Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. My guest this week is Thomas Lone. Thomas, I became aware of Thomas in the last couple years, and then this year he was down at the Monarca and raced really like a bat out of hell. And I kind of went, who is this guy? I've been hearing about this guy. And Thomas's background is in mountaineering. He's from Norway, and he's climbed the Seven Summits and done a lot of stuff up at really high altitude. Has some great thoughts on risk management and dealing with big terrain. And he was literally climbing Broad Peak in the Karakorum and saw Antoine Girard fly over his head not too long back. I think that was four years ago.
Am I right? Maybe five years ago. And decided, what am I doing? Spending all this time getting to these things when I could just do that. So he had background in kite surfing and had done a lot of kiting and a lot of time under a wing. So it was kind of a natural progression to flying, which is something he'd been fascinated with but just hadn't done. And now he's gaming for the X-Alps. He's gone at it really hard, gotten a ton of time, had some wild adventures. And has some really great thoughts on pursuing passions, but also balancing all that with risk. He's got a new one that just arrived in his family, so that of course changes things.
And just a beautiful, wonderful talk with a really cool guy. And he's chasing it really hard, but he sounds like he's doing it in a solid way. And I laughed a lot in this one, and I was very inspired in this one. And I think... You will be too. So, without further delay, here is a chat with Thomas Lone. Norwegian pilot, he's a client of Seven Summits, and done a lot of really cool things with his time here on planet Earth. Enjoy.
Thomas, good morning. Well, good afternoon to you, good morning to me. But thanks for making this happen. I understand you're back at home. What's the name of the town?
It's called Hemsedal.
Hemsedal, okay. Yes. And it's a ski area, nice place to be in the mountains.
Correct, yeah. It's in the middle of a big southern chunk of Norway. And I moved here for skiing, but now I eventually found out it's great for flying as well. It's a great cross country starting point.
Is this kind of past the prime of your season, and Norway's really good in the spring, or is it still really good now?
It is perhaps best in the spring, or I guess we have more... You could do more long flights in the spring. Okay. But the very longest ones, if you're lucky, we'll probably get them in June or July. Okay. But we're getting late in kind of the prime time season, yes.
Starts to get more stable, I imagine. Okay.
Exactly, exactly. But you could still have, like, we had a cold front last week, and then suddenly we got this one good day, and I flew a 200K plus open distance flight. So we, you know, it happens in the summer as well, for sure. Gotcha. But it's not that typical. And of course, I have to say... 200 plus Ks, you know, in the Alps, it's nothing. But, you know, here, that is like... Yeah, we have
to put things in perspective, don't we? I know. If you just watch the 300s going down in the Alps, you're never going to be satisfied. Exactly. Where I want to start, Thomas, is this great quote you had in the XCMAG article. You know, you thought you were hallucinating. So you're standing on top of Broad Peak, or somewhere near the summit, 8,000 meters. You know, Broad Peak's got a lot of attention in paragliding circles lately, because it's the... It's the go-to from the Cream of Bad Valley, and Antoine Girard, and they've been doing really cool stuff out there. But you're mountaineering it. We're going to talk a lot about your mountaineering, but you're standing up there, and literally you see Antoine Girard fly over your head. Is that actually what went down, and got you kind of fired up about all this?
100%. Yeah, because, you know, climbing Broad Peak, it's called K3, right? So it's a neighboring mountain to K2, which is much more famous, of course. So you're basically climbing for two, three months with all the prep work and acclimatization, all that stuff. And you're just looking at this beautiful K2 peak every day. And suddenly, I look towards K2, and I see these tiny little white dots just moving across the sky towards K2. And yeah, it was just insane. And I remember realizing I was so tired, and I realized just like, why do I do this stuff? So much hate and misery for so many months to get up here. And then I could just buy a paraglider instead and fly up there.
Just fly in one day. Yep. And fly out and have a beer.
Exactly, exactly. So that was kind of the point I realized I have to do this now. I have had many cues in my life, but that was like, this is it, you know?
Yeah, because your background is, well, I don't know when the mountaineering started, but from your article in XCMAG, you talk about just your fascination with kites. And spending all summer at the local kite school and begging your parents, you're 10 years old. So you've had this fascination with wings. I don't know if you would have called it that when you were 10. But where did all this come from? Where did the desire for not flying, but just kite and wind and understanding those kind of dynamics, where did it come from?
Yeah, it's a good question. I have always had some kind of a desire to fly, at least. So I guess that's a common theme with men in paraglider pilots. Like, we have some crazy desire to be like the birds and just be free. And I had that for sure as a kid. So I actually have this story that I went up on the loft and I found this old kind of fly to, you know, a very old tent. And I would take this very weak string that my mom used to have in the kitchen, you know, to like gift, to kind of, you know, create the gifts and stuff. And I would tie that to all the... All the connecting points on the fly and walked up onto the roof. It was like, you know, five meters, 15 feet down. And I was about to jump.
I was about to launch off and break both my legs. I was like eight or nine or something. And luckily she was coming back from work just then. So to this day, I've never heard my mom shout as loudly as that day. But she got me safely down from that roof, at least. And ever since I... Yeah, I knew that I wanted to, you know, get into paragliding or skydiving or something of the sort, but because I was too young, luckily kite surfing came to me because that was kind of the brand new sport of in the early 2000s, right? So I could start that in Norway and that was kind of the start of the journey, I guess. Do
you still kite?
I do. I do. So that kind of became my life because I got totally... completely addicted. Always I've loved the math and science and technical things. I have my master of science degree as well. So I think a big part of the interest has been kind of, you know, the technicalities of the wind and the aerodynamics and the lift and how everything works together. So that was my life until I joined the army, basically. So until I turned 18, I spent most of my winters on these giant mountain places. That's how we have in Norway, because Norway is actually, you know, you're a kite surfer as well, but Norway is like the Mecca for snow kiting, which is just a tiny part. It's like 2 % of kite surfers kite on snow as well.
But it's actually really fun. And we use exactly the same gear as you do on water. So that was most of my life. And then in the summer I would try to travel, you know, you could go to Sweden or Denmark and sometimes further south. And kite surfing is just a wonderful adventure. So. Yeah. Yeah. And then I went to the army and, uh, and that was kind of the big, big pause of things. And that actually turned me into the mountaineering, uh, but I never stopped kite surfing. So now still here in living in Hemsedal, I have courses in the winter and I try to get out and do some competitions once in a while. And, you know, I, my progression has kind of flattened out, but it's all about the staying on the, try to stay on the same level. Yeah.
I'm surprised to hear, you know, I, I also started with, with kite surfing and not so much because. It really drew me like it did to you. You know, I had this, I was sailing around the world and looking for a way to have, to get more clients and, you know, as all good stories go, I met a girl and she had just taken some lessons, kite surfing in the Caribbean. And she, well, why don't we do kite surfing trips? And, and, uh, you know, we, we called Raphael Salas at F1 and they came out and they made a film and they gave, they left, left us all their gear. And that's how I got into it. It wasn't this, you know, 10 years old dying. To, you know, I wasn't jumping off a roof and trying to create this stuff. It was just, it kind of fell into my lap in a sense, but, you know, with the business and that became my life for almost 15 years, of course, you know, I, I love kiting, but it, it never compared to paragliding for me.
And then I got into paragliding late, you know, later it was kiting, kiting was first, but I don't know, just the, the aesthetic, the unknown, the freedom of it, you know, rather than going back and forth. And I know there's, there's the downwind thing. Yeah. And there's, you can definitely turn it into an adventure, but, uh, and it, it has never, it never did grab me and never as much, you know, now I live inland, there is no kiting here. There's no kiting here, but, uh, you know, I, it's not one of those, it's not, I'm not reaching for that stuff very often.
Yeah. Yeah. I think maybe it might've been a little bit different, uh, to me because of the terrain we have here in the winter, because from day one, it was, uh, much more adventurous, you know, uh, eventually I got into all the tricks and, uh, you know, the backmob and, uh, slim chance and all that stuff. But, but first and foremost, it was about getting into an element that was kind of, uh, hard to reach, uh, or you, you needed a good excuse to, to bother, you know, to go out in the super cold winter on the, on
the, on the, uh.
on the flats, uh, with your cross-country skis or whatever, but suddenly with the kite, I could, you know, have a sled and a tent and I could really go out and explore. So, so that's also been more kind of kiting for me; now is more into the exploring part and go with a sled, bring my dogs along, and have a tent and everything.
so uh
So yeah, it's—it's definitely grabbing me from kind of that feeling of freedom as well, for sure. How
Much do you think that background in wind sports and kite surfing, how much do you think that has, uh, affected your kind of intuition and your rapid progression in flying? And when did you get into flying, I...
Started around four years ago now. Okay, okay. And, uh, and I remember when I, when I went on the course, it felt like when we started to ground handle on the first day, it felt like just going home, you know? I just needed to twitch my mind a tiny bit that my hands were opposite, you know? And that was it, basically. So, so I think early on, the, the kind of the basic wing, wing control, but also the, of course, there was a lot with the wind and the air moving that I did not know, but I had at least a basic intuition of weather systems, when the wind would pick up or ease off, and direction and strength of the wind, I could kind of, you know, feel it intuitively in my face if it was launchable or not early on.
Um, so that has been a major advantage, I would say for sure, and
What about your love of science and math and solving problems and all that? How does that play into this? Because it, you know, from the outside, we do. I think in general, you know, I've been at this a long time now, so I'm kind of one of the old farts that that are doing it. But, uh, we do see when I got into it, which was 2003, 2004, you know, it was in general, it was 10 years. You could, you know, 10 in 10 years, you'd be flying a, uh, you know, a CCC glider, which back then was an open class glider, but it was, you know, they were just, "Whoa, someday." You know, and now you're seeing it more like what you've done. You know, you're, you're racing, you're, you, you've gotten really good, really fast. And I mean, you're racing at a really top level. You were just out at the Monarca and did really well.
I was chasing your But, uh, you know, it's—I'm wondering how much of this was built on the back of your background and the way you work, and we're also seeing it. I think it's also gear in in some ways; it's just gotten so nice. But it's, uh, yeah, tell me more about your, your kind of background and, and how that solves some of this puzzle for you, yeah?
I guess, uh, I guess my short answer, it's a—it's a little bit of everything helps a lot, right? Um, so I try to kind of, um, work on your biggest weakness, if that makes sense. So, uh, if you can have some natural intuition, that's great. And then, of course, the hours is, I think, extremely important. And then you also need the determination; you need to kind of be, um, uh, you need to have some goals and and focus on them and be willing to put in the effort that many pilots don't do, so you will have some advantage there. Um, yeah. And then, of course, it's like the—the safety side of things and doing SIVs and getting more wing control that way.
So, but for sure, I've been trying to focus on being analytical. It's been a very big part of my progression, and I'm not just talking about being analytical in terms of the conditions and where did I find a good thermal and all that kind of stuff, but also I've been trying to focus on being analytical and I've been also analytical, uh, onto the progression itself, like which actions do I do that actually makes my progression faster and safer and try to amplify that. That's—I think that's been a key as well. Let's
Talk about your mountaineering; you said it was the army that you got it got you more into big ascents? Yeah,
That's, that's where it started because, um, before then, of course, I did all this kiting, but I was, uh, I was never really necessarily pushing my limits, you know? Uh, kind of more laid-back style out in the mountains, having fun, all that. Uh, if it was too cold or the wind was too strong, I would just pack up and, and, you know, go home, grab a beer, and be in front of the fireplace or something. So, so the army changed my mindset completely because I applied for this kind of, uh, in Norway we have this one-year commander school, so you have the opportunity, even though you're just 18 years old, you can do six months of kiting, and you can do six months of kiting, and you can do six months of training, uh, which is very intense training, and then for the next six months, you will be a leader. You will be kind of the low-level commander, and you will have a full team of 16 people that you will kind of, you will leave them, you will manage all their training and, and all these field exercises and everything.
So that was, uh, an amazing year, one of the by far best, best years of my life. Um, and I really, uh, learned how to, how to, uh, go through some tough times, uh, long periods of time with absolutely no sleep and no food. Um, and I liked it. I kind of, of course, I didn't like all the, all the hate, but I, I really liked the feeling of accomplishment and pushing my limits way, way past levels I've been on before, and that mindset became a part of me. So when I started to, to study the next year, I just wanted to find kind of a new arena to really push my limits and get more mentally robust.
So that's how I got into the mountaineering, actually.
And you're the youngest Norwegian to have done all the seven summits, is that right? When you're 24 or something, you completed them all, correct? That's a—that's a big endeavor that takes a lot of time. Did you—were you doing this while you were in the army? You were enlisted, or is this after? So...
Everything started started after because I, I only went there, um, and then I did my studies as a civilian, so I went to like the the Tech University of Norway in a city called Trondheim, um, and actually my third year I went to Boston as an exchange student. So I, I have this one year of experience from the from American universities, and Norwegian ones are very different. Like, in the States, I feel like, you know, I had a bunch of homeworks and I have to kind
of think about, you know what to do, what to do, what to do, what to do, and I was there for probably four months, and I think I did a pretty good job. I did a pretty good job in my first semester, whereas in Norway, um, as long as you're there for the four final exams and you submit those, you're kind of off the hook. You can do whatever you want, uh, so I just go
to work yeah
Exactly, so I could work much, much harder for, you know, a month or two, and then I could have a lot of free time to, to travel. So I tried to save up money and went to Kilimanjaro to start with, uh, in Africa, and then eventually to, to Aconcagua in Argentina.
Did you set off before Kilimanjaro? Were you thinking already, okay, I want to do the seven summits or I'll climb that and then I'll climb that?
I had read some books on Everest and I guess I had some wild fantasies or dreams, but it was not like a goal yet. So I kind of went there with some friends to just get into it. And I've always in my life tried to focus on finding out what's actually really for me. When you find your thing, it feels like falling in love to me at least. Then you just know it, like this is your thing. And then I can easily apply all my energy and time into it because I know it's going to be so much fun. And I got that luckily after Kili. So then I did Aconcagua and basically the rest of my time as a student was trying to figure out how to do some exams a couple of months a year and then trying to finance all this
gradually more and more extreme expeditions on the side.
You've spent a lot of time above 7,000 meters, a lot of time in the death zone, a lot of time in mountaineering. I don't know what the statistics are, but it's got to be similar to paragliding. Maybe you know, but this is not a safe sport either. It takes out a lot of people. How does your... How does your background in the mountains inform how you process risk, how you handle risk, how you approach what is now your passion or maybe another passion that is also very risky?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I feel at least it's very similar. I don't know exactly the statistics either, but for some reason I just have like after being in the paragliding community, it feels like paragliding is more dangerous. But I think paragliders talk about accidents all the time. It's like risk is almost everything we talk about sometimes, I feel. Whereas in the mountains,
people just go there is my feeling. Like they just accept the risk and they just go there and they just, when they're there, they don't necessarily focus enough on the risk. So kind of my feeling always in the mountain has been to accept the risk, the risk that I have to take. There are, of course, some objective risks that you can't really remove. But my objective has always been to minimize the risk, always. And I guess my mindset is I try to kind of earn it. You know, I say to myself, instead of just going on the expedition, even though I have the money and the time, I really have to earn it by doing the homework. So I have to justify making the expedition by really...
really lowering the risk because there are so many actions, just like in paragliding, so many things you can do with proper acclimatization, of course, training your body enough, learn about avalanche risk, really understanding the weather and the snowpack. So yeah, do your homework. That's kind of the philosophy I felt like I tried to bring into paragliding. And even though, like everybody, I've had some gnarly experiences with my paragliding, paraglider, it has for sure helped. And the more mature I get into paragliding, I feel it's helping me just more and more to balance the risk-reward thing, especially when the reward is low. I sometimes just, I don't fly at all because it's really not worth it.
I want to do this until I'm 80, you know?
And you've got a new addition to the family that's probably changed the arc here a little bit as well. We'll talk about that in a bit. But do you... Do you find yourself, when you're in those gnarly situations, flying your paraglider, do you find that your time that you've spent in the mountains helps you in any way mentally? And does it help you stay calm? Does it help you? Do you find yourself going back to things that you maybe used in terms of mantras or breathing or anything that you, that happens maybe more automatically than it would for somebody that doesn't have that kind of background?
Yeah, I think for sure, it helps with, really building that,
building a good intuition for knowing when to turn back and actually having the discipline to turn back is really important. And I've had to do that sometimes in the mountains. For example, on Broad Peak, which was overall a very successful expedition, great experience. We did it on skis, so we managed to carry the skis and ski it down. But we never made the actual summit, so we made it above 8,000 meters into the death zone. And then there's like a long ridge, that's why it's called the Broad Peak, until the actual summit. And the weather was turning bad and we were feeling very weak after spending way too many nights above 7,000 meters. So even with that much prep work and money and being on the mountain for two and a half months, we decided let's just go home and be safe.
And that was a big, it's really difficult to make that kind of call when you have so much skin in the game and everything you want to do is just reach your goal.
So to be able to walk away from something like that has for sure helped me in parallel and to kind of understand choosing the days. The more mature I get into the sport, I feel like maybe the biggest part of the safety work actually is just choosing the days. And choosing some days away.
So that's important for sure.
It sounds like maybe, rather than building so much intuition, which it did, but it also maybe instilled in you to be really aware of, acutely aware of what can go wrong. What can go wrong in the mountains.
Exactly, and do that on your own time. Even though we of course know about all the hazards of paragliding from talking to the other pilots and from the course. And from the books and everything, but to actually create what-if scenarios. That was something that started also in the army. The army loves to do this, of course. You make a plan to solve the mission and the team. And then as a leader, it's your responsibility to really focus on all the what-if scenarios and have kind of a plan B and a plan C and go immediately to that step if suddenly you're ambushed or something. So that has also been a big part of paragliding.
And asking them a ton of questions to really, to kind of understand all these what-if scenarios. You need a lot of knowledge that maybe your average pilot doesn't necessarily crave that kind of knowledge. You really have to dig deep down to understand what could go wrong and what's the chance of it going wrong. Because if you don't have those two things, you can't really have proper risk management, right? I mean, if you're ignorant to the risks, then you can't, you can't balance it with the reward to a certain extent. Yeah, what
we don't, what we know we don't know, what you don't know, what's the saying? You know, when you're, it's, that's always the tricky part is, you know, when you're early, if you don't get those cheap mistakes, you just don't know what you don't know yet. Exactly. You know, this background, I feel like the background of kiting and mountains is almost the kind of the perfect opposite of a storm for you. It was, it was, it really laid, laid a great foundation and Will Gadd's always talking about that there are some sports, particularly flow sports, which climbing is not. I mean, it's obviously you can get into flow in your mind, but it's not, it's, it's, it's not a gravity sport, you know, like skiing or snowboarding or mountain biking. But, you know, it, it always makes him really nervous when he sees people coming into the sport that don't come from, you know, gravity flow sports, because you just don't have that foundation.
You know, but you had, you had climbing, which is not, but you also had kiting, which really is. And it's a, it's an interesting mix.
Yeah, it's for sure. I mean, all kinds of experience in nature, I feel help just like even basic understanding of the weather and you see a thundercloud and you get some instinct from that. So it's, uh, uh, it's for sure, for sure helping, um, uh, so assessing the risk is of course a big part. But then you also have the other aspect, which is, um, like I remember. You have talked about in the podcast before as well, how you actually respond to, to things going bad, to the what if scenarios, um, and that I feel I've had quite some practice on in the mountains. Suddenly we have an avalanche close by or, uh, when, when something goes wrong, um, you get kind of, you get practiced on, um, reacting to it in a rational way and don't let all the emotions and adrenaline fire you up too much.
Uh, and that has luckily transferred into paragliding. So, uh, so now that, you know, the last year I've been enjoying my time on the end zone, it's, uh, you know, it's something else than, uh, than an a wing for sure. So, so when things hit, when shit hits the fan there, um, I feel like I can react to it in a, in a fairly calm way. You know, I, I can manage to think, and my legs come in automatically and I can kind of deal with it, assess my height. So as long as I have two reserves, I'm not really that. That's skeptical, you know, as long as I'm not soaring on some reach on full bar, try to not do that too much, but yeah.
Uh, Thomas in 23, you and your buddy, Andreas, uh, climbed the, it's the high, the highest unclimbed peak at the time. How do you say this mountain? Muchu cheese?
Yeah. Muchu cheese. Exactly.
Uh, we didn't, we didn't make
the summit though. We, we attempted to climb.
Okay. Gotcha. And then you did a speed. Right. In a sense. So this is your, you know, you're, you're flying now. Uh, what do you, what do you think it is that draws you to this type of adventure?
Um,
I've always liked, you know, that kind of
objective is that's a big objective. There's a reason that the unclimbed peaks have not been climbed.
Yeah, exactly. But I think it's all about exploration, right? To experience something new feels more unique. So then I'm more drawn towards it in a sense, um, you can just imagine for yourself, the feeling of, uh, of stepping your foot on, on, uh, a piece of rock, which is above 7,000 meters and nobody has ever, ever in the history of, uh, of humanity been on there. Um, so, so it's a cool objective for that reason. And also of course, it's, you know, it's an ambitious project, uh, because nobody has been there. So that was awesome. It was also kind of a big attraction, uh, because many teams had attempted. And of course, when we got back home, we understood why, why nobody had made it as well.
It was a tricky mountain.
Um, but, and I guess a lot of the same attraction is what brought me into speed riding and paragliding as well, because it's, it's not unique.
All right. Well, thanks for listening to this point as we've done with the last few shows on our free channel. I guess you would call it, although they're all free. We don't put anything behind a paywall, but on this channel, uh, this one ends now. And if you want to listen to the rest of the show, jump on over to the subscriber channel. If you don't know how to do that, uh, all the directions are on the website. Just go to cloudbasedmayhem.com, go to subscriber content, and it'll fill you in on doing all that. But once again, this is not just for people who support the show. We'd like it to be, but if you can't support the show, you just send me an email. I'll get you all set up with a lifetime account. No questions asked. Maybe some point you'll be in a position where you can do so, but we're never going to put ads on here and we're never going to put anything behind a paywall.
It's just the way we're doing things from here on out. So jump on over to the subscriber channel, listen to the rest of the show with Thomas Long. Thanks a lot. Cheers.