And cross-country flying interests me incredibly because you just encounter such beautiful landscapes, just like when you're climbing. And if I can, for example, fly somewhere for two or three days, autonomously, go climbing somewhere and then fly back, it doesn't get any better than that.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast.
Stories from the
paragliding universe.
Today with Fabian
Buhl and
Lucian Haas at the microphone. The
Allgäu native Fabian Buhl isn't a big name in the pure paragliding scene yet. But among mountaineers, Fabian already commands great respect despite his young age of 29. This is because he is considered one of the most talented boulderers, climbers, and mountaineers. He has already completed several of the world's most difficult multi-pitch climbing routes solo. Routes that hardly anyone else would dare to attempt. In February 2020, Fabian was on an expedition. In Patagonia, where he climbed Cerro Torre as part of a multi-person rope team, among other things. The Torre is a legendary spire in the wind-swept south of Argentina. Just below the icy summit, there is a small rock plateau.
Large enough to lay out a paraglider there. And that's exactly what Fabian did. After bivouacking at the summit, he took to the air during the windless morning hours and used his mountain glider for a round trip of about 15 minutes. Otherwise, the descent would have cost him nearly a day of rappelling and belaying on the rock. This time relation alone makes it clear why the paraglider is being increasingly discovered or rediscovered by mountaineers as a means of descent. Fabian is also really hooked on flying and is planning further expeditions in the future where he wants to combine climbing and flying. He talks about all of this in this episode of Podz-Glidz. Before we start, just a quick note.
The podcast, as well as my blog Lu-Glidz, are professional offerings, just freely available. But that doesn't mean I'm giving them away for free in principle. So, if you like what I'm offering here, I'd be happy to have your support for my work. As a supporter, you can choose your financial contribution freely. For those who are undecided, I recommend a non-binding guideline of one euro per podcast episode and two euros per reading month on Lu-Glidz. Payments are very easy and can be made via PayPal or bank transfer. You can find the relevant details on the Lu-Glidz website, specifically on the Support page.
Fabian, you've had an incredible career in climbing. But for a while now, you've also been flying a paraglider. How did you get into that?
Yeah, so I have climbing projects. Of course, for me, it started with bouldering, then moved to sport climbing, and then onto alpine. And at some point, when you grow up in Allbau, you always see how I fly the paraglider. And eventually, I thought to myself, yeah, somehow there must be some potential for using that in a meaningful way. And then I came across Manu Nübel pretty quickly, because he was also on the adidas team and because we knew each other a bit from Allbau. And I talked to him about it a bit.
And yeah, then this idea came up again, because the idea I went to him with back then was completely baseless, of course. He told me right away that it definitely wouldn't work because there are no thermals in winter, or in winter you can't fly into it the way I imagined. And then I lost sight of it for a bit. But then I came back from Pakistan. And then it was clear, I'm going to the USA. And then I absolutely wanted to go paragliding. And yeah, then... What time are we talking about? That was 2018.
That was in the autumn of 2018, exactly. Yeah, and then it happened pretty quickly, because my flight was actually in two days. Then I quickly organized the glider, took a few hours, and then I...
...to Idaho to fly. Am I understanding this correctly? You went to the USA for climbing and flying, but you haven't actually done a real paragliding course yet.
No. Well, my friends taught me—not Manu, but a friend of mine taught me—on a practice slope. And yeah, then we did a small flight on the same day. And then I went to the USA, exactly. And that was actually quite good, a very good area. And I was there with a friend we met from South Africa, who has been flying for a long time. With him, I learned a lot of the basics. And yeah, I actually did my first major flights in Idaho.
Recently, you've caused quite a stir in the climbing scene, but especially in the paragliding scene. You climbed Cerro Torre in Patagonia and then even flew down from up there. How did you come up with that idea?
Yeah, well, I obviously took the glider with me because since I started flying, I actually always hike up somewhere in the Alps, because it's also pretty good conditioning for mountaineering. And then, if you can fly down, it's just way cooler and especially quite time-efficient. Then you can usually hike up a second time.
And I took the glider with me to Patagonia, even though I knew, wow, it's so windy, there have been such good pilots there that I don't really think I'll be able to actually use the glider there. But I still had space in my luggage. Then I flew down. And I'd actually thought about meeting up with Colin Haley, an American who lives in Germany, to try out a lot of new routes together. Or we had a specific line in mind, which was the Torres south face. But the weather in January was extremely bad. And it was actually clear that he was going to climb with someone else in February. But I stayed for ten days longer because I actually wanted to do some solo climbing first.
But that didn't really work out. The weather window that came, just before my flight, was actually a bit bigger and a bit better than I'd originally thought. And that's when it became clear that it would probably be Rangni.
Rangni is a specific climbing route you can do there.
Rangni is that route, exactly. It's one of the classics, the king line of Cerro Torre, because of this complete ice-rime—rime is this special form of snow—where that ridge rises up. It's truly incredibly impressive. And of course, it's in every climber's dream; even if the route isn't extremely difficult, you absolutely want to climb it at least once. And yeah, we were the first team that year. And you have to climb the route again every year because you have to dig out those rime tunnels—those tunnels through the snow—and first knock the rime off the ice so that you can even get onto it. And that's quite time-consuming.
And I said, but if we go to Rangni, I don't want it to have been climbed by a hundred people in a perfect season; if I go to Rangni, I definitely want it in pristine conditions. So we put together a team of about three French people we met there. And then also Raphael Haug and Laura Tiefenthaler. So two Austrian, or rather German, girls who came along. Exactly.
Otherwise, you're often out on the mountain solo. Now you said that on Cerro Toro, you had a whole team climbing with you. Do you like climbing in a group?
For me, solo climbing already has an extreme appeal. I even briefly considered soloing Rangni. But if the route hasn't been done yet—it's only been climbed solo so far, in absolutely perfect conditions. And in those pristine conditions, you can't really secure the route because it's really, it's just consolidated snow. No ice tool holds there; you have to use wings, so like the wings are mounted on the ice tools that then go into the snow so they don't slip. And that's already quite specific. And as a team, I felt significantly, significantly more comfortable. But I also wanted a fairly large team, even though we only climbed in two teams of three. So that if one team, for example, two people now get sick or don't feel well, they can rappel and the others can still climb up.
Because of course, if for example two people abseil and the third one has to come down too because the two are abseiling, then there's only one set of ropes left for the others, right? We climbed quite independently of each other, which was also great because you're just faster. But I still had this backup in my head, in case something happens, then part of the group can still go higher and the other part can abseil, right? And also, because I took a glider with me in my backpack, I said I definitely want, if I fall, that there are definitely enough ropes up there in total, so that my partners or the others can get down safely at any time, because I didn't want to take any risks or anything.
And that's why I much preferred doing the stunt with other people.
Well, you were the only one who actually got off by flying. Were the others a bit jealous of that too?
Yeah, of course they were jealous, but I don't think anyone else flies, except for Raffaella, among those people. How long
did your flight
taken? So, I think I flew for about ten or twelve minutes or something, but on the Elmo—on the Elmo, I mean, on the Mocho, that's like, yeah, like this huge rock base in the Torre Valley, the wind was so steady there, you could have flown forever. So it was just really sorted there.
But you didn't stay there, you said, no, I have to get down now.
No, I stayed there for a bit, enjoyed the view for a while, and eventually, it just got pretty cold for me anyway. Yeah. Because I was flying in my thin gloves, and since the others were wet, I had to land at some point.
How long would you have been out there if you'd had to get down yourself, or how much longer did the others need to get down?
Yes, a whole day in total.
So, you did what they do in a day in 15 minutes? Yes. Now, you had to haul the paraglider along during the ascent, you said. How much does your flight gear weigh compared to the other equipment you have to take with you on an adventure like that?
So, for a normal ridge line, I wouldn't take that much gear, because of course you don't bivouac and all that, right? I mean, you could definitely climb the route within 10 hours, but as a team with gear, it takes longer, and then you have to take the sleeping bag, stove, food, all the crampons, ice tools, the screws, the gear, and then I also had my backpack, so my paraglider gear, with me. Overall, though, I managed to fit everything into a 45-liter backpack. So I think, if I had to say, I probably had about 10 kilos of gear in total, including clothes, food, gas, and everything, but that gets less and less as you go up.
and then, well
the glider, the Susi with the F-Flight, weighs about 2 kilos.
Patagonia is famous, and basically notorious, for its weird weather conditions. It can change incredibly fast, and on top of that, the winds are constantly raging. What kind of chances did you even calculate for actually being able to get off the ground there?
So, during the entire month and a half I was there, I tried it several times, flying from smaller mountains, and I flew twice. Both times were an absolute, absolute horror show; I swore to myself I'd never fly in Patagonia again, because if you—you have to imagine, it's always brutally windy and every valley has its own wind, and then whenever you fly out, there are these really intense turbulences, regardless of whether you're flying on the south or north side of Chalten,
but the weather was never good there, I mean it was never stable, it was just okay, but there was a lot of wind and I just tried to fly a bit because I was bored.
but for the weather window at Torre, after I saw it on the forecast, it was pretty clear to me that if I'm up there at the right time during this weather window, I'll have chances to fly, and that was also the reason why I didn't sleep under the summit and the last pitch under the summit, because the previous evening and the whole afternoon, the wall is incredibly thermally active and there are brutal winds up there,
but it was clear to me that we wouldn't have it at sunrise, and at sunrise I also got it via InReach from Rollo Garibotti that it's only somehow 3 to 10 knots, although from the front, in the wrong direction, but I thought that might still be launchable somehow and yeah, we were actually up really early before sunrise, I then inspected the launch site with a headlamp, it's not big, but it shielded the wind a bit because I couldn't launch into the wind side, that was too small, dropped off too sharply and then I thought, if the wind goes down reasonably during a break, then I can probably just
run into the lee to launch, right? And yeah, exactly, that was the plan.
Describe the starting conditions there; you weren't exactly on the summit, but a bit lower, as you just said.
Yeah, the summit is a snow mushroom that changes every year and it's meters high, but at the launch site, it's maybe a three-meter difference, only that the snow mushroom, right where the wind hits it, these rhyme tunnels form, and these mushrooms simply form annually through the wind circulation when the wet snow is slammed against the wall with really a lot of power and then solidifies there, and well, this year that plateau I started from is actually almost stationary every year, I mean it's been there since 1988, only the small summit point always moves around a bit.
But the plateau itself, that exists, it's actually well-known because you can get onto this summit field directly from the other route, the South East Bridge, so from the Compressor route. I'd already seen on many shots back then that it would probably become the start from there. How
Did you have much space there on that ice surface?
It's good enough for laying out; you can move around well there, and then I probably had about five to ten meters left to run, and then it gets steep. So in the video, you can see when I pull up the glider and then I run a bit and then I jump right in like that, and then it just drops off; you can't run anymore there, it's too steep and too icy. So I'd say now, from where you absolutely have to fly, it's 15 meters.
Did you have stage fright before the start? Or were you so focused that you didn't?
I spent the whole night wondering whether it would fly or not, because it was always so windy and then it even started snowing at night, so it wasn't really clear at all. But then in the morning it was great up there where they opened up, and I just wanted to start, and I also knew that, in principle, once I pull it up, I have to run out anyway,
because I'm definitely not going to try it a second time. So if I'd had a launch failure for some reason, I definitely wouldn't have started again.
The start, if you look at it in the video, wasn't really successful either. The glider is hanging quite far to the side and it doesn't actually start carrying until you really hit the steep part. What was going on there?
That's exactly what I described. That's also what many people criticized about the start. I also say that the start wasn't good because the left side stays much lower and the right side bends it back towards me afterwards. But that's because of the snow formation behind it. The glider was designed for a complete lay. I pulled it, let's say, straight ahead, but I had to start out in a curve because I had more time to run there. And the wind was also coming from that direction. I just wanted to get the glider up nicely and then in that direction, because then, of course, I lose less of a runway.
If I only get it up now, it somehow falls over me or something, and then it takes even longer until I've accelerated the glider enough for it to carry. And I already knew that if it's somewhat above me and I jump in, it'll fly. I've started the Susi in lay a few times already, and once it's fast enough and then gets loaded, it flies.
You saw the video of your launch afterwards, not just from your own perspective, but also from the back, since it was filmed from that angle.
I probably could have applied the brake a bit earlier.
You can see that too, the glider is really carrying it there, even though you're already in the steep part and probably couldn't have broken off at that point anyway.
No, no, of course not. What did you
what were you thinking then? Like, "oops" or "cool, that worked," or what kind of feelings do you have in hindsight?
I knew pretty quickly that it was quite tricky, because I actually might have had to brake the glider a bit first. But of course, I didn't want to, because I didn't know how strong the wind actually was over the glider, and if I brake too hard, it'll just fall over it again—or I just thought, in that moment it was already clear to me, it looks a bit flatter on video than it actually is. So it looks like it got really tight until I finally climbed away with the glider. In the original, it's already so steep that I already knew, I probably won't be able to hook into that now.
That means the hope was that the glider would definitely hold.
The glider is already flying, yeah.
Were you actually the first one who
were the first one to fly down from up there? No, back in 1988, the Pinn brothers already tried that. Did they start from the same spot? Same spot, exactly, because that's the plateau that's there. But they didn't—they climbed the route and then the weather was too bad and they rappelled down. And then the weather got good again and they got flown up by heli about three days later or something and then flew down. And I think two Swiss people also did that at some point. So, getting flown up by heli and then flying down. But
you're now the first one who really
...climbed up? Climbed up and then flown down. So, the whole thing, in terms of high-quality, high-end flying.
If you look a bit into the history of paragliding, paragliding was basically invented by mountaineers at the beginning as a kind of descent aid. And then over time, as the gliders got better and all that, it developed into a discipline that was much more about flying and not just about being a descent aid. But now, in recent years, it's noticeable that you hear more often that mountaineers are really using it more intensely again, and they're using these new light mountain gliders to basically rediscover them as a descent aid and a tool for themselves. Why do you think that is? Why is there this revival among mountaineers where they're saying, oh, we can take paragliding with us again?
I don't think it's just the mountaineers, generally, people are going out more and high-end flying is a cool way to go out. Or you go hiking and fly down somewhere. In mountaineering, more and more people are taking the glider with them as well.
But with heavier stuff, it gets difficult to carry something like that because of the weight. However, if it works out, it's brilliant because you save so much walking and rappelling, and you're much faster down the mountain. And being down the mountain is just insane. And I have a cross-country glider and I have a small mountain glider, the Susi. And honestly, yeah, I'm certainly not a great cross-country pilot, but I have more fun flying my Susi. Simply because the small F-Light, no rescue, the glider, it weighs nothing; I pull it up, sit in, fly down, and can still play around a bit and land at the bottom.
It's just insane; for me, it's an incredibly free feeling and an incredibly easy way to manage a descent. And it's fun. And not just a descent, but with such light gliders, like the Susi for example—it doesn't climb thermals—you can also cross some glaciers or things like that if you plan it right, which would be too dangerous or too much effort to hike.
Do you personally plan to do even more projects in the future where you actually combine climbing and mountaineering with paragliding?
Yes, definitely. I have several projects, well, more and more, because I want to do a lot anyway. Or do expeditions. And I have some ideas, but also in the Alps, where I'd like to push it a bit more, maybe just a lighter glider or a smaller glider, just to reduce the pack size. Because I believe you can do many, many things, many many cool things with it, but the glider certainly won't redefine hard alpinism, because alpinism is simply way too hard for that. The glider weight is just way too heavy. Even the Dudek is way too heavy.
Even if it only weighs one kilo, that would still be too heavy.
Yeah, but one kilo—if you swap everything out at the carabiner, taking the lightest carabiners just because they're two grams less or something, it all adds up. Then I can't just take a glider that's a kilo heavier. If I try to save weight everywhere, it's just so that by saving a kilo, I can move lighter and faster. That means I simply move less, I'm less exposed to, yeah, if it gets too warm, avalanches, or you're just faster, more efficient on the mountain when you're lighter. And that's just what counts in heavy alpinism or hard alpinism.
Well, you come from climbing, you've already done insanely difficult things on multi-pitch and solo—where everyone says, "That's way too big a risk, I'd never dare that," and I can't do it technically or otherwise. If you take flying in comparison to that, does flying instill some kind of respect in you, or is it someone who's hung on such steep faces, just on fingertips, who's fallen into the rope frequently and stuff, is that something where you'd say flying is actually kindergarten by comparison?
So flying with a glider, with an A-glider for example, I find completely safe because nothing major can really happen if you're in okay conditions. That much is, for me, flying inspires extreme respect, because of course I always want more and maybe I want too much too quickly and then end up in situations I don't like. So I have to be much more careful there, and then I don't find flying relaxed anymore when I end up in situations that I just absolutely don't like. But generally, if you start with paragliding and really aim to do hike and fly and only do a glider descent in the evening,
I think that's absolutely true; it's like sport climbing, I don't find that dangerous.
What's the most intense thing you've ever experienced with the paraglider, where you thought, wow, I barely made it through that, by some stroke of luck?
Yeah, in Patagonia, when I tried to fly with Susi in bad weather and had those ultra-turbulences—they normally don't happen, but I took one collapse after another.
But in the end, you landed high. Yeah, thank God.
To what extent do you actually benefit from your climbing experience as a paraglider, or maybe vice versa? Like, where do you say, I'm even getting something out of paragliding that could help me with climbing?
So, meteorology—I watch the weather constantly and I've done that on expeditions too, I really like that. But in paragliding, the way you do weather in paragliding, like what you have to watch out for or how detailed the forecasts are—not the forecasts themselves, but the details you pick out from the different models—that makes weather better for mountaineering for me too. And otherwise, I just find paragliding quite beautiful already,
especially the Hike & Fly part; since I've had a paraglider, I have much better endurance, like running endurance is much better, so that brings me a lot. Yes, but the two sports are already extremely different, and since I'm certainly not good at paragliding, I mustn't think that just because I do mountain sports and it also takes place in the mountains, I have the same level or that my considerations or assessments are made as lightly as in climbing. That's where paragliding is a bit dangerous for me, because of course I...
see from a different perspective and then just overlook a lot of things or simply don't know them.
Is good climbing weather actually always good paraglider weather too?
No, not at all. Because, for example, today was great for climbing, but the thermals were actually pretty bad. So, in reality, you want fairly unstable conditions for thermal flying, and in climbing, that instability often leads to more humidity, which makes it slippery—I'm talking about sport climbing, or sport climbing or bouldering. But in alpine climbing or alpinism, you know, in high mountains, I think flying weather is the same as climbing weather, because it's simply possible for the winch to be low, good weather, no clouds or just high clouds.
So I think, the more you look at weather patterns in alpinism, the more it's the same weather. Exactly. But if you only look at the pure difficulties of climbing, like sport climbing and bouldering, then I think the days when it's good for flying aren't the days when it's good for climbing, so where there's good friction. That
so for you, it's actually a stroke of luck, because you can say, wonderful, it's not in competition for me, because I can also say that with good weather for climbing, I don't have to go flying, or rather, I wouldn't... yeah
Actually, right now it is in competition, because I'm just pretty dependent on flying at the moment, or addicted, so I actually want to fly every day.
And because of that, I have less time—no, not less time, I do this as my main job, so I have plenty of time to go flying in the morning, then go climbing, and then go flying again or something like that.
If you look at this combination again, do you actually know the Frenchman Antoine Girard?
Yeah, of course, of course.
He is
already...
That is
mega impressive.
He flew over Broad Peak in the Himalayas with his paraglider and stuff like that, and he's also done some big projects in recent years where he said he wants to basically create a new
mountaineering discipline, and he calls it Fly and Climb, where he says, okay, I want to use the paraglider to actually get to the mountain and just do parts of the ascent with the paraglider and stuff like that. That
that's exactly what I want to do too. Two years ago, I hiked into the Jaugur Valley to Basecamp, and you just trudge there for seven days because you're not acclimatized and you constantly have to cross some glacier streams or glaciers. That's probably not even... on a good day, it's probably not even a day's flight to get behind it, and then you just sit in Basecamp and try to climb. But with a paraglider, you can definitely get over glacier falls to walls that you otherwise couldn't approach or that are way too demanding. Because you just can't get over the glacier fall on foot. So I think there's definitely potential for some really cool stuff in the future, if you're in the right place at the right time.
Is that just something that's interesting in the Himalayas, like with Antoine, or are there also routes and specific approaches in the Alps where you'd say this flying approach would also be great?
There are also routes in the Alps, just thinking of the Schuras, for example—the Schuras aren't an eternal hike, but you walk from the Mer de Glace, from the cable car, sure, you have to start walking the day before because then you sleep at the Lechauxhütte or under the wall, then you climb something and then you descend again. With his light glider, you could basically go up Aguidimidi, fly across, climb something on the Schuras, and then fly back down from the Schuras in the evening. So there is, there is an incredible, incredible amount of potential, and that's just one example, because of course someone has already done that. There are just many other examples in my head of where it makes sense to use it and what is significantly more effective.
Are there also more people in your circle of climbers who think in this direction and want to work more in this direction?
Yes, there are definitely people in my circle of friends who are very into alpinism and who also fly.
And they want to combine both of those? Yeah. How do you see your own future career in paragliding? Is it always going to be in this combination with alpinism, or would you say, no, I'm also so into flying in general that you'd say cross-country flying and stuff like that might interest me too, or is it
that? No, no, I want to learn to fly properly first, so that I can do that, yes, and cross-country flying interests me immensely because you just encounter incredibly beautiful landscapes, just like with climbing. And if I can, for example, fly somewhere for two or three days, autonomously, then go climbing somewhere and fly back, that's as good as it gets. But for that, I just have to—you have to be damn good at flying, because when I see what really good pilots do on cross-country routes or,
that's naturally very impressive to me, right? Because it makes it possible—you just have to spread out the map of the Alps and then the playground opens up. Theoretically, in the summer, you could fly to every mountain you want to climb.
Nice view. Now, you also make a living from your climbing. Yes, you have the sponsors who fund you. Is it also interesting for them if you say, I've also started paragliding, or do they say, no, better stick to your climbing routes?
Well, my sponsors give me complete freedom to do whatever I want. They really have my back. They're happy as long as I do my actions. But what I do or when I do it, I have total leeway. So for them, the action at Tore was of course cool. They all thought it was really cool and then posted and pushed it. But as for whether I climb some other hard route on a tough mountain now, that's not really their concern.
Right now, it's a bit difficult for you to make any progress with your paraglider career or whatever it is. We're still in the Corona lockdown. What does that actually mean for you as a professional climber? Did you already have to cancel a lot of projects for this year because of it? And how do you plan to reschedule things like that?
Well, after Patagonia, I just wanted to climb and get really fit again, because after an expedition like that, you have to build up some strength again. And then, whether the next expeditions happen or not, that naturally depends on Corona. But I'm pretty happy that I live in the Allgäu. There's already enough to do here. With Corona or without Corona. But as for flying, you...
At the moment, obviously not. Does your longing for the mountains or for flying change for you every day? Or for the next climbing route? Yes.
sure, I'd have the desire for cross-country flying or something like that right now, because the thermals were just so good. I mean, if you looked at the expression control, it was always amazing. And you can't just take off anywhere and fly off to somewhere. I do hope there will be some relaxations at some point. Because in principle, riding a motorcycle,
Kitesurfing, windsurfing, you're allowed to do those. Paragliding, you're not.
If you wanted to get a paraglider who doesn't climb, but is quite athletic, interested in climbing, what would be the best way to lure him in?
That depends entirely on whether he generally enjoys sport as such, or whether he does paragliding more for the sake of nature. If he does it more for nature, then light ridges—those light, long ridges in the Alps—because those are just incredibly awesome days, doing a nice ridge with a bit of climbing involved, moving through stunning nature. But if he enjoys the pure athletic challenge, then I'd just go to a bouldering gym, or a bouldering rock, and try to do some harder moves, because that's a brutally athletic, playful sport.
But you really can't compare mountaineering and pure climbing. You can't compare apples and oranges. They are two completely different sports with completely different physical demands. If I go mountaineering, for example, I'm definitely going to be extremely bad at pure climbing or pure multi-pitch climbing afterwards. However, if I only do sport climbing or only bouldering, then of course I'm also going to be extremely bad at pure alpinism, because that relies more on endurance, more on other things, on planning, whereas the other is more about pure strength and pushing your physical limits.
Well, you do both, and you're actually known for that. That means you're someone who truly masters the most diverse disciplines. How long do you need to basically switch from one to the other, or to rebuild your body, or whatever it is you have to do?
Yeah, that's not a bad way to put it, with the "rebuilding" part, because you naturally have to make sure you're shifting muscle mass from your legs to your upper body and also staying flexible—so with stretching, training, and stuff like that. So nowadays, depending on how difficult any given project is and how hard it was before or the time leading up to it, it's usually between one and two months. And that's also why I do this constant switching; I just don't want the break from one discipline to get too long, because otherwise, it gets harder to start again or, above all, to get back to such a high level. But that's also what makes it extremely interesting for me. That's what I like about it, this constant change.
And still, getting constantly better in every discipline.
But for paragliding, it doesn't matter what status you're in, like climber, mountaineer... Exactly,
flying is always possible.
Flying is always an option.
Exactly, yeah.
Okay, and if you have to get your climbing buddies excited about paragliding, what do you tell them?
That it's not dangerous and that it's fun to just fly down somewhere instead of having to hike down or rappel. Or that, for example, during acclimatization,
...not just going up to 5,500 or 6,000 meters in Peru and then walking back down, but you can stay up there longer and then just fly straight down to the café in Huaraz.
That's a 5,000-meter difference in altitude, right?
No, it's 2,500 after Huaraz, but still not bad. Good box. Have you
have you done that already?
No, I haven't had a glider for that yet. But those are things that go completely smoothly, and I can definitely use them to motivate others to get into paragliding, or I want to.
What would be your next big dream after Cerro Torre, where you'd like to combine both of them?
There's a lot, but just like with my climbing projects, I don't talk about it. For me, there are things—I don't have pressure from my sponsors, and I don't want to put pressure on myself by talking about some project in public that I only have in my head. I want to pursue it, I go there, and I train very hard for it, but I don't want the project to be known by anyone other than my partner. Simply to keep the pressure low, plain and simple.
Okay, then let's just leave the tension at this point as it is. Fabian, thank you for the conversation, thanks for these insights into the thought world of a paragliding climber or a climbing paraglider. Your focus is still mainly on climbing, but as it sounds, that could still shift even more towards flying in the coming years.
Yeah, I think it can shift that way, but that I fly as well as I climb, I don't think that's going to happen.
Other people just fly way too well, when I see what's being done out there.
But then the question is always what you consider good flying—whether you're just talking about the specific route being flown or something like that. There's probably that technical classification in climbing, which is also different to say whether someone can climb well or not, compared to flying, where you just say they fly well or not.
Yeah, when it comes to flying, the efficiency of a good pilot is just impressive.
But you have that massive efficiency when climbing. Fabian, thank you. Yes, thanks too. And yeah, I wish you all the best getting through this Corona time. May you be able to head out to the mountains more freely again soon and then fly back down again?
I hope so for all of us. Then we can get back out there again.
That was Fabian Buhl in conversation with Lucian Haas. If you want to learn more about Fabian's activities as a mountaineer and paraglider, you can find a series of further links in the show notes for this podcast episode on Lu-Glidz. This includes, among other things, a video showing Fabian's flight from Cerro Torre.
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