We reach the summit, the wind suddenly dies down, a cloud window opens up towards Chamonix, and we were actually able to fly down. And what's always cool is when you just don't know exactly if it's going to work on this route or not—those are somehow the most impressive tours and the ones that really stay with you, I think.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast.
Stories from the cosmos of paragliding.
Today with
Marlies Czerny and
Lucian Haas at the microphone.
A quiz question: how many officially recognized four-thousanders are there in the Alps? I don't want to give away the answer here, because Marlies Czerny is the best person to provide it. Marlies is the first woman to have stood on all of these peaks, and from some of them, she even flew back down on a paraglider. Marlies's story is fascinating not just because of the combination of alpinism and paragliding. It's also fascinating because of the paragliding itself. Even how she got into mountaineering is remarkable. She lived 150 percent for her job as a sports journalist, with many late shifts at the editorial office and hardly any free time. Then her boss ordered her to take some vacation time. She didn't even know what to do with the free time at first and just hiked up the nearest mountain.
The experiences of this tour should have completely turned her life upside down. How things went from there, how she got back into paragliding quite spontaneously afterwards, how she now lives year-round with her partner Andi in a camper van, what freedoms and difficulties, but also what special responsibilities she associates with it—all of this and much more is told by the woman in her 30s in this 53rd episode of Podz-Glidz.
Before we get started, I want to say thank you. Specifically, thank you to all the Podz-Glidz listeners and Blueglides readers who make it possible for me as a supporter to keep pushing both projects forward. Blueglides started as a small hobby blog. Over the years, it has grown into a full-fledged online magazine including a podcast. The amount of work required can no longer be managed or justified as a hobby. But thanks to your contributions, I can now officially count Blueglides and Podz-Glidz as my sources of income as a freelance journalist. So, out of fun and passion, they are also part of my livelihood. If you haven't been a supporter of Podz-Glidz and Blueglides until now, now—or after listening to this podcast—would be the chance to change that.
By the way, my motto is: everyone does as they want and can. In other words, you are completely free to choose whatever donation amount you like. Payments are easily possible via PayPal or bank transfer. You can find all the necessary details on my blog Blueglides on the "Support" page. If you're unsure how much you want to give, I recommend a non-binding one euro per podcast episode and two euros per reading month on Blueglides. Even when calculated annually, that's significantly less than the cost of a subscription to a classic paraglider magazine.
Marlies, how many four-thousand-meter peaks are there in the Alps?
82, exactly.
And how many of those have you already stood by?
Should I count those twice, the ones I've stood on several times?
That
you can do whatever you want. But once you take the 82, how many of those do you have?
Yes, I should be at the top of every one of those.
On every single one? Yeah. Great. And if you double that now, what do you get?
Wow, I'd have to do some more math because I don't actually keep exact statistics. So, yeah, I don't know. I'm sure I've been up 20, 30 times already. I think I've done Mont Blanc about seven or eight times now. But yeah, I wouldn't know the exact number right now.
Could you still name all the four-thousand-meter peaks from memory?
With some time, I think I could, yes. Because you do associate a very special memory with each individual one. And yeah, from that perspective, I think I'd be able to put them together. Even though it might not be that easy, especially with those French Aiguilles—finding the right names and, above all, pronouncing them correctly could be difficult. But yeah, I think I can do it.
What's so great about standing on a four-thousand-meter peak?
For me personally, it's a lot of things. First of all, because you're really standing so high up and so far away from your everyday life. And yes, the higher you go, the smaller the everyday problems really become. And I've actually always enjoyed it when you have long approaches and just let the valley get smaller step by step. It's just always incredibly beautiful for me. Just immersing yourself completely in nature and getting to areas where you might not even belong as a human being. But where you really start to feel yourself.
When you're standing on top of a four-thousand-meter peak and you know you have to get all the way back down, is that a moment where you think, "the descent is always annoying"? Because you've already reached the summit, you've achieved your goal, and now it's literally just all downhill from here.
I think I would have answered that question differently before I started paragliding.
Yes, no, for me, basically everything belongs together, the ascent and the descent. But I think anyone who has ever gone paragliding or flown a glider once sees the descent sometimes with different eyes. Especially when you have the glider with you on a high mountain, then it's already a wonderful way to descend as well.
Out of how many of those four-thousanders you already have on your list—no, you have them all in the Alps—but how many of those four-thousanders have you actually flown off of?
That wasn't actually that many, I think about a handful, yeah.
Would there be many more possible, simply based on the ruggedness of the terrain and so on? Or is it just that you'd say, no, the four-thousanders are so exposed that there are hardly any possibilities at all to start reasonably there? There
there are very many possibilities.
The high mountains are very often glaciated in the summit area, which often makes them really good launch sites. For example, the summit of the highest of all the Alps, the summit of Mont Blanc, that is perfect launch terrain, I have to say. And there are actually quite a few where I'd still like to go up once and take off with the paraglider.
Out of how many of your mountain climbs do you take your paraglider along these days?
It varies a lot.
That's really different. Like in the autumn, when you're kind of in a hike-and-fly spirit, I'd prefer to do a nice hike-and-fly tour every day. When I'm more into climbing again, I might not have paragliding on my mind at all. Unless you know, hey, wow, the wind is actually perfect right now. Then we might look for a climbing tour where we can also take the paraglider with us. And yeah, I can't generalize that, like how often. It's phase-based. And
Are there ever days where you're standing before a decision and say, okay, I'll do a climbing tour today where I can't fly, but the weather would theoretically be flyable. Should I maybe do the other tour instead, where I could potentially fly down or something? Where you're actually in a bit of a dilemma?
Yeah, I think you could sometimes call that a luxury problem. Especially for me and my partner—I do most of my tours with my life- and rope-partner, Andi, and he's been flying for longer. And yeah, in an ideal case, we really try to combine everything. So, climbing and paragliding. From that perspective, the planning is actually always a really exciting process, because you might plan the tour, and then afterwards someone says, "Hey, actually we could take the paraglider with us, right?" And it's often a really funny dynamic like that. And yeah, you just let yourself get swept up in the ideas.
I like to just let things flow and try to think about what we could do on a perfect tour day, what the wind direction is, and where we might have a good launch site.
When you're planning those kinds of tours, especially these high-mountain launch sites, they are, let's say, rather rarely flown because probably few people actually climb 4,000-meter peaks, or almost 4,000-meter ones, depending on how high it goes, just to say, "I'll fly down from there." How do you prepare for that? I mean, do you work on it, look at something on Google Earth and say, "Ah, there's something," or are there any other apps or maps you use, like Fat Map or something, that also show you, "Ah, the slope of this terrain is such and such and you could definitely start there," or how do you do it?
I don't think I'm a total nerd about that. Very often, I have a mountain or a tour idea in my head where I might already have a bit of a mental picture of what the terrain could look like. But sometimes, when it's not so clear—for example, with a climbing tour, which is very often in some rugged, alpine area—then you do look at different maps, maybe Google Earth once or just an Alpenverein aktiv map, so purely topographical maps, where you can also read a lot. Sometimes you also look to see if you can find any pictures or check your own archive to see if you've maybe stood somewhere face-to-face before and then just think, well, is there a patch of meadow or a climbing section somewhere that isn't too steep.
So that's often a process too. Or you might ask a climbing and flying colleague—someone who has an eye for both—if they have any ideas about whether we could launch from somewhere there. Sometimes it's just really like, you just take it with you and see if you find something, because at the latest during the descent or something, an option can sometimes open up. So sometimes we just say, okay, we'll just take it with us, the paraglider, even if we don't know for a hundred percent. But if it doesn't weigh too much during a tour—meaning the tour doesn't become so difficult because of it that you say, okay, those two or three kilos of gear just aren't doable,
then we sometimes like to pack the paraglider anyway and see if we have a possibility to launch somewhere.
What gear do you use, as paragliding equipment, to fly down from the mountains? When you say two to three kilos, what's all in your little bag?
The Susi 3.
From Air Design, it's a mountain glider. With
two kilos from Air Design, exactly.
And I have one of those light ones too, the Loose Lip.
A loop harness, a light one?
Exactly. The rescue is the donut, even on the very light side. And all together, we end up at three and a half kilos.
Okay. We can talk a bit more intensely about paragliding right now. Let's jump back a bit in your life. You've basically oriented your entire life toward the mountains by now. But it wasn't always like that. Tell me, let's say, the most important steps in your, how should I put it, transformation process.
Yeah, you could maybe call it that.
I think the first defining moment was when my boss said to me, Malis, you need to go on vacation now.
Boss, what did you work on back then?
I was at a daily newspaper in the sports department. And yeah, that job was my life for me. And yeah, six, seven days a week, and then with Champions League matches that end at 11 p.m., so very often late shifts. And yeah, the job was actually everything to me. And of course, a lot of vacation time piled up. And after two years in my career, I had about eight weeks of vacation left. And then the scary question was, yeah, what on earth do I do with this newly won free time? And yeah, I thought to myself, actually, you need a lot of time in the mountains.
So I started a hiking tour. Just like that, on a local mountain near our home. Yeah, that was somehow the first step out into nature and toward myself. And that's how I discovered a new passion for myself.
Was that really like a flash? Does it happen all at once and you're just sitting there thinking, wow, what have I been missing out on in my life? This part of life or this frequency that then resonates within you, this vein?
Not at all, no. I mean, before, my profession was everything to me, it was my passion and I loved it. And then I just discovered a completely different world for myself. And yes, my vacation problem was solved from that moment on too. So it was really like, every free minute pulled me out into the mountains, into nature. And yes, I believe that was the most significant process. Because everything, I mean the biggest step of change, because everything else happened in very small steps. That the mountains just became a bit steeper and yes, that all grew.
So, you gave up your job, you only work freelance now, and you're basically only out in the mountains with Andi, your partner. You even gave up your apartment. You live in a camper van all year round now, if I saw that correctly. So, how was the winter?
This winter was very cold and very deep and already very long and very wonderful.
We spent most of the winter really in the mountains and in the snow.
It wasn't quite that simple this winter, because, well, due to Corona, there are major travel restrictions.
So, just before Christmas, when the restrictions weren't that strict yet, we spent a long time thinking about where we'd spend our time. Because during the first two lockdowns, we mostly stayed at home in our hometown.
Home? Tell me briefly, where exactly is your home? Home is...
in Upper Austria, in the Pyrmpirn area.
And there, yeah, I don't know. Somehow it just happened, I mean, we had been traveling in the bus for about three-quarters of a year before, yeah, this virus started to spread. And somehow we felt, yeah, no, somehow during this time we'd rather be at home, because no one knew yet how everything would develop. And also just to be with family and, yeah, just to take all these unavoidable things seriously. And, yeah, during the first two lockdowns, we were always at home in our hometown. We still only lived in the motorhome, but for the most part, we just parked in our friends' driveways.
And, yeah, and then there was the third lockdown. And we really thought about for a long time how we wanted to spend our time now. And, yeah, we spent Christmas with our families, so we visited them briefly. But about two or three weeks before Christmas. And then we decided to go to South Tyrol. The regulations weren't that strict there yet. And, yeah, everything actually worked out wonderfully. We were always able to stick to the local measures there, even though we were home in the motorhome. And that was also, yeah, really well accepted. And, yeah, so we were in the Dolomites, deep in the mountains, for about one or two months.
And we spent the winter there.
And then go ice climbing, go ski touring, fly off some mountains, and stuff like that.
Exactly, yes.
What's it like living in a camper van like that? Maybe it's not the smallest one you have, but it's still very cramped with everything you have to share. And of course, you have all different kinds of gear with you. And then you come back from the mountain and you're probably—I imagine you're also sweaty from a ski tour or from high-altitude hiking and other things. And then you get into the van, or at least have damp clothes or the glider has gotten wet or something like that. When I get home after one of those winter trips, I lay my glider out somewhere; I always have a free spot where I can spread it out to dry, whether in the basement or something else. How do you do that? Do you basically sleep under damp gliders hanging somewhere in the bus, or how does that work?
So, yeah, the paragliding wings actually get a really good spot in the bed to dry. In the bed? In the bed. You basically sleep...
under the gliders?
No, well, ideally it's dry outside or you just lay out a picnic blanket outside where the paraglider can dry. But if the weather is, yeah, if it's too damp outside, then the paraglider goes into the bus and can lie on the bed for the time being. And then you turn it upside down again so that all sides get dry somehow. So it's not ideal if the paraglider isn't dry by bedtime. Afterwards, it moves from the bed to the front into the driver's area and, yeah, can continue to dry there. And that's how it goes for maybe a day or a day and a half. So, regarding the six by two meters in the bus, it's just a bit less space.
But yeah. It works too. And you can even fold up a paraglider in the bus. That works too.
Yeah, great. Given some of the difficulties that come up, how often have you cursed the decision to live the nomadic lifestyle that you're leading in a way right now?
Yeah, there are those brief moments sometimes. I can't say how often, because I don't really count them. But yeah, it's the one time or another. Yeah, maybe also really when the paraglider is lying there and there's still the harness left over and you don't have fresh water to wash with, for example. Or even in the winter, it was quite extreme. We had temperatures of minus 20 degrees very often.
No, outside. I mean, we have a standing heater in the bus, so it's cozy and warm in there. But then it's minus 20 degrees outside and the water pipes freeze up. And if you don't have running water, that really is a hassle. Because the quality of a faucet that you just turn on and water flows out—that's something you actually like having in your life, even if you generally prefer to live simply.
Is the fun of this lifestyle actually nice? Does it increase over time, or does it decrease until you eventually say, I'd really rather have it a bit more comfortable by now?
After such a long winter, the fun decreases a bit, to be honest.
And actually, even in a time when you just can't move or travel freely. The current situation doesn't make it any easier to really enjoy life. Because we keep thinking about where we can actually move freely now and where we can't. And where are the regulations, or what are they like currently, what do you need for a border crossing? So it's already very complicated now, and it makes you realize what we used to have in terms of freedom of movement. Seen that way, you'd actually still like to live in the bus longer, so that you can perhaps live and enjoy those freedoms once again.
For many listeners of this podcast, there's probably a kind of longing to just be free, to be mobile, to always drive wherever you feel like it or where the weather is most inviting, and so on. And then, among other things, just going to fly. Do you also experience that as a great sense of freedom for yourself? Putting Corona aside for a moment, of course, that's the restriction right now, but overall, is it a feeling where you'd say you draw an enormous amount of strength or joy for life, or something like that, from it?
Yes, it's incredibly valuable to be able to shape your own time freely. To do the things you feel like doing. And I think this freedom is linked to a huge amount of responsibility. What
What do you mean by responsibility? I mean, who do you feel responsible toward?
Yes, towards myself, my family, my fellow human beings, and the environment—there are actually already very many points where responsibility is involved. Just by considering where we stay overnight and sleep there. We're actually guests everywhere, even with our motorhome. And the places don't belong to us, and we want to behave inconspicuously accordingly. And nature too. So leaving everything as we found it. And I think that is already a huge responsibility. And I find it a shame when people only ever see this freedom.
Because freedom can only work if there's a sense of responsibility involved. And that's extremely important to us. And yeah, maybe that restricts freedom a bit, but I think it also makes it somehow more sustainable. So that you can live it and be allowed to do it for longer.
For this feeling of freedom, what part or what significance does paragliding have for you? A
a very large part. I find that paragliding is such a beautiful, free form of mountaineering for me. Just taking a paraglider, a small piece of fabric, to climb the mountain and fly down. So that's a really extremely beautiful feeling of freedom for me. Freedom also in the sense of lightness, somehow. On the other hand, especially when we're out a lot, we're always in new places where you constantly have to familiarize yourself with the area again.
And ideally, you'd want to go, "Hey, cool, up there, there's probably a launch site," and just walk up there. But unfortunately, it doesn't work that simply. There are always local conditions everywhere that you don't know about, and they sometimes make it not so easy. That means for you
Responsibility, what you said earlier, also meant that okay, I have to inform myself as best as I can about these local rules, or whatever restrictions and whatnot there are. And you're always still standing there asking what's allowed and what's not.
Yes, exactly. And sometimes you're just so caught up in your own idea and enthusiasm that you just want to get into your glider, walk up, and fly down. And I just find that such a beautiful feeling. So, right now, it's also that sense of freedom that defines flying. But it can happen that afterwards you realize, we're actually moving in a nature park and you're not actually allowed to fly there. So that's sometimes a bit critical, and you might feel bad if you didn't inform yourself more thoroughly beforehand, simply because you love and appreciate that sense of freedom so much.
Do you experience a greater sense of freedom while flying than you do while climbing?
I can't really say. I think it also depends on the conditions. I mean, flying isn't always the same. And when you have perfect conditions, you do feel much freer while flying, like when you know, okay, the Föhn is forecast and the wind is still there, and then maybe the cold front comes. So you always have to try to move within that bigger picture. And sometimes there are perfect days where I feel much freer while flying, maybe as much as when climbing, and then there are days when climbing where I feel freer there.
Do you feel safer flying than you do when climbing?
It depends on the day, on the conditions.
I can't really generalize that. I mean, I think you can fly very safely and riskily, and you can also do climbing very safely. And if you feel like taking on more risk at some point, I think you could do that in either one. Like
did you actually get into paragliding? You'd already been climbing for quite a while when paragliding then entered your life as well. Tell me about it.
I really started on a day in December. I had injured my ankle, and walking downhill was causing me such terrible pain. I'd always had flying in the back of my mind somehow, thinking that it would happen eventually, but I didn't have to do it now because climbing is my great passion and mountaineering—flying can wait. And then there was this time in December, and at some point I said to my partner, to Andi, "Andi, would you please show me how to fly?"
He could
already?
He could already do that. He has
already got a license? He
has already been flying for, I think, four years. Yes, exactly. And he was very motivated there, and also during various hike and flies when we were out together, he would fly down and I would walk down. And over time, I didn't find it quite as funny anymore, having to walk down alone all the time.
You're always walking
fly, Andi, I always have to run.
Yeah, because I thought, now I have two options. Either I stick with the idea of calling him out.
Or I just try it myself. And then you were
smart enough to say, then I'll start flying now too.
Exactly, so it was the better option for both of us.
And then he went to a practice hill with you and showed you how it's done?
Exactly. And he felt like I was handling it quite skillfully.
And on the same day, in the afternoon, we went to our home base. We went up the home mountain, about 600 meters of altitude. And yes, he gave me his glider afterwards. And he had a second glider, an akro glider. He carried that up there. And he gave me his Pi. And yes, the conditions were perfect.
And somehow I thought to myself, okay, I'll try it there now. And
then you're sliding 600 meters off the mountain. First flight, straight into a high-altitude flight.
Yeah, exactly. So it was super exciting. First, we went to the landing field. And in my eyes at the time, it was a small landing field, about the size of five football fields. Really perfect with a huge windsock. And there, he explained to me how you do the landing division and how that works. And somehow we looked. No, let's go up there and then we'll see. And the wind up there was perfect, just a slight breeze from the south. And he also brought radios so he could give me instructions, just from the air.
And yeah, then I think I stood at the launch site for about 15 minutes. And I went through all the movements he explained to me in my head one more time. And at some point I thought, yeah, I can do this. And he also assured me that as long as you don't do something really stupid, nothing will happen. Like, not just taking off wildly on your own somewhere. And somehow I really had this trust in Andi, in myself, and in the gear, that simply nothing could go wrong. And yeah, that's how it was. I took off, and it worked great. It was just so exciting because all I heard from the radio was static.
That was so weird. I thought to myself, "Now he's going to tell me how and what."
And I thought, wow, okay, my very first flight. And yeah, no instructions. But I knew I could just glide out, just in one direction. I saw the landing field and then knew what I had to do there. And I landed perfectly and had a huge grin on my face for a week. And I knew, oh yeah, this is a new dimension of mountaineering that I've discovered for myself.
But then you still got a proper license afterwards and now you're out there doing it all officially.
Exactly, so I kept that to myself and yes, did a few more flights like that. But then I started a course very soon and learned it in a proper flight school.
Did you actually learn more at the flight school than you already knew? Or was Andi actually the better flight instructor?
I have to answer that question.
We can just leave it at that. Then let's look in another direction. What goals are you pursuing today when you're flying?
No specific goals, I have to say. I know that paragliding offers so many possibilities and I'm curious to see which direction it goes. So for me, it was just clear: hike and fly. And yeah, actually the gliding and the flying, that's already really cool for me. I like to dip into the thermals every now and then, but after an hour or two... I probably shouldn't say it out loud, but yeah, I usually get bored then. I don't have any specific goals.
But I think it's really, really cool what you can do with a paraglider. And I think I could really tip over into one direction very quickly. That was quite funny during the last SIV training.
It was a matter of whether another flight was still possible or not. And I thought to myself, no, in the next flight, I'll just try one turn. And it was actually a real relief that we didn't have any more flights. Because I think I'd like to have that feeling of the turn over and over again. And it was really like I thought, no, actually it's good that I can try a lot of things again. But yeah, and I believe the same goes for cross-country flying, that you can also really, yeah, really tilt over. But at the moment, it's better for me not to try it and to focus on my,
...favorite activities instead.
Otherwise, you'd eventually just be getting blown away by Andi.
Yeah, it's actually pretty mean because we have the same glider size and I'm a bit lighter, so I usually stay in the air a bit longer. Do you ever climb in soft conditions?
He usually falls a bit better and stays up longer, and he's already standing at the landing field. At least he can take some nice pictures of you landing, that always has its advantages too. Exactly. Do you actually feel afraid sometimes when you're flying? You've talked a lot about the fun and stuff. But does it also happen where you're like, no, hm, shit?
Yes, it can happen, and I'd say especially at the beginning, when you don't have the routine yet, there was definitely more unease involved because I didn't really want to take the time to deal with the flying in a really intensive way at first. And that just takes time. That
was just
Climbing plus
...the add-on of flying down from the mountains. And you just took that with you.
Yes, exactly. And I only flew in really calm conditions. I mean, I couldn't do reverse starts for a long time because I knew for myself that if I have more than 15 km/h of wind, I'm staying home, I'm going climbing. I have so many other options and I really only want to fly when it's absolutely safe. And of course, as it is, you keep hitting points where you think, well, maybe it would be possible, but actually not. And I decided for myself that I only go up into the air when it's really 100% right for me. And yeah, that was the point where I started dealing with flying more intensively.
and gained more confidence because of that as well.
And yes, then the fun naturally moves back to the forefront. That
So, you can also launch backwards perfectly by now and have trained that well?
No, I'm nowhere near perfect. But I've trained it and even spent an extra week at the dune in Denmark just to practice that. Because I knew that if I'm at the dune, I have no mountains and no climbing options, so I can just really focus on the glider for a week. And it was such a brilliant time, taking so much time just to play with the glider and really learn to tame it in strong wind. So that was really cool and gave me a lot of confidence for the high mountains afterwards.
To what extent did that basically open up your wind window? If you used to say, "Yeah, at 15 km/h it's over, I'm only going to climb," where do you set your limit now?
I can't say, because to be honest, I've never had a wind gauge. And I always fly without devices. So when I go thermal flying, I do it all by feel and by instinct. And I don't like the beep, beep, beep. I don't like it at all. I want to have my peace.
So you don't have a vario at all, not even an altimeter where you can see that you might be climbing, even if it's not beeping or anything? No.
A sports watch you look at to see, okay, it's already 3,500 forward, 3,200 or something?
No, not at all. I really just do it by feel. And I love flying by feel, and I think to myself, if I ever have ambitions, it'll be cool when I have a vario. Because I believe I can already train my feel really well this way.
And yeah, looking at it that way. I can't say how long I've ever flown, how far I've ever flown, or how big my wind window is. I don't know.
As far as my gut feeling allows right now, probably.
then. Exactly, that's how it is, yeah.
Okay Marlies, let's just do a little creative game in between. Oh. It's still about your story and all that, but approached a bit differently. I'll just give you a few sentences, so the beginnings of the sentences, and you can just complete them a bit. Let's see what comes to mind spontaneously. Mhm.
Okay?
I'm ready.
Marlies, what was my highest start at?
Mont Blanc at 4,810 meters.
And how was that?
Brilliant. How much detail do you want?
Yeah, so that we're still in the... before my memory card is full from recording, that we're done with that. No, you don't have to recount every second of the flight now, but what was the most impressive thing for you?
It was. Just this
Height, right?
Rather the uncertainty about whether it could work.
And the fact that it was on September 1st—you're not allowed to go paragliding on Mont Blanc in July and August, there's a flight ban. And September 1st was the first day it became officially possible again. And we sat down with friends in Chamonix two or three days before, and one is a tandem pilot and the other had never been to Mont Blanc. And somehow we came up with this spontaneous idea. We're going to Mont Blanc now and flying down. And what was special about that was that the two colleagues had to be back at work on September 2nd. And before that, the weather was bad. Now we came up with the idea that we'd start in the valley at night, hike through the whole night, and then fly down from the summit in the morning.
So, climbing all 3,800 meters from the valley on foot and hiking through the night. And yeah, during the ascent, it very often looked like we just didn't stand a chance. But we had researched the weather very carefully. A colleague is in the Swiss Armed Forces and has access to the best weather channels. And we knew, hey, we have a window, a fifty percent chance, and we're going to try it. And until the summit itself, it actually never looked like we could really make use of that chance, and then we get to the summit. Suddenly, the wind is launchable and a cloud window opens up towards Chamonix.
And there were four of us at the top, so the two tandem pilots, Andi, and I. So one of the tandem pilots. And we were actually able to fly down. And yeah, that was such a beautiful, exciting experience. It's always cool when you just... exactly. Yeah, does this plan work out now or not? Somehow, those are the most impressive tours and the ones that really stay in your memory, I think.
If that hadn't worked out, would you have hiked back down those 3,800 meters on the same day?
Exactly, yes, that would have been the plan. We could have taken the lift for the last section. But yeah, that would have meant 3,000 meters of descent again, yes.
Of course, you're happy if you can take the glacier lift and save yourself the trouble. Let's continue with the game. Second question. My partner Andi is for me...
My life partner, belay partner, work colleague, best friend, soulmate.
Kitchen colleague.
Oh, kitchen colleague, that's also important, of course.
Flight attendants. Yes.
Role model?
No, not a role model, no.
No, and just a person I can live alongside as an equal, and we're looking in the same direction in life. And exactly.
I'm a fan of compost toilets because...
Because they make life easier, in the truest sense of the word. And yes, because they also make life on the bus truly self-sufficient and free.
Because
you don't have a chemical toilet that you always have to dispose of somewhere. Yes, exactly.
Exactly. So, I think chemical toilets are terrible. And yes, this is just very sustainable, very water-saving, and a very simple principle that works. You just have to pay a bit of attention to how you park the bus, because in our dry toilet, there's a fan built in. And if the wind pushes against it a bit harder and the fan isn't blowing outward as strongly anymore, it can happen briefly that it smells a bit in the bus. But that is very, very, very rare.
So, if it starts to smell, you're saying we have to move the bus?
Exactly, something like that.
Okay. Next question. My most embarrassing moment with the paraglider so far was when...
When I couldn't decide between two large landing fields.
And what was in the middle?
A fence.
And... And you
landed right into the fence. I
I literally landed with my butt in the fence and got knocked down. That was in Lauterbrunnen after we flew from the Jungfraujoch. It was a really impressive flight over the glacier crevasses and, yeah, a really smooth glide down. And then there were two large landing fields below. And I have no idea, I just couldn't decide. And yeah, I was so embarrassed. So first I was very relieved that nothing happened to me. And then, I went over to the cable car ticket office quite boldly and confessed. And it was so nice because the woman at the counter said, "Well, you weren't the first and you won't be the last."
And I shouldn't worry about it. And she'll pass it on and the fence will be put back up.
But that was a very simple one, just a wire fence. Or was it actually a wooden slat fence? It was a
A wooden slat fence, yes.
Okay. But it's a good thing you didn't hurt yourself then.
Yes, exactly. So that was also my conclusion. At the beginning, I was really discouraged and thought, oh my god, I can't even land anymore. And how you can talk yourself into a bad headspace.
Was that a classic case of fixating on the obstacle?
Yes, I'm very sure. Just like
other people say, "that's the only tree standing in a huge meadow, don't fly into it, don't fly into it." I did say don't fly into it, because they're already stuck in there. And it was something similar with the fence?
Maybe. Usually, I'm immune to those kinds of fixations. But that just happened, or I simply misjudged it. I think I hesitated too long over which meadow I actually wanted to take. I would have preferred the one that wasn't on the car and wasn't the bigger one. And I think that was the reason I just decided too late what I wanted. What I really wanted to do. And it is important, after all, to make clear decisions and not fly around in a dilemma until the very last moment.
Quick side question in between. You didn't get hurt there. Have you ever injured yourself while paragliding?
No, fortunately not. Then
it should stay that way. Exactly. Then let's continue with the questions. Marlies, my biggest role model is?
Is it bad if I say I don't have a role model?
That's not bad at all. Yes. Okay, that works. I just always find it interesting. Sometimes you get interesting answers, sometimes you don't. Then, what annoys me the most is at the mountain, when?
When some minor detail annoys me.
Something that might concern the material. Like if the velcro on the jacket just doesn't hold anymore or something. So it's often really just these tiny things that I think annoy me the most. But I'm just thinking, maybe something else will occur to me. Why? Because the
pull you out of your flow or something? Like, it's just these little things that are what annoy you.
Yeah. Because they're just annoying and shouldn't be. Like, for example, with my skis, the binding is so hard to turn. Do you even understand me at all when I'm trying to click in? It's a really bad dialect, isn't it? Yeah,
it's gotten a bit worse, but everything is okay. We can just move on to the next question. Yeah, that works. What can I only recommend to every other pilot?
To fly. Why? Because it's fun and because it brings routine and practice. And yes, so one point, if someone who comes mainly from mountaineering or something would ask me what I'd recommend, I think it would really be a high-wind ground handling training. That helped me extremely much. Yes, because you simply very often don't have the perfect conditions, especially in the mountains. And if you then have the glider under control, that's so good for your own feeling.
That means the extra safety you gain from it.
Exactly. The trust and simply the control. And in alpine terrain, it can actually become really dangerous at times. And when you take the time there, every now and then. So for me personally, I think what I notice when I'm out climbing again for a longer period is that I really want to have some time for myself, where I can deal with the glider more intensively. Whether that's in SIV training again or maybe at the dune for some more ground handling or something like that. It really provides so many, so many positive inputs.
I think they happen quite unexpectedly, yeah. Like, really spontaneous flights. And our flights are usually spontaneous anyway. From that perspective, those are the ones I like best. Yeah, so no generalizations. I actually find that nice too. If it's a flight into the sunset. It's incredibly beautiful to do together with a friend.
Or simply, where you save yourself a long descent. I mean, every flight has its own special something. I can't say that generally.
Is there any flight where you'd say, like, that was perhaps the highlight of my flying career so far?
Hmm. Hmm.
The ultimate highlight in terms of a peak, like Mont Blanc. Definitely. Magnificent. Yes, an experience that still feels quite magical when I think back on it today. That was in Morocco. We spent last winter there after we couldn't really deal with the frozen water pipes. So, we eventually ended up in Morocco. And there were some really beautiful flights there. And one on the Atlantic coast over the rock arch of Lekzira. We had a wonderful spot there. Right over the sea. And one afternoon, the wind was just perfect.
We hung in the air there for several hours. And we kept soaring over the sea and over the rock arch. And yeah, so many top landings. More top landings than in my entire life. And it was so playful. You really felt like a bird, just landing again and then hopping away. And over several hours, it was just a really, really beautiful flying experience.
The Lekzira rock gate. Maybe so the listeners can imagine it a bit. It's basically a cliff coast. And then there's this rocky promontory that sticks out into the sea. And it's hollowed out underneath. So you can basically walk through this gate underneath along the beach or some kind of stony shore. But up top, you can also soar along this promontory and then really fly out towards the sea, basically flying over the water, and then back again. And then you can either land at the top again or down on the beach, depending on how you carry it or what you feel like doing at the moment. It's a beautiful spot, I've been there before. It's really nice.
Marlies, at the beginning, if I saw that correctly, at the start of your flying career, you were mainly still using a single-skin for your downhill flights. It's a bit lighter and a bit smaller in terms of pack size and stuff like that. But then you did it less and less and eventually stopped. Why was that, actually?
Because I actually found a glider with Susi that was just as truly light, but had so many more advantages of a classic double wing that the small weight difference didn't really matter anymore. I mean, I flew a single-skin for a very long time and it was my only glider for a while. But that was also, of course, the reason why my launch window wasn't bigger, because a single-skin has more losses in higher winds. And yeah. Eventually, it got to the point where, through a few experiences that weren't quite so cool—what does that mean?
Not quite so cool?
Backward flights and landings on the road, or yeah. The
you would also say that happened to you in that way because it was a single-skin, because with the double-skin you probably could have accelerated even more, so that you would still come forward. But with the single-skin, you're already being pushed backwards, right?
Yes, I think that was really right in a marginal wind range where it might have been different.
I'm still a huge fan of the single-skins and I'll probably get myself a new one now. The Ufo 2, and also in a very small size. And I think there were some flights, or some starts, that were only made possible by a single-skin, where I probably wouldn't have been able to start as well with a different paraglider.
And yes, I think you just have to know when to use which glider. Plus, it's also come down to the fact that we just don't have any more room for multiple gliders in the bus, in the Camperway. That means only one
glider per person, but it actually can't be more than that.
Exactly. And a 13-seater UFO. Although
something like that
Single-Skin could still be a good option
shove into some corner somewhere real quick.
That would have worked. No, but for us, the flight spectrum of the two gliders was just so close that we said, okay, one glider is actually enough. And it's just a bit of a compromise and a space compromise that you have to make.
If you had to decide today on certain tours, or if you had both available, in which situations would you choose the single-skin? Where would you say it simply has the advantages?
In very small launch sites,
when you don't have much space, when you really have to make sure the glider gets into the air quickly, and if you're expecting less wind, if you're expecting less valley wind. Like, if you maybe really have to schedule the launch window for the edges of the day. Or quite simply, if you hike up somewhere in the morning and just want to do a glider. It's just so simple and so easy, and a single-skin is enough if you just want to be out somewhere in calm air.
From what I can see at least, there are increasingly more mountaineers and alpinists who dream a bit about a discipline like Fly & Climb or are planning in that direction, saying, okay, I'm not using the paraglider to fly off, but basically as a means of access, or that I can get closer to the mountains in the first place—and sometimes, especially in the Himalayas or something where you'd say I'd actually have to hike there for a week just to reach base camp, I might be able to fly there within a day and then do the cross-country flight. And that would make many things, of course, quite simple. That would significantly make it easier regarding certain expedition ideas and concepts in general. Is that something you'd be into too? Is that something you're also considering, there...
are you thinking about doing more in this direction?
That's another wonderful spectrum that opens up with flying, and I don't have anything concrete in mind right now and would definitely have to massively improve my cross-country flight skills, but I can already imagine that it could be interesting at some point. Flying somewhere, the will to fly or the will to climb, that's already a nice idea.
What are your more concrete plans regarding paragliding?
I don't have any concrete plans either. That means you
you take the mountains as they are and fly off them where it's possible?
Yeah, in a way. So the ideas come up. They'd ideally just happen spontaneously, and we'd really love to go to Norway, and it would be nice to be out there with a boat and a paraglider. And yeah, once we have a home again, an apartment, then you'd certainly like to maybe just go across the Alps once, or define an endpoint somewhere and just start hiking and flying towards it. And yeah, I think there are so many possibilities.
Because you said earlier, like, flying somewhere. So we were in Pakistan two or three years ago now, and we would have had the paraglider with us so we could fly down from the campsites up there. And yeah, so that's still a dream, maybe being able to fly down from a really high mountain somehow. But nothing concrete.
What would it be, or are there any plans like that? Do you have something like a dream flight that you'd still like to fulfill?
I don't have a specific dream flight either. But more like a dream feeling, a sense of flying. Maybe it's really something like the soaring and the wing-over over that rock village of Lekzira. Just having that feeling. And I don't think it would matter to me at all where it is. Just a beautiful landscape, beautiful colors, and cool nature all around me. And just some kind of experience.
What is that feeling? How would you describe it? Is it just timelessness in that moment, or what do you experience there?
Timelessness definitely hits. And that feeling of just feeling yourself and the elements when you're just really gliding over the waves with the wind. And like there, when you're just really sailing out over the sea. And then those red rocks and the gate. And just such incredible nature. So yeah, just the feeling of really being with yourself, being at one with the glider. I haven't had that very often, but I think it's a feeling I'm already looking forward to again.
Something you can still become dependent on in a certain way?
Hmm.
Yes, I think a certain level of dependency might already be at play there.
But I also just find it nice to have that variety. Especially with mountain sports, flying is simply another element. It's really like a puzzle piece that you can incorporate again and again. And sometimes, yeah, you can leave it out again. And that offers really beautiful possibilities, each for themselves. And I also find it beautiful that flying is somehow so, so individual—maybe even more individual than, say, a climbing route. Every flight is different.
More individual, because the climbing route is much more predetermined. The rock is always the same. Okay, it might be slightly different on the ice face or somewhere else, but otherwise, you're saying, I've already climbed up there once. I know where the hold is. But when you're flying, you're never in the same spot, in the same air, with the same turbulence happening right then.
Exactly. And when you combine that with climbing, it just makes it so much more unique and something you do just for yourself. That
means that hike and fly or climb and fly is heaven on earth for you.
Exactly, yes.
Well said.
Alright, Marlies. Then I'd say let's leave it at that. May you be blessed with this heaven on earth many more times.
Thank you too.
And may you get through the rest of the winter well, and hopefully soon—not just you, but all of us—we can hopefully move through this world again a bit more freely, without Corona or at least with fewer Corona restrictions, so that we can experience so much more of it. Thank you for your great stories and your willingness to share them. And all the best to you.
That was Marlies Czerny in conversation with Lucian Haas. Marlies actually wrote a book about how she climbed the 82 four-thousand-meter peaks of the Alps. It has a double meaning in the title, which you can pronounce as either "experiencing" or "living" the four-thousand-meter peaks. The book was published by Bergwelten Verlag. I've noted the relevant details in the show notes for this podcast episode on the Looglides blog. There you'll also find more links to other information regarding Marlies' mountain and paraglider adventures. If you enjoyed this episode, please recommend Podz-Glidz. You can find this and all other podcast episodes on Looglides and Soundcloud, as well as in well-known audio catalogs like Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, etc.
To make sure you don't miss any new episodes, you can also subscribe to Podz-Glidz right now in your podcatcher of choice. Perhaps you also have suggestions for other interesting conversation partners for Podz-Glidz. There are surely many untold but worthwhile stories from the cosmos of paragliding. Just send me an email at looglideskontakt at gmail.com. And if you're not already doing so, here's the tip again: become a supporter of Podz-Glidz and Looglides. This helps both projects continue to develop. And then every podcast episode becomes your episode in a way. You can find all the necessary details on my blog looglides on the Support page. And now, off to new heights. Ciao.