Tag Archives: Valle de bravo

#201- Calef Letorney and Community, Confidence, and Cloudwhispering

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Calef Letorney was a professional paddler back in the early 2000’s who made the switch to flying and has never looked back. When you think of places to fly in the world you don’t often put the North East US on the list. There’s a lot of trees, cloudbase is low, weather if fickle. But that’s where Calef found himself after learning to fly in the Colorado Rockies and his desire to send meant the first thing that had to happen was to get good at flying, and it’s hard to get good without other good pilots to fly with, so he had to get others up to snuff as well. So Calef became an instructor, then an SIV instructor, then a guide…and the rest fell into place.

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Episode 184- A Walk (and Fly) down memory lane with Aaron Durogati

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We keep the absolutely nutty going this week with 5-time Red Bull X-Alps competitor, 2 X Superfinal champion, and winner of just about everything in our sport, Aaron Durogati. Aaron and I sat down in person on the final day of the Superfinal in Valle De Bravo in Mexico and he had me in stitches from the get-go. Aaron is a fantastic story-teller and his triumphs and beat-downs in the X-Alps are jaw dropping. Enjoy these incredible amazing tales from the edge!

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Episode 129- Piedrahita, Wild Stories, Accident hindsights and more with Steve Ham

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Steve Ham’s fascination with flying began with hang gliders in 1981, which subsequently ended any attempt at a serious career path. In 1991 Steve discovered Piedrahita in Spain and began a crusade to put the site on the world map for flying and competitions. During the 90’s Steve organized and ran some of the most memorable and successful comps of the decade, including 4 World Cups, the Europeans, the Hang Gliding World series and multiple national events.

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Episode 81- Damien Lacaze and Touching the Void

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During their six-week expedition to Pakistan this summer, Damien Lacaze and Antoine Girard traveled more than 1,500 kilometers in just 14 days of flight, making the second highest flight in the history of paragliding, bivouacked at more than 6,000 meters and attempted the ascent of Spantik, which rises to more than 7000 m. It was an adventure at the extreme boundaries of what is humanly possible.

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Two Flights, One Opinion- a Review of the Niviuk IcePeak 7 Pro

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I had only one day left in Colombia and the weather looked perfect. Jared Anderson and I and a bunch of other pilots headed up to a launch I’d never used. I unpacked the wing, and much to my amazement and many other curious pilots the first thing I noticed was the lack of lines. Only two A’s on each riser, only 6 lines in total. And the badger bars were MUCH higher than they had been on the 6. The higher aspect was evident in the wider, slimmer profile but it wasn’t until I got airborne (silly easy to launch by the way) that I noticed the absolutely tiny air inlets in the shark nose. You could see that the wing pressurizes instantly but must be incredibly efficient through the air as there must be little to no exchange of air.

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