Gavin McClurg goes farther than anyone has off a mountain, breaking the world record in a wild 240 mile flight that takes 7 1/2 hours from Bald Mountain, Sun Valley deep into Montana near Helena, Montana. Here is the account on how it went down.
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It’s kind of hard to write this log knowing what happens on the day after this flight went down (wait wait, don’t fast forward yet!), but it was a magnificent day and deserves it’s own place in the Mayhem blog. Things looked…ok, but not great for a big flight. The wind looked once again right on the edge and given it’s July I thought things would be a bit hairy up in the sky. I was up the hill first, knowing we’ve got a short launch window on Baldy and I feel like we’ve been leaving a lot of distance on the table launching too late.
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After my last flight that ended up in a big OD (overdevelopment) Sun Valley has been flushed with serious wind. Beautiful for long mountain bike rides, swimming in the river, enjoying this insanely beautiful town, but totally shit for flying. The tandem boys have been jumping off the hill every morning and sneaking in some super nice evening flights, but going for distance in the daytime hasn’t been possible. I got to toss the new Niviuk F-Gravity around which was RAD, but this is XC season and I moved here first and foremost for the flying potential and going deep, so a little acro was nice- but I needed more.
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From Zurich I flew back across the pond to try my hand at my first Rat Race, an annual comp and fiesta held in Ruch, Oregon off Woodrat mountain by Mike and Gail Haley. This was the 11th year of the event and nearly all the best pilots in the US as well as global superstar Michael (Mickey) Sigel were in attendance. I flew to Portland, rented a car and drove to Redmond, Oregon where I found Nate Scales sitting on a bench outside the airport. He’d just driven in from Sun Valley with his motor home and had arrived about 3 minutes before I did.
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On Monday, the morning after our flight from Scuol we aired out Bruce’s reserve and got it packed back up and came up with a plan. Much of the eastern Alps were now looking possibly very good for Tuesday, even “Hammertag” good, depending on what forecast you were using. A big heat wave was moving in from North Africa which meant the air might be more stable, but with the summer solstice only a couple days away, we had very long days to work with.
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We had two super windy days after the Riederalp/Interlaken flight so I trained down to Verbier to pick up my bags, spent a night with Mike and Stu and celebrated with their graduating group of new pilots, who were all pretty thrilled with their new-found sky skills. Then the next day I carried on to Geneva to meet with Patrick Roser, the Swiss Niviuk dealer who had a couple very special presents for me- the new F-Gravity 2 acro wing, and the Peak 3 X-Alps (ie light weight version). I tried to control myself from just ripping open the bags right at the train station.
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I’m going to hell for my carbon footprint, of that I am sure. After our two days in Bassano and more rain in the forecast Bruce and I broke 8 straight nights of culinary extraordinaire at the Abbazia and headed for the Dolomites. Figured we might as well take some walks if we couldn’t fly.
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When Bruce and I got to launch on Monday at Bassano we were encouraged to have Nicole Fedele and Damiano Zanocco on launch. A good sign that we were in the right place on this most difficult of springs in Europe for finding decent weather. A lot more cloud was showing early, but things looked like they would work.
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Yesterday we finally got a chance. Bruce and I are about as hungry as you can get. And not for food, the Abazzia restaurant continues to blow our minds. Hungry for distance. It didn’t look like it would be a great day. Too much wind, too early over-development and rain. All of which were true, but maybe, just maybe we could squeak a chocolate (100 km flight).
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After one short flight in Fiesch and a continued blurry forecast we hit the road in the Niviuk mobile for the only place in Europe that held any promise- Bassano, Italy. Many people are saying this is the wettest (ie worst) spring in history. Whatever the case may be, it has been dismal. But the flying forecast was for two good, maybe even great cross country days.
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