Red Bull X-Alps 2017

Here we go! Less than 24 hours until the race starts. I don’t have time for a proper blog post but just wanted to share the stoke from TEAM USA 1. When all the training is going down for months on end you never think the day will arrive. But now it finally has. The weather for day 1 looks pretty terrible but then things look to greatly improve. It’s the longest and by far the hardest course yet and I think this one is going to break some of the athletes and we’re going to see a lot of different and interesting routes and a lot of lead changes.

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Episode 37- The Groundhandling Podcast

Ground handling is the cornerstone of being a good, safe pilot. But of all the most important foundational building blocks you can practice it is often the most neglected. For many pilots “groundhandling” is pulling the wing up and getting off the hill. This is only the first step. Many of our listeners have asked for a specific ground handling episode and now here it is!

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Save the Date! North of Known coming to a Theatre near You!

I’m taking North of Known on a short film tour starting February 18th. Here are the tour dates and venues and links to the event pages on Facebook, which have the links to buy tickets in advance. I’ll give a little fun backstory to the film before we start (film length is 52 minutes), then a Q and A afterwards. The film premiered at the Banff Mountain Film Festival in November and just recently won “Best Documentary” at FLIC in Montana. I hope you’ll join me, I promise these will be fun evenings and I promise- the film and footage will blow you away! A portion of the proceeds at all of the events will benefit the Foundation for Free Flight. We expect all venues to sell out, so make sure to get tickets in advance.

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North of Known in Sidetracked Magazine

“…Then, your job is to wake up, eat, stay alive, make progress, don’t die. That’s when the world starts to become clear. I felt a real sense of place in Alaska. There were times when I knew for a fact that no person had ever set foot where I was. I had a real feeling of discovery – not like Christopher Columbus, just an incredible sense of being able to appreciate true wilderness.”

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Patagonia’s The Cleanest Line- Under the Midnight Sun (the Alaska Traverse)

“My muscles had adapted to the strain; my lungs were full of pure, clean air; my mind wasn’t clouded by frivolous responsibilities. I regaled in my one simple task, the task of staying alive.”

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The Rockies Traverse is LIVE!

The Rockies Traverse is now LIVE on Red Bull TV! If you’re looking for some pretty thrilling (and at time pretty scary!) inspiration settle in for the full Red Bull Media House film, shot and edited by ReelWaterProductions. Grab it on the big screen, the imagery is stunning. Will Gadd and I were awarded the “National Geographic Adventurers of the Year” for the expedition and it remains the longest connected paragliding expedition that has ever been done. Hope you enjoy!

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Episode 18- The “Inbetween Cast”- your questions answered

Questions include how to become a “professional paraglider”, bivvy and expedition tips, how to develop flatland flying skills, the importance of acro skills and ground handling, how to handle emergency situations, how to develop with limited time, how to break through from an “also ran” to a full fledged comp pilot and much more. Hope you enjoy and please let me know what you think!

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The Deep Line- Part I

The February issue of Hangliding and Paragliding just got delivered with a feature about my X-Alps experience (the first of a two-part series) which is actually an excerpt from a book about the race that has been delivered to my editor and we hope to have published by April of this year. I hope you enjoy it!

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Bivvy Flying- What’s on your back?

This post is a follow up to an earlier gear post I wrote about the kit Will Gadd and I carried on the Rockies Traverse, “the things we carried” and hopefully answers many questions I’ve been getting about what’s critical and what’s not. I actually haven’t changed much but it has been refined and I’ve been able to cut more than 10 pounds of weight which is considerable.

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