Got a great one for you today with Fabian Buell, who's had an epic few years is the only way to describe his para-alpinism, I think would be the best way to describe it. But Fabi comes from a long history of climbing really, really, really hard stuff in the Karakoram and Patagonia and across Europe. And a few years back, got into flying because of the potential for these combos that you've seen Jake Holland's films and Antoine Girard and Will Simm and these guys doing these incredible ascents in the Karakoram by removing the long, arduous getting in and getting out.
So getting rid of these approaches is not only a lot safer, but saves you days and days. Days of packing and food and gear and permits and everything. So they're just launching down the valley, putting their skis on in the air and flying in, top landing somewhere suitable and doing pretty amazing stuff then. Climbing wise and then just flying back that evening, ideally, if the weather didn't go bad or something else goes bad. They've had some epics out there for sure, but he has been a very notable person in that space. Because of his climbing background. And then this year, he lives in southern France in the Maritimes down by Brienzon. And this year, he won X-Contest with six flights, FAI Triangle six flights over 300K.
Pretty remarkable from the Col d 'Azard, which is where I ended my 2018 race. I know that part of the world pretty well, just outside of Brienzon. But, so I had to sit down with him because he was flying with many other pilots who pushed pretty hard in that part of the world. And I wanted, including Edward Patel, who finished just behind him. So they had kind of a neck and neck race going, but they often fly together on these big days. I need to get Edward on the show as well. But I wanted to sit down with Fabian and talk to him about, of course, these huge FAIs and the mindset required and the forecasting and everything that goes into that, but also just his incredible dedication to this sport.
And it wasn't too long ago that he was coming through Idaho as a total newbie in 2018 and had hardly done anything at that point from a flying perspective. And so he's done a lot since then. He and I ran into each other for the first time personally at the World Cup in Switzerland, let's see, about a year and a half ago in Grindelwald. And it's just been awesome. And I think he's been a great example of what it's like to be able to see what he's done as a spectator, to see what he's done, determined by the nationality and now living in France. But he is remarkably good at articulating this sport and these endeavors and understanding risk. And like all people who have spent a lot of time in the mountains, has dealt with some loss and lots of grief. So we get into that a bit.
But just managing risk and his approach is incredible. And. I know you're going to really enjoy this talk just before we lay down on the talk. I wanted to mention another exciting thing, which is that I am now after many, many years of thinking about doing this, I'm a Niviuk dealer along with Cortell and XC Racer and a few other brands. You can find all that on my website. But I'll be working with Rob Sporer out at Eagle and working with Niviuk as I have for many, many years. I think I've been with Niviuk since 2010. So this is an exciting. development. I've never really wanted to get too much into that space, but it decided to because I want to get a team going over here in the States, factory team pilots and ambassadors and just, yeah, work with Niviuk even closer than I have on the kind of the social side and the photography side.
So if you're needing anything Niviuk and excited about the brand, reach out, we'll make it happen for you. Enjoy this talk with Fabie Bollinger. Winner of this year's X contest. Not an easy thing to do these days. Cheers.
Fabie. Good to see you, man. Uh, last time I saw you was in Switzerland at the world cup, which, uh, I don't know, even know if you were aware, but the last night of that, my, my best friend died in an avalanche, uh, back at home. Uh, so that was, uh, that went from being a really fun comp to being really horrible for me. So I, I'm not sure how we parted. Good ways. I think I saw you maybe that last day, but anyway, onto better things. It's nice to see your, your smiling face here and, uh, and congratulations, man. What an epic summer you had amazing.
Yeah. Thanks. Oh yeah. The, the avalanche, I was not aware, but I was aware that we saw each other in Grindelwald, but yeah,
that was fun. That was, that was some beautiful couple of days of that was pretty amazing flying, flying over a lot of snow. It was cool.
Yeah, it was my first like comp like that. So it was kind of fun. And then we flew this, I remember this one line when we went with Maxime over the glacier and suddenly everybody was like going on the right. And we were like, okay, maybe we also go to the right, which was kind of fun.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it was kind of funny last night. I was having a laugh to myself because you reached out to me. I think it was 2017 or 2018. You were a real podcast. You were just getting going and sent me a message that I'd never even saw. I saw it a couple of years later and reached out and said, oh man, I can't believe I missed this, but you were coming through my neck of the woods. Yeah. A lot has happened in almost the last, I guess it's 10 years now and time flies, but I I'd love before we talk about this X contest, when you had this year, which is really exceptional, you know, six flights over 300 K FAIs, uh, from cold is art, which has special meaning to me to be. That's where my 2019 race. Ended. That's a, that's a cool spot. And so I, I know what it's like to start flights there.
So we'll talk about that, but I want to rewind the clock and, and take us back to the beginning. You, you know, you're obviously a legendary climber. That's, that was your, that's what you've been doing your life time, I assume. And, uh, and then you picked up flying, uh, just a few years back and have done these amazing combos and Pakistan. So pick it up where, where you are. Where you started, how did you get into it? Uh, how did this become part of your repertoire?
Yeah. So I remember well, the message that I sent you because I was in Idaho, uh, climbing in the fins and, uh, it was end of 2020, uh, 2018 because it was, um, so I went to Pakistan with Alexander Huber for climbing and we did this first ascent and have been like, maybe six weeks, uh, on expedition. And I came back and I was a little bit fed up. I didn't want it to start climbing directly. And that's when, uh, Manu Nubel and, uh, Maxi Knap, they introduced me into flying because I always said, ah, I don't want to fly. It's too dangerous and stuff like that. And, but then I came back from the expedition and they basically threw me into the air, like, uh, in one afternoon.
And then I had some gear and I. I went to Idaho. So obviously I had no clue what I was doing, but, uh, Manu gave me your, your number and I was like, uh, I might as well just pass through Sun Valley. So I was thinking maybe it works there as well. But anyway, the Idaho thing. Oh, I'm so bummed. I
missed that message. It was, I don't, I don't even know how I found it. It was, you know, it was two years later. I look, it went, well, shoot, man, I'm sorry. Not many people even know about the fins. How did you end up there? I mean, not many people know about Idaho period, but, but the fins, especially kind of a cool little neck of the woods. So
the fins, it's a cool, so limestone cracks are normally better in Europe compared to the U S but, um, my girlfriend, Melissa, and my really good friend, um, Ariane, the cock and his girlfriend or now wife, Paige Clausen, they were for vacation. There. And as I just came back from, uh, from expedition and we planned to go to the U S, um, yeah, I ended up there doing holidays. And the only thing that I, after my first flight that I wanted to do was actually flying or ground handling. So yeah, that's how all this started. Did you get a
chance on that trip when you were over at the fins? Did you come around the corner and fly King?
Honestly, I have tried. I got blown around in the desert a few times. And at some point I was like, okay, uh, like only by ground handling, you know, like I had all this yet chin yeti three that was completely messy, the lines in it. And I think I only did one flight and then I was like, ah, I don't know, maybe I have to learn this differently or I don't know. But in the end I just kept on climbing and it was then just when we came back into Chino, I started. To do a few hike and flies, but I always was because I didn't properly learn it. So I was always like in between a fear and, uh, kind of attracted to it because I know it's cool to fly, but I, I didn't understand much.
So in the beginning I just did some hike and flies in calm air. And every time, every once in a while, I got a little bit scared and then didn't fly for, I don't know. Three weeks or a month. And then I got like kind of psyched again, took it out again. Yeah. And they kept on going for this, like, I don't know, maybe another year or something like that. Until then I was in Patagonia and, uh, I flew from Torre, um, after climbing with Melissa, uh, with Rafaela and, uh, with, uh, Laura, um, different Tyler to the summit. And then. To. Took off there, then I landed in the Torre Valley and I was like, okay, it was really cool.
It's really efficient. I, um, you can do so much stuff, but I also knew I got super lucky with what I did. And that was the mate that was really the moment hiking out of Torre Valley. I said, okay, you have the potential to do something really great with this paraglider in the mountains, but you need to learn it and otherwise you will just die with it because. It's not, uh, only fun, you know, paragliding is always this kind of limit, the less you understand, the less dangerous it feels and you keep on trying, but it's not like in climbing when you, you can actually try and climb big and fail without having a consequence because you're in the rope, but on the paraglider, you need to be
as aware of the situation. To not put yourself into like a, a situation where it's actually dangerous. And that was the main reason why from that moment onwards, I really wanted to properly learn it and start thermal flying and all this because Manu Nubel told me like, yeah, I mean, flying down, it's cool, but anyway, at some point you want to thermal fly because this is the only reason or the only way forward for you. If you want to read and move in an invisible fluid, you have to understand it.
How did you go about building those skills? I mean, obviously having Manuel as a mentor is about as good as it gets, you know, multi-time ex-Alps pilot and lived there and lives in Ticino right near you. So that must've helped, but how did you, I mean, it sounds like you, you had this year of kind of just toying with a little bit. It didn't really grab hold right away. Not that. Because of your climbing background, just the risk side of it.
Yeah, it was because I didn't learn it properly. So I was always having a little bit more fear than I wanted, um, to do it like in, like with confidence. And so, um, yeah, Manu lives close by where I grew up in Germany. And, uh, I did my few, like in this year I did these trial aerobatics. There was, and then once I bought like an air design Vivo, uh, a Vario and in this, in the springtime of that season, when the COVID hit, I tried to learn to thermal fly. And it was devastating in the beginning because honestly I traversed any thermal that I was in the two turns, couldn't go up and bombed out.
And so I was like, ah, I re I didn't really. And. Enjoy it much, you know, at that time. And there was only one booming day that anyway, it was probably everywhere rising and they've started to fly around. And then I was like, ah, this is pretty cool. But then we moved to, basically we went for climbing to France and in France, we then decided after the COVID to actually move there, um, because of climbing, because of the training for the mountains and all this. And. And, and,
and the flying, was that part of the decision where you were still just climbing?
Yeah, I was still climbing. I had no clue that the South of France at that moment is so good for flying. I remember going to Sue's and trying to find a place to fly. Now, if I know, I mean, there is everywhere takeoffs and I drove this one day down to sister to book, because that was the only takeoff that I could find them does on this. this weird German paragliding site. And then I started to fly there a little bit. At that time, my girlfriend did a course, like a proper course in Seag. And we were flying a little bit in Seag. At that time, also could fly some thermals, could go like, I don't know, 15, 20 kilometers or whatever.
And then we found this apartment at Tony Lamiche, which is a former very strong climber. And a good friend of Melissa and also of me. And then while being there and not only being on vacation, because now finally we kind of had a place there. We were more in Seag. I learned to know Lionel. Lionel Philippe, it's the patron of the Teton Lair, which is the flying school there. And he actually was then, I would say, like the... The mentor that kind of really told me about flying.
And I started to understand more of like how the air is moving, valley winds, how all this flow. He gave me always kind of like some hints. And I was trying to fly there and fly back. And after his summer, when he stopped working, we were flying a lot at Col d 'Izoard. Like always going from the Col to Italy. And back. And maybe to Seag. So basically what we do in the first hour of the flight nowadays, you know. So it was kind of, yeah, that was kind of how I went into the thermal flying and the real XC flying. And it was, yeah, for me, it's still unbelievable that I moved to the south of France with wanting to learn paragliding, but I had no...
I
had no clue
that it's actually the best place probably in Europe to fly, you know.
Yeah, it's an amazing place to fly. A lot of valley winds. How did you... Did you start... Did you understand there right away that this was, you know, Brienzone and some of these areas, Lake Ebrim. God, I got my ass kicked down there one time on one of the X-Alps going south towards Saint-Vincent or Vars, I guess it was. But the valley winds can be atrocious down there. Yeah.
Yeah, so that's... Everybody is speaking about the valley winds and obviously I had my fair share of learnings with the valley winds. But when you basically grow up into flying or learn flying down there, you go to the sites like SEAC. So you are starting on kind of like a west face in the morning and you can't thermal fly directly. You need to... You need to wait for the valley wind to kick in and then you go in like soaring, you gain height and then you can jump into the correct sites from where you can thermal fly. So you directly learn to fly in thermal, like in the valley winds and when you do these exploratory kind of tries to go then to like Colisoir, to Arvieu or you jump over into the Puyallot towards the Puyallot.
You know already a little bit about where the flow is and so you always try to use it in favor. And so we have a completely different way of thinking about winds because I love the valley wind. For me, valley wind, it's perfect. It's in the south until 2,500 meters. You have these crazy strong winds from like midday onwards. In summer, it's always the same. It always is efficient because you just go there and you reach soar or you go up. There's no like, ah, might there be a thermal or is it there? No, you just know, okay, this thing works 100%.
The convergence with north wind will be there. It works 100%. The stronger the valley wind converges with the north wind, the bigger zones you have to fly in. And that's a very special part. A way of flying, it's maybe not the easiest thing. I think that, for example, on the north side, in crazy good conditions, you can fly very big triangles with like flying high above the summit, thermal up. The thermal will go straight up like no wind shift, nothing up, next one. And it's very easy and very efficient flying on a really good day.
We never have this. But we have the valley wind, which will push us forever back to Kolisvar. And that's the biggest advantage we have. Like you make your way to the west in the morning when it's still weak. And at some point, you just use the wind.
Wow, that sounds magical.
Will Gadd always says, you know, with his ice climbing, climbing background, similar to yours, lots and lots of expeditions. And, you know, then he's been flying for a very long time, but climbing was his background as well. He always says that people that come from flying, you know, you're obviously, I'm sorry, climbing, you're obviously climbing in a flow state often, but it's not a flow sport. In other words, it's not skateboarding. It's not skiing. It's not using gravity. It's not mountain biking. So, for him, he always says it makes him really nervous when climbers come from climbing to a real gravity flow sport like this.
And because it's a very different kind of flow, it makes him nervous, you know, that especially very high level athletes like yourself coming from climbing. Talk about that transition. I mean, not transition, you're still very into climbing, but was that something that you also found challenging? Or did it help that background? How was it? Was it a driver in that you could see the potential with what you could do in Pakistan?
So, yeah, back in the years, I was listening to all your podcasts, obviously, because I was seeking in information from wherever I could find it. Like, I am very, if I want to learn something, I try to get as much information in and then select what I want and whatnot. And I came across this quote quite early. And obviously, I didn't understand much in the very beginning. But already after the first few collapses and everything, I started to realize, okay, as a climber, your main safety or your main reaction is to pull or to go in tight, you know?
So, it's a very dangerous reflex to develop, when you're flying. Because you need in any, normally, in any kind of position you are in, your reflex needs to go, like, to just, like, put your hands up. The
opposite of what feels
right, yeah.
Go to the thing
and control your body. And this is actually not so easy to learn, you know? That comes only with a lot of flying. And what I see from kayaking, from other flow sports, and I don't know. I don't know if it's flow or whatever, but it's, like, when you move within a fluid, you know? Like, in the water or in the air. So, you can read it. For me, this was very difficult to learn and to imagine. Because I couldn't realize, like, where it's turbulent, where, you know, it comes back up again and stuff. And I think it was in, the first time I was in Pakistan, when Francois Rogolsky told me,
like, just look into the f***ing river.
Into this huge, Beraldo or however, the big rivers in Pakistan, and you see these flat spots, but areas that bubble up, areas that go around. And this was when I really started to imagine and look precisely into rivers and really try to analyze, like, this kind of fluid.
And the air is behaving exactly the same. So, I, and now where I have, I don't know, how many thousand hours later,
I fly sometimes in places where I know it's completely in the lee side, it's completely shit, but I push as far in as, until I find the bubble that I imagine, you know? And once you have it, you just put your wing on the nose and you will go up. And it's, but this, to try it, it took me a lot of, actually, hours in Sayag, especially, where I know kind of very well, so that I go always with a little bit more wind into the lee side and still always make it out. In the beginning, you are kind of shy. It's super turbulent. You can't kind of grab the bubble. But at some point, you start realizing and trusting your wing as much that you just, like, go in.
And then you leave it. And it will fine kind of go in. It will go left, right, left, right, somewhere. But the wing wants to get more energy. And at some point, if you really stay kind of relaxed, you will enter the bubble. And then you see, like, how it's accelerating, how it's pulling. You let it pull a bit, and then you clamp up. And then it's just not even that bad often, you know?
Yeah, but it takes some mental strength to keep pushing. There's always that moment where you're in that horrendous down, and your wing feels terrible, and you're, oh, I just got to get closer. But you're losing your margin. You're losing your margin. You're getting closer and closer and closer to the terrain. And it takes some mental fortitude, especially early on, to figure that out.
Obviously, yeah. But that's why I started with little welly wind, and I progressively made it more. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With zones, often, if you imagine it correctly, you don't fly straight. Because you want to go, stay in this kind of curve of the fluid, and suddenly it's not as crazy as you go if you would just enter into it straight, you know? And we have, for example, on these big lines, we have also a lot of valleys or venturis that we either could make height, or you could just fly straight above but then get a lot of downwash turbulences, or you actually stay low and you just like look kind of on your speed of the barrier, like where it's the fastest, and you'll get like kind of pulled along, you know?
It's like when you throw a stick into a river, it doesn't go straight through. It always goes like where the fluid is the fastest. And it's what basically Luke also says, as long as your wing is in front,
he finds more energy than you imagine, you know? So, and it's obviously, it takes a lot of confidence into your gear to not, because as soon as you get tense, and I also get tense, you know, then I go on the breaks or on the b's, and suddenly you don't feel anything anymore.
Hmm. You know, trust the wing. The analogy to rivers is always perfect. You know, he has also a lot of kayaking background, but those who do spend time in rivers seem to get this sport really quick, because it's exactly how air flows. And you can, you know, as you were telling that story, I was just imagining how the water goes by a rock, you know, a big river rock that's in the way, and it's that, you know, that eddy fence, and then how it kind of twists back in and starts coming back towards the rock, and then it's really mellow, even in really steep creeks. It's just a place you can sit there. And
that's where I think all this XC flying is so interesting, because you can't see it, you can't imagine it, and the more you fly, the better your imagination gets, and the more you can actually play with stronger conditions or whatever. But I think that's the end. Obviously, flying in Pakistan, you're like, you don't know the place. You look just in the sun and into, like, the ground below you, and you're like, ah, I don't know, but we go here. So, you know, it's like just on a completely different level compared to back home. I know any, like on Kholi Zwar, there is not a single thermal during the flight that I don't know how to fly.
But in Pakistan, you have, I have flown the triangle once, you know. So you are there, like, I have no clue. I don't even know where I am. And you're just, like, I always find myself looking, looking back, seeing, like, checking where the angle of the sun is. Then I look into it, like, directly straight line from the sun. And then I try to imagine where, like, the most airflow comes, where there is, like, a kind of a collector or something. And then from my height that I will reach that, I will decide if I, where to find the thermal or where to search it. And it's always cool if you find it, like, directly, you know. That's the ultimate game. Yeah.
Had you done a ton of climbing in the Karakoram in Pakistan prior to your flying days?
Yeah, I, not a ton, but I have done climbing expeditions. The one, I think, that marked me the most was exactly the one with Alexander Huber directly before I started flying, where we did the first descent of the Big Easy on Chok Tori, which is in the Lato Group, and it's, like, a three-summit ridge line that's basically three kilometers of granite climbing. And I started to love Pakistan in this expedition, like, the culture, the place. Living on expedition, yeah, I mean, for me, it's
holidays, you know. It's, like, it's the perfect, it's what I love. It's mountains. You go there. You have entertainment. You get less possibilities, and you have people that are extremely friendly. And Gilgit-Baltistan, the people are, they're fucking amazing.
Was it obvious to you when you started flying, were these combos something that popped into your head pretty quickly in terms of the possibilities, or was that on a specific trip when you were there, you saw some flying, or maybe, you know, what? When did it start clicking that you could use this as such an incredible tool to eliminate, you know, the long ins and the long outs?
That was the reason why I started flying. I had an idea where I asked Manu Neubel, like, three or four years before I started to fly, if potentially I could fly into this valley, and how much time it would need that I learn it. And he said, yeah. And in wintertime, it's not so good. It's not possible. But then when I flew down from Torre, I instantly wanted to get better because I knew that it's just the way how to move efficiently in the mountains. I mean, we try to have lighter gear, lighter, like, faster techniques, climb, like, all day, all night, just to be more efficient, you know.
But the efficiency of a paraglider to go down or even to approach some places is on a completely different level.
Many climbers who get into this sport seem to grab, you know, it just grabs hold so tight that you start climbing less and less. You seem to still be climbing a ton. Is that, what's taking more of your passion these days? Yeah. The
first three years that I actually wanted to learn to fly or get the best pilot I possibly can be, I only was flying, basically. I just trained a little bit on my wall at home to stay in kind of shape, but my shape was really not good. But it was also, I knew that it is the weakest part, you know, so I need to improve that. But the climbing part? For going into the mountains or mountaineering, you don't need a super high level of climbing. But for the ideas I had, I definitely needed to be a better pilot.
And since I am happy with my flying, I fly less and go climb again more. Because now I want to fly the good days. I don't need, in the beginning, I flew every day, three hours, four hours, and I didn't care. If it was windy or not, because in the valley wind, you can always fly. I was just searching hours. That was the only thing. Because I think in any sport, you can't beat the hours, you know? It's also like, I think it's from Buddhism, where they say you have to do something 10,000 hours to master it. I think in any sport, it's the same.
Yeah. There's no cheating time. No. There's no shortcuts.
You've had a remarkably diverse flying career, I would say, at this point. We could call it a career, even though it's incredible that you were really, it sounds like you're really just learning it in COVID, which seems like yesterday. But you're flying in Enzo and World Cups. You're doing these combos in Pakistan.
I'm assuming you do quite a bit of vol biv. I mean, obviously, you've done this a lot in Pakistan, but with the climbing combos and putting your skis on in the air. And it's all just fantastic. And then now, winning X-Consist this year, which is no easy feat. There's a lot of people chasing that. Did you go into this year with that in mind, or was it something that started, you just started pulling off these big flights and, oh, we could maybe do this?
Yeah, no. Is that a goal? No. For me, it was not a goal before the season. For me, the goal is water. It's flying with Timo and Eduard and also Damian, but he has a little less time. So normally, we were flying most of the time with Timo and Eduard back in the years. And I mean, I flew my first 300 there, and they were already flying 350, doing these crazy flights all the time. And I was every day on takeoff with them, but I couldn't imagine how you can fly that fast, how you can be that. And I could fly on the best day at 300.
And with more and more practice and more and more kind of analyzing it, you suddenly get to a similar speed, you know? And that's the thing that I was searching. I mean, with Eduard, we are, and Eduard and Flavian, we are a group of three, we basically during summer, we try to fly. Every good day, you know, and we get motivated a lot. It was just this year, I hadn't had planned to go to Pakistan for an expedition, but I went with my sister and her husband for holidays to Karimabad to show them the culture, the place and everything. And I brought my sea lights. And I was like, okay, I do some,
like when you hike there, I come in the evening, I land there and we be there. And then we go back. And it was basically... It was basically overdeveloping every day. But in the middle or in the last week, there was this one day that in the forecast, it looked completely blue and no overdevelopment. And then I went to take off. They did some other touristic stuff. And yeah, this was the day when I flew this 308 kilometer. And obviously, then I was like kind of motivated to, ah, 308 in Pakistan. So I'm really keen. I seem to be good at flying well. So I was really keen to go back and actually fly my ANSO because I was just cruising on the sea lights.
And if I like to fly the whole day, I really like, I love flying my ANSO, you know, but I just, because we went there for holidays, I never brought any big wing or like harness or whatever. And so I was really eager to fly in Kholi Suar. And I arrived.
Not too late, not too early because anyway, the season started off slow and suddenly we had these few good days and Eduard was always flying or not always, but was flying a few times from the, more from the south, from Gourdon. And I was a bit lazy to drive there. So I always, even if sometimes it didn't look that good, I went to Kholi Suar and somehow it always was like. Flying 300, 320 or whatever.
And yeah, then a friend of mine told me like, hmm, I think you can win it. And I was like, ah, and at that time I really didn't, I haven't even watched one time the list. But then obviously as soon as I knew, I was like, okay, this is crazy because a few years back I saw Eduard and Timo battling it out. And it was Timo always because of the, you know, the, the one-way flights in Brazil or in South Africa. And yeah, then it was kind of luck that I won it because Eduard did a really, really impressive flight on a day that I flew 330 and he flew three, the like world record.
I don't know, 356 or 58. I don't know. Uh, and. So obviously I thought, okay, that's for me, it's over, but somehow, um, the season just stopped. There was like, he only needed to fly 295 kilometers, which is basically, he just should sit in his harness.
That's a gimme there. That's amazing.
And, uh, yeah, but it was just, it stopped. Like it was crazy because we had done the. So he only
needed one more flight to. Yeah, obviously. Okay. Easy.
I got you. And, um, yeah. Uh, and in the end it, the season was crazy because it just stopped and Brazil didn't start early enough, you know? So were
you pretty close to Timo?
Uh, yeah, yeah. He was a really good friend there for sure. I mean, we, he was in Barcelona let for the, you know, for the, uh, for the monitor, like the, this para, like the, you get the instructor instructor and the tandem. And so these two years he was there, he was basically always flying and because he was with Olivier, that was his boss and also the, like, um, uh, yeah, so he knew, saw the talent and how motivated is. So for somebody that was in school, he had incredible freedom to fly, uh, the good days, you know? So it was, uh, yeah, it was cool. Two years, you know,
You're, I was reading this morning, uh, uh, you lost a friend, uh, not to flying, I don't think, but not Timo and another friend in climbing, uh, I mentioned I had the, my friend that I, sorry, that I lost in the avalanche. Have these been, how have these impacted your approach to risk losing these friends, your, your approach to risk and safety and what you're doing?
Yeah, it was Loris. So it was my main partner at that time for combos. He was really talented. He was really flying well. And basically we just wanted to go into the mountains for some training because it was the first snow. It was, uh, um, a day after my birthday and, um, then he triggered this avalanche and, uh, I mean, yeah, he got taken out and it was not much snow, but you know, when you lose your balance and I was just extremely lucky that I was below this rock and this passed over me. So, yeah, I mean, at that time, I, I
don't know. And still I, I, there is not that one day that I don't think on it, you know? Um, so it's definitely for me, um, super hard to still keep on going into the mountains. Uh, and keep this motivation for it because especially we have, we've had a lot of ideas of projects for combos together. So, um, doing them sometimes now we're alone or with Damian or, or maybe not, but thinking on them, it's, uh, yeah, it's really tough. Um, and I think it changed my way in the way of going into the mountains and that,
um, I try to combine like maybe more thing, like easier boots that maybe you can control a little bit more, but with the flying. So in general, it's a cool like day or like action that has value for me, but I push a little bit less in the mountains and it's not even that we pushed that day. It was just like extremely, extremely unlucky. Yeah.
What's more dangerous? What, what, what, what, what are the things that you do? What, what, what makes your hair raise up a little bit more on your back?
Yeah. So I have thought about this question a lot and I get it asked a lot. I have no clear answer to it, but I think that for me, so you need to watch, if you want to compare two sports on the danger, you need to always watch the end try level and, um, the pro level, I think climbing in an entry level, it's very safe, um, but the higher you push in a sport or you want to do like, especially on Alpine climbing, because then it's where you actually risk something like on technical sport, climbing or whatever you're always safe, but in the mountains, I think the higher you push, um, with the more risk you take.
Um, potentially the outcome is, is, is very, very cool and very like, uh, as a first descent that stands out the slightest error on it, you can also die. Um, and in flying, I see the more you progress in the sport, um, in, in the sport, in flying, the more you can visualize the air, the more you can handle the conditions, the more you fly agro, the more you can control the situation. And so my, um, idea of it was always paragliding is safer on a high level, but then the accident of Timo happened.
Timo for me was the, the most talented young person with an incredible feeling for a wing. I have never seen somebody having a feeling for a wing and for situations like Timo, but still he had this accident. Yeah. And so I always say, and he had one or two other kind of not that close calls, but situations where he was flying, where that he, that I remember the conversation. Um, and he was like, you can get betrayed by your wing, you know? And I didn't understand what he thought at that moment, but in the end, now you can fly an answer.
It's such an incredible stable wing. You can push. If you push into whatever you want, normally it stays open. The thing is just in competition or when you want to fly back from your big triangles, you need to maximize the energy that's left in the air. So you kind of, or in the competition, you try to be faster and only get the strongest climbs, which often are lee side or whatever. And you need to tag in very close to the, uh, to the rock, you know? Also, when we fly back from the south to your close on, on La Blanche and your full bar. A little less full bar, I would say you still have contact on the B, you don't push them up like in competition.
But I think exactly in this moment, it's where paragliding gets extremely difficult and extremely dangerous on the high level because suddenly you expose yourself to flying close to the ground where you know that the slightest turbulence that you are not able to handle, you will impact.
So that's more, I can't tell you which sport is more dangerous. I think in the climbing part, you can decide. And in the more and in the flying part, you are like... You feel safe until it's not safe anymore.
Yeah. And there's always that moment.
Even in your big flights this summer, was there always some part in that 10 hours, 11 hours that something comes out of the blue that is a surprise? Or have you guys really figured that route out and you've got it down?
So besides the thermal years, I have never gotten... Any call-ups this year. Like not on the zeolite, not on the Enso. I think at some point you are so connected with the wing and how it feels, you know, how it accelerates. And then I think if you're awake enough and fast enough, you can be flying quite safe. I will never say I am flying safe or it can't happen to me, you know. That's exactly what I wanted to say with the discussion early on. But I think that I am for most of the conditions that I put myself in, I'm fast enough on the wing.
But I can't guarantee it, you know. But honestly, in the flying this summer on this triangle, there's not much stuff that surprises you, you know. If you know this line and this year we flew it with a lot more wind than we flew the other years, that's also why we got with a year that's maybe... Not as good as 2022. We got still much more flights out because in the end we discussed with Eduard about our flights and we were like, yeah, obviously we just fly with much more wind. And anyway, 300 basically on any day that you can fly the full day and it's not overdeveloping, you kind of make it work, you know. It's just the question is if the day is good enough to fly more.
But yeah, that's always... When you fly into the west, you start realizing, okay, maybe it's a little bit too much north. I need to point the point like somewhere northwest or more west. And that's what decides for the day. The rest, it's basically you do what you do all the time.
When you think back to your career in climbing and then now flying,
what has more fear? What has more... Which has put you... Put you in situations that have made you really scared more?
Mountain climbing, 100%. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Like the flying, honestly, I don't know. I would say I don't know how much hours I flew this season, but I think real fear I have never had. Like not a single minute. I had... I had respect where I was more awake and I was like getting a little bit tense on the brakes. But I was never being... I'm not in fear. If I would be in fear in paragliding, I think I wouldn't enjoy it and I would go land.
What has you excited about the future? What are you planning as you're getting into winter? I know you're up in Germany now. You're going climbing tomorrow in Switzerland, but what's on your radar in this sport in climbing?
Yeah, I think now... So the XC flying, I really like it and I will do it. I tried competitions. I really suck. I have really hard... I can't even thermal fly in a competition. There's a gaggle and I'm suddenly I'm... I don't know. I can't even go to cloud base anymore. It's like it's this thing that I started with skiing in my head with skiing competitions that I can't handle the competition. So I tried it various times, but I always think like I go land. I can't enjoy the flight. I'm like completely in another world. I really have zero feeling on a competition task. And so the combos are for me now the thing that I want next year I want to focus on.
I think there's a lot of potential flying somewhere, going skiing or climbing. And I would love to go back in December, January again to Patagonia because these are just the mountains where the wind and all the flying conditions, obviously it's not a place to actually go paragliding, but if you get these lucky days, it's incredible.
That surprises me about you. I gather. I gather that you're pretty good at dealing with obstacles and challenge and you want to get really good. I would think that you identifying that you're not good at competitions means you're just going to get good at competitions. You're going to figure it out.
I don't know. It's not that I don't like the competition itself.
Any situation of competition gets me stressed. I mean, I even got stressed with Eduard about the last flight we did for XC Contest, because I am really working super bad on pressure. And in competitions, I know what to do. I spoke a lot with Luke about it. I can even, in St. André, I did three or four times like the highest start ever. No problem. I can fly.
You know
theoretically how it works. Yes. But
as soon as I need to follow somebody or like stay in a gaggle or just make an irrational decision under pressure, it's absolutely done.
And I mean, I can now laugh about it because I think it's hilarious. It's really like I tried and I tried to go into this part in these competitions with paragliding with knowing that I stopped skiing for it. I never accepted to do any competition in climbing. It was just because I wanted to get a better pilot. And everybody like Alexandre Chauvreza, Luke, Damian, they all told me you only learn to fly faster in competition. And so I was like super motivated to try it. But in competition itself, I failed miserably.
Is hike and fly attractive to you? Do you see yourself maybe competing in the X-Alps someday? Something like that?
I do a lot of hike and fly and I do a lot of verticals for training.
I get asked a lot about the question of X-Alps because I train all the time. I'm in France with Damian. I mean, Damian in France is my best friend and we train a lot. And he is... He's obviously super psyched for X-Alps. And so I would be interested in it. But as I told you, I cannot handle pressure. I am 100 % sure that I will break my back on some landing because I know I need now to land on this fucking small thing on the side of the hill. I just make a huge wing over and I try to land there and I will explode myself. And so for... For the safety and for enjoying the sport longer, I stay out of hike and fly competition.
Fabi, do you make your living from sport? Is this your job?
Yeah, I am in this very privileged position that I have sponsors. Like it's mainly Adidas, La Sportiva and Petzl. And obviously for the wings also.
And it's not only that. They pay for my living and the training. It's also they... I started that like 2013. And since then they just... Every year that I... I started with bouldering, then I went to multi-bridge climbing, then to mountaineering. Then I've only flew three years to get better in that. And they never actually put pressure on me because they know or they have so much faith that the outcome will be... that it's going to be kind of cool that they don't make me pressure on it. And that's really... I'm fully aware of it. And I think it's crazy. And I'm really happy about the...
about that privilege. That's also why I try to do slideshows to give the people back something or like present them like the things we do. Because we are already living in this crazy position that we can actually wake up and go run, go climb and go fly, you know.
Yeah.
That's just luck or I don't know. But it's really cool.
I read an interesting thing about your relationship with social media. In a sense, you're quite a bit younger than I am. But you have a... I think we have a very similar attitude about social media and content. And I always thought in all the years I was with Patagonia and everything that it's kind of a necessary evil in a sense.
I really enjoy following people like Will Gadd, you know, because he does these just incredibly detailed long posts about risk and movement in the mountains. And it's very educational. So it can be used quite well. But anyway, I wanted to hear about your relationship with social media because I read an article about the... You see it often as just... It's this fast world. And it's just... You just have to... You put stuff out because you have to. There's no real thought to it. There's no real... Yeah,
I think...
Influencing kind of thing.
Yeah, exactly. So I think that's... It's another thing from my sponsors that I don't have in my contracts that I need to post every day like a lot of other athletes nowadays have. And I don't have a huge...
Amount of followers. But I think I have followers that engage with me. And they write a lot. They want to know a lot of stuff. So I try to make it more performance-based. So I do something that I'm proud of. Then I make a post about it. I write the story of it. And I also try to go like what I thought about or how I prepared for it. So that at least the caption, it's not only like some fancy sentence that makes it sound epic or whatever. No, that's not what I want. I actually want to do something that I'm proud of, present it, and then tell like the story so everybody can read it and kind of come back to the profile,
scroll through something. And if they click on my Patagonia post from like when I flew the first time to Torre, they actually can find some information about it, you know.
The social media now, it's so fast. You can put on stuff, start your own hype. I don't know. You always post the same picture of your morning routine of running somewhere up or whatever. And it would work, you know. But for me, there is no... Yeah, you don't produce something or you don't give something out that the people will actually interested. And as an athlete, you need to kind of make a line between influencing and athletes, you know. Because I don't want to be put into the same box than like most of the influencers where they make nice pictures, they photograph their face a lot, have a lot of smart things to say.
But in the end, there is nothing behind it, you know. I want to try to be the other way around. Like I grew up with magazines. So when we did a climb or anything, there was like somebody, a journalist that had like really... He knew about what he's writing. He knew the scene. He elected you for your climb. He put you on the cover. So it was worth something, you know. He could kind of select from a bubble of like different things like what actually he wanted to present. Now, when this completely got dropped basically, everybody on social media can scream as loud as he wants.
And a picture that's taken on a mountain where you went via chairlift and the weather is like incredibly bad or you actually did a proper climb and you have one S-photo of your partner, it's obviously the very worst picture and the publication will be way less efficient, you know, or like successful. Mm-hmm. And that's... I think it's a big shame of it and that's also why I try to make, if I did something, a YouTube video because that will actually stand a little bit longer, you know. You can go back on YouTube, you find the video, you can watch the 10 minutes if you're interested in it. And maybe this video only has 3,000 views, but maybe the 3,000 people that actually watched it
learned something from it and the... The 200K or the 1 million people that saw me taking off from Bar de Zagreb where it's just sketchy but that's all about it, they saw and engaged for five seconds, you know.
Yeah, yeah. That's interesting. It's an interesting scary world but it sounds like you're navigating it quite well. Finally, final question, these big flights, these 300s, how do you prepare for them? I mean, for those listening who haven't cracked the 300 yet or, you know, want to come join you next year and fly one of these amazing flights because that's a very special part of the world. I've mostly only flown down there in the ex-ops. I did a little bivvy one year from Chamonix all the way down which was extraordinary. So, visually, I can see it all but I haven't done any of these FAIs that you've done there. How to prepare how do you think about your day when does it start your preparations for that because, you know, being in the air for 10 plus hours is you know, there's some endurance there there's some it's not all easy.
Yeah, so I think that for flying 300 in general in a place like in Collisoire or in the south of France or also in Antols or in Ticino you need the correct date. It needs already to be like a good day, you know.
I mean, you can make it work with a worst day but if it's your first I think you need a correct day and then basically you need to watch a lot of kind of track logs and you will kind of get the hang of where to fly
and then you don't need to fly fast. You need to don't make an error
because this thermal flying like always like only only full bar like because you can actually fly full bar on these good days to make it still efficient enough. It's not worth it if you can't handle it for 11 hours or 10 hours. So it's better to slow down a bit take maybe a Zeno 2 or like a more chill wing or even a Zeolite stay the whole day in the air and just don't make an error like think twice about any transition you do because there are like bigger transitions so you need to imagine the valley flow like how far the north wind comes where the convergence that they will be because if you're placed like just 300 meters to the right or to the left you
can have 30 minutes of scratching or you go out straight, you know. And so I think that's the main thing. That a lot of people that I see at Kolisvar because there is always on the good days there is a ton of people nowadays but they fly super aggressive in the morning and super fast and in the end you're just like staying high and floating and it's working way better, you know. So I think it's just you have time like it's flying like 10 hours 10, 30 so just make it realistic
and yet don't waste yourself in the first few hours just because you think it's the way to do it. No, I think the way to do it is to just fly consistently for a long time.
Was this an unusually good year or a normal year weather-wise?
I would say it was kind of normal year but not a good year because we had much more north-westerly wind compared to 2022 and Cantina the last mountain we got pushed over was working
stopped working quite early this season.
Like, you know, sometimes if the well event is super warm and super strong the sun can go down and you still have like the because if there's no clouds on the west side of the grass then the rock stays warmer and has more sun until very, very late. But if you have cloud development the shadow comes a little bit earlier so even if there is strong valley breeze the slope gets catabatic and suddenly you don't get pushed over so you need to kind of know where to find the convergence and then it's much more technical to make it back.
Amazing. That's got to be a riot. Well, tell those guys I said hi and I'd love to come join you one of these years and get some of that ourselves. I just had Pete Thompson on the show we haven't actually launched it yet but he was the first one to crack 300 over here. I know. I want to go there. Yeah. It's a totally different ball game in Colorado for sure. It looks really cool.
It looks really cool.
Very cool. And I've only tried it ever from the from Antholtz on a it was a pretty good day actually. Aaron Duragotti and some of the other guys were there and Alex and stuff but they you know what we don't have is that early start and just milking the terrain and just really close to the terrain and getting these little bubbles and you don't even really have to turn for the first 60, 70k. That was at least my experience in Antholtz but what we do have here is you know ripping thermals and really high base. So we have some things that are an advantage and some things that are a disadvantage and we've always known it could happen and you know and Pete did it. What we don't have is people.
Yeah. He's by
himself doing that and so you know when you say you know you pull up at Koldozard and there's probably 50 pilots probably like fish I imagine and you know so you've got Yeah,
I don't know. I was flying this year also some flights completely alone you know. It's just the really good days there you have people but you can fly many days where there is nobody on the call. Interesting. But the thing is I think I have studied this track log of Pete a little bit. I have studied some other track logs and I think you always need to you know see the terrain that you're flying in get the strong points of it like which if it's high base if it's strong thermals if it's like a lot of valley wind pushing you back or if it's like in the north just like really smooth like air and you need to fly the strengths of the place.
Yeah. And so I next year if I want I would want to fly somewhere else than in Pakistan or in France the 300 or just bigger flights because I want to learn to fly other places and they fly differently and I think it's just kind of a different style that you need to adapt to which is kind of cool.
Yeah. Well don't tell anybody but we've got we've got much bigger potential here.
We know it can happen here in Idaho not far from where you were actually over in the Finns. We it's actually a ways from here but it's the start and the out and back is huge. It's just it requires a little more you know an early morning and getting over there or setting up a base camp but it's we've got it dialed now and I can't wait for next year to do it. So, you're more than welcome to come join us. It's been fun to have you. That will be fun. Fabi, thanks for your time, man. I appreciate it. It's great to see you. It's gotten completely dark on your screen. It must be well into night over where you are. Yeah, yeah. It's
getting night there. I'm just sitting in this in the room. You're sitting there in
the dark. But I appreciate you. We all do. It's been just so fun to watch your ascendancy through this sport. It's been really, really wonderful. You're very inspiring what you're doing and I wish you all the best. And congratulations on your fantastic win this year. That was special and a remarkable achievement. That's hard to do.
Yeah, thanks. Thanks for the congratulations especially for inviting me to the show because, I mean, I learned a lot from the show just a few years ago. So, I hope some people will enjoy the show as well and also learn something. Or get inspired or whatever. But I think we are a small community and so all these kind of knowledge it's very valuable for all of us to like listen to get new I mean, each episode that I listen to I take something back, you know, like I haven't thought about that like that or so it's I think it's cool that we have like you doing the show and that we have kind of a knowledge base basically, you know.
Yeah, thank you and I appreciate your contributions. Thanks, man. Great. If
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