Author Archives: Gavin McClurg

Confessions of an XC Addict- Ushpa Cover and Feature hit the stands!

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The January 2014 issue of United States Paragliding and Hangliding magazine just got delivered! Yet another one of Jody MacDonald’s amazing shots gets the cover, from back in 2010 in Mozambique, and there’s a fun feature article by yours truly in the mag on my little addiction that is human flight. Hope you enjoy!

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The 5 most memorable flights of 2013- Red Bull Adventure

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Flying his Niviuk Peak3, Gavin McClurg battled his way across Idaho from Mt Baldy, 387km into Montana, committing to some of the deepest, remote solo flying and turbulent lee-side conditions, to comprehensively break the US foot launch distance record.

McClurg had landed just short of the Idaho state record the day before, and had only had a few hours’ sleep that night. It came in a week where the cross-country ace clocked up almost 1,000km in the air.

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An amazing year. A look back at 2013

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My mom writes a Christmas letter every year and always asks my sister and I to write a paragraph of what we did. For the last 13 years mine has been a discourse on wherever the boat had gone that year. Caribbean, South Pacific, Melanesia, Australasia, Africa, etc. Needless to say, it hasn’t been very dull. As I started writing this years recap I fully expected a somewhat more toned-down account.

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The Higher You Get, The Higher You Get

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We got home to Sun Valley exhausted but in good spirits. Cool fall nights and shorter days had already set in, the Aspens were already going golden, the tourists had left town. In my opinion Sun Valley has the best big air flying on Earth. A number of recent distance records, including my own world mountain record this summer of 240 miles confirms this opinion, but what we don’t often get to do is fly here in the absence of fear. Flying in Sun Valley is usually a pretty full-on affair.

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500 Miles to Nowhere

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We were four pilots in total: Nick Greece, myself, Nate Scales and Matt Beechinor; each of whom have held the foot launch record in North America for some period over the last 13 months, all but Nick’s set from Bald Mountain, Sun Valley. The route chosen was once again an incredibly aesthetic line of about 500 miles, and we’d learn quite a bit more technical and difficult than what we did in the Sierras, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

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Flying the Apocalypse

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On the 8th of August a little lightning caused fire took off near Beaver Creek, sw of Hailey just a few miles; and just north of two much larger fires that had already torn through over 200,000 acres of scrub and pine forests.  At that stage there were just over 100 crew on the Beaver Creek fire and the TFR (temporary flight restriction) was just inside our launch on Baldy, so we headed up the hill for what would end up being one of the last flying days of August.  Of course the rest you all probably know- the Beaver Creek fire was upgraded to the nation’s top priority.  It quickly grew into a fire nightmare, eventually nearly 2,000 fire fighters from around the country and dizzying number of aircraft descended on our little valley to try to save it.  Jody and I and over 2500 others were evacuated on the 16th.  Most people have been allowed to return home, but a few areas, including ours are still on mandatory evacuation, but the fire, now at over 110,000 acres is nearly 100% contained.

It was one of the most memorable soaring sessions I’ve ever had.  Nate got to take his new Niviuk Peak 3 for a spin, I got to deepen my love affair for my new F-Gravity, and most of the flying crew in Sun Valley got to fly the bowls, something that happens very rarely.  Many thanks to Chuck Smith for grabbing these shots!