission trips before the Alaska thing with Dave Turner. And, uh, but with Dave Turner, it was, it was, it was really cool. because I got to see both sides of it in the same expedition so he and I were together for the first
Uh, let's see. I guess it was 21 or 22 days, and for that period of the time, we also had the film crew, you know? So for many days, we had no film crew because they couldn't get to us or whatever. Red Bull cut off funding, there's lots of reasons, but so some of that time, it was just Dave and I. And the the problem with Alaska was that every decision to go up was always a really hard decision because until we got to the north side of the of the range, getting through terrain is really gnarly. It's all alder, it's just nasty, and the bugs, and you know, so to take the time and the energy to go up 3,000 feet to find a launch that you didn't know was there or not, you know, our maps sucked and we didn't have anything.
And so it was all visual, which you're just, you're down in the lowlands and it's hard to get up, and so it just every decision seemed to have a lot of weight on it. And it was never, if it was the wrong decision, it wasn't like, you know, if it was been my decision and it sucked, it wasn't like Dave was hitting me over the head and blaming me or anything. It was never that, we had we had a very good rapport and it was all working, but I've just found that the decision making was almost impossible for both of us because you just didn't want to be the one making the wrong decision. And when he, when he left and the film crew left too, so Red Bull was just, "Okay, we're done. You know that this, you've made it past Denali, that's the end of the film." And I said, "No, um, that's not the mission.
I, I'm gonna keep going whether the film ends there or not, but I'll film everything and I'm gonna keep going." So from then on, I was totally alone until the end. And that's, that's in the film, you get to see part of that. But, uh, it got—and I'm not, this isn't a negative about Dave at all, but the trip got so much better after everybody left because I had to own every decision. There was one day where I walked up to launch and sat there and threw rocks at my shoes for like 10 hours because it was blown over the back. I couldn't launch. I didn't want to walk back down because I've got bad knees. I never sat there all day, and it was great. And at the end of the day, it finally turned around. It was still wasn't great, but I had an epic flight, and I ended up flying with a golden eagle and flew across this huge glacier, which I didn't know how I was going to make it across.
I mean, it was—it was a critical step that I'm pretty convinced would not have happened if I was with anybody, because when you're with somebody, then you start going, "Well, what should we do? What should we do? I wish you do this. Let's do that." And it wouldn't have—it just wouldn't have happened the way it did. And the way it did for me ended up being beautiful and just incredible. And I don't know, there's some kind of magic about being solo, but there's also, I find it a lot less stressful, yeah.
I agree that make I agree, yeah. Also, also with, uh, soloing, uh, not only in flying but also in like, uh, climbing or mountaineering. Yeah, it's, it's the same feeling which you had, I have too. Even on New Zealand, I mean, there was a day where, uh, I flew very close to, I think it called it calls arrows, arrowhead peak or something like this, and I landed and I make water whatever I said, "Oh yeah, tomorrow I will fly like hell from here," or whatever. And in the morning was I, I bombed out and I flew backwards like three kilometers heading back and I landed on the opposite side of the valley and I was like, "Oh shit, yeah." But never mind, I played a little bit of AC/DC and enjoyed the day, na na na.
And you know what I did next day? I hiked 20 kilometers backwards for the better spot, you know? And I was all good, I was all good. I was walking in the middle of nowhere, crossing the, the rivers without any path or whatever, and I was just enjoying, singing like, "Hell yeah, I am, I'm on the end of the world and I have some problems but I will find it out and we'll see what happened." And at the end, in two days, I was like, "Oh my god, I'm on the end of the world." And I, I was outside of the mountains and I was able to fly really peacefully and, uh, and, and good. And at the end, I, I and I lost two or, let's say, two and a half days flying backwards, yeah? But yeah, decisions.
And once you are alone, you are the only, only guy who is responsible and who is, uh, who made a wrong or good decision, but never know. So I
Think, I think the critical thing there, well, there's two critical things. One is, let's not bs, the reason you have such a great day is because you were listening to ACDC. And two, uh, the, I'm a big fan, uh, and two, I think that, um, when you're solo too, you're allowed to, I don't know, I love the ex-alps because you're racing, but I love not racing. And what I mean, and this sounds obvious, but you know, I'm not, when you're, when your goal is kind of loose and gray, and you don't have a time frame, then like you said, your only goal is to survive. And man, that's a nice goal, just, it's the most simple, beautiful, like you said, everything else drops away.
And, uh, it's a really nice space to be in, especially for long periods of time. You know, like you said, with Alaska, with you know, when I did the expedition with Will Gale, and I was like, oh my god, I'm not going to be able to. The last thing I wanted to do was to get to the end, really, the ex-alps too. I mentally, actually, really have struggled with that race, because you racing for the end. And of course, when you know the one time I made Monaco was very, very special, but the next day I was really sad because it's over. And now, what you know, I, people aren't cooking for me anymore. I don't get to, where that, where you know, I don't get to, we just don't get to go hammer anymore. It all just ends, everybody goes, you know, and so you, yeah, it's a special headspace to be in, is to, to just, like you said, go the wrong way for a couple days.
Who cares, yeah?
I can see we have a very similar experiences, and there is Socrates' quote, "There is a there is a majority which you don't need to speak because they will never understand, and there is minority which you also don't need to speak because they know even without words." And I think we are this minority which have very similar experiences, and I think we are this minority who will never understand because they know even without words. And I think we are this minority, so when you are sharing your observations, I'm just smiling because I see and I feel the same.
While your eye, it's been really glad we finally connected. I... we didn't get to know each other very well in the 2019 race; we had a nice day together for a bit and then, but this time, hopefully I'll get to spend more time with you. I'm gonna be doing the reporting, so I'll be bouncing around the course with you guys and, hopefully, for
the outcome of the race and that's probably the most positive thing I can see.
Flying with you a bit, but I wish you all the best in your preparations. Uh, keep crushing all the stuff you're doing; you're really inspiring a lot of people, including myself. It's been really fun to watch what you've been up to these last years, and uh, good luck, man. We'll see you soon.
Thank you so much, and I just want to say a big thanks to you because I watch your film about Alaska and this crazy BB hell, and one of the things which, which really inspired me was also this one. So, thank you so much to giving this, uh, I don't have English word for this, but, uh, let's say, uh, this piece of gold to the next generation, because one of the important things for all of the, of the mountaineers, or even the, let's say, adventure people, is to share it. Goes to be kind of famous or what, but to inspire the next generation, because I don't know how you get into this, but I was watching Moyes, I was reading the books about the Messner, or, uh, all of these, yeah, uh, even watching the Birman of Karakorum, and that's one, one thing which inspired me like, hey, I really want to feel the same, I want to be there, I want to see this, I want to feel that
fear and scared to death and freezing and whatever, I want to have the same feeling because it inspired me. So, thank you so much, and I'm really, really happy that we finally stick together. I'm sorry that it took a lot of time, but yeah, I was kind of busy building a new van and stuff like this. And, uh, we speak quite a lot of long time, and I see we didn't get a time for this India, uh, mission explanation, but 74 minutes, it's quite a lot. So, it's well, well be part two. Yeah, okay, I'm
In man, we'll, we leave people, we'll leave people hanging a little bit, we'll have a second story, okay, okay, I'm in
nice idea
Sounds good, thanks buddy. Appreciate it.
okay cool if
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