In any case, people would always come up to us and say, "Ruski, Ruski, Ruski," and I'd say, "No, I'm nothing, Ruski," and they'd say, "Germanski, Tedesco, and Germany, Bavaria, Munich, and so on," some kind of German words.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast. Stories from the cosmos of paragliding. Today with Robert Blum and Lucian Haas at the microphone. Robert
Blum from Oberstdorf has undertaken exciting hike-and-fly adventures time and again over the past few years. Together with his flying buddy Andi Egger, he flew along the High Atlas mountain range in Morocco in 2015. In 2017, they followed the high valleys of Nepal. The video documentaries of these trips on YouTube provide inspiring examples of what is possible with a paraglider as a means of transport. Robert and Andi's most recent major adventure took them to Greece in 2018, then to Georgia in the Caucasus. Once again, the two had planned a major film, but nothing came of it. The trip unfolded very differently than hoped, and Robert admits that in the end, he didn't know how to spin the ups and downs into a coherent thread for a longer documentary.
There is still a lot to tell, and Robert does that in this episode of Podz-Glidz. It's about, among other things, how surprises provide the spice of paragliding and adventure, how to find your way out of inevitable low points, how to travel through countries where you don't understand the language at all, and how to deal with the stress of being in unknown regions without cell service across completely unnavigable terrain. Amidst all of this, a lot of background information on hike and fly is also discussed. I talk to Robert about equipment, meteorology, the pros and cons of flying in a team, and tips for getting started in what is perhaps the most fascinating variant of paragliding.
By the way, this episode of Podz-Glidz, as well as the entire podcast and the associated blog Lu-Glidz, only exists thanks to the listeners and readers who already support me financially for this project. Maybe you'd like to become a Lu-Glidz supporter too, so that you can continue to hear new stories from the cosmos of paragliding and read the most interesting news from the paragliding scene. As a supporter, you can choose your contribution freely. For those who are undecided, I recommend a non-binding guideline of one euro per podcast episode and 2 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.
Robert, what is a fulfilling flight for you?
Oh, there are many answers to that. Fulfilling flights are actually the ones that are unexpected, I'd say. Because often, you just do a short glide in shorts, and then the thermals carry you somewhere. And whether it's 20 minutes or 50 minutes, arriving at the base freezing cold—that unexpected element is what I find incredibly great. It's also what constantly surprises me while flying. It could also be new terrain somewhere.
Now, you're a very experienced pilot, you've been flying since 1986 and so on. How often does it still happen that you experience real surprises during a flight?
Oh, yes, every now and then. Just a few days ago, when we were allowed to fly again, it was exactly the situation I just described. Short pants, I just wanted to fly down for a bit, do a quick little glider flight in the evening. And it tossed me up like a cork all the way to the base. And I landed half an hour later with a huge grin. Something like that is just unexpectedly beautiful. If
you were already at the base, why did you land after only half an hour? Because you were too cold?
Yeah, because I had shorts and a T-shirt, because actually only a small glide, a fast glide was planned and very light equipment with me. Just basically fly down quickly, move around a bit, and yeah, of course, not attract any attention here regarding Corona. And I still think it's quite good when you keep the whole thing a bit quiet and don't see many planes in the sky. And you don't have to worry about it.
That was the fulfilling flight. What is a fulfilling adventure to you?
Yes, adventures. There are so many adventures, many of which I've already had. But they're basically all those situations that you experience for the first time and have to navigate through, that you simply have to handle. And it doesn't necessarily have to be an adventure in a foreign country; it can just be an adventure here with a situation you've never had before.
The wind situation, the cloud situation, a thunderstorm, or the fact that you actually handle it well and come out of it okay. For me, those are adventures. Then there's the other thing, which is obviously a trip. That's a completely different experience, a different kind of adventure.
Was your hike-and-fly trip to the Caucasus in 2018 a particularly fulfilling adventure?
Yeah, the Caucasus trip was completely different from how we had imagined it. I always wanted to make a film out of it, but it was so difficult that I didn't manage to do it at all. Because the title would actually have been A Tour with Obstacles. Our other tours we did were quite simple, from point A to B with certain difficulties in between, just the normal flying life. No water, this and that. But the structure for the Caucasus was actually also planned as flying from A to B. But due to the weather, due to the wind, political situations, all sorts of factors, we had to change everything multiple times.
And the entire tour planning just collapsed. And we just made the best of it. We went flying whenever it was possible. That was actually mostly due to the weather. It was very difficult there.
Let's start a bit from the beginning, because it might be nice to recap it a little. But how did you originally get the idea to go to the Caucasus and fly there in the first place? Oh,
I have to think about that for a second. That was a very, very long time ago. And I had contact back then, I think even with Boxi, as early as 2013 or something. My bivouacs started around 2009, 2010. And at some point I thought, well, you could actually travel with a paraglider too. And since I had been to the Caucasus as a young guy and the whole mountain range, the people, everything fascinated me so much, I thought, yeah, you could actually travel from A to B there somehow. I think that was with Boxi, when I spoke to him on the phone back then. And he already had the idea of going through the Caucasus back then too.
But we both agreed that because of the political situation—it was 2008, there was that conflict in South Ossetia with Russia—it was all so politically and militarily tense that we said there was simply no way to go there at the moment. And then in 2018 or 2017, towards the end, we briefly revisited the whole idea and tried to make some contacts. And everything went better. We received the information. But it wasn't an entry through Russia. It was only Georgia and Azerbaijan. Everything else is just politically difficult there.
And then we said, okay, let's give it a try. It was a very beautiful trip.
You said you had a plan to go from A to B. In this case, what was planned as A and what was planned as B regarding the Caucasus?
Yeah, the original idea was always to fly from Sochi to Bako. That's a pretty long stretch, right through Russia. Then, in the middle of the Caucasus, make the switch from the northern side to the Georgian southern side. Then along the southern side in Georgia towards Azerbaijan and the rest as far as possible, because the mountains eventually flatten out and I think it gets harder and harder to get to Bako and fly back home from there. Yeah, but there was no way at all to fly somehow in Russia. We tried making contacts for about three-quarters of a year. Like, reaching out via Facebook, via email, via phone, via Facebook.
We made an insane amount of contacts with local pilots and stuff like that. And they all called us crazy and advised us against it.
Because of the political situation or the aviation situation?
No, because of the political situation, because apparently there's a post in every valley up there at 2,000 meters or something. And there's a lot of control over what's being done there. And that's just a trip, I'd say, that's inherently always a big physical risk and has a certain stress factor as well. You don't see the suffering in all the reports, you only ever see the beautiful things. What's coming at you when the whole thing is now also military, political, and all that—that's an additional stress factor. I don't need that and I don't want it. And that's why things like that are already ruled out for me from the start.
That means the part with Russia was ruled out. But then you still went there anyway and still had a plan, even if it was a bit smaller now. What was in that smaller plan, so, starting point A and destination B?
Yeah, first the plan was to fly from Baku, so from the east, from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea. Then we dealt with the weather. Somehow that was my mistake, I have to say, because I said, okay, I want to fly from west to east now, because I think the weather situation down there is actually more of a westerly wind situation. But now there are two or three different wind-weather systems down there. Up to 3,500 meters, you have roughly a very strong easterly, and above that, you have the westerly. Once you're above it, the wind pushes you, but you're often not that high up. And that's of course the big problem, that you're very challenged by the way you have to fly.
But to go back again. The plan was to fly from the west, from Georgia, from the pretty western part of Mestja to Baku. And all of South Ossetia—that makes like a bulge into Georgia, like a bump down to the south—we just had to bypass that, drive around it by bus, go back into the mountains, and fly on from there. The first part actually worked quite well. We flew to Mestja by paraglider and then on from there; we drove around the South Ossetia part to Tbilisi, had to wait out some bad weather there too, and talked to the local pilots about the wind and weather.
And then the whole thing started, with us having so much bad weather, constant thunderstorms, and a lot of wind inside, that we actually flew out with the local pilots. We went out to fly and realized, oops, we really have to go from east to west. We tried that, but it didn't work out. It got humid again, we had to do a lot of walking again and everything, and then we sat in Tbilisi for a few more days because we just had bad luck with the weather. Then we tried it again, the same route from the east once more, got back to about the same point, and realized, yeah, it just doesn't work with the weather the way we imagined it.
Then let's make the best of it, let's go flying, let's explore the landscape, the area, the people, and that's more or less what we did.
When you put so much into the preparation, thinking it through and all that, and then you get there and realize the weather just isn't playing into your cards the way you'd hoped. Are you in those situations? No,
Because we're both pilots, and flying lives in those split-second moments. Left, right, left, right, up, over there, or something like that. You have to make decisions lightning-fast, and if you can't—if it's crystal clear—then you have to analyze, weigh things up, make a decision, and then look ahead. And I'm the type of guy who does everything very analytically, who lays out a plan, but in the same way, if the plan isn't working, even in cross-country flying, you just rethink, improvise, and make the best of it.
You say you both... that was Andi Egger, who you're always out with. You were also there before, in 2015 you were in the High Atlas in Morocco, in 2017 you were in Nepal, and so on. Does he have a very similar mindset to yours or do you complement each other? Because you're perhaps the more preparatory, logical, head-driven person, and he's the one who does it by gut feeling?
Yeah, you could say it's something like that, but not quite. I mean, we have a very similar way of thinking, especially regarding flying, to put it in the terms you just used. I'm perhaps the one who always plans the structure and the route, the one who likes to fly a bit ahead, and Andi helps me more with the thermals, so we complement each other. As pilots, it's actually very optimal. Our flying style is very defensive anyway, because it's not about the maximum number of kilometers, but simply about making progress or maybe seeing something somewhere, landing, taking a look, and so we really get through good or difficult situations very well.
So you're saying you have slightly different flying styles, even though you fly together a lot. When you're that different, how do you manage to stay together on these routes? It always stands out, even when watching your videos—you often land at almost the exact same spot, like ten meters apart or something. How do you manage to fly together like that, especially in such difficult terrain that you don't know?
Yeah, we just fly very, very close to each other. And when there are situations like in the Caucasus, where the base was very low, yeah. We both often had to fly into the clouds and then continue in one direction. Often it was like one person flew 15 degrees more to the left, while the other flew 15 degrees or straight ahead. After three kilometers, you're so far apart in the clouds or under the clouds that you can't see each other anymore; you can hardly find each other in the area. That's a bit of a problem. But if you have a line you want to fly, you know it goes along the ridge, then you'll meet up again. And you're not half an hour apart, which is a huge distance in flying, but only a few minutes.
And if you look around and stay alert, you'll find each other again. But flying specifically, in itself, is very close for us. Together in the thermals. We always have an amazing time when we fly wing to wing up in the thermals. And we also communicate a lot, a lot in the thermals. Until we get up to the ridge, if there is one, information is passed on: where is it going? What's there? What do you think? A lot, a lot is communicated about the next path or the next valley crossing that's coming up.
When you say "communicating," do you really mean talking to each other, like basically shouting? What do you mean by that? And now, straight ahead back there? Yeah, where to?
Where to? No idea.
Yeah, the usual, yeah.
Did you have radios with you for the cases where you might actually get lost? Or would you say, okay, in the cloud, one of you might have flown off somewhere else for maybe three minutes. But then you would have really lost each other quickly.
So we don't have radios with us, because that's also a weight issue. You also have to recharge radios, which costs energy. And we had radios for the very first time in Morocco, we had these really small radio devices with us. But they were never used because the communication while flying close together was sufficient. And we were also in a situation where we were actually always together and never really apart. That you would have had to search for each other, that you would have really desperately said, hey, where are you? Give me some kind of hint or a sign. So you never really got lost, in a way? Yeah, not completely.
We actually got lost once, but then we made visual contact again. And that was once in Morocco, Andi got over a ridge. I didn't make it over. I had to fly back and build up again, very low. And I knew Andi had flown on. The direction was clear. So it was logical, he'd either land somewhere or park and wait for me. And I did my best, tried to fly after him as fast as possible. And he parked somewhere on a mountain, sorted things out, and waited until I arrived. And then we continued together.
Did you set that as a rule too, like always staying together? And what would happen if one of you were to crash—you could land perfectly at the top and Andi, or it could be the other way around, but in any case, one of you lands down in the valley and you know they'll need at least three hours to hike back up here. Would you wait up there, or would you say, no, we're a team, I'm flying down too and we'll trudge all that gear back up together?
Yeah, that's a balancing act. So we do have strict rules, which say we land together, always. For three hours, I'd probably climb for three hours now. You can't really compare that to an Alpine ascent. A three-hour climb with 25 kilos of bivouac gear, plus water and food, that's a tough number. And in that case, it's already good if you're just the two of you. I'd fly down then if I know, okay, that's half an hour or something. And he knows exactly where I am, no questions asked. He sees me. I'd leave the glider up there so he can see the path is clear.
Then I might not fly down. But normally, the agreement is that we fly together and land together. And we also always had some kind of emergency plans agreed upon beforehand, before we started. What if something goes wrong? What do we do then? Where do we fly? Where do we land? What can we do? Where do we meet? We always discussed these things individually again and again.
When you look at your videos, even just small clips from the Caucasus that you've been posting on your Facebook page over the last few days, you can see that you're sometimes flying over areas where you see a long valley, and below it are actually just very narrow gorges. A little river or a creek, a small stream flowing through the bottom, and otherwise just forest on the flanks. You can't really land there at all. If you get caught out there, you're basically screwed, in a way. How do you handle those situations when you're flying in terrain where you know you actually have to stay up here? What do you do with that—it's stressful too—so how do you handle those kinds of situations?
Yeah, that is a lot of stress. But you start up somewhere and you notice how the day is developing. And with the kind of long flight experience that Andi and I have, we can actually assess and manage the day relatively well. When things are going well, we just fly over such areas pretty casually because we simply know, okay, we can do this, we'll get through it somehow, it's not too difficult. Of course, on the difficult days—which we also had in the Caucasus, where we struggled a lot with sinking—it naturally gets a bit more stressful, also because the situation often arises where one person is low and the other is high.
I'd say Andi could have kept flying for a long time, but he has to wait for Robot because he's just stuck in a construction zone. By the time Robot is back up, Andi has lost the thermals and is low again. Now Robot has to wait again. Until Andi is up, until they can both fly to the next ridge or over the valley together. Those are the kinds of problems that actually arise when flying together. But again, regarding the forested areas and such—the Caucasus is relatively forest-free in the structure up top. Then there's a very, very large forest belt, and below that, it becomes flat and clear again.
With a good paraglider and good technique, if you don't wait too long, you can certainly get over that entire forest belt somehow. But then you're standing way, way down in the valley and have to climb back up a miserable distance, usually 1,500 or 2,000 meters of altitude. And that's, of course, a hell of a lot of work. That causes more stress.
Let's just briefly move away from the Caucasus example. 2017 Nepal. In one of the films you made there, there are scenes where you landed deep down and then had to, I believe, fight your way through some kind of bamboo forest for hours just to get back up, basically. Are those the kinds of situations where you're actually just cursing because you landed down there?
Yeah. Well, by the time we were through the bamboo forest, we were in good spirits again. But the day before, when I landed down there, I felt really terrible. My nerves were shot, I was dehydrated from the altitude, and all that. I told Andi when he arrived down there, I said, Andi, I just want to get to the Caribbean now. I don't want any more of this shit.
Yeah. But then of course it's good when you have a partner who takes you in their arms and says, "Ah, look, it's not that bad, let's just eat something and drink something first, and then we'll see." And Andi, he's such a cheerful person, he's always so optimistic and all that. And I always find that really great—everyone has a low point somewhere in nature, in an adventure like this, and then Andi is there to pick you up again.
And on the other hand, I admire it incredibly, how people like Platsch or the Frenchman who flew across the entire Himalayas, or Boxi, who do something like that alone. I'm absolutely not the type to pull that off by myself.
That means flying as a pair is simply... you can be each other's support.
You can support each other, you can be a moral support for one another. There's also that communication in the evening. We were in the Himalayas in November. In Nepal, it gets dark at 6 o'clock and at 6 o'clock or half past 6 in the morning, you have 12, 13 hours of night. That's a long time. What do you do then? You can't do much, you still have to cook a bit, drink, and then you have to lie down. But even in that short amount of time, you can still exchange thoughts with someone. You can talk about routes or about experiences, about obstacles or what you just saw, about eagles, death and the devil, or about the glider. For me, it's simply an important factor, just being able to share that with another person.
You do those, at least the big tours, always with Andi. So there are two of you. But sometimes you do other tours too. I've seen that as well, where there are several of you, so you're out there in even larger numbers. How much harder is it to do these hike-and-flight tours when you go beyond, so to speak, the number two?
It gets harder and harder. I can't say exactly how much harder it gets. That depends on the pilots, of course. But it's like a pack of kids. You can manage two kids much more easily than a pack of ten. It's the same with flying. Everyone has their own issues somewhere, their own problems, or they don't fly as fast, or they're afraid of the clouds like I am, for example. I really don't like flying into clouds. One person flies in and is just gone. And the whole thing becomes incredibly decentralized. And you can manage the whole thing. We did such a great bivouac tour here from Lake Constance to Königssee, eight of us; if you agree on firm rules, firm meeting points, and are simply tolerant, wait for each other, and then fly together.
Then it works. But a big tour like in the Caucasus, where it's really extreme and depends a lot on flying skills and high-pressure situations with landings, I don't want to do that with three people anymore. Not at all.
You've just jumped back into the Caucasus theme. That works perfectly for me. Let's really take another look at this Caucasus tour. You mentioned earlier that one of your lowest moments was in Nepal, where you were just... you know, where you were completely done from the altitude and dehydrated and all that. Then you were down at the bottom and just didn't feel like it anymore. What was your lowest moment that you experienced there in the Caucasus?
My lowest point in the Caucasus?
Oh, there weren't actually many deep moments. They were all actually exciting, beautiful moments.
I have to say, there wasn't much negative about it.
Once, we had a very big, let's say, scary situation. You could maybe take that as a negative event—having to fly into the lee, the insane rattling, and the fact that we were just scared. But otherwise, it was a great trip. Not as planned, but it had everything that comes with traveling. From difficulties to beautiful things, funny moments, contact with people, and so on.
Is there a moment where you'd say, that was the biggest highlight or the most fulfilling for you? Because you always say that the most surprising thing is also the most fulfilling for you. Where was it, while you were traveling in the Caucasus, where you thought, wow, I want to be right here right now?
The most surprising moment was actually on the last day, when we were unexpectedly shot through by an inversion layer up to 4,000 meters, way, way above everything, above the clouds on the other side. There were two different weather systems in that region, and we then glided out towards the lowlands. And for both of us, it was already clear that this would be our last day. And it was an incredible day. A really great happy flight from way up high, far above the main ridge of the Caucasus, still 1,000 meters above it, out into the lowlands to fly, just to let it wind down, to land in a village, to eat, to drink, and just to wrap the thing up.
That was actually the mega happy moment we both just went along with without saying anything. Even though we were nowhere near finished with the itinerary we had actually planned.
That's interesting, because in Nepal you had a similar experience where, I think, during your last flight you also had great conditions and got to fly really beautifully again. Is that maybe part of the adventure, where at the end you're basically presented with a "lure" and told, yeah, even if it didn't quite work out this time, you definitely can or should come back to fly again? Would that be an option for you, to say, Caucasus, I'll definitely see you again?
Yes, definitely. It's a truly wonderful region. The people are incredibly nice and friendly. Even if flying isn't as easy as we imagined or as easy as in the Alps. But it's definitely worth the trip, and for me, I'm not just a paraglider, I also love going on ski touring, climbing, and other mountain sports. What would still appeal to me very, very much about the Caucasus would be the skiing and ski touring. So I can already imagine going down there sometime in the next few years and doing something like a multi-day undertaking.
You just said they're incredibly friendly people and all that. How did you even communicate with them? I mean, you probably don't speak Georgian or Russian, do you?
Since you just mentioned Russian, I'd like to briefly tell a little story about that. Sure. There's a video, it's on Facebook too, where we're chatting with a shepherd. We're just chatting back and forth, and we've seen several shepherds, and whenever you land somewhere, they crawl out of every corner or climb up for an hour, and then one of them stands there and greets them. It's not as deserted as it is now in Nepal or in Morocco. In any case, the people would always come over and say to us, Russki, Russki, Russki. No, I'm not. Russki, germanski, tedesco, and Deutschland, Bayern, München, and so on.
Some German words. In any case. At some point I noticed that everyone thinks we're Russians. And it only took a very long time for me to realize why. Our gear was like this. Russki, you have to look at the colors. They have exactly the Russian colors.
Red, white, and bluish-green.
Blue, yeah. Bluish or something, turquoise, I guess. And I think people thought, based on the colors, Russia—they all know the Russian flag, of course, so Russians are coming. But that was never a problem. Now I've lost the thread of your question, sorry. The
The question was how you managed to communicate at all, because I assume that neither of you speaks Russian or Georgian. And probably these shepherds and everyone else, very few of them speak English or German either.
Yeah, none of us can speak the other language. But it's quite amazing—we experienced this in Morocco and Nepal too—how you can have a good conversation with some people even though neither of you speaks the other's language. You understand each other with hands and feet. And then there are people with whom you obviously can't talk at all. They aren't really willing to communicate anything or anything like that. But with those shepherds we met up there, it was actually always very nice small talk and conversation, especially in that one hut where we also got a little something to drink. The shepherd kept pouring for us, and he really warmed up.
And he spoke with us. Yes, things like asking for directions are always difficult, of course. But you can somehow gesture, up and down. That's clear, every human understands that. The basics, like food and drink, everyone understands those too.
Is paragliding also so common in Georgia that people know what you guys do? Or do you kind of float in as these weird gods, Russian gods, where people say, who knows what kind of strange gear they have?
Yeah, that's hard to judge. Well, I do think they know about paragliders. Because people do fly in Georgia, of course not as many routes as we do. But one or another will have flown past there at least once. In Gudauri, there are also very many tandem pilots.
And it's certainly not completely unknown.
Let's talk a bit about the gear you took with you. For one thing, you just said you were using an XI as your glider. So it's an ENB. I believe on other adventures you had, I think, higher-rated gliders, like ENC gliders or something, if I remember correctly. Was there a reason why you chose the XI, the B-glider, for this tour? And was that the right decision?
So we actually decided based on Art Wars. They provided it for us. It had just come out of production, fresh on the market. We were able to fly it once before and said, well, it doesn't really come down to glider performance or speed. On the previous tours in Nepal, I flew an Omega, and in Morocco, I flew a C-glider, a Skyman. But what's really good is if Andi and I have the same gliders, if there's no difference in performance, then flying together is just a bit more homogeneous. And Art Wars provided us with those two gliders.
Also, when you're doing a bivouac tour, you're carrying 20 kilos plus. And my glider, my home glider that I fly at home, would be totally overloaded. That
means you had a size that had the corresponding amount of air going up.
Yes, that's right. And that means you have simpler launch characteristics and better landing properties at altitude. That makes a big difference. And of course, an ENB—well, a brand-new ENB that's just hitting the market—it's probably flown even better than the C-glider I flew back in 2015. And it's not about the top speed, it's just about staying up and covering distance.
From the experience you've gained with it,
If you were allowed to decide completely freely right now, and you said you wanted to do a tour somewhere next and could choose any glider you wanted—even a tour that's demanding in terms of terrain, takeoff, and landing, like in the Caucasus or Nepal—would that be something where you'd say a B-glider actually fits quite well? Or would it be better to have a bit more performance and say, then maybe I'll put up with the slightly more difficult takeoff behavior of another glider or something like that?
Well, actually, a tour was planned again in the autumn of 2020. Due to the whole Corona situation, that all fell through. And Advos provided us with two XIs again. And I'm actually very happy with the glider. I did fly in the ENB in Nepal, but I also see how Anton Girard or many others fly around with the Xeno in Birbilling in the Himalayas or something like that. Yeah, it's all fine. But I'd say, in the way I move, I don't need that. And I just have one less stress factor, because there are already plenty of factors that are stressful enough.
And it's also a safety factor. From that perspective, I fully stand by a high-level B glider. It's completely sufficient.
If you say you're carrying 25 kilos of gear, what size glider do you choose for a tour like that? Are you really loaded at the very top of that glider's weight range? Or do you choose it so that you say, okay, with 25 kilos, I still want it to be somewhat capable in weak thermals, I still need to be able to crawl along the mountain somewhere, so I'd rather choose it so that with the 25 kilos, I only put it at, like, somewhere in the middle of the weight limit accordingly.
No, that would be seriously overloaded. I mean, in those cases, you're often carrying an extra 5 or 10 kilos right off the bat.
Even though that's already the larger glider you normally fly. Normally, I have a glider for up to 100 kilos, 100 kilos starting weight. I weigh 85 kilos myself, I'm pretty big and heavy. And then with 25 kilos extra. Well, you don't always have exactly 25 kilos, but the basic equipment weighs 17 kilos. Then at the start of the tour, you have a minimum of 2.5 kilos of food with you. More like 3 kilos. Then we're already at 20. And over the course of the day, you need a minimum of 3 liters, better 5 liters of water. Then you're at 23 to 25 kilos. And if you climb up somewhere now, you've already drunk some water, so you're already lighter again.
But all that really adds up quite a bit.
And did you put your gear together so that if you fly as a pair, basically everyone carries their own stuff and has their own tent and so on, so that if it ever happened that one landed down and the other stayed up, and you really got separated, you could still manage without each other? Or are you really dependent on one another? Like, one has the stove, the other the food, the next the tent, the next the sleeping pads, or whatever?
Yeah, it's pretty much like that. We depend on each other. One has the tent, the other has the stove. And we also have strict agreements. If one person goes down, the other just has to go down with them and land together at the bottom. So we always land together because we also share things, like the food. Everyone has some food with them, but because of the packing or the weight, some is in one, the other in the other. We try to split it optimally, but use everything together.
What other flight electronics or navigation technology do you have with you?
We actually have our little Skytrax 2.0. The old one proved itself very well because it's light and has a long battery life. We've pre-programmed waypoints into it that we try to stick to, depending on the wind and weather. If it's not possible, then it's just not possible. That's how we do all the navigation, and everything else is discussed and decided during the flight.
The other piece of electronics is actually the phone, but that's not for the flight,
...is actually only used for photography. Or as a safety backup. Then a GoPro, a solar pad, and a power bank. How
How big is it? What do you have to bring along to make sure you can always keep the gear properly charged while on the road?
So we're already very frugal with charging and energy. Oh, right. We also have a Garmin with us, of course.
InReach satellite messengers. And the new ones have the function, so we also do without radio; with the new ones, you can send text messages via satellite. That means if one person is standing on the right side of the valley and the other on the other side, you can communicate via SMS. So, in that case, radio wouldn't work at all if the mountain is in between. But via satellite, you can still communicate and exchange simple text messages. That's also included. To your question, we get by with a 5000 mAh power bank. That's enough. If someone has a 5000er with them, it's just barely enough.
The rest can be charged with solar.
And do you also have that—do you always have the solar panel buckled onto your harness during the flight?
No, we have both devices on, but I've noticed that it doesn't charge very well while flying. It's much more effective if you just put it in the sun for an hour in the evening or in the morning. We don't start until noon anyway. Or on the backpack, if you have to walk, when you put it on top of the backpack. That's been much more effective than while flying. That's why we've actually almost never had it out while flying. Everything dangles around during the takeoff and then flutters. Yeah, very unpleasant.
Do you manage to fit all that gear in? I believe you're also flying with Advanced -Liegelgurtzeugen, if I saw that correctly. Do you get all those 25 kilos in there? Okay, the glider is out and so on. But do you manage to pack it all in there, or do you have some additional bags hanging off it or that you use in some other way?
Yes, basically everything that's a protector comes out of the harness. Including the thin back protector. And that creates quite a bit of storage space. The Leibniz is also in the back and has relatively large storage space. You can fit a lot in there. But not everything. We usually still have one or two, let's say, 15 to 20-liter bags hanging on a cord that we clip to the carabiners for takeoff and then, during takeoff or once we're up, just put into the leg bag. Then the secured items are in the leg bag, they don't dangle around anymore, and with those two things, we actually manage just fine.
And what's in there? Very light stuff, like some food items or something? Or is there also 2 liters of water on each side or something?
Well, the water is all in the Camelbag at the back, because you have to fly for over 6 or 7 hours, you have to drink something. There are usually lighter things in there, bulky items like a sleeping pad or something, or clothes that aren't that heavy but might take up some volume.
Well, when you have that much luggage, it's a bit different to fly and also different to land. Especially when you're out in very high mountains, where you're already moving faster anyway, and then you have another 20 kilos more than usual and so on—do you prepare for that somehow in advance? Do you practice it? Do you actually fly with more ballast to say, we need to learn how to land accordingly on the slope up there so we don't just bomb it?
Well, we don't really train for that. We do the odd bivouac here throughout the year, but we don't carry as much weight or equipment here. And we don't have the altitude either. But take Nepal as an example: on the first day, if you land on three and a half, you notice, "Whoops, I'm landing poorly." And that's simply a matter of awareness, where you have to say before starting, "Hey Robert, watch out, landing doesn't work the same way as at home." You have to keep in mind that you simply land a bit faster. And accordingly, maybe you assess the wind better or the terrain, knowing that you can't be as risk-tolerant or go as you would in lower areas at home.
But now, regarding the terrain you're traveling through, sometimes there's practically only one landing spot where you can say it makes sense to land, because maybe the water you need is another 300 meters away. And you say, I can't go any further without water. So you have to go down there. How do you handle those kinds of risks accordingly?
Right now, that's judged almost instantly, usually communicated as "land, yes" or "no," or if someone flies ahead and it's clear there's a good spot and they land there, then the second person lands with them. So we don't always have to coordinate with each other and give each other the okay. If one person does something, the other follows. That's the agreement. Of course, if it gets really difficult, you have to weigh it up: do you take the risk, or would you rather fly further or take the long climb the next day because you had to fly all the way down into the valley?
These are often split-second decisions that have to be made, because you either land right now on the first approach or fly through it all the way down to the valley and hike up 1,000 meters the next day. It's always a very difficult question as to how to proceed, but I'd say it's done intuitively. You see it, you assess it, and you decide lightning-fast. Maybe, if there's still time, you think, "Does it work? Does it not?" and you try it.
From the films I've seen of yours, including the one from the Caucasus, there's an example that doesn't look dramatic at first glance. You land in a high valley, and I think the mountain wind has already kicked in. You land down in the valley in the shade and against the wind, everything looks fine, but during the landing—well, if you're just watching the film, you see a nice meadow and then he lands, I think it's Andi, from the way the images look. And at the moment he lands, it only occurred to me at first, oh, there are actually quite large rocks in this relatively high grass that you probably can't see very well. That means the possibility of quickly twisting an ankle and then really being stuck somewhere far off in the Caucasian highlands might not be that small.
How do you deal with something like that? Have you also agreed on rules for what happens if someone actually gets injured? How would you handle it? Or are these things where you just say, it simply must not happen? And if it does, do we have to execute a plan? Or do we have to figure out what to do in that moment?
Like you said, first of all, it shouldn't happen, but it can happen very quickly at any time because you didn't notice something or didn't judge it correctly, or there are hidden obstacles under the grass, or you can't see something in the tall grass. It happens very, very fast. But if something does happen, you just have to do the best you can with the situation and can only react afterwards, however that may be. And above all, you then have to analyze how quickly you need rescue or if it's not that bad? Can you still fly? What happens next? Is
has anything ever happened to you on your tours in the kind of way where you've said, "this is really shitty now"?
Yeah, especially in the Caucasus—I mean, nothing physical happened, let's put it like that—but in the Caucasus, we got into a flight position. We were hit by a really massive sink and washed down into a valley, into a gorge. And we actually thought that if we were being washed down like that and we had a slope there, it would have to blow us back up to that side of the gorge, but unfortunately, that wasn't the case. And then we had to land in the gorge, on the slope, in very, very steep, rocky, grassy terrain. That was a really serious situation for both of us.
But you both made it through without any injuries. You just wipe the sweat from your forehead and wring out your gloves once. Exactly,
you say, that was close. But it'll be forgotten soon. We keep going. The next problem is already there. How do you get out of the gorge? Down below you have the raging water and you first have to climb up through the rocks. You don't have any orientation at all as to where it's actually going. Yes, the next problem is already waiting. The first problem you have right away is packing up the gear in this steep terrain. It's not that easy at all. If it's already so steep that you can barely hold on and it's full of rocks, then it really becomes a problem. Because we always have to unpack everything. All the bags, the stove, everything we have with us. Repacking is actually always a very big procedure with what we have there.
How long does something like that take? It already takes us at least half an hour just to get ready to start.
So you're basically just busy packing?
Yeah, just with repacking. So if we arrive with a full backpack, it'll probably take us at least half an hour until we're actually in the air.
You just told that example where you were pushed down by this wind, by the sink, the unexpected. How do you even handle the weather in such a remote area? Do you get any kind of weather information from anywhere? Do you have people at home who tell you, okay, I'll send you a text via InReach and say a high-pressure or low-pressure system is coming or something? Or is it really just opening the tent zipper early in the morning, looking out, and saying, shit. Or wow, or whatever.
That's exactly it, because it doesn't matter. You're on-site and you can't make the weather any better. So you have to deal with the weather as it is at that moment. And in that case, a weather report doesn't help me. Maybe, okay, if it could tell me exactly, "now it's cloudy in the afternoon, then it'll break open." Then I'd know, okay, maybe I can fly in the afternoon. But in that sense, if I don't have a weather report, I don't care, because I'm moving. I keep going toward my goal or in my direction. And if it gets nice, then I can fly again. If it doesn't get nice, then I just keep walking or take a break. So you have to take the weather as it comes. And things like cold fronts or whatever, those are of course the bigger problems you have there.
Or sudden thunderstorms, what's coming next. You just have to judge that a bit. And then weigh up, look ahead, how you're going to deal with it.
But before you head out, or if you say you were in Tieflies for three days in between, you probably already look at it and try to commit to memory what the weather will likely be like for the next seven days or something.
Clearly, we're all phone people. And if you have a signal, you'll look for it. Then you try to communicate or open a weather app. Although the weather apps down there, they all seem to say the same thing. So that wasn't very useful at all. But if there's a signal somewhere, you don't necessarily communicate with home and ask, "Can you give me a weather report?" Although we did do that once in Nepal. Bernie Koller gave us weather data because it was so föhn-like. Good. But we were on the mountain. And we still had to fly. So it didn't change much either.
Are there any specific apps that you like to use for adventures like these, where you'd say, at least so far, they've always helped you the most?
Andi and I both use the OsmAnd app for offline maps and navigation. It has maps of the entire world and a lot of information stored in it. That's actually the app we both really like using. And for everything else, if there's a signal, it's clearly WhatsApp or a phone call.
You mentioned earlier that you also had a big tour planned for this year. What would it have been? China. China? Yes. And where in China? China is big. Yes.
Or do you not want to give that away? No, I don't want to give that away right now.
Okay. Yeah. In the greater China area, it's a wild adventure again.
Yes, also a wild adventure. I think I've found a great route that can certainly be done. And in the meantime, I've changed my bivouac activities in such a way that I'm also increasingly willing to set up something to sleep in down in the valley more often. Because in countries like China, Morocco, or Nepal, it's actually way too much of a shame to just sit up in the mountains and let everything else pass you by. You don't get to experience much. You fly, you have your daily routine up there, but you have no contact with the people, the culture, and everything else.
And because of that, I want to do more bivouac flying—I want it to be more than just travel flying.
Where
it's not really about the huge distance, but simply about having the opportunity to explore landscapes that you probably wouldn't be able to reach otherwise.
Oh, 300 to 600 kilometers is always quite a lot, if it works out. Over two
Are you calculating by weeks, or what timeframe do you usually use?
Yeah, it's often quite difficult to say how long it'll take because of the weather. But you often can't say how long it takes. You can plan for 50 kilometers a day, then you're at 500 kilometers in 10 days. But it might only be 25 a day. And then you do 150 on another. It's so difficult. It just takes as long as it takes. And it's nice when you're not limited by time, but can also take the time to do a scenic flight here or climb a mountain there, or maybe just stay for a day to explore the area.
It's just about traveling more, getting to know more, rather than just flying from campsite to campsite and trying to cover as much distance as possible or as quickly as possible.
Well, you were telling me earlier that the preparation for the Caucasus was also relatively difficult because of the situation with Russia and the communication there and all that. Also... I don't know how far along you were in the preparation for that. Is China easier?
Yes, already. Because China is a large country and you move within it. And the Caucasus doesn't just have Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Abkhazia—those are all Dagestan, those are all provinces where things are already boiling over by default. And they are all very difficult in their own right. So... the whole Caucasus is like a multi-cultural area. And I assume it's actually much, much easier for us to move in China without crossing the border beyond that, that it's simply easier to deal with.
And is there also a paragliding community in China that deals with ideas like Hike and Fly themselves, so that they can actually give you any tips?
I have no idea. I mean, there are pilots, but I haven't actually gotten in touch with any Chinese pilots. The idea would have simply been to go there to drive and to fly. That's it.
Well, there's still potential there. But first, we have to get through this Corona period. You had some things planned for this year—it's not really Hike and Fly right now, but I saw that you also wanted to do a cross-country flight training for the Oase flight school, among other things. The first one would have even taken place in April, but of course it didn't. It didn't happen. If I were to take part in such a training, what could I best get out of it from you?
learn? Oh, that's the question of what you already know how to do. Yes, I'd say, I'm happy to do it for Peter Geck because he's a personal friend of mine with whom I've done many things like climbing and cycling in the past, someone I've known since I was a kid, so I'm happy to do it. I might not be the typical instructor, but I think that in a cross-country flight seminar with a bit of a Hike and Fly touch, I can approach people very individually, analyze mistakes, and tell them how it works better in other ways. Whether it's with equipment, whether it's with certain trade secrets, or whether it's regarding cross-country flight.
And that, of course, always depends very much on what everyone already knows and can do.
And what would be something I'd best call... something you shouldn't copy from me, like maybe some kind of pilot quirk you have?
Impatience. I'm actually an impatient person and I tend to lose my patience every now and then, even during cross-country flights, and get a bit too stubborn. Maybe there's often a quick cut when it works, but unfortunately, it's also left me stranded on the ground many times. So patience is a huge topic, especially when flying. What has been your own biggest...
Lesson in aviation?
Biggest lesson in aviation? Never underestimate the elements. There are always new situations, even if you fly a lot, that you find yourself in and might have judged differently than how they actually are. Always growing in your awareness. Yes. Yes. I also consider myself a cautious pilot, always having a plan B somewhere.
And do you always have that?
As far as possible, I'd say, maybe with the land or with the wind and weather, I actually try to do that, yeah.
And what was that lesson where you say you shouldn't expose yourself to those elements, or where you probably found yourself heavily exposed to them at some point?
I've already experienced, let's just say, some very negative elements while paragliding in Brazil. With clouds and with a lot of wind. And especially the wind against flat mountains, hills with landings and things like that—that can be a very, very big risk factor. And also those massive clouds, they shouldn't be underestimated either, especially when they're raining. For us, if it rains somewhere, it's not an issue at all. Everyone flies through it or crashes. But in Brazil, when you have a rain shower like that, they work completely differently than they do here in this area.
Because they are simply such massive bodies of water falling from the sky, and you'd actually be completely soaked within two seconds, or the glider would be full of water, right?
Yeah, because a very large outflow of cold air just flies out, and the gust front below hits incredibly hard due to the temperature, and you can only really feel the kilometers. Even with individual clouds—you know, where in Germany or in the Alps you'd say, "Oh, it's pitch black, I can still fly past that"—I wouldn't do that in Brazil anymore because I've already had bad experiences there. That means, did you ever have to land in a gust wall or what happened? Yeah, I was once blown over the mountain by a gust wall because landing was no longer possible. And the other time, the cloud activity was just so intense that I was literally spiraling down for my life,
for minutes, just hoping I wouldn't get sucked into the cloud. And that cost me quite a lot of nerve. Are you
did you fly further in Brazil after that, or was that the end?
No, I kept flying, of course. Once you're there, you fly. Otherwise, I would have had to stop doing certain things many times.
Are there things you've stopped doing because of risky moments?
No, not really. No, there aren't any, because that gets analyzed,
assessed and said, okay, I made a mistake, misjudged it or whatever. That can't happen again. And you might have to deal with that with a different perception or something. But I'm very optimistic that it won't happen to me again once I've had such a negative experience. Or I'll be very careful.
If pilots come to you saying, "Look, I've seen your films, like Hike and Fly—great adventures, I'd like to do that too. What's the best way to get into something like that? How can I learn the techniques and all that so I can even get there in the first place? What would you recommend to someone?"
Yeah, I've actually had that question quite often, especially after the release. From Morocco and also Nepal. But it's simply learning by doing. Start small, keep getting bigger, and do it often. Like landing on your local mountain in the evening, flying out sometimes, or landing on a hut.
With cross-country flying, if conditions are bad, you just land once at the top of the mountain, take half an hour, check the weather, and then fly on. You make progress with things like that. You just learn by doing it. Doing the whole thing consciously.
Now you've said "landing" three times in this example. Is that the most important skill you need to have for Hike and Fly?
Of course, you can do Hike and Fly in two different ways. Here in the Alps, there's this luxury Hike and Fly where you take the mountain lift up and then just fly around everywhere, landing on a meadow down in a valley. Or, of course, you can do it by flying from peak to peak, like a real bivouac flight, where you don't have to walk much or only a little. And in that case, landing on top of the mountain—this top landing—is part of it. And that's not so easy. You really have to be practiced in the technique, and also in understanding the wind and weather. You should have a bit of a feeling for it.
How often do you land on top? Do you practice that repeatedly as well?
Often. I mean, if I'm doing a real cross-country flight or something, I don't want to land. But around here, it's common for us to land somewhere, go have a coffee at a hut, and fly off again. Fly to another hut or just sit on a nice grassy slope for half an hour. Just have a little chat there, the three of us, or five of us or something.
We're still in the Corona era. It's slowly loosening up. What would you still like to do, even though you say the big tour for this year is cancelled? What's your wish for what might still work this year?
I hope there are still a few good days of flying left. And by the end of May, when the days are really, really long, I'm hoping the flight fields and maybe the borders are open enough that I can finally finish my 300er from the Nebelhorn.
Up until now, I think you still hold the record from the Nebelhorn. That's 286, right? But you didn't close the triangle back then, or what was it? No, it was closed, yes. But you'd have to extend it a bit now to hit the 300.
Yeah. I've already got a few suggestions for 300er routes from the Nebelhorn. But I think this route works best. And well, it's only a few kilometers more that you have to and can extend. Yeah, it's just a matter of finding suitable weather and then doing it.
Alright, Robert, then I wish you all the best for this year, both in terms of the weather, the corona situation, and ultimately the flying conditions, so that you can manage the 300er. Hopefully China in 2021. I'm curious to see what you can tell us about that then. Thanks anyway for the great stories about the Caucasus and the other adventures you've had. And yeah, all the best to you.
Thank you very much. I wish you all the best too. Stay healthy.
That was Robert Blum in conversation with Lucian Haas. If you want to see the films about Robert and Andi's hike-and-fly adventures, you can find the relevant links and more information in the show notes for this podcast episode on Looglides. On Looglides, as well as on Soundcloud and various podcast catalogs like iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcast, etc., you can already find many other interesting stories from the world of paragliding. Almost all of them are told in a timeless way and show the wide range of fascinating personalities and their stories to be found in the paragliding scene. The easiest way is to subscribe to Podz-Glidz directly in your podcast player. But don't forget, if you want to hear more episodes of Podz-Glidz in the future, please support this project.
How to do that is on the Looglides website, specifically on the Support page. I'll say thanks in advance, see you next time, and stay healthy.