Episode 5 Nate Scales and Staying in the Game

September 12, 2015 by Gavin McClurg

A big day in the Grand Tetons while shooting 500 Miles to Nowhere, Photo @Jody MacDonald

Nate “Papa” Scales got his first flight in 1991 on a glider that had 11 cells in Sun Valley, Idaho. The next day he moved to Utah to learn how to fly and hasn’t looked back since. I’ve never met anyone as passionate as Nate is about flying nylon and string and he’s even more psyched today to go big than ever. We cover a LOT of ground in this hysterical episode. Nate discusses the value of competitions; his only (and very wild) reserve toss; risk and safety; his recent decision to step down to an ENC glider after flying comp gliders for more than 15 years; his “dream” line; learning from failure; and we go way back in time and talk about the days of taking pictures of waypoints before there was GPS; his 2007 X-Alps campaign; all the mentors he’s had along the way, including Robbie Whittall, Honza Rejmanik, Bill Belcourt, Josh Cohn and many others. But we call Nate “Papa” because he’s been a mentor to all of us here in the Wood River Valley and way beyond. There’s a ton to digest in this podcast and Nate’s unique style and delivery will keep you giggling. Enjoy!

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Show Notes:

Nate takes us back to the beginning. How he learned, flying in his first comps in Telluride, Aspen and around the world
Can paragliding be safer? We dive into the incoherent risk and the rewards. Is it worth it?
Nate talks about his recent decision to step down to an ENC glider, but that he’s still hungrier than ever to go BIG
Nate’s 2007 X-Alps campaign and nearly getting in a fistfight in the Swiss Alps
Advice for a 50 hour pilots
Learning from mistakes and failure
Comp gliders vs certified gliders. Making the right choice.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:08:53 — 78.8MB)

Episode 4- Cedar Wright “Nothing Great Happens Without Risk”

August 21, 2015 by Gavin McClurg

Photo- Jimmy Chin

The Cloudbase Mayhem is dedicated to dissecting excellence in flight. We interview the best pilots in the world and find out what makes them great. But in this episode we delve into the opposite end of the spectrum with world class climber, self-described goofball, North Face athlete, film director and producer Cedar Wright, who has recently caught the paragliding bug BADLY. His climbing partners include Alex Honnold, the late Dean Potter and Sean Leary, Tommy Caldwell, Will Gadd and a ton of the Yosemite Camp 4 Original Gangsters of the incredible “Valley Uprising” documentary like Peter Croft and Tommy Caldwell. Cedar and I met at last years Banff Mountain Film Festival where he happened across a paragliding film in Greenland called “Resounding Silence“. The movie inspired Cedar to find out what paragliding was all about and five months ago he dove in feet first and hasn’t looked back. His stoke and passion for flying is infectious and his unique perspective on what makes human flight so special made for a stellar interview that was incredibly fun. Cedar came to Sun Valley last week to get a taste for big mountain air and find out how to fly cross country. It’s been incredibly fun to take him under my wing a little bit and he’s reminded me of how special the learning phase is…and more importantly how that arc never really stops. You’ll enjoy this show, Cedar is an awesome character, his energy and passion for what he calls “sky crack” is truly inspiring.

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Show Notes:

Cedar discusses his climbing career, films and growing up in a town of 86 people
We discuss how he got into paragliding this last year. Learning in Santa Barbara with Eagle Paragliding and Matt Henzi.
Cedar talks about risk, and the difference in risk between climbing and paragliding, and the importance of taking risk in life.
We talk about the level of adventure that exists in paragliding. Is it possible to have a bigger adventure, is it the ultimate in freedom when it comes to adventure?
What it’s like to be a beginner again
The value of being audacious
Being a sponsored athlete and some of Cedar’s mentors in the sport like Bill Belcourt.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:14:42 — 85.5MB)

The Redefined Life- Podcast with Gavin McClurg

August 14, 2015 by Gavin McClurg

I sat down with Aaron Mead recently, who runs the Redefined Life podcast, a show dedicated to “listening to your gut, blazing a trail, and finding fulfillment along the way.” Aaron and I discuss my business, Offshore Odysseys and sailing around the world for 13 years and how it all got started; the National Geographic Adventurer of the year honor with Will Gadd for our groundbreaking flying traverse of the Canadian Rockies; and the recent Red Bull X-Alps Campaign, where I became the first American in the race’s history to reach goal in Monaco, among many other things. It’s a really fun talk and I hope you enjoy it.

Listen here.

Episode 3 – Jeff Shapiro and the Dark Arts

August 4, 2015 by Gavin McClurg

Jeff Shapiro is a world class sponsored athlete and a world class human being. He’s flown and competed on hangliders since he was 17 all over the world, he sends 5.14 big wall routes in climbing, he flies wingsuits, rides sport bikes, is a gifted Falconer, and is also a Dad and family man. But don’t call him extreme and don’t call him an adrenaline junky. Jeff is grounded, thoughtful, eternally grateful to be able to pursue his passions and his approach to risk and danger is something we all need to ponder. In this amazing episode we discuss the incredible numbers of losses in the wingsuiting community the last three years, including his close friends Sean Leary, Dean Potter, and Graham Hunt; an amazing close call flying at King Mountain Idaho a few years back on his Hanglider; how he has flown for more than twenty years without an accident; his own brush with death this year; and if it’s possible to justify participating in a sport with such terrible odds, among many other things. Grab a cup of tea or coffee and prepare to be whisked away into a realm that very, very few people inhabit. It’s a special place.

A buck an episode, that’s all we ask.

Subscribe to the Cloudbase Mayhem Podcast on Stitcher Radio, Google Play, Tune In, or ITunes!

Show Notes:

Jeff discusses growing up in the Pacific Northwest and watching birds soar the ferries, and becoming fascinated with flight
Jeff talks about his history of hang gliding and learning the hard way
How important gratitude and passion are in life, and how adventure sport and risk tie into every aspect of life.
Jeff recounts a really scary flight at King Mountain, Idaho and the lessons that came out it.
We talk about progression, the numbers game, and if it’s possible to pursue very dangerous activities and be safe. Is it possible to get the same reward from less dangerous activities?
GRATITUDE
We talk about losing his close friends Dean Potter, Graham Hunt and Sean Leary and others in wingsuit basejumping accident, and his own close call with death. Where to go from here? Where to draw the line? How is possible to justify something with such horrible odds?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:46:08 — 121.5MB)

The Red Bull X-Alps in Sidetracked Magazine

July 27, 2015 by Gavin McClurg

Gavin McClurg (USA2) performs during the Red Bull X-Alps in St.Moritz, Switzerland on July 11th 2015

Gavin McClurg (USA2) launches during the Red Bull X-Alps in St.Moritz, Switzerland on July 11th 2015. Photo Vitek Ludvik.

A great article by Squash Falconer hit Sidetracked Magazine just hours after the race finished. Here’s an excerpt, click on the link to view the full article.

‘It’s cool I can still walk,’ a bright-eyed and beaming Gavin McClurg said as he strolled up to me just two days after finishing the Red Bull X-Alps 2015 in a very impressive 8th place. Seeing him like this you would struggle to comprehend what he, alongside 31 other athletes and their teams, had just endured and achieved.

The Red Bull X-Alps is known as the toughest adventure race in the world, and for good reason. Athletes and their supporters race from Salzburg to Monaco, a straight-line distance of over 1000 km, by foot or by paraglider, tagging 10 turn points as they travel along the spine of the Alps. The race takes them through deep valleys and over the highest mountains, including iconic peaks such as the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc.

McClurg is one of four American athletes in the race line-up this year. He’s no stranger to big events. At 17 he was selected for the USA ski team, in his twenties he became a very accomplished climber and kayaker, and then he spent 13 years sailing around the world, during which time – to the surprise of many – he learnt to paraglide.

The Red Bull X-Alps came onto his radar back in 2007. His good friend Bruce Marks planted the seed that this was the race for him – and although he knew he wasn’t good enough at the time, he was transfixed by the event. ‘I watched the last edition at home, in my living room, while hanging from my paragliding harness and I just loved it,’ he told me.

Click here to read the rest of the feature.

Gavin Mcclurg (USA2) and his support team of Ben Abruzzo and Bruce Marks celebrate at the final turnpoint in Monaco

Garmin InReach vs Spot – When your life depends on it

June 14, 2015 by Gavin McClurg

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.

That being said, which one to use?

nice to let people know where you are in places like this

Firstly a caveat, just in the interest of transparency. Delorme Canada sponsored our X-Rockies expedition me and Will Gadd did in 2014. They gave us two Explorer models, and we purchased two SE units- one for the ground crew, one for the filming crew, and the Explorer for each us. We were given their highest subscription option, which allowed for unlimited texts. Until that time I had only used a SPOT. BUT- I promise this is a totally unbiased review, even though I have a great ongoing relationship with Delorme (now Garmin).

Image, Jody MacDonald

Here are the things that to me are the key elements of these devices, and which unit, in my opinion wins. I’ll then discuss why:

Customer Support: Delorme
Ease of use: Delorme
Flexibility: Delorme
Two-Way Communication: Delorme
Associated APP (Earthmate vs SPOT Connect): Delorme
Safety: Delorme
Cost: SPOT* (HUGE asterisk here, read on)
Size: SPOT*
Battery life: Delorme

Ok, one at a time. First Customer Support. I used a SPOT for over 3 years. In that time I tried to contact tech support over 30 times, by phone and by email. I was not responded to once. I contacted a lot of my tech friends to try to get answers to my questions, and they had the same gripe- that SPOT’s customer service is absolutely infuriatingly awful. Get on any of the forums and put a gripe on about SPOT and you will find a lot of angry people. The only time I was actually able to get a person on the phone was when I wanted to cancel my subscription as I couldn’t figure out how to do it online (because their website is atrocious). Cancelling took over 20 minutes, a further testament to how poor their tech is. Delorme has fantastic customer service. I was tasked with setting up all four devices for the X-Rockies expedition and some things were not immediately clear, or easy to do (this has become much simpler now). Their tech support team was quick to respond and very helpful. Winner: Delorme.

Ease of Use. If you own a SPOT and you travel, and if you are unfortunate enough to live in the US or Canada you have no doubt run into the infuriating and blood vessel exploding problem of setting up your contacts, so when you press “OK” or “CUSTOM” or “HELP” or “EMERGENCY” the device sends a text or an email to the people you have listed. One, this is painfully slow- you have do manually enter each person for each message. Takes forever and is the last thing you want to do after you get off a plane- spend hours setting up your new profile. But much, much, MUCH more infuriating than this is that if you are outside of the US and need the text to go to a foreign number say in Switzerland you cannot put a + or a 00 then the number. You have to know what the carrier is that that person is using, then use that carriers email address. This of course is not provided by SPOT, is very difficult to find (if you need the list go here), and most of the time doesn’t work anyway. You then have a tracking device that you can’t effectively use. Tracking still works, but god forbid you need to message someone. At the far other end of the spectrum is Delorme. Simply pair your Earthmate app to your device via bluetooth, use their very simple interface to send to ANY contact in your phone, to ANY address they have (ie phone or email), ANY message you want. Not a generic message that you had to set up in advance that may actually have no relevance to what you need, but ANY message. No cell service? No problem, you can reach out to anyone, anywhere in the world. During the X-Rockies expedition we had no cell service for most of the trip. We could reach out to anyone to get weather updates, we could do social media updates, we could tell mom that everything was ok. Winner: Delorme, hands down.

Not a good place to get stranded

Flexibility. This doesn’t really need a discussion. With a Delorme you can two-way text to anyone. SPOT doesn’t. SPOT and Delorme provide bread-crumb tracking in much the same way so no huge winner their, but the Delorme Earthmate App you can see downloadable (free) topographic maps, and you can see your partners position right on the screen (and they can see yours). The Earthmate App has all of this in a much more user-friendly Apple-like interface (on both Android and Iphones). Winner: Delorme.

Two-way communication. Only Delorme has two-way communication. The SPOT Connect allows you to do this as well, but I haven’t yet run into someone who has a good thing to say about the SPOT Connect so until I hear otherwise Delorme is the clear winner here. One thing that does warrant discussion is just how valuable messaging is. You may think, as I did that having tracking is really the most important thing and as long as you have tracking you don’t really need messaging. This is simply wrong. Tracking is awesome, and a MAJOR safety plus. For cross country pilots, it’s more important than a reserve in most cases. It’s the cheapest and easiest way to radically increase your personal safety in the backcountry. But now add messaging and you’ve basically got a cell phone that works anywhere. I can’t even count the number of times having messaging has saved either myself or the people who are tracking me down hours and peace of mind. Winner: Delorme.

Can you make sure we’ve got cold beer when we get back?

Safety: Delorme has two-way communication that works seamlessly with the Earthmate App, and in a bind works fine with the unit itself. The typepad is slow and cumbersome (UPDATE- this has been improved with the new Garmin InReach), but without making the unit much larger there isn’t really a way around this. But if your phone is dead it does work fine, it just takes longer. Clearly having messaging is major safety plus so Delorme is the clear winner hear. Both trackers provide bread-crumb tracking, and emergency SOS and both use satellites, so there isn’t much difference there.

Cost: I’ve put an asterisk on this because the base cost of SPOT is cheaper. But it depends on how you use your device. SPOT Gen 3 retails for $150, and if you sign up with a subscription you can get it for $75. A subscription is $149.99 a year. This covers unlimited tracking. You can then get message bundles for $24.99 for 100 or $49.99 for 500. For a full list of prices and services click here. The Delorme Explorer is $379.95, and you can currently get $75 off. Subscription services start at $11.95/mo and up to $99.95 per month depending on if you go with an annual or monthly contract and how much messaging you need, all of them cover unlimited tracking and SOS services. For a full list of prices and plans click here. Delorme is more expensive, BUT, if you go with a monthly plan you can activate or deactivate whenever you want, and most of us only need to use our trackers at certain times of the year so the cost really depends on how you use it. Given everything I’ve mentioned above and given it’s your life on the line, to me cost shouldn’t really be a factor. It’s like going backcountry skiing these days without an avalanche airbag. Isn’t your life worth more than a few hundred bucks?

Battery: The two companies have gone very different routes with batteries. SPOT uses exclusively lithium batteries, typically 3 AAA. The nice thing about this is they last a long time- I would typically get a half a season of flying out of my batteries. The downside is you don’t know when they will go bad. Once that light goes red you’re on very borrowed time, and if you’re on a long flight you might lose it. The other downside is the cost of lithium batteries and that you’re throwing them away. Delorme has gone with rechargeables, simply plug into a USB port or in my case as I fly with an external battery so I can keep my phone charged, if I’ve forgotten to charge my Explorer I can use the external battery. It uses the same cable as an Android. A full charge on a Delorme will last me 4-5 days of very long flights, and long walks on the ground. For me the winner here is the Delorme, but it just depends on what you prefer.

Size: The SPOT is slightly less heavy and slightly smaller. Which is to be expected as it doesn’t have a screen or a typepad. No real winner here, just depends on if you want messaging.

Feel free to ping me with any questions and of course opinions. Fly far!

Gavin on glide towards Mt Robson during the Rockies Traverse this August

Chinks in the Armor- The Red Bull X-Alps Reality

June 7, 2015 by Gavin McClurg

On the set with Red Bull near the Zugspitze (TP4). All kitted out!

I arrived Europe May 8th, about the same time an article came out in Cross Country magazine summarizing a few of the athlete’s approaches and how they have trained. The title of mine was “The Cocky American.” They weren’t being divisive or derogatory, they were using the exact words I’d fed them. I had said in the interview that even though I was a rookie; I don’t live in the Alps (home court advantage is something most pilots say is impossible to overcome); I’m 43 and well past my used date in terms of my professional athlete years; and I haven’t been flying nearly as long as most of the pilots in the race, I am by nature confident but more than than I feel like I’ve done everything I can possibly do to prepare, and I expect to do well. I’ve got an awesome team, one of my supporters Ben Abruzzo has turned my body into a machine through months of months of continuously pushing me to get stronger, faster, and more capable of suffering. In short, I arrived Europe physically and mentally ready and really excited to get to the fun part- learning and flying the hardest course line in the races’ history.

Getting ready to launch

It’s been a month to the day and I wish I can report it’s all been a merry tryst through the Alps, that I feel great, and that I’m still the cocky American. Much of the course line has been flown. A ton of it has been walked. Many, MANY launches have been re conned. Bruce Marks, my official supporter and myself have studied, refined, learned, altered and made a lot of adjustments to our plan. And when the weather has been bad, which it has for the most part until the last week the physical training has carried on without a hitch. My body still feels strong, even though I have punished it harder this last month than at any other time in my life. All good things. A lot to be thankful for, a lot to feel confident about. But truth be told until we finally got some decent weather this week and I was able to rip off a few proper flights and get my groove back I have been anything but the cocky American.

A very good day of flying between TP 3-4, on a deep line

For one it’s been a lonely road. Without a driver I keep getting separated from the Niviuk mobile, which is stocked full with the foods and supplements I’ve come to rely on. At times I get separated for 4-5 days, which means walking for 30, 40, or 50 k and a lot of vertical without proper food really challenging. The van has all of the rollers, bands and balls I need to mash my body every night so it’s ready to perform the next day. I hike up to launch solo, fly solo, land solo and then prep for the next day solo. Sometimes I reconnect with Bruce and the company is fantastic. Let’s be honest- it’s nice to have friends around. But for the most part the training has been a solo affair. Pretty much every single one of the flights I had the first two weeks here were WAY sketchy, ending in terrifying landings in strong winds. Exactly the same conditions we can expect for the race. Usually I relish conditions like this. But I wasn’t. I was scared, and getting more scared. Was I off my game? Why did I keep looking at my reserve handle? Why was I constantly leaning forward, a sure sign I’m nervous as hell? What was this new found nervousness and distrust in my abilities? Was it simply that I needed a break, or was it something more sinister?

I’ve been interviewing pilots for the podcast who have been in the game a lot longer than I have. My mentors, my confidants, my friends, and guys I trust. Over the past years they have often given me that wise look like “hey man, this is supposed to be fun, you don’t have to push so hard.” They have all gone through periods where they have had to back off, turn down the volume. I’ve never experienced this in my flying career but there is no doubt it will come as it does for everyone. My own supporter, Bruce Marks had a really scary crash two summers ago in the Saas valley and is still trying to overcome that dark head space.

Not a bad place to camp for the night

Every morning I head out and my head says no but my body says yes. The sweating starts, the cursing follows but the body just does the work. “Shut the fuck up head!” I keep saying, but it keeps grunting relentlessly. “I’ll shut up when you take a break!” But I don’t feel like I can afford a break. Just a few more weeks and that gun goes off in Salzburg and there won’t be any more time to prepare.

Scouting

But finally this week our relentless bad weather broke. Instead of terrifying flights I kept getting long flights where everything made sense. No huge surprises, no unreasonable wind, no excitement beyond the normal excitement of being in the air, participating in the absurd. The kilometers racked up and I returned to taking the deep lines that I love so much. My smile returned. My heart patched up a bit. One day I hiked 8 kilometers and 1300 meters vertical only to find I lost my helmet on the way up. So I walked back down. And then back up. And then all over the place. And then back down. And then back up again. I racked up nearly 50 km going up and down that fucking mountain, nearly all of it without food and water. Finally I gave up on the helmet and launched in very ratty sketchy conditions and flew back to town where I’d started the day, cool as a cucumber. A miserable day…and a perfect training day. After I ate three dinners and two desserts and looked in the mirror at my sun burned unkempt face and my rotten shirt that I’d been wearing for 5 days I noticed a funny smile on my face. I felt GOOD.

Flying course line between Annecy and Mont Blanc

Episode 2- Matt Beechinor (the Glider Podcast)

May 3, 2015 by Gavin McClurg

Really excited about this second episode with one of my mentors in the big XC game, Matt Beechinor, aka “Farmer”. When he flew 193 miles in 2012 from Mt Baldy in Sun Valley I decided my choice to move to the Wood River Valley later that summer was about the best decision I ever made. Matt has been flying for almost 20 years, is the best tandem pilot I know, is an amazing instructor, guide, and a Jedi in the air. In this episode we hear about a couple of amazing saves, what the “alien world” is, how Matt approaches risk, how to thermal better and how he has become one of the best gliders in the business. Enjoy!

Farmer soars the Mulanje Massif, Malawi- photo Jody MacDonald

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Show Notes:

Matt discusses his history of paragliding, including some pretty hairy learning experiences in the Wood River Valley
Matt discusses using an “ESP” maneuver to get out of a bad cravat in the Sierras
Matt discusses thermalling techniques and the importance of nailing wing overs
Matt discusses the US team, competition, and how to glide more efficiently

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:52 — 59.4MB)

500 Miles to Nowhere in 30 Degrees Magazine

April 15, 2015 by Gavin McClurg

Jody MacDonald once again captures some stunning images of our vol biv expedition in Utah and Wyoming in 2014, which culminated in the film “500 Miles to Nowhere”. It helps if you read French, but even if you don’t, the images will give you goose bumps:)

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/104930744[/vimeo]

A life uncomplicated

April 12, 2015 by Gavin McClurg

“The hardest thing in the world is to simplify your life. It’s so easy to make it complex.” -Yvon Chouinard, from the film 180 degrees South by Chris Malloy.

I was sitting with a good friend of mine this week, Gerry Moffatt whose winter has consisted of nursing a severely broken leg back to health. In a dark instant this December his life got really, really simple. Since then he has had only one thing to focus on- healing. It was the not the winter he anticipated, nor I’m sure would he want to go through it again, but the simplicity of his task is something many people would envy if not for the horrendous pain. My life this year has been in some ways quite similar and while comparing the two is preposterous that’s what we found ourselves doing over a mountain of eggs and coffee. Inevitably at these regular breakfast chats that me and Gerry cherish we talk in length about how my Red Bull X-Alps training is going. He asked me a question this time that I thought had an obvious answer. “Would you do it again?”

Some “hard” training goes down in Northern BC

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. My heart rate monitor has become clothing. Metrics are studied, diets are adapted, routes are analyzed. 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. On January 1st I cut out alcohol completely in order to sleep better and recover faster. I like beer, and I like scotch. Not an easy task, to give up the things you love, but when that gun goes off in Salzburg I don’t want any excuses. When the race ends, if I do poorly I don’t want to look back and wonder “God, if I’d only done X…” So I’m doing everything I can to prepare.

1 of 9 stations that I call “my hell workout”

To complete the race we will gain the altitude of Everest four times between Salzburg and Monaco. By foot, with our packs, which consist of our gliders, harness, helmet, emergency gear, clothing, water, food and instruments- about 12 kg on average over a course that is the hardest in the races’ history. Even if the weather is good and we fly a great distance of the route, we will cover an average of two marathons a day on foot- for two weeks. In the Alps, which are not known for their flat terrain! Every Monday my trainer, Ben Abruzzo, an ex-army animal who has competed in other similarly suffer-oriented adventure races like the Death Race and Tough Mudder posts my training week on Google Docs. My job is simple: put my head down and do it. Each week is harder than the last.

This guy has been getting some pretty funny looks this winter around town

But as soon as I said there was no way I’d do it again Gerry picked up on a look on my face that contradicted those very words. For all the pain and suffering that goes into training for something like the X-Alps there is a grander gift, and it blankets any of the misery easily. It is the gift of simplicity. You have one thing to do, and one thing only. The rest of life melts away. When I’m not physically training and it’s windy I’m out ground handling. When it’s flyable I’m in the air. When it’s dark I sleep. The problems, the stress, the busy-ness that most of us hold off with only marginal success fades to background noise and is replaced with a clear and awesome goal: Until the race, train your ass off. During the race, don’t die, and suffer better than the rest of the pack.

Ground handling the new Niviuk Peak 3 “X-Alps”

When I was young my whole life oriented around ski racing. Year after year nothing was more important than training hard to ski fast. Injuries to my knees ended that career and this week I realized some 20+ years later sitting there talking to Gerry that something like the X-Alps is what I’ve been seeking ever since. A simple, clear goal. Like Yvon says in that quote, it’s not easy to do.

Not all training has to suck:)

Someone else recently asked me what about the race am I most anticipating. There have been days in the last few months when my lungs were burning so badly that I thought I would either puke or pass out. On those days the answer would have been to just get it over with, to be done with this madness. But now even on the hard days I find myself smiling. What an amazing privilege- to have nothing else to focus on other than to get strong in order to compete in what is for me easily the most awesome, wild, dangerous and epic race that exists. I know there will be days during the race that will hurt so badly I’ll want it to end. And there will be epic moments in the air that only I will see and my heart will sing in a way that only paragliders understand. And there will come a day when it’s all over and all the striving and training and preparation and planning will be behind us I will no longer be a rookie and Gerry’s question will be a very interesting question to contemplate indeed.

USA Team 2- Bruce Marks and Gavin McClurg do a little “hypoxic swimming”- photo Kari Roberson

I’d like to end this post with another incredible quote from my hero, Yvon Chouinard:

“Taking a trip for six months to get in the rhythm of it. It feels like you can go on forever doing that. Climbing Everest is the ultimate and the opposite of that. Because you get these high powered plastic surgeons and CEO’s, they pay $80,000 and have sherpas put the ladders in place and 8000 feet of fixed ropes and you get to the camp and you don’t even have to lay out your sleeping bag. It’s already laid out with a chocolate mint on the top. The whole purpose of planning something like Everest is to effect some sort of spiritual and physical gain and if you compromise the process, you’re an asshole when you start out and you’re an asshole when you get back.”

Quick photo session before heading out for 6 hours of walking on pavement. Good times!