Tag Archives: delorme
Garmin InReach Best Practices for Adventurers
In the past couple years it’s been really heartening to see pretty much every pilot on launch use an InReach or a SPOT satellite tracking device. And I’m seeing them more and more in the backcountry with skiers, mountain bikers, climbers and people playing in remote areas. This is a very good thing. What isn’t great is that many people are not really familiar with their device and not utilizing them properly for messaging, maps, and hardly know how powerful they are, and this can become a serious problem when things go wrong, which is when an InReach immediately becomes the most valuable thing you own.
Read More...Unscrambling Insurance- Are you covered?
If you go in hard paragliding, hangliding, speedflying or skydiving are you covered? Many, many people find this a very murky subject. Traveling abroad? What about medivac? What if you need a heli rescue? Repatriation to your home country for care? This article should help you out.
Read More...Episode 22- The Alaska Traverse- Ed Ewing interviews Gavin McClurg
Ed Ewing, the editor of Cross Country magazine takes over as show-host and asks Gavin the questions many people have wanted to know about how it all went down on the traverse. We talk about the Red Bull X-Alps, how Gavin’s obsession with paragliding started and find out what led to his 6-year pursuit of a dream- to traverse the full length of the Alaska Range by paraglider and foot. We find out what went right, what went wrong, what gear was used, what happened after Dave had to leave, and hear some pretty wild stories of what went down.
Read More...Pounding gear- A look at what we carried in Alaska
The Alaska Traverse took 37 days to complete. Bashing for days through dense alders, slipping on talus and hurtling down glaciers, and living in the dirt for nearly 800 kilometers put our gear through the test. Here’s what worked, what didn’t, and where we went wrong.
Read More...Bivvy Flying- What’s on your back?
This post is a follow up to an earlier gear post I wrote about the kit Will Gadd and I carried on the Rockies Traverse, “the things we carried” and hopefully answers many questions I’ve been getting about what’s critical and what’s not. I actually haven’t changed much but it has been refined and I’ve been able to cut more than 10 pounds of weight which is considerable.
Read More...Traversing the Rockies Podcast with Judith Mole
Last winter I “sat down” with Judith Mole and the Paraglider.com via skype to discuss the Rockies Traverse, the expedition I completed with Will Gadd in August/September of 2014. The expedition was filmed by ReelWaterProductions and produced by Red Bull Media House for their “Explorers Series”. Judith has held onto the podcast until the film was released, and with the upcoming premiere at the Banff Mountain Film Festival in November, 2015 the time has finally come.
Read More...Garmin InReach vs Spot – When your life depends on it
I get asked by a lot of pilots about which tracker, SPOT or Delorme is better. This post is an attempt at a comprehensive answer to that question. I’ve used both extensively, all over the world. I would never fly without a tracker. We all got to see the value of using one first hand at the Sun Valley PWC in 2012 when expert pilot British pilot Guy Anderson disappeared for two days after a crash in a very remote part of Idaho. The local community pulled together immediately and launched a major search, which involved 4X4 ATV’s, Dirtbikes, Black Hawk Helicopters, and thousands of man hours. The search was successful and Guy is fine. But if he’d had a tracking device on that day, the rescue would have been a much simpler affair and saved thousands of dollars (not to mention a mountain of stress). So, the moral here is that if you are doing something remote and slightly dangerous like flying, you NEED to use a tracking device, endstop. If you don’t, you’re an idiot.
Read More...A life uncomplicated
I answered immediately: “Fuck No!” Training for what is billed as the hardest adventure race on Earth has consumed my every move and thought for the last 7 months, and I’m sure will only get exponentially worse until the race starts July 5th. And I mean CONSUMED. I eat; I train; I eat and eat and eat; train and train and train; make lists that have no end; and sleep whenever possible. This is my life. Unless you have competed in this race, or are a rookie like me this year I promise you can’t possibly imagine what goes into this kind of campaign.
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