Red Bull X-Alps and National Geographic Adventurers of the Year!

November 6, 2014 by Gavin McClurg

This may line up as one of the most exciting weeks of my life. The world premiere of our film, 500 Miles to Nowhere gets screened at the Banff Mountain Film Festival; Will Gadd and myself have been nominated as the National Geographic Adventurers of the Year for our Rocky Mountain Traverse; and last week the announcement that I’ve been waiting for months to hear finally came out. I’ve been chosen to compete in this year’s Red Bull X-Alps, lauded as the hardest adventure race on Earth.

The things we carried

September 11, 2014 by Gavin McClurg

Will Gadd and I just completed what we believe to be the longest connected track log that has ever been flown. About 650 kilometers across the Canadian Rockies to the US border. One rule: all forward progress was made in the air. Most of the line had never been flown. All up it took us 35 days to complete, with two long bouts of bad weather that shut us down completely for more than a week at a time. A great deal of media will be out shortly documenting the journey, that is not what this essay is all about. I’m still too frazzled, thrilled, shocked, and exhausted to put into words what the expedition meant. I haven’t even begun to look back and process the risks, the rewards, and ultimately what comes down to a lesson in humility.

Defining Adventure with Will Gadd across the Canadian Rockies

July 29, 2014 by Gavin McClurg

Vol Bivouac (fly camp) style adventures seem to be all the recent rage in this rather off-route, deeply addicting fringe sport that a friend recently pointed out quite eloquently as “ridiculous”. Flying plastic and strings hundreds of miles without an engine, everything needed to survive on your back. People keep going farther and farther.

Confessions D’un XC Junkie

April 28, 2014 by Gavin McClurg

The French Magazine Parapente just published a great feature about the record flight of 240 miles last summer from Bald Mountain, to Helena, Montana, shattering the North American Foot launch record on the Niviuk Peak 3. If you read French, let me know if it’s any good!

500 Miles to Nowhere – the Niviuk Edit

April 24, 2014 by Gavin McClurg

The Cloudbase Collective has just released the Niviuk version of 500 Miles to Nowhere. We’ve been working hard on the extended edit of 500 for the Film Festival Circuit in 2014 and thought we’d share some more footage from this incredible project with our friends at Niviuk. We hope you enjoy!

EXPERT: How to Avoid a Storm

January 11, 2014 by Gavin McClurg

A little shared knowledge of storm avoidance if you’re wandering around by sea or air, as featured on the Red Bull Adventure Channel. Check it out!

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

January 2, 2014 by Gavin McClurg

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!

The 5 most memorable flights of 2013- Red Bull Adventure

January 1, 2014 by Gavin McClurg

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.

An amazing year. A look back at 2013

December 30, 2013 by Gavin McClurg

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.