Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast.
Stories from the cosmos of paragliding.
This is part 2 of the conversation with Thomas Lemle. If you haven't listened to part 1 yet, you should definitely do that first. Because some of what Thomas tells us next assumes some background from part 1. That part ended with Thomas' research on how the human body can adapt to thin mountain air. In the process, he mentioned a specific breathing technique. And that's exactly what we're continuing with now.
What do you mean by breathing technique? Do you somehow pump more oxygen into your muscles with it? How can one imagine that?
Yeah, it goes a bit in that direction. You might need to see the connection—I hope I can make that click over audio. So, imagine this. I won't go into full detail, I'll keep it a bit more popular science so that you might understand it. We have 21% oxygen in the outside air, 78% nitrogen, 1% noble gases, and a bit of CO2. But let's remember that 21% we have in the outside air. These 21% go into the body, they enter the lungs, then they go through the blood—via the alveoli—into the bloodstream, and then to the cells. In the cells, let's put it quite simply, a combustion process takes place.
So, the fuel is simply taken and then the oxygen is burned into energy. And in this process of providing energy, now in the muscles, so that the muscles can work, an average of 4% is consumed. That means, out of these 21%, 4% are consumed. That means 17% of oxygen reach the lungs and 4% is the waste product or the end product, which is CO2, carbon dioxide. So we have 17% oxygen and 4% CO2 in the lungs. That is also the reason why we can ventilate someone. If there were no more oxygen in our outside air, then we wouldn't be able to ventilate anyone else.
But we only need 4% of that. Okay, so, now it's like this: if you look more closely at our lungs, we don't just have the 17%, but we also have again—it's always a mixture of inhaled and exhaled air. You know, can you imagine that? 21% comes in, 17% comes out, and in the middle, there's just some kind of mixture. And now let's make it simple. Let's just say this mixture in our lungs is 19%. A bit of the 21%, a bit of the 17%. 19% and then there's some CO2 in there. So there's still 2% CO2 in there. That's just it, when I breathe normally, the mixture in my lungs. And now, automatically—it's called hyperventilation—at high altitude, without you noticing, you breathe faster.
And then the Americans wanted to find out why, yeah, what is the effect of this faster breathing? And then they found out, with these two things—so it's this low CO2 at high altitudes and this faster breathing. And it does the following: the organism tries to breathe out this CO2, so these two, if we now have 19% and 2%, 19% oxygen and 2% CO2 in the lungs, it tries to breathe out this CO2. And then they found out, to eliminate CO2 in the lungs so that more space is created for the oxygen. So the interesting thing is actually that our body breathes faster to exhale CO2. This creates more space for the oxygen, and because of that, you have more oxygen available in the cells.
So, our organism does that automatically, as I said. And now I've been thinking, well, maybe you could also force it. So I've done various studies, a lot on myself, and I've found out, wow, it really is like that, it works. Specifically, through hyperventilation—meaning this exhaling, yes, massive exhaling—you can basically [remove] the oxygen that's outside; the 21% are there, they're present at every altitude, only the pressure decreases. But the mixture of 21 to 78 nitrogen is present at every altitude, so in the atmosphere. Only the pressure decreases. But I have a problem, with the high-altitude certificate, I have a problem that I have a decrease in oxygen pressure and a decrease in this concentration in the lungs.
So, but I can restore this concentration by...
exhale. I breathe out carbon dioxide, I breathe out a lot, and this exhaling, the air is now replaced by oxygen-enriched air, and because of that, I manage it—I don't quite manage 21% right now, but I manage, I don't know, 20.5%, at the very top of the overtest I think I manage almost 21, I manage 20.5%, so I still have 0.5% CO2 in the exhaled air. And that's the trick. That was a trick now, so I told myself, okay, I saw that, and then, during that time, these finger pulse oximeters came out. So that means these small instruments where I can measure the oxygen saturation in my finger, that works with a reflection method because oxygen-rich blood has a different color than oxygen-poor blood, and there you could see very accurately, okay, I exhale and the oxygen saturation rises.
You have to say, it only works starting from the exhale. You have to say,
It only works when you're descending. You have to say, it only works when you're descending.
And the thing is, I can manage this up to 5,500 meters. So, normally at 5,500 meters, I might have, what do I know, 80% saturation, and with this breathing technique, I can calmly get it back up to 97%. And you can demonstrate that very well. I also gave training sessions, but of course, I always had to go up into the mountains—I could only always give my training sessions high up in the Alps. Yes, so that I could show it, because ultimately it's all about this effect: you have to learn to increase the oxygen saturation. So, now I have that one effect. That was done calmly. Now, what wasn't interesting yet was: does it work under exertion? And under exertion, you have the muscles withdrawing oxygen. So the saturation drops further, meaning the oxygen content in the blood drops further because the muscles withdraw so much of it.
That's also the reason why we should walk slowly at high altitudes and without weight, so that we simply keep the oxygen consumption of the muscles low, because otherwise, the oxygen level in the overall system drops. That's what many people do wrong—going up way too fast with too much luggage. Right, and then I noticed, I used to work in emergency services and we had so-called peep valves if people had lung problems. With the peep valve, you exhale against a resistance, and this resistance then minimally increases the pressure in the lungs—the oxygen pressure, which drops with altitude... And I tried to combine this. I said, okay, I have to exhale. Exhale, and preferably against a resistance.
Then I get two effects. The CO2 comes out and the pressure in the lungs is minimally increased. And that didn't work at first, because it's best to breathe against closed lips.
So it's basically trumpet pressure breathing. Exactly,
So, that's basically trumpet breathing. Exactly. So I press my teeth and palate down a bit, make a "SH" sound, and that increases the pressure slightly and I get the CO2 out. And with this double effect, I can also achieve very, very high words. I still have to combine that now. Specifically, the breathing has to set the rhythm, the walking rhythm. Because you're supposed to... I mean, you don't go and adjust the breathing to the walking, but the other way around. You have to adjust the availability of oxygen to the consumption. So that means I breathe and have a specific walking rhythm to go with it. And roughly speaking, up to 5,000 meters it's like this: I breathe in on one step, so in on one foot, and out on the second foot. So that's how it is, and you can't do that quickly or you'll turn bright red, it doesn't work. Okay, so I tried different things, different training, and eventually landed on my breathing technique. And that means I take the first part. I take the first part of the word "Scheiße" and I breathe like that. So, in the mountains, I breathe like this, it sounds like this.
So I press my teeth and palate down a bit, make a "SH" sound, and that increases the pressure slightly and gets the CO2 out. And with this double effect, I can also manage very, very high altitudes. I still have to combine that now. Specifically, the breathing has to dictate the rhythm, the pace. Because you're supposed to... I mean, you don't walk and adjust the breathing to the walking, but the other way around. You have to adjust the availability of oxygen to the consumption. So, I breathe and have a specific pace to go with it. And you could say, very roughly, up to 5,000 meters it's like this: I inhale on one step, so on one foot, and exhale on the second foot. From
At 5,000 meters, that's not enough anymore. There isn't enough oxygen for me to keep walking continuously. From 5,000 meters, I do it like this: I put my foot down, inhale, and then, just like in strength training, I exhale under load. So, I put my foot down, I do it again, I put my foot down, one, then I push the leg through, then I put the next foot down.
Yes, that's how it works. Now, I have another problem. When I breathe like that, I lose a brutal amount of fluid and I dry out. And that's the reason why I started very early on using a Buff—a Buff. Today, you'd call it a mask, a fabric mask. The advantage is that in the fabric mask, the moisture gets trapped. You breathe it back in, like that. Exactly, when you inhale, the air is slowed down a bit and pre-warmed, and because of this moisture, the air just gets a bit humid. Up there at high altitude, it's completely dry, and because of that, you can maintain this breathing technique. Without the Buff, it wouldn't work at all. Nowadays, since it's a high-performance sport, there are actually masks like that. They come from the cross-country skiers in Norway and Finland.
When they train in the winter, they have a mask with a very large surface area that's ribbed. They basically breathe through the mask, the moisture gets trapped, and you get a bit of resistance when inhaling. Then the air gets warmed up a bit by this mesh. And that's basically my Buff technique today—how should I put it, made into something a bit more professional. These are masks you wear while out and about. Yes, and with this breathing technique, it was ultimately possible. I worked a lot as a mountain guide for the DAV Summit Club, and I simply led many people up mountains. And for mere mortals, it's also a way to climb those high mountains without it being a major problem. The effect is so strong—I can only say it's a remnant now.
So, at 8,000 meters, I passed people who were using oxygen tanks. I was actually moving faster than them.
Thomas, these are things you need for high-altitude mountaineering or where it's interesting. What of these insights can be—or is it useful to—transfer to paragliding? What can a regular pilot, who also flies in the high Alps and says, for example, that the thermals reached over 4,000 meters or something like that, take away from this? Like, I'm over the main Alpine ridge and such. So, should one deal with these kinds of things, and can it be helpful in some way?
Well, first of all, I'll get into that later because that was basically the reason why I got back into paragliding. I wanted to combine my two, how shall I put it, my two dreams. The dream of flying and the dream of high-altitude mountaineering. So I wanted to combine them. That was the reason why I started flying again. And my goal was actually... I just wanted to fly down from the very high mountains. Like that. But now for someone, how shall I say, in our Alpine region, if you go over the main Alpine ridge, as you said, or I wanted to, it did happen, the story there is whether we land at the top—we're unfortunately not allowed to do that anymore. Or simply starting with a paraglider on a high mountain, a 4,000-meter peak. You have to know the following. So for us, altitude becomes problematic starting at about 2,500 meters.
Up to 2,500 meters, our bodies can compensate for the oxygen-hemoglobin binding curve pretty well. That's also why altitude sickness only occurs above 2,500 meters. Yes, but you have to be up there for a certain amount of time. For example, when skiing, the effect doesn't interfere at all. I'm at 2,500 meters, then I'm back down. So if I go skiing in Valais or somewhere like that, it doesn't matter. I keep coming back down. Altitude is only problematic when I stay up there for a long time. That's why with me, if people say they want to go to 7,000 or something, I always ask, what was your highest altitude overnight? It's not interesting how high I climbed, but what's interesting is how high I slept.
Because when you're sleeping, your body has to react autonomously. It has to adjust the breathing and the heart rate on its own. And if it doesn't do that, then you have a problem. And it's also really good if you're going to a very high altitude if you've tried it out before. How do I react? How do I actually react to the altitude? And I can only do that by actually sleeping at high altitudes. So, for our stuff, like a high-gain fly from a 3,000 or 4,000 meter peak, that's not a problem at all. My dream was, or still is, to combine high-altitude mountaineering with paragliding. And one of my first flights that I actually did from high altitudes, back in 2019, I flew from Elbrus in Russia. That's supposedly the highest mountain in Europe. It's in the Caucasus, right?
In the Caucasus, yeah. But it's located on the European plate. That's why they say—it's not Mont Blanc, but Elbrus is the highest mountain in Europe. And I flew down from there. And that was simply the first time for me, really, in high altitudes. I was also unsure at one point. There's not that much. So, that Aaron Duagatti guy, what is that, is he French, right? He likes to fly around at high altitudes. But now this starting. I think you
you don't mean Aaron Duagatti, but Antoine Girard. Oh, no. He's actually flown over Broad Peak. I think that's 8,100 and some change. I'm also
I've flown over Broad Peak before. By helicopter. That was the altitude record in Pakistan at the time. During a rescue. So, as I said, my dream or my passion was ultimately to combine high-altitude mountaineering and paragliding. And then I did all the training again in Germany. That means I couldn't fly anymore, so I got the A and B licenses. Relatively quickly one after the other. That was about
about five years ago? No,
no, that wasn't that long ago. That was 2018. Exactly. And I just said, okay, that should be possible, I have to say, I did Everest without oxygen in 2016. Then in 2018, I actually pulled off my biggest coup in this scene up to that point. So, within a week, I managed the fifth—and the fourth highest mountain on Earth without oxygen, without porters, without, alone, solo. So I stood on Makalu alone. And a week later, alone on Lhotse, which is next to Everest. And then the idea came to me, or the idea actually came to me even earlier, and I thought, I'll go through my 10,000-meter, 8,000-meter ascents and I said, okay, if you...
When you climb an 8,000er without oxygen, those are always ideal days. But not just ideal for mountaineering, actually ideal for paragliding. Because I always go up when there's little wind. Otherwise, I can't get up at all. And then I thought, man, and the big problem is always, I have to get down from that extreme altitude as quickly as possible. And I could obviously manage that perfectly with a paraglider. So, simply leave this danger zone—people talk about this death zone with this low oxygen partial pressure—as quickly as possible. So, I get up through my endurance capacity and my breathing technique, but down... I often need almost as long to get down as I did to go up. Because when going down, it's very difficult to maintain that breathing technique.
You have to see for yourself, when you go down a mountain, you keep holding your breath. Because you have to work against gravity and tense your muscles. It's very difficult to maintain a breathing rhythm. And then I thought, man, hey, that should... that should be possible from the high... that should work. Actually, you should be able to start from up there. And at that point, it wasn't clear to me, well, what size, what wing size could even work there? I thought, well, the air density at 5,000 meters, of course, is already half the air. So at 5,500 meters, we have half the air density. And I know it, I was involved in numerous helicopter rescues in the Himalayas, in the Karakoram. And I just know that the helicopters, they just can't get enough lift because the air density is simply too low.
And that was of course very interesting. Well, how does it work with the paraglider if I don't do it like... what's his name again, that Franz... Rose... Antoine Girard. Antoine Girard, he's always in the turbulence. He goes up there in turbulence. That means he didn't fly in still air. I would do that. I'd be... I'd make sure I don't get into the turbulence in the morning. I'm not going up to 9,000 meters or something. Instead... instead, I'd be in the still air and would then... I just wasn't clear on how big... Well, I was clear that it had to work. But we thought, well, the glider size probably has to be brutally large so that you don't fall down like a stone. Okay, then I approached it... I approached it scientifically again. So I had the opportunity to go to Elbrus in the spring of 2019 with a group of ski tourers.
And then... I got to the summit with them relatively quickly. We even did both peaks, the east and the west. Elbrus looks like a double-peaked ridge when you look into it. And then... we didn't even need our reserve day. I had a P2 with my glider back then. And in size 23, exactly. I had a P2-23 with me.
And then I... I was very well acclimatized. So on our reserve day, I went up to the East Summit from the base camp in one go. That was simply the fastest way. And then I stood up there with my P2.
And I wanted to take off from there. And it was already like that. Now, let's get back to breathing technique for a bit. It's just that you're already under a lot of stress up there. Especially if it's your first time flying down from that thing. Elbrus is a good option. Because that's naturally... that's like how we used to fly. It's such a nice... it's like the pulled-in peak we used to fly. That means if the lift-off doesn't work, you don't just fall over. It's not like... I mean, it's just very, very comfortable from the starting slope. Where not much can happen. And that was of course interesting. You still have to... you need a lot of power to get running... and you might not have that under certain circumstances. And that's where it's absolutely crucial, so that you... I did it like this. Just my breathing technique in peace. Increased the oxygen saturation. Yes. Breathed like that for five minutes.
And then a lot of things become clear. Aha, how's the wind coming? Okay. The wind is like this. Okay, the start run is like that. Then I have to make sure that I... Where are you? Where is Lee? You just can't manage all these things when you're suffering from oxygen deprivation. And that's when I think, if someone is flying down from... even in the Alps, from a 4,000-meter peak or something, just stand there for five minutes.
One or two minutes. And then suddenly, you notice how clear you were. And then again, perfectly clear, Plan B. You had that in your podcast, that commercial pilot who basically goes through a checklist. And I would advise everyone to do that. Just have a checklist that I go through before the start. Yes, click, click, click. So this, that, this, that, this. That's good. Is the helmet on? Is the helmet closed? What's the situation? The runway. Can I go? Can I walk through? Or do I have to floor it? Yes, things like that. Okay, what do I do? Abort the start. In which direction? All these things. And you make it very, very much easier for yourself when you have oxygen. And you can get that oxygen very easily with this breathing technique.
Is that something that's maybe underestimated, that we always think, yeah, I need the oxygen for my muscles. But our biggest muscle that doesn't move is the brain right there. And that's also being undersupplied. And that's when we make shitty decisions.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's just like this: when the muscles demand all the oxygen, the brain just loses out, yeah. And that's why the more you strain yourself, the less you have in your brain. That's also true during an ascent. So if you're doing a high-gain fly from a 4,000-meter peak, you really shouldn't try to run up there like those X-Alps people do; you have to go slowly, and the higher you get, the slower you have to go so that the muscles don't consume the oxygen that's becoming scarce. So it actually makes sense—up to 3,000 or 3,500 meters, for my sake, you can go relatively fast, but after that, I'd take it out, because you've got that backpack with at least seven kilos, let's say. Yeah, well, today with the single-skins and all that, that's clear,
but I'd say you have to go slower there, or use that breathing technique, then it works. But that breathing technique, as I said, the breathing rate dictates the walking pace, and you'll notice right away that you can't walk that fast. But if you use that breathing rate—like if you say, inhale on one leg, exhale on the other—you can start practicing that too. When going up, just inhale on one leg, exhale on the other; you don't have to do anything fancy like that, just your rhythm and
then you'll notice that I'm walking much slower.
That's the counter-tempo. And then you get to the top and you're completely focused. Then you're already picking up things on the ascent, like, "Aha, look, something's forming, okay, let's go, look, aha, the wind direction is like... I have to see, I have to head out in that direction, or at the Elbus, for example, you fly straight into the lee. Because the wind is coming from the south, and I got off at the north, so it has to be clear to you, "Hola, uh, I have to see," because I had to get back over to the north, so I had to go around this breast, around the left breast, and then I'm in the lee of the mountain. If I have a strong south wind at the start, of course, then I have to be a bit careful. Or rather, it became clear to me then, I have to enter at a distance.
I have to watch out because you have the downdraft right behind the Elbus, and then it gets relatively smooth again—it goes down and then comes back in. And if you come in here, nothing happens, but if you don't fall, it goes down about five or six meters. That's because it's so softly shaped; the lee isn't that dramatic. There, the—how was his name, the Benova, the team pilot, I think you've already interviewed him. Ferdinand Vogel, you probably mean? Vogel, yes, Ferdinand, exactly. And he said there's an app where you can simulate that a bit. And I said, behind a thing like that, the lee is actually very, very, very gentle. And that's exactly how an Elbus is. So it's a very gentle lee. You just have to watch out. And as I said, so that you can handle these things,
For me, paragliding is actually very, very, how should I put it, a lot of brain sport. So it's less about, when I'm up in the air, okay, then of course, if I'm doing hike and fly, which is what I do, then I have to keep looking. But I always have to check, where are the lee falls or where could it get hairy? Or valley wind systems and things like that. And it just helps if you have enough oxygen so that you can perform that mental effort. That's why, as I said, during the ascent, at 4,000 or something, towards the end, so over three and a half thousand, you don't walk as fast anymore. Before takeoff, a bit of that breathing and oxygen availability. And I would, as I said, always proceed with a checklist for things like that.
That I say, okay, this has to work. It just becomes—I have, that's maybe the other thing, I flew from Elbrus again in the summer, I took one of the larger ones from Advance, I took a 27, so the P227, because I was just interested in what the surface area does. What does the surface area do? So I noticed, it's very difficult to take off even from 5,500 meters without wind. You almost can't do it. You can't run fast enough, you can't in the snow. Yeah, you don't get it. You don't get it. So it just doesn't get the pressure. The glider, you pull it up and then it collapses in on itself. That's very intense. So without wind it's like that, you pull the glider up and it collapses again. So pulling it up backwards wasn't possible for me.
You have to do it like we used to, but you can't really get a control glance anymore. By the moment you look, the thing has already collapsed again. So I tried several things. That was with the 23, and then I wanted to—I only flew from the East Peak, so to speak. And then I had another guided tour in the summer, so a hiking tour. And I had some extra days in there, and then I went up the West Peak and down from the West Peak. Or rather, a friend of mine was with me, he wanted to fly too. But the problem was, we only had flight conditions right at the very beginning, and he, of course, came from the Stuttgart area, he wasn't acclimatized. And you had to acclimatize first, and I actually have year-round acclimatization because I'm constantly at high altitude, and I was able to go up from the base camp on the second day and do the flight from the West Peak with the P227.
And what was really interesting was that it, of course, let itself be pulled up better. It was already a huge thing. So, everyone has that. I mean, afterwards, there's always a video on YouTube for anyone who wants to see it; there's a video of me. You can see the two flights there. So, the first flight was, as I said, with the 23, the second was with the 27. And the 27 behaved quite well. It let itself be pulled up easily. And that was what I didn't take into account. This large surface area, of course, is a huge problem if you're flying against the wind. It almost stands still. That was also the reason why I said, okay, large surface area—first of all, you have more weight, and second, you have the problem that the thing is, of course, incredibly slow. And I don't want to fly in some traumatic way, where the large surface area holds me back, I just want to...
...descending with the thing so that I don't fall. And for me, that was the point where the P223—the classic, actually—was the ideal solution. That was like, I'm at the Kilimanjaro main base. As I said, I have this social project there, X-Trek Africa, and we've introduced various sports at Kilimanjaro. I'm working with the national park. I introduced mountain biking at Kilimanjaro with the national park back then. I've already ridden down Kilimanjaro on a mountain bike. And then I went down on skis. But that was only for a short stretch on the north side. Then we started going up Kilimanjaro with families. And now this would be the third thing. They authorized paragliding at Kilimanjaro a few years ago.
However, without any kind of know-how. And you have to imagine, the international airport, the Kili Airport, it's located at the foot of Kilimanjaro. So you're flying right into the CTR. And they in the national park—the fact that you might occasionally deal with aviation—they didn't have that on their glider at all. And then I advised them once. And then we developed a concept. I also looked into the Kilimanjaro tower. And in the end, it was like, today it's like this: you first need clearance from the tower. You need approval from the Federal Aviation Office in Dar es Salaam. You need a flight permit. And the really hot thing, and I don't think that exists anywhere else in the world: if you have a
Once you have a flight permit, a NOTAM is created for you. And commercial aircraft have to yield to you. So you really, I have the NOTAM in my records. Does the paraglider have all the rights like that? Totally. So a NOTAM is first issued and then you get a time window. And in this time window, you also have to register with the tower via radio or mobile phone. And you have to announce your takeoff and landing. And as I said, the commercial aircraft will then be diverted, if that's the case. There is also a smaller airfield, the Arusha Airport, the Moshi Airport. So yes, it's then very, very impressive. And then we, I, did the first flight from Kilimanjaro back then in the autumn. Together with a friend from Switzerland. But at that time, we couldn't fly out because there was often a lot of cloud cover outside and we couldn't get under it.
But I was able to gather more experience there. What are the issues with start numbers? And it's like, really, it's the lack of oxygen at the start, so that you can manage that takeoff run and keep your head clear. And the flying worked quite well for me with the normal size. What's very interesting, though, is that even these A-gliders, the P223, they react like mini-wings. And that's... simply because of the higher speed they probably have. Yes, they are, they are much faster and very aggressive; you know, if you touch the brake a bit or do something stupid, it goes immediately, it goes into the turn immediately. And just at that moment, there was this organization, Wings of Kilimanjaro, they fly every few years, they...
I did the weather forecasting for them back then, I was already back home. So I basically shared my knowledge with them, because I know my way around up there very well, and I basically did the weather for them. And in the group, there was one with a C-glider, a flight instructor who had already flown from the keel a few times, who... when he sat into the harness after the start, he tilted a bit more to the left and then he basically, he kind of rocked himself up and crashed, so into the rocks, dead. So you have to keep that in mind, too; a start, the higher it is, the more cleanly it has to proceed, without, without any fuss. You can't somehow make that glider ring brutally in that thin air,
brutal, how should I put it? Reactive, like. Yes, very reactive and you have to be damn careful. So it's very, you can see it too, I've had some of my launches filmed, you then, you start to roll slightly, right? So you have to, you really have to, I mean, the launch has to go smoothly, so it has to be a cleaner launch, not like, zap, I'm scrambling out of there, right? At Kilimandscharer, depending on it, as I said, that's actually quite good. With us, people always think that if the wind is more like 25, 30 km/h, then it's a bit stupid to launch. No, in the mountains it's different. You have to imagine, 30 km/h at altitude, because the air density is lower, that's maybe like 10, 15 km/h for us. So the higher wind speed doesn't bother you, the glider handles better. If you have no wind, I think,
it's not possible to launch on Kilimanjaro, let alone if you have a bit of a tailwind, you won't get away. So, at altitude, you actually need a really good headwind and then, then it works, okay? And then just keep the glider calm, very calm, right?
If I combine the different things you've told me, I reach a point where you said that going to high mountains without oxygen, you need days with as little wind as possible because otherwise you can't manage it, because it cools you down so much that you can't get any more oxygen. On the other hand, you say that to fly down, to be able to start, you'd best have a 30-knot wind or something like that—so exactly the opposite. Then your idea of climbing up to the 8,000-meter peaks and flying down actually doesn't work at all.
Yeah, but I only went through that realization process later. At the time I was planning it, I thought, well, that's great, no wind when I'm up there, so it must be good for flying. Now, after I've—as I said, I always take a bit of a scientific approach—I've just tried it out. I was there last year in February, and I flew from Kilimanjaro four times in one week, and I also flew out. I really have to say, that's still the highlight of my life—from my so-called favorite mountain, on a 35-kilometer glide, which is just under 5,000 meters of altitude, I flew out to Moshi, into the savannah. Through the clouds, I just dealt with the GPS navigation a bit.
and that is still, yeah, it's just, that was fantastic. I mean, the flight is fantastic. I took off up there in the ice, in my down jacket, and then landed down among banana plantations, and an hour later, while they were still at the summit, I was sitting by the pool saying I'd sent the pictures.
And that was still, yeah, so this flight, this paragliding for people, this hike and fly, this paragliding flight from Kilimanjaro out into the savannah is certainly an insane highlight. And it's good there and that's a big advantage, so the starting slope we have up there, I've evaluated different starting options there in the meantime, of course, as I said, I've been up there very often and the starting slope we have, we usually have a very good one, in terms of wind we get a bit of a crosswind in the morning, but then it turns a bit so that we get a tailwind, so that we can actually manage the glide distance with these so-called A-gliders or something. So we have, it turns a bit, if you're a bit off the path, you then get a tailwind and it really pushes you out.
And yeah, the experience is just... it's insane, being above these clouds, flying through them, and then landing down in those things, then flying over this rainforest. So that's already very fantastic, and it works quite well at Kilimanjaro, as I said, but of course you have to...
fly before the thermals kick in at the equator, because you don't want to get caught in them. Because they obviously shoot up that high, and where it goes up, it naturally goes down too. Yeah, there have already been several accidents or near-misses involving people who simply thought they could still take off later. So at Kilimanjaro, you actually take off shortly after sunrise to avoid having any thermals, because you're flying, you have a glide of one hour—you have to let that sink in. You glide for an hour, and you don't want any thermals at the launch site or the landing field either, because the thermals at the equator are just brutal.
And that's also a story—I've noticed, even in the Himalayas, we're at about 28 degrees North, so we're already quite far south. That... that's what the Frenchman did there, it's just insane. So, hats off to him for... you have to be able to fly there. Wow, man. You have to, as I said, it goes up, but you always have to imagine that the air going up somewhere also has to go down somewhere, right? And at some point, you just have to get through it, right? And you have to be able to fly. You have to be able to do that.
He always landed perfectly up there and all that. Would you now, with your breathing technique and such, recommend to people—if they land high up somewhere, or even if they do Hike and Fly, or maybe the X-Alps people or something, and they say, okay, I'm landing high up somewhere over 3,000 meters—should they really, like two minutes before landing, already be using your breathing technique to basically pump oxygen into the brain, so they can say they're just better prepared, or that the muscles are already activated a bit again, or whatever? Man...
I can put it like this. You have to know one thing. There is evidence all over the earth that humans can completely acclimatize up to 5,500 meters. Above 5,500 meters, that no longer works and you get weaker, or it ends in death. There are no settlements anywhere on earth higher than 5,500 meters. They tried it in Chile once; there are mines at 6,000 meters. Trying to settle the miners at the mine didn't work. So, humans can adapt up to 5,500 meters. They can adapt to that altitude. This adaptation happens by me going up to that altitude and coming back down again and again. That's what they do with the X-Alps. They basically adapt to the altitude.
They start back there in Salzburg. The mountains aren't that high yet. By the time they get to Valais or the Bernese Oberland, they've already been at altitude so many times. They've flown up there at 3,000 meters. They're adapted. It's not like some guy from Aachen or wherever who drives to Valais over the weekend and thinks he has to do a high-gain flight. It's not about the people who do high-gain flights all the time. They have an adaptation. So do I. I don't have to do breathing exercises at Kilimanjaro anymore—well, not lately, of course, I've been in the hospital for a year now, but before that, I didn't have to do breathing exercises at Kilimanjaro because I'm completely adapted. But that means now...
Someone like me, I'm sitting in Bonn now and I'm flying into the Alps. I'm a pretty good pilot and all that, but I'm not in the mountains very often or regularly. I fly a lot around here too, but the hills are only 300, 500 meters high or something like that. There, you'd say he doesn't need more, of course it takes a while to acclimatize accordingly, but we average pilots just say, "Wonderful, I'm flying for a long weekend, driving into the mountains, great high-pressure weekend, I'm at the main Alpine ridge somewhere in Gasteinertal," and it really goes over 4,000 meters high. There, you'd say that's already critical in a way?
It's only critical if you're moving. But you're basically immobile. That means at 4,000 meters, there's still enough oxygen to keep you calm, to supply you at rest. That's not the problem. So, if you're flying up there, you might get a bit of a headache, but normally nothing happens because you're immobile. You're sitting in there, you have hardly any muscular strain, so there's nothing. The problem is, like you said, "Aha, now I want to land perfectly up there or something." Then you have to start moving at some point, and then you need more oxygen. Then it would probably make sense. So, I do it. So that's maybe quite good. So if anyone feels like it, they should watch this video on YouTube of the Elbrus.
So, these are two, as I said, my Elbrus paraglides, and you can even hear me breathing while flying, how I'm hyperventilating. Because I noticed exactly, "Whoa, oh shit," because you have a bit of a problem there, you know? You don't breathe anymore once you've started and you're in the harness; you just stop breathing. If you were to keep breathing rhythmically, nothing would happen. But it's like when you're going down a mountain; at the beginning, you're under endless adrenaline and you forget to breathe. You just have to... maybe in your case, it's probably not actually happening that you're landing at 4,000 meters or something. So, it means you'll be under stress there too, and in that moment of stress, you'll forget to breathe. That means the oxygen pressure drops. If you naturally become aware of it at that moment, "Hey, I just have to breathe now."
Yeah, and then you'll notice right away, "Aha, here comes the turbulence." That's...
...is called a breathing technique. A lot of it is also demonstrated during steep spirals, and pressure breathing is always recommended to keep the blood in your head at all. In that case, of course, you don't have G-force loads or anything like that if you just approach a normal landing, but you would still say it can make sense, especially in the higher mountains, to consciously pay attention to your breathing even before landing and to force it a bit or something like that. So, like...
more importantly, Lucian, what's actually important is that if I do a hike and fly, this thing I mentioned—that towards the end, when it gets steep, I really pay attention to my breathing. Just making sure: one step in, one step out, one step in, one step out, and not like the X-Alps people who go full throttle at the end. I want to consciously dial down the muscular strain right there at the top so that oxygen is available for the brain, and maintain this breathing rhythm. You don't necessarily have to do these extremes, as I said, unless you were doing Mont Blanc—a lot of people do Mont Blanc from the valley these days, running up and flying down. In that case, this breathing technique makes sense because otherwise, you have a huge problem at the top; when you settle down, it's often the case that you don't hear yourself breathing at all because you're breathing so slowly. That's the problem people then...
the muscles also stimulate your breathing, so when I walk, I automatically breathe faster. If I sit down now and do nothing, that's maybe what happens with paragliding too—it's obviously a risk that you just breathe less and less up there and therefore have less oxygen available. That means...
In a way, paragliding is counterproductive, at least as far as oxygen supply to the brain is concerned.
Yeah, but even when flying, you still have to get into the habit of maintaining a certain breathing rhythm, especially if you're flying really high, like 4,000 meters or something, let alone if you're not acclimatized. Like I said, the X-Alps guys are acclimatized, nothing happens to them; they've trained accordingly, so they don't have that problem. But for weekend trips—we used to go to Zermatt on weekends, for example—and they said you have to do 1, 2, 8,000 meters, and it was like, we were actually all altitude sick, but by the time our bodies switched over, we were already back home. But we never really felt well there because you always had a headache or something like that; you just pushed through. And when flying, of course, if you're flying for a long time, that's definitely a point where you have to say, well, the brain gets under-supplied even at rest because I'm not breathing properly anymore. This breathing, as I said, and more importantly the exhaling, simply leads to a higher oxygen content in the lungs, and with that, you can...
that's also related to brain performance, as I said at the beginning. For me, paragliding isn't just an endurance sport; it also has a lot to do with recognizing and anticipating dangers, and and and, yeah, exactly. And for that, you simply need oxygen, yeah.
Earlier you didn't really answer a question—this isn't an accusation, just an observation—that was the question of whether you're planning to go paragliding again. Yes,
I guess I've avoided that. So, at the moment, it's like this: I have to admit, because of the amnesia I have from the accident, I don't know anything at all. So, when I'm out and about now, it's a huge joy to see paragliders, and I also think, somehow, I'm still itching to do it.
So my gut tells me, yeah, I'll fly again. My mind is just a bit differently wired now because I actually thought I had mastered the theory. That was also the reason why I really tried it out a lot in the Alps at first, just to see, okay, do I recognize the wind systems, do I really have this under control, before I dared to tackle the high peaks and thought I had mastered it, and then I encountered this supposed mistake. Actually, something I knew and I did it wrong anyway, and that's what's actually still holding me back from saying yes. On the other hand, it's just that I can't sell myself on my glider.
It's lying there now—one of my gliders, I have to say. It's like, I think it's going to be like this: I'll fly again, but I won't do it the same way. I used to fly almost every day before my accident. For me, it was just like, I said, you only learn to fly by doing it; you only become sure if you do it often, so that in these extreme situations, you just have to know your gear and it has to be one unit—human and glider have to be one unit. And you have to do it very, very often so that you've simply experienced all the situations that could possibly occur, so that you've lived them and can react to them. And I was, as I said, flying daily, sometimes twice a day. I did it very, very intensively—for the sake of my family, I have to say, I won't do it like that anymore. I think I can imagine flying again, but one thing that naturally appeals to me immensely again is that I'd love to fly from Kilimanjaro once more.
so that's definitely something, that would really appeal to me again, that would
do it again
that's just... yeah, for me that was the ultimate goal. I wanted to, but the question is whether
you could even run fast enough to get into the air at all, or no, I just need a
Headwind, I just need to have some headwind, then you can...
Yeah, sometimes even from a standing start, something like that.
Yeah, yeah, no, well, the goal was actually—or I actually planned last year—I wanted to, and then I trained on Kilimanjaro in February, went up four times, flew down, always at night. I was traveling with the group, I always went from one camp to the next at night, went up to the summit, and then flew to the next camp, that's how I did it. And then on the last flight where we went up to the summit, I flew out and was actually very fit, both in terms of endurance and, I thought, also with this paraglider. I mean, I've done about, yeah, 300 flights with the P2, and I thought, well, that should work by now. And I wanted—and this might sound a bit exaggerated now—I actually wanted to fly from Everest, but it's like, Everest, you don't get a flight permit. They've banned it on Everest, so you can't, there's a flight ban, so you can't fly down, which is probably also...
It makes sense because there's so much helicopter traffic now, it's insane, and then for me, in quotation marks, I still had a bit of that obsession back then, more or less, with these 8,000ers and somehow completing them. So I picked out two 8,000ers and thought, well, I'll go up and fly down, bridge it with paragliding. Looking back now, I have to say, yeah, that was a bit crazy. It is crazy, of course. The chance—this might sound extreme now—but the chance of surviving paragliding from an 8,000er, like that actually works and you survive it, is of course not that big.
In a newspaper article that came out about half a year ago or something, there's a quote from you where you said the accident saved your life, and that also applies to these planned flights from the 8,000ers—how did you mean that?
So, it's like... I really, the flights were booked, the agency on site, it was all planned. So maybe I have to take it out now... the two mountains I intended to climb were Annapurna, one of the most dangerous 8,000ers, Annapurna I, and Dhaulagiri. They're actually relatively close to each other, and I originally wanted to go up Annapurna if it suited for flying. So, from a setup perspective, I had the Pi 2.0 23 and would have had that... I wanted to have a protector. I've always just seen that without a protector, it's too risky in the mountains—either something happens at the start or during landing. Of course, if I land there at 4,000 or 5,000 meters, it's naturally quite fast, and I just didn't want to do without the protector, even if it's more weight. But then I have this Montis...
Montis Nova, Montis and Inverto. Exactly, it's an airbag you have there, but that was my gear, the Pi 2.0 23, and it's just that the ascent on Annapurna alone is life-threatening, and then starting down from up there is too. You have a starting option, and if that doesn't work, you're down the slope—it's too steep. Daulagiri is exactly the same. So, I was maybe in that mindset; I just... I did this thing, Everest without oxygen, then Makalu Lhotse without oxygen, and then I thought, now you keep going, and I was actually in that flow.
did you feel kind of immortal, so to speak?
With me, it always worked out, it always functioned. Then Elbrus, then Elbrus East and West peaks worked, then Kilimanjaro—you know, that's of course a different beast, those were always 3,000 meters of altitude or something, then five times in a row up Kilimanjaro, and it all worked. I was actually fitter than ever in my life, and I also had a lot of altitude experience from all those eight-thousanders I'd climbed, and then I thought, well, come on, this step now, and that was actually the logic—the logic is simply to get down from this height very quickly, that has to work. And then, as I said, because of these stories that they've already flown at those altitudes, they've done Everest too, they flew two in the valley in tandem even, although they were with oxygen. I wanted to go up without oxygen, but, and carry that thing and...
Yeah, that's why it sounds weird, but the lesser of two evils is certainly the injury I just had. I don't know, and if I were down there, if I were being rescued down there, you have to see that clearly too. I was incredibly lucky thanks to our German rescue and healthcare system; if this had happened to me on Elbrus or in Africa or in the Himalayas, I would be dead. I only survived because that helicopter arrived so quickly; otherwise, I would have bled out on site. And you have to be clear about that when you do things like that—even these extreme mountains—you have to be aware that the risk is immense. It's an immense risk because you don't have a rescue chain. If something goes wrong there, it goes wrong, Thomas.
Let's slowly get to the end, and I'll just say—this is the last question now—who knows, maybe you'll come back with three more great topics. We've been chatting for so long now that we could add more, but last time, last question, I'll just put it this way: if you, like you, only survived such an accident through extreme luck or God's help, or whatever you want to call it, and now you're back to life, learning to walk again and all that—what are you still afraid of? You said that with the near-death experience, you're no longer afraid of death, so what are you afraid of?
That's a good question, yeah.
I think that might sound a bit arrogant now, but at the moment, I can't think of anything I might be afraid of, or what am I afraid of? That's a good question. Maybe I'm afraid that these pains will come back. That might be what I'm afraid of. I've simply lived through, or I've experienced what it means to have pain day in and day out, and only with painkillers—and with the painkillers—it subsides. To get those pains back again, a pain like that... it's just something that takes everything from you. You have this pain, and you have no thoughts left for anything other than that pain, and that's what I'm afraid of. It's really something where I say, okay, these pains, I don't know if I'd be able to handle that again. Or sometimes I'm also afraid, I keep getting these pains, I keep getting these nerve pains. They're like a kind of phantom pain, especially when I've done a lot. That's also a story I keep having with this Kilimanjaro, where I'm a bit afraid because I've never managed to do it every day until now.
You have to walk about seven kilometers uphill every day for over a week. I wonder if I can do that—if I can really do it. Physically, I can manage it, but without the pain. I get that pain in the evening when I'm lying in bed and trying to relax; I get these nerve pains and then I can't sleep anymore. That's maybe what I'm afraid of, yeah.
Then, just very briefly, one last question: what are you looking forward to the most?
What am I looking forward to most? Well, it was during the whole accident, the whole situation, where you ask yourself, okay, I've already asked myself what's actually the reason I'm still alive. What's the reason why I'm not also bled out? Why, why, why did the accident happen in such a way that I can walk again? What does that mean? I said there has to be some reason. There has to be some reason, let's just say God simply decided, "No, it's too early for that boy." I always thought to myself, I had to have some reason, and that reason—and that's actually what gives me so much strength and joy—is this social project I have in Africa, this Project Africa.
These are people and they need me. Without me, they would have starved in this lockdown. So I set up a donation project; from the hospital, using my phone and WhatsApp, I messaged people and said, for God's sake, there's simply no work down there, no money, and no money means I have nothing to eat. They're starving, literally starving because no tourists are going up Kilimanjaro. I said that can't be, and so we collected money. I managed to get 15,000 euros together from both the hospital and my own sources, and then I provided food for over 50 families for three months. And ultimately, that was while I was still lying in the hospital when I did it—that was almost a year ago, almost exactly one year. And then I said, okay, this money doesn't do anything, I won't get donations permanently, and so I started using the remaining donations to buy land down there, and we built a farm where they can now grow their own food.
and provide them with some supplies, we also supported a school project for the orphans with food, and what makes me happiest now is primarily that the people survived, that tourism on Kilimanjaro is possible again, and that I'll hopefully go down there in August—I'm still firmly determined to go down there, and not necessarily just to Kilimanjaro but
actually to see the people, to see this project, this farm, and to give them work again—I have a group with me—and we've already had several inquiries. That might also be something to mention in the podcast; this project is called Extract. If you just type E-X-T-R-E-C-T into Google, you'll find our homepage. I
I'll also link all of that in the show notes, of course, so people can find it accordingly.
Exactly, and that's actually what makes me happy now—to see that, to meet people again, and yes, hopefully to climb Kilimanjaro, that's it.
So you still have a sense of purpose in life where you say, "Hey, I can help there, I can push something forward," and if you can then connect that with your own ego—that I can even climb that mountain again, my mountain again, so...
That's it, it's like this: I don't have any more for 2021, but in the autumn of 2022, we'll be offering a paraglider expedition on Kilimanjaro again. I don't know yet if I'll fly down with them myself, but I will definitely lead it and brief the people accordingly. We'll be meeting here too, so if any of these listeners are interested in flying from Kilimanjaro, they're welcome to get in touch with us. Maybe one more story at the end, something that came to me a few weeks ago, the quote I wrote down earlier which actually applies quite well to me: that's from Oscar Wilde, "Everything will be all right in the end. If it is not, it is not yet the end," and that's what I'm living by right now.
a nice ending. We're at the end now, and I think it all turned out well, let's just say, a nice round of podcasts. And if I...
Kili was then, I think everything turned out well for me too, and then it...
was definitely super interesting, Thomas. Thomas, thank you so much. I wish you all the best for your continued recovery and that you can get back to running even better, and all that—that you can still climb Kilimanjaro yourself and all that, and that you can experience all of this with joy and still perceive it as a gift. Thank you so much for that.
Thomas Lemle was in conversation with Lucian Haas. In the show notes for this podcast episode on Looglights, I have put together a series of further links, including some of the videos mentioned in the conversation and the Extract Afrika project. I can personally recommend Thomas's special breathing technique to all paraglider pilots. It is perfectly suited as a variant to the classic pursed-lip breathing when flying a steep spiral. To recap briefly: instead of pressing your lips together like a trumpet when exhaling, you simply place your tongue against the roof of your mouth, as if you were trying to say "shhh." It depends on how loud the "shhh" is; the harder you press your tongue against the roof of your mouth, the more pressure you have to exert on your lungs with your diaphragm to push the air out. This pressure ensures that more blood stays in your head and that we don't experience greyouts or blackouts even under high G-loads in the spiral. Unlike in high-altitude mountaineering, where you inhale and exhale in the slow rhythm of your steps, you should, of course, also significantly increase your breathing frequency in the spiral. When
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