Right after Calef and I recorded the #201 Podcast he reached out to say he thought he'd missed an opportunity to talk about instruction, namely that very fragile time in a pilot's career when they first get their license and are sent off on their own to figure it out. So here it is, a veritable primer on leaving the nest.
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Calef Letorney was a professional whitewater kayaker back in the early 2000’s who made the switch to paragliding and has never looked back. When you think of places to fly, you don’t often put the North East US on the list. The mountains are relatively small and flat, there’s a lot of trees, cloudbase is low, and the weather is fickle. But after a few seasons in the Colorado Rockies, Calef moved home to Vermont, and soon realized that to continue enjoying paragliding he needed to build a community to fly with. So he learned to be an instructor, then a tour guide, then an SIV instructor, and finally started training other instructors to help the cause… and the rest fell into place. Where a few years back you’d be lucky to have two paragliders on launch in Vermont, these days when the weather cooperates there’s often 40+ and a solid crew chasing cross country flights. In this fun episode Calef discusses his own approach to SIV (no scary stories, it should be “anticlimactic”), a few “code brown” mishaps from his early days (including standing on speedbar while taking a pee, oops!), the psychology of decision making, the Dunning Kruger effect, the low probability / high consequence nature of accidents, how losing a close friend early in the sport affected his approach to flying and a lot more. Enjoy!
To hear the bonus episode we did with Calef about “leaving the nest” click here.
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Welcome to the 200th show of the Cloudbase Mayhem! And this week we’ve got one heck of a story that honors that number. Pilots and friends Pierre Carter, Jeremy Holdcroft, Scott Baker, Richard “Barbs” Barber and legendary mountaineer Andy De Klerk set off this June to attempt to break the altitude record by flying up the Baltoro Glacier to K2 in Pakistan. Everything was going well…until it wasn’t. Andy suffers a heart attack (in the air!), and Scott breaks the rule of not making a tricky situation worse by blowing a landing on the wrong side of the river and suffers a broken ankle and leg, which turns into an epic on its own. A wild story from a wild part of the world and we break it down into everything that went right, everything that went wrong, and lessons we can all take on board to help our community be safer and more prepared in the mountains. This is also a great primer on best-use practices for the Garmin InReach. Mandatory and entertaining listening!
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We have a saying in our sport, “never avoid inconvenience.” But it’s easier said than done. An easy field a kilometer away from the train station, or a really tricky field right next to it? Landing in strong wind across a river that means a long walk, or landing in strong wind near a road that will have rotor? In the 21′ Vercofly a number of pilots were injured and the race was cancelled due the unusual level of carnage. Some were due to rowdy conditions, but several were just because of pilots making poor decisions. This is one of the latter stories from a first-time hike and fly competitor, Alejandro Barañac. We originally recorded this show as a bonus episode for subscribers, but the lesson here is so important we’re releasing it as a regular show. Alejandro touches on a number or great subjects, including fear injuries. Enjoy!
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UPDATE to this podcast: Cross Country magazine has just (July 2nd, 2025) broke an incredible story that Eliya Zemmour, featured in this episode has been regularly faking his flights on XContest, using other pilot’s flights as his own. As Cross Country wrote, it is both sad and shocking in equal measure. This remains an interesting and exciting show, but we have no idea what is truth and fiction…
Eliya Zemmour is an Isreali-born climber, endurance athlete, hike and fly guidebook author and…formerly incarcerated conman, but that’s another story to be told soon on the podcast! In this show we take a deep dive into his recent 228km flight from the southern tip of Israel past Jerusalem, which broke the country record. Flying in Israel isn’t without it’s difficulties (tricky borders, sea breeze, no fly zones) but for the adventurous conditions can be amazing and the scenery mind-blowing. Come along for the ride!
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Andrey Kuznetsov has been on the national sky diving team for many years, holds several world records and the genius record (100 way canopy formation record) and has been a long-time test pilot for reserves. He made the transition quite easily from sky diving to paragliding in 2009 and skipped the C class altogether as he found it too slow! He recently flew across Vermont and landed on the beach and owns AirQuest paragliding, a professional reserve packing and line-trimming company. In this episode we talk about his history of sky diving, the transition to XC paragliding, why SO many people don’t pack their reserve correctly, trimming gliders, why it matters and a lot more. There’s some terrific information here. Enjoy!
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If you like what you hear, please consider becoming a subscriber to ensure our high-quality content continues. You can also help contribute to a healthier, greener planet through our partnership with Our Forest.
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The toughest adventure race on Earth starts in a few hours! 32 athletes go head to head in a mind boggling journey by foot and by sky across the Alps for 12 days. I sat down with many of them- Aaron Durogati, Celine Lorenz, Damien Lacaze, James Elliot, Lenart Oblak, Logan Walters, Markus Anders, Nicola Donini, Tanguy Renoud-Goud, Tom De Dorlodot, Rich Binstead and Tommy Friedrich a day before the gun goes off to find out how they are feeling, what are their biggest concerns, thoughts on some of the new rules, the pinch points in the course, the weather and a lot more. This is an intimate look at what’s going on in the minds of the athletes in this year’s race. Enjoy!
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If you like what you hear, please consider becoming a subscriber to ensure our high-quality content continues. You can also help contribute to a healthier, greener planet through our partnership with Our Forest.
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Honza and Martin on glide, destination: who cares!
5 time Red Bull X-Alps pilot Honza Rejmanek and his son Martin return to the Cloudbase Mayhem this week to recount yet another incredible vol-biv tandem adventure in the Alps. Martin is now 14, and he and his dad have been tackling some pretty epic lines in the Alps since Martin was 8. In this episode they recount their 3rd attempt at hiking and flying from Annecy to Zermatt last summer and hooking into incredible weather which allowed for an amazing flight right up on the Matterhorn massif and then continuing well past their goal of Zermatt and carrying on all the way to Davos. This is inspiration on a magical level. You just can’t help but smile and dream listening to this father son legend duo. Enjoy!
Austrian pilot Philipp Zellner is a name XContest fanatics know well. Philipp is an acro ace and professional tandem pilot who spends his winters flying monster lines all over the world. We recorded this interview two days after he broke the FAI record in India with a monster 234km flight in the Himalayas, and then just hours later he broke it again with an even bigger 255km flight. In this episode we discuss Philipp’s zen for going big, being a professional pilot, the importance of having an acro background and acro training, vol biv, and just some good old fashioned storytelling in the highest mountains on Earth. Tuck in for some inspiration!
And Philipp is going to be guiding in and around Bir this next season. Ping him on info@tirolair.com if you’re interested!
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Your host getting a little spring action. Photo Matt Beechinor
This week we dive into spring with the current World Champion and long-time Ozone test pilot Russ Ogden and multiple US National Champion Nick Greece. Year after year we see accidents in free flight spike in spring. Spicy conditions, rusty skills, new unfamiliar gear, heightened stoke, another year behind us, lack of confidence… we explore the many things that might have an impact on why we see the spike and what you can do to make sure you’re not in the data set. Topics include:
Spring conditions in general- sharp, cold, boisterous, quick to change…forecasting?
How to “ease back in”. SIV?
New gear / wing choice. In Spring or after you’re tuned up? What about the new EN C 2-Liners? Are they a game changer or should people still treat them with a ton of respect?
Getting older each year- what should we be looking out for? Dexterity, reaction time, fragility…how to assess where we are NOW?
Getting in the right mindset- how to do it after a long break? How to know what our current “you” is?
Equipment – what should we review/ have in our kit? First aid, inReach, telegram groups, contacts…
Dude, this is brutal and I want to land- but it’s midday!
Taking on launches or landings that are demanding after a lay off for the winter- the need to tune up on the training hill or…?
The value of kiting practice
Hooking in- making sure you are connected to glider and leg straps are all buckled (ie the “4 points”)
Suitable conditions:
blow back, rotor, fronts, etc.
Crowded launch/landing conditions/peer pressure
Flying someplace new without getting an introduction with the local “tribal knowledge”
repack, rigging, accidental deployments, how to throw
Factors that lead to mistakes
rushing, peer pressure to fly, dehydration, distractions, interruptions during setup routine
We also take a look at what the statistics tell us (huge thanks to Chris Santacroce for compiling the data each year!) and the specific recommendations that come out of these reports.
Here’s a nice way to get tuned up this year, Nick Greece is guiding some really cool flying and culinary trips with renowned chef and master pilot Estefano Salgado. You can find their offerings at www.paraglidingguides.com.
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If you like what you hear, please consider becoming a subscriber to ensure our high-quality content continues. You can also help contribute to a healthier, greener planet through our partnership with Our Forest.
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