In this conversation, US based climber and relatively new paragliding pilot Nathan Longhurst shares his incredible journey of completing the 100 Peaks Challenge in New Zealand, combining his passion for climbing and flying. He began on 17 November 2024 and ran, rock climbed, ice climbed, bushwhacked, kayaked, cycled and paraglided his way through the list and incredibly- knocked it out in just 103 days. The list has only been completed by one other climber, but that one took many years. Nathan discusses his background in outdoor sports, the transition from climbing to flying, and the planning and preparation that went into his ambitious project. He shares some rather remarkable statistics about his adventure and the lessons learned along the way, emphasizing personal growth and the emotional aspects of such a significant undertaking. He discusses the physical and mental challenges he faced, including injuries, constant hunger, and the need for meticulous planning. Nathan reflects on memorable moments during his climbs, the importance of solo decision-making, and the mental load of evaluating risks. He also shares insights on the creative problem-solving required in unpredictable environments and his aspirations for future adventures. A remarkable adventure, told by a very humble and remarkable adventurer.
Follow Nathan on Instagram to see many incredible photos and remarkable moments from the expedition.
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Nathan’s background in outdoor sports shaped his passion for climbing and flying. He found solo climbing to be a more mentally engaging experience. The 100 Peaks Challenge was inspired by a previous trip to New Zealand. Nathan’s approach combined climbing and flying to complete the challenge. He faced significant weather challenges during his journey. Support from his girlfriend was crucial during the project. Nathan experienced post-trip depression after completing the challenge. He managed to fly off over half of the peaks on his list. The journey was emotionally taxing but rewarding. Nathan’s experience highlights the importance of mental health in adventure sports. Nathan experienced significant physical challenges during his project. Hunger was a constant concern, affecting his focus and energy. He enjoyed delicious meat pies as a high-calorie snack. Memorable moments included a blissful climb and flight on Mount Totoko. Planning was obsessive, involving detailed analysis of potential landing spots. Nathan faced injuries, including a bad ankle sprain and a close call with equipment failure. Mental challenges were more taxing than physical ones during the project. Creative problem-solving was essential for navigating unexpected obstacles. The solo nature of the project allowed for clearer decision-making. Nathan is excited about future climbing and flying adventures.
Sound Bites
“I was just immediately hooked” “I was fortunate to have some mentors” “I knew that I wanted to come back” “It took him most of his life” “I ended up traveling for like two days” “I was doing this peg leg hobbling.” “I was starving pretty constantly.” “These meat pies are totally delicious.” “That was pure bliss.” “I was pretty obsessive in my planning.” “I had to take several steps back.” “I was so invested in this project.” “I could have done one more peak.”
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Nathan Longhurst’s Journey 03:05 The Transition from Climbing to Flying 06:05 The 100 Peaks Challenge Explained 08:53 Planning and Preparation for the Challenge 12:03 The Experience of Climbing and Flying 15:00 Challenges Faced During the Journey 18:03 Reflections on Accomplishments and Mental Health 21:01 Support Systems and Relationships 24:10 Statistics and Achievements 27:00 Overcoming Physical Challenges 30:10 Conclusion and Future Aspirations 31:57 Navigating Physical Challenges 32:32 The Constant Hunger 34:41 Memorable Moments in the Mountains 36:34 Planning and Preparation 38:43 Injuries and Close Calls 40:11 Mental Challenges and Decision Making 42:11 Creative Problem Solving 45:51 The Mental Load of Adventure 48:03 The Solo Experience 50:39 Immersion in the Project 52:28 Reflections on the Journey 53:49 Future Aspirations
Cool. Nathan, the wider world, I think, has heard a little bit about your amazing expedition that you just completed. XCMAG just put it up, and by the time this goes up, I'm sure many more people will know about it. But I think the place to start is, who are you? And what did you, give us the real glass over, what did you just do? And then we'll take a deeper dive. But hi.
Nathan Longhurst (00:33.582)
Yeah, absolutely. Hello, thanks for having me on the podcast. I'm a long time fan, excited to chat. Yeah, so my background, I'm from Washington state, Spokane, Washington. And yeah, I grew up spending a lot of time in the outdoors with my family, which I'm super grateful for, did a lot of, you know, backpacking, skiing, hiking. I have a lot of siblings and, and to very active parents. And so have that as my background and
Yeah, I kind of started, started rock climbing some more and doing more technical things in the mountains. As I got older into high school started getting a little more independence. and.
Gavin McClurg (01:13.498)
And that was all in the cascades or all over the place.
Nathan Longhurst (01:16.342)
Yeah, mostly, mostly in the North Cascades, some stuff in North Idaho and Western Montana as well. so did like some scrambling, scrambling in the cabinet mountains and the sawtooths. but yeah, mostly focused in the North Cascades, like the Leavenworth area, enchantments, things like that. So yeah, I kind of started to cut my teeth in the Alpine rock worlds, both solo and, and with some friends from Spokane going and doing big routes out there. and then I'm 25.
Gavin McClurg (01:21.946)
Okay.
Gavin McClurg (01:42.564)
How old are you, Nathan?
Okay, so this was, know, Alpine stuff, was that post-school or were you doing it all the way through school and stuff too?
Nathan Longhurst (01:55.054)
I was starting to do stuff like in my summers probably starting when I was 16
Gavin McClurg (02:00.323)
Okay.
Nathan Longhurst (02:01.195)
Yeah, when I could first go drive, going and doing trips out those first couple summers. And then, yeah, the summer after I graduated high school, so when I was 18, that's when I sort of really dove into it. Basically living in my car that summer, traveling around the Cascades, doing a bunch of alpine stuff. And that summer it was mostly solo, so that was when I sort of really got into like the big alpine solos and scrambles and more mountaineering stuff, did some of the volcanoes for the first time that summer.
Gavin McClurg (02:26.478)
What was drawing you then and now to solo? Why do it alone?
Nathan Longhurst (02:32.363)
Hmm. Good question. yeah. So for me.
Like obviously I love being in the mountains with other people that I care about and I certainly do a good bit of that as well. But when I'm solo, I find myself to be much more mentally engaged and connected with the terrain itself rather than sort of like the more social part of the experience and what's going on with my partner and the interactions between my partner and myself. And again, I I love those interactions as well. But if I'm doing something that's like really sort of at the
like really challenging for me and kind of at the limit of my abilities. I find that I'm the most connected and the most present when I'm solo and just focusing only on the terrain and my movement through it. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (03:16.388)
Hmm, interesting, cool. All right, so you're moving along through the mountains, you're playing in the mountains. When did flying come into the equation?
Nathan Longhurst (03:28.845)
So actually quite recently, I started flying in Utah. I took classes at the point of the mountain in summer of 2023, so just a couple of years ago. Yeah, and just was immediately hooked, flew there a bunch.
Gavin McClurg (03:38.557)
okay.
Nathan Longhurst (03:45.497)
And yeah, started doing more sort of hike and fly stuff in the Wasatch mountains, which transitioned to some like speed flying, menuing flying. And yeah, just sort of right from the beginning knew that that was the style I was the most interested in because I love climbing mountains. love, you know, using my own, my own power and my fitness to climb mountains, especially technical routes. And this idea of climbing technical routes and then using a lightweight wing to fly off has always intrigued me since, you know, many years before I started.
started finding myself and so yeah that was kind of the
Gavin McClurg (04:17.124)
Tell me more about the climbing. Are you like out in the enchantments? Are you aid climbing? Are you free climbing? Give us a little bit of what's your jam?
Nathan Longhurst (04:28.56)
Yeah, so most, mean...
I've done some aid climbing in Yosemite, but other than that, haven't really done it anywhere else. So yeah, definitely free climbing. was actually, it might be kind of backwards, but earlier in my climbing career, I was actually more focused on like harder free routes with a partner. So doing maybe some like the harder climbs on Prusik Peak and the Kolchuk Balanced Rock and some of like the big steep faces. And then as I progressed, actually started to gravitate more towards going and soloing the more moderate alpine ridges and trying to link up multiple
Gavin McClurg (04:45.722)
Okay.
Nathan Longhurst (05:00.303)
of those in a day and things like that. Yep.
Gavin McClurg (05:02.042)
Okay, all right, so more kind of endurance-y type stuff, exposure type stuff, rather than hard, technical sport climbing. Okay, gotcha. Okay.
Nathan Longhurst (05:10.827)
Yeah, but definitely some of both. my initial climbing background was in sport climbing. So all through high school, I was a gym rat and yeah, loved just pulling hard on sport climbs.
Gavin McClurg (05:22.06)
Right, okay. And was the initial catalyst to get into flying just to get into flying or did you see it as I need this for my toolkit, I need this for access, I need this for descents?
Nathan Longhurst (05:37.709)
There's definitely a combination of both. mean, you know, the climbing community and flying community are certainly somewhat intertwined. And so I had connections and had friends and I'd watch their videos and hear their stories, whether it be a big XC flight or some spectacular speed flying footage. yeah, the flying on its own absolutely had captured my imagination. But yeah, it was a combination of that, but also being intrigued at.
the possibilities of what I could do with it, combining it with my climbing and peak linkups.
Gavin McClurg (06:11.13)
I mean, imagine to where you were doing it, you're seeing people fly all the time. I mean, you're up in Leavenworth and Cashmere and Chelan, and you were certainly in a part of the world that was conducive to flying.
Nathan Longhurst (06:25.933)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, and it's funny because like I'd seen people flying around Chelan, but until I got closer to starting my own flying career and got more into it, I had no idea how much of a world-class site it was. didn't know that people were out flying these huge, you know, hundreds of kilometer flights from there. And then I was like, oh, like that's my hometown. I need to go get into this. Yeah. So I.
Gavin McClurg (06:40.162)
Right. Cool.
Gavin McClurg (06:44.998)
neat. So you go down to the point where many of us learn. I'm original and that's where I learned as well much longer ago than you did. But so you're getting into many wings, speed flying, then what?
Nathan Longhurst (07:00.905)
yeah, so then I started to travel a little bit with it, start flying other places, spent a good chunk of time flying in the Eastern Sierra. that's a place that I'd spent a fair amount of time climbing and scrambling and skiing and such in the years before I started flying. And so it was super fun to then go out there with the wing and, you know, go speed fly all these lines that I'd done on skis previously.
And so that was a good introduction to, you know, launching off of higher peaks, doing some more technical launches, managing like proper big mountain conditions, you know, learning about flying the speed wing early before it got thermic and before the air got all mixy. And then I would go out and fly XCs in some of the afternoons as well, early in the season and sort of, yeah, dipped my toes in the XC world there a little bit, flying in the Owens Valley, flying the East side and then the whites as well.
Yeah, so I had a really good time with that.
Gavin McClurg (07:54.191)
mean, that's a ramp up in education. mean, considering you're just getting into flying, going to the Owens, it doesn't get much rougher or wilder than the Owens. I mean, literally, in the world.
Nathan Longhurst (08:02.605)
It was definitely rowdy. I was fortunate to have some mentors and people who would tell me how to get the more moderate conditions and to not go out when I was just gonna kill myself. But yeah, I some really good flights. My best flight was probably doing an out and back from Flins up to the boundary peak and back on the White Mountains, which was pretty sweet from Bishop north of a good chunk of distance and back into town.
Gavin McClurg (08:26.404)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (08:30.89)
Yeah, excellent. Okay, so how did this 100 Peaks, I mean, there hasn't been a lot of time since you learned how to fly. So when did this pop into your mind? How did it pop in your mind? And what is it? Define what it is, because a lot of listeners are probably unclear what we're talking about.
Nathan Longhurst (08:47.691)
Yeah, sure. So I came to New Zealand for the first time about a year ago, last March, which is the end of the summer season down here in the Southern Hemisphere. And yeah, I came down for about three weeks, had a fantastic trip, had pretty marginal conditions. It was quite windy for most of the trip, but I did get some good flying days and was able to fly off a couple of the high Alpine peaks.
Gavin McClurg (08:53.562)
Okay.
Nathan Longhurst (09:13.109)
sort of did this fun little outing that I made a short film about establishing a new round trip speed record on Mount Aspiring, which is one of the prominent 3000 meter peaks down here by running up it and flying off. And yeah, during that trip was just like absolutely enthralled with the natural beauty of the mountains down here, the diversity, the...
I mean, they have really incredible steep vertical relief. The mountains aren't particularly tall, but the valleys are all very deep. Most of the valleys are close to sea level and yes, there's all these huge, like huge steep terrain. so yeah, I knew that I wanted to come back, to give a little bit more context. I had done a couple of these peak lists, like in a season projects before I did one in Washington and one in California. and so yeah, the
There's kind of all these pieces coming together of like, knew that I liked doing this peak list in a season thing, I knew that I love flying, then I came to New Zealand and it was like my favorite place I'd ever been. And so I sort of spent the back in the Northern Hemisphere summer, sort of was scheming and thinking about how I could combine all these things and do a big peak list in New Zealand. And yeah, did some research and found this article online about this gentleman named Don French. He's a local Kiwi climber.
And there's an article about him completing this hundred peaks challenge and saying that it took like his whole climbing career. He spent 35 years climbing all these peaks. And so of course I was, was quite intrigued and I did some more digging and yeah, I learned about this list. It was created by the New Zealand Alpine Club in 1991 to commemorate their centennial year. So a hundred peaks for a hundred years of the Alpine Club.
Gavin McClurg (10:52.303)
Yeah.
Nathan Longhurst (10:53.357)
And it was basically put together as just kind of like a little game, little challenge for all the members to like see how many they could climb that summer. And they're sort of hand selected.
Gavin McClurg (11:01.048)
And is this the hundred tallest peaks on the South Island or in the whole country?
Nathan Longhurst (11:06.413)
So it's actually not based on any numbers. It's not based on height or prominence. It's just kind of a, like a handpicked selection of peaks intended to be sort of a diverse set to showcase. Yeah, just kind of the diversity of the mountains here. So it has the shorter North Island volcanoes. has, like, it does include a lot of the highest peaks. So Mount Cook and Mount Tasman and Mount Spiring, most of the 3000 meter peaks are on the list, but there's also a lot of lower peaks that wouldn't make any kind of a height list.
but have their own sort of interesting aesthetics, interesting climbing, cultural significance, things like that, which I really appreciate because for me applying the hard numbers to the mountains feels quite limiting versus going out and hand selecting the peaks that are aesthetic from a human perspective results in a much more interesting list.
Gavin McClurg (11:52.795)
Totally. Yeah, love it. very cool. So that list began, what was his name and when was that?
Nathan Longhurst (12:03.543)
So Don French completed the list in 2020, I believe it was. Yep, yep, yep. But the list was created in 1991. Yep, so he spent a good while on it. I've been fortunate to meet and become friends with Don. He's an absolutely wonderful guy and we shared a lot of good stories. But yes, that's how I found out about the list. I was intrigued. I plotted all the points out on a map.
Gavin McClurg (12:09.193)
recently. wow. Okay.
Okay.
Gavin McClurg (12:23.194)
Cool.
Nathan Longhurst (12:28.353)
looked at it and my first impression was like, yeah, this will totally work. And then I looked at it some more and then I thought, no, this is completely impossible. There's no way. And then just sort of spent several months untangling this web of peaks.
Gavin McClurg (12:41.314)
And when you say it, no way. Was the first thought to do it like Donny, you're going to climb them all or was having the wing aspect always a part of the plan?
Nathan Longhurst (12:54.795)
Yeah, it was always a part. I knew since I'd done some flying in that first trip in March that I wanted to figure out some sort of link up project where I could incorporate climbing and flying and, you know, in chaining multiple peaks using the wing to fly in between them. The thing that I didn't sort of anticipate, you know, because the weather in New Zealand is sort of infamously volatile and fickle. It can be super windy. You get these really heinous storms that come through. You know, it's kind of just out by itself in the middle of the South Pacific. So.
Gavin McClurg (12:56.365)
Okay.
Gavin McClurg (13:15.396)
Terrible. Yeah.
Nathan Longhurst (13:24.877)
It can be quite bad, but I got fortunate that this summer was actually quite good for a number of reasons. Just the way that the pressure differential is on the side of the either side of the island worked out and sort of the angle of the jet stream blowing more parallel to the crest of the mountains rather than perpendicular as it typically does resulted in generally lower winds and longer high pressure windows than average. And so
I was anticipating being able to fly. was expecting that I was going to be able to just like pick like a select few, like most crucial linkups that I'd be doing like, you know, maybe one or two of a month. And then otherwise it was just going to be a lot of traditional climbing on foot, but just sort of the way that things worked out with the conditions. I ended up being able to fly a lot more than that, which was awesome.
Gavin McClurg (14:14.252)
And what, know, Will Gad taught me that style is really important. What were your rules, if any? Did you have any rules?
Nathan Longhurst (14:21.643)
Yeah, absolutely. So first and foremost, no helicopter transport. That's kind of becoming a standard for climbing in New Zealand where people are using helicopters to approach a high alpine hut or a high base camp. There's obviously pros and cons of either style, but for me personally, like, you know, the experience starts at the bottom of the mountain and a long, heinous approach is a part of the challenge and the appeal of climbing these mountains. And that's just part of the game.
And so, yeah, I did use a helicopter to drop off three food caches, but I never personally flew in one. and then.
Gavin McClurg (15:00.842)
so you did that before you started kind of thing, or was this, okay, this zone here is gonna need some food caches.
Nathan Longhurst (15:03.647)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and it actually the cashes went in, I had a friend who sent them in a couple with a friend and then a couple were just the third was with some climbers who were going in anyways. But I didn't drop him off myself. So I never rode in a helicopter. And then, yeah, I also used a two wheel drive van. That was more just a matter of like practicality and saving money. But a lot of people use
like big overlanding rigs to drive up some of these long river valleys. And I ended up doing some very long walks and bike rides instead. So it was all kind of human power from the two wheel drive car park. And yeah, I use any power boats either, there a couple of spots where I could have used like a power boat to approach, but used a sea kayak instead.
Gavin McClurg (15:51.94)
mean like down in the sounds like in doubtful and Milford and that some of that kind of zone.
Nathan Longhurst (15:55.533)
Yeah, exactly. So I paddled on Milford Sound and I paddled on Te'anu, which has some long fjords on it.
Gavin McClurg (16:01.614)
Holy cow, man, I that's some super tree zone. Yeah, well, okay, we'll get to that. I know that area, not like you do, but I know that area. I remember the, what do they call them down there? The no-see-ums. Jesus, those little, my God, miserable.
Nathan Longhurst (16:05.623)
Yeah.
Nathan Longhurst (16:11.777)
Awesome
Nathan Longhurst (16:17.478)
the sandflies, yeah. they could be pretty horrific,
Gavin McClurg (16:22.466)
I'll take Alaska mosquitoes a hundred times over those little guys. my God, they're vicious and vicious for weeks afterwards.
Nathan Longhurst (16:27.029)
Really? So the interesting thing about sandflies is that different people's reaction to them can vary pretty massively. So for me, I react to mosquitoes way worse than the sandflies. So the sandflies are certainly annoying, but Alaska mosquitoes are definitely worse for me.
Gavin McClurg (16:40.803)
Really?
Gavin McClurg (16:45.534)
my God, man, my ankles just looked like I needed to go to the hospital. I hated those things.
Nathan Longhurst (16:47.821)
My girlfriend is the same way. It looked like she had some like crazy leprosy or something after the sandflies got to her.
Gavin McClurg (16:58.444)
Okay, so how many people have done it other than Don?
Gavin McClurg (17:04.79)
Really? Really? Whoa. It took him most of his life. How long did it take you?
Nathan Longhurst (17:12.429)
103 days.
Gavin McClurg (17:14.554)
You did 100 peaks in 103 days. Was that a goal or did it just go?
Nathan Longhurst (17:22.017)
So the, like the in a season was definitely the goal. So yeah, yeah. So that's how I'd approached those previous two peak lists. Yeah, yeah. So it's a totally different style than making it like a life bucket list. It's kind of taking like a through hiker mentality and applying it to these peak lists. Just being like, I'm gonna go out every day, day after day after day, till I'm done with it. I did kind of deliberately avoid having a specific time goal.
Gavin McClurg (17:25.579)
really?
seems ambitious.
Gavin McClurg (17:36.526)
Yeah, sure.
Nathan Longhurst (17:50.669)
A lot of people asked me if I was going to try to it in under 100 days and I was very sort of deliberately trying to avoid slipping into that mentality just because of the nature of these technical routes and doing the climb and fly. exactly, wanted to avoid putting any external pressures on myself to like fly if the conditions weren't right for it. So yeah, I was really trying to manage that risk.
Gavin McClurg (18:03.15)
You just didn't want to put that kind of pressure, I would imagine, right? You started doing that, you started making mistakes, don't you?
Gavin McClurg (18:19.556)
How many, what was the most peaks you got in a 24 hour period?
Nathan Longhurst (18:26.303)
I think... Let's see.
There was a day that I did four peaks which were on the list and there's also a fifth peak that I climbed that day that wasn't on the list. I climbed it essentially to be able to launch higher and get a better glide to a spot on the glacier I was trying to get to. So four list peaks, five total.
Gavin McClurg (18:47.17)
And what was your kit? What was on your back mostly? Did it change constantly depending on the, I mean, did you have really good information on all these places and you kind of knew, okay, this was gonna require some gear and this was a hike and this was a fly potentially, or how do you handle all that?
Nathan Longhurst (19:07.309)
Yeah, it was a little bit of a mixed bag with the sort of the route information that I got. Some of these peaks are relatively popular and get climbed often. I was able to find good information on those routes, but many of them are quite obscure. Some of them have seen less than 10 total ascents and yeah, really just don't have, yep, yep. Some of them are pretty remote and seldom climbed. So yeah, it was definitely the whole spectrum of route information. My kit varied.
Gavin McClurg (19:22.211)
Really?
Nathan Longhurst (19:34.221)
equally as much just because of the diversity of the terrain. But for example, in that sort of that highest high alpine section, the Mount Cook region, I was carrying, you know, my wing. Nova Bantam was my standard. used a couple different wings, but that one was my preferred with, of course, lightweight harness. And then I had, you know, mountaineering boots, steel crampons for the steep ice climbing, two tools, two Petzl Gully ice tools.
I carried a repel line, a 60 meter repel line for that section. couple of ice screws, V thread tool, you know, food for the day, fats and sugars, lightweight mountaineering harness and yeah, just the other odds and ends, electronics, rescue beacon, tracking camera, phone, things like that.
Gavin McClurg (20:25.006)
Your harness, was it just webbing harness? Are you carrying a reserve and any kind of that or just like a thin?
Nathan Longhurst (20:32.213)
Yeah, it was just a it was the ozone f-light and yeah, wasn't flying with a reserve and yes It was basically just the absolute minimal flying kit. It like less than two kilo kilogram flying kit
Gavin McClurg (20:45.166)
The Nova Banta, I'm not familiar with that wing. Is that a lightweight what? Is that a single surface or is that an XC wing?
Nathan Longhurst (20:52.555)
No, it's a mini wing. So it gets a class D rating, but it's like a 12 meter wing. So it's like hard to translate that.
Gavin McClurg (20:55.043)
Okay.
Gavin McClurg (21:01.784)
Okay, so you're just descending. You're not going anywhere with that wing. You're just getting down to try to get to the next descent. Okay.
Nathan Longhurst (21:06.573)
Exactly. Exactly. But I ended up flying two wings. So I flew that. Definitely preferred that. It's a much more dynamic fun wing to fly. So if I was doing any like any kind of terrain flying or speed flying style, I would prefer to have that wing. It's also better for launching in high winds. But I also flew a 16 meter DUDEC Run and Fly single skin a fair bit as well, just because that one's lighter. It's a smaller pack volume. And that one I actually did fly some like fairly short.
Gavin McClurg (21:29.036)
Okay. Okay.
Nathan Longhurst (21:36.477)
XCs, I was never launching low and landing high, but I had a couple times where I'd launch off a summit into like mid afternoon conditions and be able to boat my way along to get further out towards my exit. So I think my longest flight on the single skin was 25 kilometers.
Gavin McClurg (21:51.823)
What was the longest period of time between resupplies or like car to car kind of thing? Were you off and out days at a time just bagging peaks or was it mostly each day kind of attacks?
Nathan Longhurst (22:08.363)
Yeah, so I had, my one longest one was 11 days. That was in the Mount Cook region, which I had sent in those resupplies for. I also did a couple trips that were about a week and those I was carrying all of my own stuff on my back for. So I had some heavy packs to start out for those with a week's worth of food. Other than those three, it was mostly, you know, one to three day outings, fairly short.
Gavin McClurg (22:31.162)
Okay, and you said you didn't want to put external pressure on yourself, but when you're getting to kind of 80 and you're looking at about 80 days in, was there some, mean, did it become a, was there any time you're just racing? You just go, okay, I gotta ting these off. I'm gonna try to do this 100 days.
Nathan Longhurst (22:50.529)
Honestly, no. I was aware of it, but I had put so much deliberate decision making into avoiding any external time pressure that it just didn't really bother me. Especially because as I was getting close to that 100 day window, knew, because I still had this one quite technical link up left, which ended up being what I finished with on the last day. And I knew that I needed.
Gavin McClurg (22:51.864)
No, really.
Nathan Longhurst (23:15.767)
perfect weather for that. was going to be flying off one of the highest peaks, a 3000 meter peak, and then doing a top landing like high on the shoulder of the next peak over. And I knew I didn't want to do that in anything less than perfect conditions. And so I kind of just surrendered to like, okay, like I'm going to do this day when the weather's perfect for it and not any sooner. So like, it's not really up to me at that point. It was just waiting for the perfect day for it.
Gavin McClurg (23:40.025)
You just finished a little over a week ago. You're young, 25, you've been playing in the mountains for quite a while. I've done, I've never done something exactly like this at all, but I've done some long trips in the mountains. When it's fresh like this, I'm wondering what surprising thing has happened in the last week. What has kind of come home to roost in your mind about what you've just done that maybe you weren't prepared for?
Nathan Longhurst (24:10.285)
Hmm.
I'd know about not being prepared for this, maybe wasn't expecting it. After all of my other previous big trips and projects and things like that, I finished and kind of immediately had like sort of this feeling of like, you know, something missing and like a little bit of anxiety and emptiness, like the post-trip depression, a lot of people call it, you know, I like done this big thing and I'd been planning it and so focused on it for months and months and months and then.
Gavin McClurg (24:34.426)
Yeah.
Nathan Longhurst (24:41.129)
It sort of left this hole of like, like what am I supposed to do now? Like what's the next thing on the list? Yep. But, but shockingly, and this genuinely was surprising and a pleasant surprise upon finishing this, there hasn't been any of that. And I think it was, I think it was because it was just like such a significant emotional and mental load that it just feels good to just like relax and just like turn my brain off a little bit and just.
Gavin McClurg (24:44.363)
I hate the getting, that's exactly what I was getting at. I hate the getting it done. That's just hard.
Gavin McClurg (24:57.849)
Really?
Nathan Longhurst (25:10.269)
I've basically just been living an easy vacation life here in Wanaka for the last couple weeks after finishing up. I mean, I've still been flying, but I've just been flying at the sort of the standard paragliding sites, nice drive up launch. I've been doing some short hikes above it, but nothing technical at all. Just having fun, flying my speed wing and yeah, going and eating good food with my girlfriend. And it's definitely...
It's a new feeling for me as someone who's like always sort of waking up and be like, okay, like what's next? Like what's the big adventure for the day? It actually feels quite good to feel like I've almost like earned some space to just relax for a little bit. And I'm sure that that's gonna come back soon and the, know, the itchy feet and the ansiness is gonna be here soon, but I've been pleasantly surprised by how much I've been willing to just sort of settle down and relax for a little bit.
Gavin McClurg (25:56.923)
Tell me about your girlfriend. How was this on her? There's always risk involved in the mountains, especially big ones, and especially when you add a wing to it. What was this like for her? Have you had a chance to ask her?
Nathan Longhurst (26:13.099)
Yeah, yeah, we definitely had some discussions about it and lots of long discussions about it when I was in the planning phase before I started, before I left. because, yeah, I mean, it definitely is a decision that we had to make together because, you know, obviously we care about each other a lot and, you know, she wants to see me excel and do things that...
that challenge me and things that I'm excited about, but at the same time, of course, she wants me to be safe. And so, yeah, we had a lot of discussion about how I was gonna, you know, how my decision making process was gonna work, how I was gonna really do my best to manage the risks. But yeah, it was definitely hard for her. I know that she spent a lot of late nights up watching the tracker and, you know, there were, cause I had a live tracker on a website throughout the project and there were plenty of times.
that I'd be going and maybe get to a crux section and not move for a couple hours trying to figure out some technical bit of climbing. And I'm sure that was really stressful for her. But yeah, she actually, she ended up coming down and sort of being a support crew for the last few weeks of the project, which was fantastic. Being able to have someone to drive the van around and buy me food and feed me and keep me moving, keep me motivated. So yeah, she's been a huge emotional help for sure.
But yeah, I'm sure that both she and my parents are pretty relieved to see me done with it.
Gavin McClurg (27:30.458)
awesome.
Gavin McClurg (27:37.38)
Did you keep pretty good stats? I mean, do you have any that you could rattle off, know, vertical ascent, miles on foot or kilometers would be more accurate, I guess. you know, like how many peaks did you fly off? Let's hear some of those.
Nathan Longhurst (27:52.481)
Yeah, so I actually just put together a slideshow, which I gave for the first time last night here in Wanaka. And so yeah, let's see if I can remember. It was 160,000 kilometers, about 500,000 vertical meters of ascent. And I did 80 flights and I think 60, 64 of those flights were off of the summits of mountains. out of a hundred, I flew off well over half of them. Yep. And then I did.
Gavin McClurg (28:18.286)
Whoa.
Wow.
Nathan Longhurst (28:22.133)
I did five top landings either on top of or quite near to the summit of a peak. And yeah.
Gavin McClurg (28:31.226)
Give me the distance again, what'd you say? 160,000 kilometers? Oh, okay. I was gonna say, wait, what?
Nathan Longhurst (28:36.013)
No, 1600, 1600 kilometers. Yep, And that was just the human powered distance. That doesn't include the flying distance.
Gavin McClurg (28:44.282)
Yes, right, right, right. Okay, so you between, you know, to get to another zone, you could use your car, you could use your van. Gotcha. Yep.
Nathan Longhurst (28:53.153)
Correct. Yep. So I was driving from trailhead to trailhead and then on any given day I would show up at the trailhead, go climb the peak, maybe like fly down to the shoulder of the next peak, climb that one, then fly back to the car. That was sort of the standard day. Yep.
Gavin McClurg (29:03.908)
Gotcha. Okay, hardest moment, and that could be mental or physical. Was there a time in it where you're doubting yourself?
Nathan Longhurst (29:16.149)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, definitely a lot. It was probably the most emotionally challenging three months of my life. But a significant one that comes to mind was actually in the zone that we were talking about kayaking in, in the fjordlands, paddled up Lake Te Anau to approach this peak called Mount Irene. It's one of the most remote peaks in New Zealand. It's just really difficult to get to by any route. So I paddled.
Like, uh, think it was close to a 20 mile pad paddle up the South Fjord of Lake Teyano. And then spent, you know, basically a full day bush bashing up to a high camp and then did this long Alpine traverse to get out there, climbed the peak. And then it was actually on my way back, kind of reversing this Alpine traverse. And it was kind of, kind of a funny, almost like a silly use of the wing, but basically.
Gavin McClurg (29:49.263)
Whoa.
Nathan Longhurst (30:10.593)
There was a section on this alpine traverse that I had to drop below bush line for a second and do some bush bashing and then come back up into the sort of subalpine grassiness. And just because of the shape of the terrain, I realized that I could make this like literally like 30 second long flight to sort of cut across this gully to bypass this bushwhacking section. so, and conditions were fine. The wind was fairly light. was like an easy grassy launch to like a grassy, you know, slope landing. And I was like, yeah, that's no problem. I launched, made the flight, landed.
It felt like I was coming into a fine landing, but some of the grass here, they call it tussock. It's like these really lumpy sort of tufts of grass. And so I landed in it just came down with my feet a little weird and sprained one of my ankles quite badly. It was like the full like loud pop. It swelled up. got huge. And so I basically had to do this exit, you know, finishing doing all this like butt scooting over Talis and stuff. And then this whole big bushwhack and this long kayak out. So I ended up traveling for like two days, getting back out from this really remote place on this
Nathan Longhurst (31:10.411)
very painful, very swollen ankle, and that was definitely quite emotionally taxing. And at that point, for the first couple of days there, it felt bad enough that I was wondering whether the whole project was in jeopardy and whether I was just gonna have to call it quits.
Gavin McClurg (31:15.834)
Ugh.
Gavin McClurg (31:26.084)
how fast you come back from the, mean, sprains can take weeks. Was it pretty quick recovery?
Nathan Longhurst (31:32.361)
Yeah, so I spent a few days just sitting on the couch not moving, which honestly, aside from the spray and like my body totally appreciated like the first day out, I literally just slept the entire day. I would like wake up for like 20 minutes at a time to just like eat a bunch of food and chocolate and stuff and go back to sleep. So yeah, I got some good recovery there. And yeah, I did my best to, you know, do all the all the PT things and
Gavin McClurg (31:39.838)
Nathan Longhurst (31:57.409)
was back on it a few days later and spent the next week kind of just hobbling, just doing this peg leg thing. I could weight it straight down, I just couldn't really articulate it. So I was doing this peg leg hobbling. I'd be up scrambling on a ridge and instead of using my toe to stand on edges, I'd be using my heel to stand on edges, just to keep weighting it straight down. Exactly, there was lots of... Absolutely, yeah, my hips got super sore from the imbalance, but...
Gavin McClurg (32:08.943)
Mmm.
Gavin McClurg (32:14.726)
man, which is hard on the other side of your body. Then you start seeing how that's all affecting the other foot and the other ankle and the other hip and the other, ugh.
Nathan Longhurst (32:25.973)
It all kind of ironed itself out and by, yeah, maybe two weeks later felt fairly normal again.
Gavin McClurg (32:32.388)
How much as a percentage of the trip would you say you were starving? Not like you're gonna die starving, but how much would you say, how often did you think about food? As a percentage of the...
Nathan Longhurst (32:38.359)
starving.
Nathan Longhurst (32:46.637)
Oh, pretty constantly. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe 85 % anytime other than having just eaten a good meal. Yeah. And that's honestly that that that's one of the sort of one of the logistical cruxes of doing these long continuous physical efforts is just keeping enough calories in your body. So yeah, I was eating constantly. Fortunately, the
Gavin McClurg (32:54.328)
Right.
Gavin McClurg (33:02.83)
Yeah.
Nathan Longhurst (33:06.841)
There's this absolutely wonderful snack they have down here. They have these meat pies and they sell them just like at all the grocery stores and gas stations. They're totally delicious. They have these like mince and cheese meat pies and I already like three or four of those a day. Yeah. Oh yeah, just like this dense brick of buttery deliciousness.
Gavin McClurg (33:10.916)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (33:18.648)
Right. High calorie, high impact, cheap.
Right. It's funny that you say buttery deliciousness. I've spent enough time in New Zealand that I got so sick of meat pies. When you say meat pies, God. Right.
Nathan Longhurst (33:31.725)
I'm not there yet, I'm not there yet. I'm actually kind of, I'm dreading coming back to the States, because I know that I won't have my mee pies.
Gavin McClurg (33:38.817)
You
Yeah, you need a couple more years. I've spent a lot of time down there, but that's okay. So how about the flip side of that? What was, know, 10 years from now, what do you think will be the highlight of this trip? What moment most sits with you in terms of, I don't know, I feel like we do these things because we're chasing moments, right? And it must, there must be one or more. I mean, go for it, but.
Which one do you think will live the longest?
Nathan Longhurst (34:14.069)
Yeah, once again, with a project of this magnitude, there were many. But yeah, the one that really stands out, probably my favorite sort of single day of the whole project was in this mountain down in the Deren Mountains called Mount Totoko. It's not super tall, it's about 2,500 meters, 2,700 meters, but it's right near the ocean. It's in a really, really beautiful part of the country with all these just like super.
deep, sort of steep walled valleys, sort of dense rainforest. And that's just like this incredible sort of complex mountain of really steep ridges. And it's just completely coated in glaciers and these incredible ice falls on all sides. So I went and climbed that, had a fantastic Alpine climb. The Dairons are kind of the exception in New Zealand in that they have really, really good rock. Generally the other mountains have pretty terrible rock, but the Dairons have great rock.
So did this, uh, the Southeast ridge route, which is a classic Alpine or rock climb. Um, so had a super enjoyable climb, perfect weather, know, sunny, no wind. Um, had this wonderful, wonderful climb got on the summit and then just had the, uh, probably the coolest flight of my life doing, you know, a little terrain flight down the, uh, down the age glacier there diving, literally diving through crevasses and over these insane, you know, 200 foot tall, uh,
Serax just diving down these ice cliffs following the terrain. And so yeah, landing at the bottom of that flight after having this incredible climb and then like the coolest flight of my life. That was just like pure, just like bliss. And yeah, it's about as good as it gets. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (35:53.979)
your ecstasy. Wow, cool. Given the, you know, your flying part of your career has not been very long, how much, how many times, know, at a peak like that were you really questioning, do I have this? I mean, from what I remember, maybe, you know, guess the South Island is not.
totally treated everywhere. But a lot of the places that you're talking about like doubtful sound and that kind of thing, know, glide ratio and these kinds of things. Was this something you looked at in advance when you were doing all your prep? You kind of felt pretty good about it or was there a lot of, man, I think I got this, but I'm not sure.
Nathan Longhurst (36:34.841)
Yeah, no, I was pretty obsessive in my planning about, you know, scrolling around on the satellite imagery, zoomed all the way in, picking out potential landing options, then drawing lines to each of them to check the, check the glide ratio and then checking the wind direction for the day and thinking about the valley flow and how that was all going to work. I probably actually spent significantly more time planning hypothetical flights than I did planning my climbing routes.
And so, yeah, I have this, this CalTapo map that I did all my planning on. just covered in all these little lines that I was drawing and then checking the glide ratio and then drawing another one and doing all these things. for the most part, just because of, know, how, how steep the vertical relief is off of these peaks. the glide wasn't really a major issue. I'd be able to get down to a river valley that was grassy in the bottom and then just fly as far as I could out that. but there were certainly, certainly a good number of peaks where it was really crucial. And it was like, I.
If I get a headwind, like I'm going to be landing out in the trees and it's going to suck. and so I like had to pick, like plan those flights around good conditions when I knew there wasn't going to be any valley wind coming up. and then yeah, some technical landings in like, you know, narrow river beds landing on the one little sandbar that's, forest for miles in either direction. It's the one spot that it's open enough to squeeze in between the trees and land. So yeah, there's definitely a lot of obsessive planning about exactly where I was going to fly.
And, but like in the moment while I was up on the mountains, for the most part, was able to sort of trust that planning and trust the numbers and evaluate the conditions and yeah, see how it would work. then, yeah.
Gavin McClurg (38:07.194)
see it. Now you're seeing it for, How much planning went into this?
Nathan Longhurst (38:14.558)
months. Yeah, hundreds of hours. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (38:16.996)
hundreds of hours back home. You were back in Washington just pouring over everything.
Nathan Longhurst (38:19.797)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. And then the planning didn't stop when the project started. As I was moving and as I was becoming more familiar with the mountains and the conditions, I was definitely continuing to update what I thought was possible, what I realized wouldn't work, what I realized would actually work really well. And so yeah, was definitely sort of a continuous process of updating my plans and yeah.
Gavin McClurg (38:43.374)
You had the bad sprain, any other injuries or close calls?
Nathan Longhurst (38:50.187)
Yeah, I had a couple, the most significant of which, I probably won't go into a ton of detail here. I spoke about it on, on another podcast, but basically had an incident where I had, I had repaired some lines in the fields and then, made a couple of flights on the, on the wing, which were just straight glides. And then had to do another flight and do some rapid descending and, you know, while doing some
spirals and wing overs to descend had one of those repairs fail and basically bombed out with very little control of the wing, but was fortunate to be above just a nice grassy slope and was really fortunate to walk away from that one. But yeah, otherwise, several times.
Gavin McClurg (39:40.366)
Was that, you had to rapidly dissent because of weather?
Nathan Longhurst (39:44.365)
No, it was actually because I was coming out of the end of this valley and there's a airfield where helicopters come in and out. you know, it's open airspace and I had, you know, it's a man-to-air broadcast home, but I had my radio, so I was in touch with them. But I just didn't want to like be in their business, you know? And so I was basically above the car, just like, I'm just going to get down quick. So yeah, definitely a...
Gavin McClurg (40:03.268)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
Gavin McClurg (40:08.782)
Okay, got you.
Nathan Longhurst (40:11.935)
less than ideal situation, definitely some questionable decision making there, partially influenced by being so deep in the project. But yeah, definitely a learning experience.
Gavin McClurg (40:23.674)
So you had to have some hard self-talk, it sounds like. You're right.
Nathan Longhurst (40:26.739)
Absolutely, yep, yep. And that was another definite little moment where I wasn't sure if I was gonna continue or not. That was about halfway through. think I was about 50 peaks in at that time. But.
Gavin McClurg (40:37.976)
And why was that just because it was, it suddenly hit you the level of risk or was it more self doubt more just, yeah, maybe I'm in over my head here.
Nathan Longhurst (40:47.401)
It kind of a combination of those two in that it just made me realize like how much my decision making could be influenced by being deep in that project. Because it was the kind of thing where like I never would have flown that wing in that situation otherwise, like if I was just out, you know, flying for fun in Utah or California or whatever.
And it was specifically because I was like so invested and so single-mindedly focused on getting this thing done, is the only reason that I was flying it to begin with. And so yeah, it made me very aware of like the fact that being in this project had clearly compromised my risk management and decision-making. So I had to take several steps back and really, you know, basically change my approach of how I was gonna.
how I was going to think about the rest of project. And I did sort of make a significant mental shift of from then on was really deliberate about not focusing on, on the timeline or completing the project as a whole, but really just sort of looking at each day as like an individual outing with its own, you know, with its own bubble of decisions. And I would just sort of approach, I mean, just kind of classic one day at a time thing. And I would just try to make uninfluenced decisions for each individual day.
Gavin McClurg (42:02.116)
Hmm, one step at a time.
Gavin McClurg (42:07.81)
You said there were a couple of incidents. What was another one?
Nathan Longhurst (42:11.929)
others that come to mind are just like landing out in strong afternoon valley flow. nothing that, nothing that went badly, but yeah, just like flying these relatively low performance, especially on the single scan, it's a fairly slow wing. And so landing out, you know, in a lot of wind going backwards and then, you know, pulling the wing down. So it wouldn't drag me through the grass. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing may be super dangerous because I was often landing out in just big grassy valleys, but definitely like, yeah, a little bit frightening.
Gavin McClurg (42:30.084)
Just uncomfortable, not fun, right.
Gavin McClurg (42:40.932)
Huh. What about, I mean, it sounds like with all this prep, maybe not too much of it was presented too many surprises, but I would imagine that you got into some areas that were, whoa, I didn't anticipate this. What was something that you really had to get creative to pull off?
Nathan Longhurst (43:03.959)
Hmm. There are a couple of peaks, like technical climbing routes that come to mind. so one, for example, it's called Mount Barnacoat. it's a bit of a obscurity, most commonly known for its ice climbing on, on its south face in the winter time. I was up when I was up there, the ice routes were already out of condition. the bottom half of all these routes had melted out. And so I had to figure out a different way to climb it. And basically.
climbed one ridge almost all the way to the summit, but then got stopped by this steep, steep cliff right at the top. And so I had to down climb all the way back down that ridge, wrap around to an entirely different side of the mountain, and then climb a whole different face. And both of those routes were like total chossy horror shows. So basically did like two of the worst climbs of the whole project on the same mountain.
Nathan Longhurst (43:56.397)
Um, both up and down. up, down, around, up, down. It's like, ended up taking a whole day. It's not even that large of a peak. it's up on like the high glaciers up on the high Neves and it only sticks out like maybe 2000 feet above the glaciers. Um, but I spent like a whole day on it. And so that was a bit, bit of a, bit of a project, yeah, I ended up figuring out a way up that worked. Um, yeah. And then another one that comes to mind also a bit of an obscurity, it's called Mount Alba. Um, and that one, you know, had quite limited route information.
And the way that I interpreted one of the, you know, sentence long route descriptions was that I'd be able to go up the certain ridge at a fairly moderate grade. got up there, got to the base of the ridge and looked at it and it was like, there's no way this is like very sustained fifth-class climbing on really bad rock. So I figured out a different ridge, which I ended up climbing. had this one crux section up this, really striking arette features, like this 30 foot arette with not really any holds on it that I ended up doing this probably five, nine.
lieback move to get up it and then learned after the fact that that was actually a first ascent and that several parties had gone, tried to go up that ridge and got into that arete and gotten stumped and turned back. So that was definitely some, you know, making it work on the fly. And it's kind of funny. the, a local climbing guidebook author was actually at my talk last night and he was like, yeah, like send me the, send me the photos in the route description for your, for your first ascent. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (45:11.011)
Whoa.
Gavin McClurg (45:22.938)
Very cool. When you think about what you've just done, is there one aspect of it that really stands out as the most difficult part? know, was it being hungry? Was it the technical climbing? Was it flying? Was it being alone? Was it being tired? Was it being scared? I don't know. What was the hardest thing about what you just did?
Nathan Longhurst (45:51.553)
Definitely just the mental load of the constant decision making and yeah, the constant risk evaluation. yeah, I found, know, cause I have a pretty deep background now in physical endurance. And so yeah, the mental load and the mental capacity was much more of a limiting factor than the physical. And so yeah, that was certainly the hardest part was just.
being out making these challenging decisions and conditions evaluations and all these things. And yeah, the fact that I was incorporating the flying was definitely a big part of that. Like the mountains were challenging regardless and the technical climbing was challenging. But I think the biggest part of that mental weight was just constantly evaluating the flying conditions, what the air was doing, what the development of the day was doing and thinking about how that was going to affect my launch, my flight, my landing, all these different things.
Gavin McClurg (46:44.794)
was the scariest moment.
Nathan Longhurst (46:48.289)
Mmm.
Nathan Longhurst (46:52.897)
Probably fairly early in the project, had a moment where I essentially was stemming in a corner and pulled a block virtually out onto myself. It was maybe like a hundred pound block of rock and...
touched it, I didn't even pull on it, I touched it to test it to see if I could pull on it and that little test was enough to just slide it out of place and basically had to hold it up above myself, reposition in the stem and then like press out of the way and let it slide by and then fall back into this stem in this corner and so yeah definitely yeah I had a moment there as I was
Gavin McClurg (47:31.302)
That's too Alex Honnold for me. That just shivers up my spine.
Nathan Longhurst (47:36.189)
Yeah, I had a moment there as I was just, you know, stuck in this stem holding this rock into the cliff above me that I was like, what have I done? Like, I'm gonna die for sure. How am I going to get out of this? Because it was a pretty exposed spot. So in terms of like, yeah, just like a few seconds of like pure fear and, you know, awareness of my own mortality. That was definitely, definitely the most intense.
Gavin McClurg (48:03.45)
I want to ask you about the solo part of it. I keep thinking back to when I did the Alaska trip with Dave and I've said this many times on the show so I don't want to go into it but there were stage one of that and stage two. Stage one we had the film crew and we had Dave.
And then after Denali, he had to leave, film crew left, Red Bull cut us off, the whole final part of that, which was a significant chunk in terms of the distance. It was more than a third, but the weather was better and it didn't take me very long. Way, way, way easier that part because of the decision-making, like you said. mean, part of it was the weather was better, but also just there was a lot less stress making decisions because it was only on me. You know, I didn't, if I screwed it up,
Who cares? It's me. I have to live with it, but not, man, sorry, Dave. Not that he would ever put that kind of pressure on you working as a team, but it was just interesting. was a science experiment for me, having the two sides of it. I'm wondering if you've thought about that at all. To me, listening to some of your stories and knowing what you've just done, I almost feel like it'd be impossible to do with somebody else. I feel like you would have just gotten...
decision paralysis in some of these places. Yes, no, I don't know.
Nathan Longhurst (49:17.997)
Yeah, yeah, I agree. mean, it was it was such like a yeah, such an intense thing and
such an objectively hazardous thing. I can't imagine being on one of these technical launches where it's mandatory throw and go to one step off and it's kind of high wind. I can't imagine being in that situation with another person and looking over at them and being like, yeah, go for it, you first. Or vice versa. I don't think I would have even considered.
Gavin McClurg (49:39.439)
Mm.
Gavin McClurg (49:50.553)
I guess the chances for something to go wrong also are exponentially worse. It's just one more potential problem. Yeah, interesting.
Nathan Longhurst (49:55.989)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I can't really picture a way that it would have worked as a, anything other than a solo project.
Gavin McClurg (50:11.872)
Any of it disappointing in some way? Were there any, were there lulls in it? I mean, I imagine what the ankle is, but was there ever any time where, let me ask this more clearly, what I love about these kinds of projects is that you're all in. There's no anything else. You don't have to worry about anything else. You don't have to be anywhere else. There's no social media. Back in my day, we didn't have that. Now that's a big thing, but.
you know, this FOMO thing that, you know, many people struggle with, all of us struggle with at some point is real, right? Is there, was there any point in this where, I mean, I imagine in some ways it's kind of difficult being out there and then coming back into the real world and then going back out. You you had to resupply, you saw your girlfriend, you had to drive, you had to be around, you know, reality for a bit. I don't know. I'm not asking a very clear question, but just talk about that side of it.
Nathan Longhurst (51:09.909)
Yeah, I mean, to speak to the sort of coming back out into the front country, it was quite consistent that the hardest part of my day would be leaving the car. Just like, you know, initiating going from being warm and safe in bed to, you know, putting the pack on and stepping out into the wilderness, knowing sort of how intense and potentially dangerous and potentially frightening the day could be.
So yeah, that was very consistently the hardest part of the day. But yeah, otherwise, like, yeah, I love being fully immersed in a big project like this. You know, there were times that I was intimidated and times I didn't know if I would do it, but I would say the vast majority of the whole time I was, you know, glad to be doing it, glad to be sort of making this, this vision and this dream a reality and
Yeah, I mean, it's easy to talk about all the scary moments and all the challenging moments, but the reality is like so, so much of it. was just in my favorite place on earth right now. Just the most beautiful mountains I've ever seen and just absolutely loving it. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (52:19.738)
That says something, know, growing up in the Cascades that you, these are the most beautiful mountains you've ever seen. I the Cascades are awful special.
Nathan Longhurst (52:28.577)
They're fantastic, yeah. And I think that's part of the reason that I love the mountains here in New Zealand so much is because they're a very similar flavor with the steep vertical relief, the hanging glaciers, the tumbling ice falls down to these deep, deep green valleys.
Gavin McClurg (52:35.491)
Yes.
tons of water.
Gavin McClurg (52:43.61)
Do you use any pack wrap for any outs?
Nathan Longhurst (52:47.629)
I didn't know, but there were definitely many times that I wish I had. I don't really have any whitewater experience and that sort of felt like a lot to sort of take on in addition to everything else that was going on with the project. But yeah, there are lots of long walks out these river valleys when it was just like a nice, moderate, know, wandering river that I knew I could have floated, that it was like, oh, like I really wish I could just hop in that and just cruise it all the way out to the car.
Gavin McClurg (52:51.662)
bet.
Gavin McClurg (53:08.196)
perfect for a pack raft. Yeah. That's kind of a sexy way out sometimes, isn't it?
Nathan Longhurst (53:17.357)
It really is, yeah. Maybe if I start flying more XCs here, I'll add a pack raft to the XC kit and try to land at the head of a valley and float back out.
Gavin McClurg (53:28.27)
There's a good buddy of mine, this guy Ty, up in Alaska has been doing some really wicked big XC and exit with the pack raft. It's such a nice way to go. Yeah, that's very cool. What's next? How do you, where do you go from here?
Nathan Longhurst (53:38.733)
Awesome. Yeah.
Nathan Longhurst (53:49.009)
Hmm, that's the question, isn't it? I'm definitely, yeah, I'm still intrigued and still fascinated by this climb and fly thing. But honestly, I'm really excited to dive more into the world of XC and big mountain flying. I've dabbled a little bit, but it's something that I very much still consider myself a beginner at.
I've never flown in any comps or anything like that. So I'm hoping to sort of go down that road a little bit and learn more about flying big routes, figure out how to fly big triangles and things like that. But then, continuing off the climb and fly. I have ideas of multiple technical routes to link up. I'd love to go to some of the greater ranges, go to South America, go to the Himalaya and see what might be possible.
Gavin McClurg (54:39.802)
before you started the project, what was the perceived crux zone versus maybe what was the real crux when you got into it?
Nathan Longhurst (54:51.329)
Hmm. The Perceive, yeah, the Perceive Crux was definitely that, that two week Mount Cook area link up where I was doing, you know, a lot of the most technical routes, some of the steepest, you know, ice climbing, mixed climbing. and that actually all ended up going quite smoothly. Like it was certainly challenging and it was technical as expected. but I got quite good weather, a couple of really good weather windows for that. I also had to wait out a couple of storms, but, that all actually went, went fairly smoothly.
And then yeah, the, the, were a couple of the shorter linkups like the Hopkins river linkup, which ended up being about five days was quite challenging with, you know, more, technical than expected flying tricky launching conditions. I lost a pair of sunglasses on that linkup and ended up like pretty badly sun burning my eyes and so had to deal with that for the last couple of days, which was quite painful and difficult. This is, this is the duct tape mask. Yep.
Gavin McClurg (55:47.236)
This is this duct tape mask that's gone viral everywhere. That was wild. That was a cool idea.
Nathan Longhurst (55:50.861)
Yep. Yeah, yeah, that it worked. I mean, it was the only way that I was able to get up the last mountain. I basically was committed to like a deep valley and had to essentially climb up and over this mountain, climb up and then fly off the other side to get out. And yeah, it had a section of glacier that I had to go up. It was the last day. My eyes were like totally cooked. And the only way I was going to get up that glacier, if I figured out some kind of solution and see, I made that mask and squinted my way up it.
Gavin McClurg (56:19.93)
have that in the show notes. It's hysterical. I mean, it's gone everywhere. I'm sure everybody's seen it, but pretty funny. Nathan, there's a lot of people, I'm sure, and I'm one of them, listening who most definitely have, I would think, considering your background, have the flying skills to, you know, they're hearing your story going, I like this idea. I'd like to do some of this or maybe do that. Or what kind of climbing background expertise
Nathan Longhurst (56:21.835)
Yeah. Yeah. But...
Gavin McClurg (56:49.562)
how hard are you as a climber? mean, how much of this was pretty gnarly climbing where you've got to have a lot of technical experience and wrapping off stuff and not leaving stuff behind? Talk about that side of it.
Nathan Longhurst (57:03.629)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Longhurst (57:07.793)
Yeah, I mean, it's pretty, pretty involved complex alpine terrain. A lot of my alpine background comes from the the Sierra, the Eastern Sierra. And I spent a lot of time running around up there. And yeah, the stuff I mean, the routes in the Sierra, like they're technically challenging. So, you know, I've done a lot of these long ridges like the evolution traverse, the palisades traverse, things like that. And they have maybe harder, like pure rock climbing on them.
But the mountains in New Zealand, the rock quality and managing mixed snow and ice conditions, maybe deteriorating ice conditions if it's a warmer day, becomes much more of a factor. They're sort of like this weird, like in the summertime it's kind of this weird in-between of like, they're not high enough to be like pure alpine ice climbs like you might find in Alaska or high in the European Alps, but they're not low enough to just be pure dry rock climbs.
And so yeah, you definitely have to manage you're like, you know, doing some like dry rock climbing on the bottom part, but then you start getting bits of snow and ice mixed in as well. And it's like, you're trying to stay on the rock, but then you have to switch over and you're avoiding the rock and trying to stay on the ice. so yeah, definitely having experience in that mixed terrain and, and moving efficiently through and managing sort of the objective hazards and stuff with it is, crucial for specifically the mountains here.
Gavin McClurg (58:29.678)
Now my time in New Zealand was really wet and I spent a lot more on the North Island because I was sailing when I was there, I was doing a lot of sailing and I there for the America's Cup and stuff. But it was incredibly wet even in the summer. Was that much of a factor for you?
Nathan Longhurst (58:46.315)
less than I expected, certainly, and you are accurate in that the North Island is generally wetter than the South Island. The South Island also has a
Gavin McClurg (58:54.35)
You're kind of in the rain shadow in most of the places you're climbing, I'm imagining, right? Okay.
Nathan Longhurst (58:57.357)
Exactly, yeah. the South Island has a very dramatic rain shadow effect where the West Coast, it rains like 300 days a year. And then the east side of the mountains is all a little more of an arid, almost a desert. so partially because of that, I did most of my approaching from the east side up these drier valleys. And so I was able to get a little bit better conditions because that, I mean, I did certainly have a handful of climbs that I was just in like full on like
Gavin McClurg (59:09.273)
Yeah.
Nathan Longhurst (59:24.661)
pissing rain, nasty wet conditions. Needless to say, wasn't flying on those days. But yeah, for the most part, got, you know, I was able to pick and choose the days for the more complex technical peaks and was able to get good weather for most of those.
Gavin McClurg (59:43.843)
If you could rewind the clock to whatever it is, 120 days ago, you're just getting started, anything you would have done differently? And I'm looking for big stuff. I mean, obviously little things, was there something you just totally missed or?
Nathan Longhurst (01:00:00.223)
Yeah. So there, there were definitely many, many little things that I would have done differently, just like subtle, subtle route finding differences and stuff. it's, it's, you can't be perfect on, something this complex. but I'd say maybe a significant one is, there's one mountain it's called, it's one of the 3000 meter peaks. It's called Mount Ely de Beaumont, like the, the, and, and yeah, so
Gavin McClurg (01:00:07.45)
Sure.
Nathan Longhurst (01:00:28.489)
It has the main summit, the highest point, which is about 3000 meters. It's a really beautiful aesthetic peak. It also has sort of this ridge that extends from that main summit out to the west to a lower high point. It's really just kind of a bump. And that ridge is a bit technical and kind of a classic traverse. But when I was doing my planning, basically the version of the list that I was referencing just said Mount Yulee to Beaumont. And so I went and climbed it and flew off it.
And it was all sweet. then several weeks later, I was on the phone with Don French and he was like, by the way, like you climbed the wrong mountain. the, the one on the list is actually that West feet, the, after this technical traverse out to, and so the, well, accommodation because of that. And then also because I was doing like some of this top landing. I don't really consider it like an official list finish in the traditional sense. Don has been very, I had a good chat with him about it he was very gracious of like, yeah.
Gavin McClurg (01:01:06.539)
God.
Gavin McClurg (01:01:12.91)
No!
Nathan Longhurst (01:01:28.207)
it was your experience, you took the list as a framework and made your own thing, but that is definitely kind of a regret and a little bit of a thwart in my side of like, oh, if only I had known, like I was up there with plenty of daylight left, you I had all the right kit with me, like I could have done the traverse, but I mean, it gives me a good reason to go back up there. It's the most beautiful, one of the most beautiful areas of the mountains here, so I'll go back up on another trip and go visit that West Peak for sure.
Gavin McClurg (01:01:38.188)
Right. my god, that's just...
Gavin McClurg (01:01:52.623)
That's really cool that he, so he was, watching your live track in the whole time. Imagine he was fascinated. Just super, very cool.
Nathan Longhurst (01:01:57.069)
He was. And yeah, so I didn't end up meeting him in person until I was like 90 peaks in. Like was really late in the project. He lives on the North Island. And so I went and paid him a visit as I was doing my little loop of the five peaks up there.
he like I knew that he'd been following along I had no idea how like engaged he'd been in it um I found out there's this one night in particular um it was it ended up being my longest single day it was like a 23 hour continuous push and I found out he he told me that he'd been watching that night and you know I ended up going into like 3am and he said that he couldn't fall asleep he just kept
Checking the tracker and just watching my dog knew like that last section when I was going late into the night like it wasn't Interesting terrain. It wasn't technical. It's just down just just just Just walking down this river valley But he just like couldn't go to he was just like so invested and wanted to make sure that I made it back to the hut safe and like I got emotional when he told me that like I was so touched that he was so invested in you know my experience and sort of this this Shared connection that we have over the shared experience. So
Gavin McClurg (01:02:43.64)
That was incredibly boring. You're just watching a little dot on a map. Yeah, I get it.
Gavin McClurg (01:02:56.772)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (01:03:06.564)
That is super cool. man, what a mate, that's great. Nathan, congratulations. This is really cool, man. I've been smiling so hard, my cheeks are getting tired here, but I'm really psyched on what you did. I love these kind of pushing the boundaries things, and you're young, man. I can't wait to see what you do with the future, but congratulations. Nice push, and I hope you enjoy your.
Nathan Longhurst (01:03:06.731)
Yeah, that was, that was good to hear. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (01:03:33.326)
I don't know if they're your final days there in New Zealand or you're gonna be down there for a while, but enjoy, have fun, spend some nice time with your gal.
Nathan Longhurst (01:03:40.555)
Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. And thanks for the chat.
Cool. I asked you a lot of questions. You answered them really well. Did we get, we missed anything? Anything else you want to talk about?
Nathan Longhurst (01:03:56.173)
No, I think you covered things well. I think you got to talk about all the things that I wanted to. Yeah, talk about sort of the technicalities of how the flying worked.
Gavin McClurg (01:04:02.287)
Cool.
Gavin McClurg (01:04:05.686)
Awesome. Well, nicely done, Really cool. I didn't know that history. That's pretty neat. There's been two of you that have done this. That's really cool.
Nathan Longhurst (01:04:14.251)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, it's a little bit of an obscure thing and obviously pretty complex. There's a few other people who are chasing it as well. I think there's maybe five total people who have done more than 50. So yeah, there's definitely other people invested in it.
Gavin McClurg (01:04:27.714)
Okay. But now you just did it in 103 days. So they're all going, well, shit.
Do you foresee that as, I think about this all the time with Alaska, know, nobody's repeated what I did up there. And, you know, it just seems so outlandish that anybody would even try. Of course, records are made to be broken, but do you think that this is something that is, would be on a list and is it beatable? You know, like you said, you had pretty good weather, you had pretty good conditions.
Nathan Longhurst (01:05:04.413)
Yeah, mean, obviously, if it can be done, it can be done faster. Like you said, records are made to be broken. It would definitely take, you know, the right person and the right conditions. But like I said, there were plenty of days where I, you know, looking back, I could have done something a little bit better. I could have done one more peak. I could have planned a little bit better. So yeah, it certainly goes faster.
Gavin McClurg (01:05:27.726)
And I guess now your route is out there. Now it's in the ether. So I mean that you've solved a huge chunk of the problem just by doing it.
Nathan Longhurst (01:05:30.445)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I will say that like, not to... Like, I hate to come off as egotistical, but I would be pretty shocked to hear about somebody else even going for it, let alone finishing it in a similar style. It felt pretty out there. Yeah. Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (01:05:44.066)
Right.
Yeah, it's a little out there. It's a pretty out there project for sure. Awesome, Well, cool. I mean, I like these kind of things where, you know, was funny when I, none of this is going out, but it was quite funny when Red Bull approached me about, after we did the Canada one with Will Gad and they approached me with this idea, it was funny selling them something that I really, really had no idea if it could be done.
Nathan Longhurst (01:06:03.169)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (01:06:14.222)
I mean, I'd been out there a couple of times in a bush plane and I'd flown some of the route and I'd seen it with my eyes and I could feel the plane bouncing around, know, so I knew it was thermic, you know, it was just, yeah, there's moving around, but I mean, there was just, it was just such a massive unknown, you know, 500K of just, I have no idea if this goes. It was, that was, it was kind of fun. It's nice doing stuff for it. I mean, I guess you knew.
Nathan Longhurst (01:06:22.989)
The air is definitely moving. Yeah.
Nathan Longhurst (01:06:32.928)
Yeah.
Nathan Longhurst (01:06:38.667)
Yeah, I mean I-
Gavin McClurg (01:06:40.462)
this goes, because somebody had done it, to do it in that style, I'm sure it was very much like, eh, gotta go try.
Nathan Longhurst (01:06:47.229)
Yeah, was certainly bit of an unknown. And really, like, I had no idea how much flying I was gonna end up doing. I thought it was gonna be less than half as much. I thought it was just gonna be this big mountaineering project with, occasionally the wind comes along and then when it does, maybe sometimes it's like I get perfect conditions and fly off. But yeah, it ended up turning into much more of a major part of the project, which of course I was totally stoked about.
Gavin McClurg (01:07:09.678)
Yeah, that's great. It's just so much nicer on your knees, isn't it? Well, thanks, man. Appreciate it, Nathan. And thanks for jumping on and kudos to Jason for putting us together. And yeah, man, congratulations.
Nathan Longhurst (01:07:23.339)
Yeah, yeah, definitely appreciate your time.
Gavin McClurg (01:07:25.87)
Thanks, bud. Talk to you soon. Cheers.
