Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast.
Stories from the cosmos of paragliding.
This is part 2 of the conversation with Thomas Laemmle. If you haven't listened to part 1 yet, you should definitely do that first. Because some of what Thomas tells us next assumes background information from part 1. That part ended with Thomas's 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% enter the body, they get into 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 the oxygen is then burned for 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 then there's 2% CO2 left. That's just what it's like when I breathe normally, the mixture in my lungs. And now, automatically—it's called hyperventilation—at high altitudes, without you noticing, you breathe faster.
And then the Americans wanted to find out why—what is the effect of this faster breathing? And they found out, with these two things—meaning this low CO2 at high altitudes and this faster breathing—that it does the following: the organism tries to breathe out this CO2. So, if we have 19% and 2%—19% oxygen and 2% CO2 in the lungs—it tries to breathe out that CO2. And they found out that it eliminates CO2 from the lungs to create more space for oxygen. So, what's actually interesting is that our body breathes faster to exhale CO2. This creates more space for 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, that's really how it is, it works. Specifically, through hyperventilation—meaning this exhaling, yes, massive exhaling—you can basically [increase] 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% now, but I manage, what do I 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, in 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'm exhaling and the oxygen saturation is rising.
You have to say, it only works starting from a certain point. You have to say,
It only works when it's descending. You have to say, it only works when it's 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 that can be shown very clearly. I also gave training sessions, but I obviously 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 oxygen saturation. So, now I have that one effect. That was done calmly. Now, what wasn't interesting yet was: does it also 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 entire 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 breathe out against a resistance, and this resistance then increases the pressure in the lungs very slightly—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 press 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 manage very, very high words. I still have to combine that now. Specifically, the breathing has to dictate the rhythm, the walking rhythm. Because you're supposed to... I mean, you don't go and adapt the breathing to the walking, but the other way around. You have to adapt 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 it, and you can't do that quickly or you'll turn bright red, it doesn't work. Well, 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 I get 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 gait rhythm. 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 gait rhythm 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 onwards, I do it like this: I place my foot down, inhale, and then, just like in strength training, I exhale under load. So, I place the foot down, I do it again, I place the foot down, one, then I push the leg through, then I place the next foot down.
Yeah, that's how it works. Now, I have another problem. When I breathe like that, I lose a brutal amount of fluids and I dry out. And that's the reason why I started using a Buff very early on, 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 made a bit humid. Up there at high altitude, it's completely dry, and because of that, you can also 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 from Norway and Finland.
When they train in the winter, they use a mask with a very large, corrugated surface area. They basically breathe through the mask, so 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 shall I put it, done in a slightly more professional way. These are masks you wear while out and about. Yes, and it was this breathing technique that ultimately made it possible. I worked a lot as a mountain guide for the DAV Summit Club, leading 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, translate to paragliding? What can a, let's say, average pilot who also flies in the high Alps and says, "the thermals once 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 such 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're going over the main alpine ridge, as you said, or I wanted to, it did happen, the thing is whether we land up there—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 at about 2,500 meters.
Up to 2,500 meters, our bodies can compensate for the oxygen-hemoglobin binding curve quite well. That's also why altitude sickness only occurs above 2,500 meters. However, 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 it's like that for me too. When people say they want to go to 7,000 meters 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 into a very high range 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. That's, I think, also 8,100 and a few crushed. 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 I then 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, on my own. 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 to myself, 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, the big problem is always that I have to get down from that extreme altitude as quickly as possible. And I could obviously do 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... well, 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 time, 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 this, I was involved in numerous helicopter rescues in the Himalayas, in the Karakoram. And I just know that the helicopters, they can't get any lift anymore 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, this Franz-Rose... Antoine Girard. Antoine Girard, he's always in the rotor. He goes up there in the rotor. That means he didn't fly in still air. I would do it differently. I would... I'd make sure I don't get into the rotor in the morning. I'm not going up to 9,000 meters or anything. Instead... Instead, I'd be in still air, basically, and I would... I just wasn't clear on how big... I mean, I was clear that it had to work. But we thought, well, the glider size would probably have to be brutally large so that you don't fall down like a stone. Okay, so then I took a... 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 the P2-23 with me.
And then I... I was very well acclimatized. So on our reserve day, I went up to the East Peak 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 off 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-off 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 interesting, of course. You still have to... you need a lot of power to get moving... 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, calmly. Increase the oxygen saturation. Yes. Just 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 handle 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, 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, zip, zip, zip. So this, that, this, that, this. It's good like that. Is the helmet on? Is the helmet closed? What does it look like? The runway. Can I walk? 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 those 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, it just drops in the brain, yeah. And that's why the more you strain yourself, the less you have in your brain. That's also true during the ascent. So if you're doing a high-gain fly on 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—you can go relatively fast up to 3,000 or 3,500 meters, for that matter, but then I'd take it out, because you've got that backpack with at least seven kilos, let's say. Yeah, well, today the single-skins and so on, that's clear,
but I'd say you have to go slower there or use that breathing technique, then it works too. But this 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 this 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 find 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 in your senses. Then you already start picking up things during the climb, like, "Aha, look, something's forming there, okay, let's go, look, aha, the wind direction is like this, 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 already have a strong south wind at the start, of course, then I have to be a bit careful. Or I have to—that also became clear to me—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, so 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... there was also one from, what was his name, Benova, the team pilot, I think you've interviewed him too. Ferdinand Vogel, you probably mean? Vogel, yes, Ferdinand, exactly. And he said there's an app where you can simulate it a bit. And I said, well, 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...
For me, paragliding is actually already very, very, how should I put it, a lot of brain sport. So it's less about me, once I'm 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 look, 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 level of brain power. 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 this 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 had one of the larger ones from Advance, I had a 27er, so the P227 with me, because I was just interested in what the surface area does. What does the surface area do? So I realized, it's very difficult to take off from 5,500 meters without wind. You can almost not do it. You can't run fast enough, you can't in the snow. Yeah, you don't get it. You just 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 really 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 in the summer I had another guided tour, so a hiking tour. And I had some gear for a few 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 then 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...
...landing with the thing so that I don't fall down. 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 a 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. So 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... they didn't have on their glider at all that one might deal with aviation. 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 it approved by 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 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 yeah, it's then very, very impressive. And then we, I, 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 is 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 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 gave them my knowledge, 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 drifted a bit more to the left and then he basically, he got tossed around like that and crashed, so into the rocks, dead. So you have to keep that in mind, a start, the higher it is, the cleaner it has to be, without, without any fuss. You can't somehow make that glider ring in that thin air, it rings brutally,
brutal, how should I put it? Reactive, like that. 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, it has to be a cleaner launch, not like, bam, 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 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 performs 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 off the ground. So, at high altitudes, you actually need a very 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. So your idea of climbing up to the 8,000-meter peaks and then 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 approach this a bit scientifically—after I've actually 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 Moschi, 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 and sent them 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've 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 even with these so-called A-gliders or something. So we have, it turns a bit, and if you're a bit off the path, you get a tailwind and it pushes you right out.
And yeah, the experience is just, it's insane, being above these clouds, through the clouds, and then landing down in this thing, then flying over this rainforest. So that is just very fantastic, and it works quite well at Kilimanjaro, as I said, but of course you have to
fly before the thermals set in at the equator, because you don't want to get caught in them. Because they naturally shoot up accordingly, 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 simply 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's... 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. It has to—as I said, it goes up, but you always have to imagine that the air going up somewhere has to go back down somewhere too, right? And at some point, you just have to get through it, right? And you really 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, with your breathing technique and so on, recommend to people—if they land high up somewhere, or even if they do Hike and Fly, maybe the X-Alps people or something, if they say, okay, I'm landing high up too, somewhere above 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 maybe the muscles are already activated a bit again, or whatever? Man...
I can put it like this. So, you need to know the following. It's like this: 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 rather, 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. Settling the miners at the mine didn't work. So, humans can adapt up to 5,500 meters. They can adapt to this altitude. This adaptation happens by me going up to this altitude and coming back down again and again. They do that 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 high altitudes 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... I don't have to do breathing exercises at Kilimanjaro today, or well, not anymore. I was in the hospital for a year, 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 heading to the Alps, and while I'm a pretty good pilot and all that, I'm not in the mountains that often or regularly. I fly a lot here too, but the hills are only 300, 500 meters high or something like that. In that case, you'd say, of course, he needs a while to acclimatize accordingly, but we average pilots just say: "Wonderful, I'm flying for a long weekend, heading to the mountains, great high-pressure weekend, I'm somewhere on the main Alpine ridge in Gasteinertal," and it really goes over 4,000 meters high. In that case, you'd say that's already critical in a way?
It's only critical when you're moving. But you're basically immobile. That means at 4,000 meters, there's still enough oxygen there to keep you calm, to supply you calmly. That's not the problem. So, when 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, and that's why there's nothing. The problem is, like you said, "Aha, now I want to land perfectly up there or something." Then I have to start moving at some point, and then I 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, hyperventilating, while flying. Because I noticed exactly, "Oh, wow, shit," because you have a bit of a problem there, you know, you stop breathing once you've taken off and then you're in the harness, you just stop breathing. If you kept 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 for you, it's probably not a reality that you're landing at 4,000 meters or something. So, it means you'll get stressed 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...
That's what a breathing technique means; it's also often presented during steep spirals, where pressure breathing is always recommended just to keep the blood in your head. In that case, of course, you don't have G-force stress or anything like that if you're just making a normal landing, but you would still say it can make sense, especially in the higher mountains, to consciously pay attention to your breathing before landings and to force it a bit or something like that. So, like...
Exactly. Even more important, Lucian, what's actually more important is that if I do a hike and fly, this thing I mentioned—that towards the end, when it gets tough, 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. Making sure that I consciously dial down the muscular strain up there so that oxygen is available for the brain, and maintaining this breathing rhythm. You don't necessarily have to do these extremes, as I said, if you were doing Montblanc. Nowadays, many people do Montblanc from the valley, run up and fly down; in that case, this breathing technique makes sense because otherwise, you have a huge problem at the top, because 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—the muscles also stimulate your breathing, so when I'm walking, I automatically breathe faster. If I sit down now and do nothing, and that's perhaps also what happens with paragliding, the danger is that you just breathe less and less up there, and therefore have less oxygen available. That means, on
In a way, paragliding is counterproductive, at least regarding the oxygen supply to the brain.
Yeah, yeah, but even while 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, particularly if you're not acclimatized. Like I said, the X-Alps are acclimatized, nothing happens to them. They've also trained accordingly, so they don't have that problem. But as for weekend trips, we used to have them back in the day—from our side, we'd also go to Zweies on the weekends, saying you have to do one or two 8,000ers, 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 while it's good for flying, of course, if you're flying for a long time, then that's definitely a point where you have to say, well, there's an undersupply to the brain even at rest, because I'm not breathing properly anymore.
So this breathing, as I said, and more importantly the exhaling, simply leads to a higher oxygen content in the lungs, and that's linked to brain performance, as I mentioned 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, I have to admit, because of the amnesia from the accident itself, I don't know anything at all. So, when I'm out and about now, I get a huge kick out of seeing paragliders and I think, it kind of bothers me too,
So my gut tells me: Yes, of course, I'll fly again. My mind is a bit differently wired now, because I actually thought I had mastered the theory. So, that was also the reason why I really... Well, I tried a lot of things in the Alps first with flying, just to see, okay, do I recognize the wind systems, do I really have it under control, before I dared to go to the Hohe Berge and thought I had mastered it, and then I encountered this supposed mistake. So, actually something I knew, and I still did it wrong, 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.
One of my gliders is lying there, I have to say. So it's like, I think it's going to be like this: I will fly again, but I won't do it like before. I used to fly almost every day before my accident. For me, it was just like, I said, you only learn to fly, you only become safe by doing it often, so that you simply know your gear in these extreme situations. You have to know your equipment and it has to be one unit—man 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 occur there and can react to them. And I was, as I said, I was flying daily, sometimes twice a day. I did it very, very intensively, so for the sake of my family, I have to say, I won't do it that way anymore.
So I think I could imagine flying again, so the thing that naturally appeals to me immensely again is that I'd love to fly from Kilimanjaro once more. So, that's really something, that would 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 you also do a standing start, something like that, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, no, well, the goal was actually, or I actually planned it last year, I wanted to—I trained on Kilimanjaro in February, I went to the top four times, flew down from there, always at night—I was traveling with the group, I always went from one camp to the next to the summit at night and then flew to the next camp, and that's how I did it. And then 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, as well as with this paraglider—I mean, I've done about 300 flights with the P2 then and thought, well, that should work by now, and I wanted—and this might sound a bit exaggerated now, but I actually wanted to fly from Everest, but it's like, Everest, you don't get a flight permit, so Everest, they've banned that, so you can't at Everest, it'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 that bit of a spleen back then, more or less, to somehow complete these 14,000ers, and so I picked out two 8,000ers and thought, well, I'll go up and fly down, bridge it with a paraglider. Looking back now, I have to say, yeah, that was a bit crazy, of course it's crazy, so the chance—that might sound extreme now—but the chance of surviving two paraglider flights from an 8,000er, meaning that it actually works and you survive it, that's of course not that great.
In a newspaper article that came out about half a year ago or something, there's also a quote from you. You said that the accident saved your life, and also in relation to these planned flights from the 8,000ers—how did you mean that?
So, it's like, I really... I had booked the flights, the local agency, it was all planned. So maybe I have to explain it now, the two mountains I intended to climb were Annapurna, one of the most dangerous 8,000ers, Annapurna 1, and Dhaulagiri, which are actually relatively close to each other, and I actually wanted to go up Annapurna if it suited for flying. So, in terms of the setup, I had the Pi 2.0 23 and would have had that... I just wanted to have a protector; I've always seen that without a protector, it's too risky for me in the mountains, either something happens at takeoff or during landing. Of course, when I land at 4,000 or 5,000 meters, it's naturally rather fast, and for me, it was just... I 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 like an airbag you have there, but that was my gear and the Pi 2.0 23, and it's just that the ascent on Annapurna alone is already life-threatening, and then starting down from up there is also... well, you have a starting option, and if that doesn't work, you're down the slope, it's too steep. Dhaulagiri is exactly the same. So, I was maybe in that mindset, I just had this thing, this Everest without oxygen, then Makalu Lhotse without oxygen, and then I thought, now you keep going, and I was actually in that flow. You
did you feel kind of immortal too, sort of?
With me, it's always worked out, everything has always functioned. Then there was Elbrus, then Elbrus East and West peaks worked, then Kilimanjaro. Then Kilimanjaro, you know, that's naturally a feat, it's always been 3,000 meters of altitude or something like that. Then five times in a row up Kilimanjaro, and it all worked. I was actually fitter than ever in my life, I also had a lot of high-altitude experience from all those eight-thousanders I'd climbed, and then I thought, well, here comes this step. And that was actually the logic, the logic is simple: to get down from this altitude very quickly, it has to work. And then, as I said, because of these stories that they've already flown at those altitudes, they've even flown Everest, two of them flew in the valley in a tandem even, although they were using oxygen.
I wanted to go up without oxygen, but... and carrying that thing and Yes, that's why it sounds weird, but the lesser of two evils is certainly the injury I had now. I don't know, and if down there, if I'm shielded down there, you have to see that clearly too. So, I was incredibly lucky thanks to our German rescue and healthcare system. If this had happened to me in Elbrus or in Africa or in the Himalayas, I would be dead. I only survived because that helicopter came very quickly, otherwise I would have bled out on site. And and and you have to be clear about that, when you do things like that, like these extreme mountains, you just have to be clear that the risk is immense, it's an immense risk, because you have no
rescue chain. If something goes wrong there, it goes wrong, Thomas.
Let's slowly get to the end and a—I'll just say, this is the last question, who knows, maybe you'll come back with three more great topics. We've been chatting for so long anyway that we could add more, but last time, last question, I'll just put it like this: If you, like you, have actually survived such an accident only by extreme luck or God's help or whatever you want to call it, and now you're back in life and 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. So, 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 just have a life, or I've simply experienced what it means to have pain day in and day out, and only have it subside with painkillers, and then get those pains again, and a pain like that... well, that's just something that takes everything from you. So, with this pain, you have no thoughts left for anything other than this pain, and that's what I'm afraid of.
That's really something where I'd 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, and especially when I've done a lot, that's also a thing I keep coming back to with this Kilimanjaro, where I'm a bit afraid that I've never managed it before. You have to walk about seven kilometers uphill every day for over a week. Whether I can do it, I mean, can I really do it? Physically I can manage it, but without the pain... the pain, I get it in the evening when I'm lying in bed and settling down, I get these nerve pains, and then I can't sleep anymore, and that's... that's maybe something I'm afraid of, yeah.
And then, just very briefly, the very last question: What are you looking forward to the most?
most looking forward to. Well, during the whole, during the whole, during the whole accident and the whole thing, you find yourself asking, okay? So I already asked myself, what is actually the reason why I'm still alive? What's the reason why I'm, why I'm not bled out right now? Why, why, why did the accident happen in such a way that I can walk again? I said there has to be some reason. There has to be something, a reason, let's just say God determined it. No, that's still too early for the boy. So I always thought to myself, I had to have some reason, and the reason, and that's actually what gives me so much strength and joy, is this social project I have in Africa, this Extract 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 is simply no work down there, it means no money, and no money means I have nothing to eat. They are starving, they are literally starving because no tourists are going up Kilimanjaro. I said that can't be, and then we collected money. I managed to get 15,000 euros together from both of them from the hospital, and then I provided food for over 50 families for three months, and in the end, that was while I was still lying in the hospital doing it. That was almost a year, yes, almost exactly a year, and then I said: Okay, this money doesn't do anything, I won't get donations permanently, and then I started using the remaining donations to buy land down there, and we set up a farm where they can now grow food.
and provide them with some supplies, and we also supported a school project in Eidsweisen with food. And what makes me happiest right now is primarily that the people survived, that tourism on Kilimanjaro is possible again, and that I'm hopefully going 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... I have a group with me to provide work, and we've already had several inquiries. That might also be something to mention in the podcast, so this project is called Extract. If you just type E-X-T-R-A-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 yeah, hopefully to climb Kilimanjaro, that
It means you still have a purpose in life where you can say, "Hey, I can still help there, I can push something forward," and if you can then connect that with your own ego—and I can even manage that mountain again, climb my mountain again, so...
That's it, it really is. So, 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 also meet here, so if any of these listeners are interested in flying off Kilimanjaro, they're welcome to get in touch with us. Maybe one more story at the end, what came to me a few weeks ago, the quote I wrote down earlier, which actually applies quite well to me. It's by Oscar Wilde: In the end, everything will be fine. If it isn't fine, it isn't the end yet. And that's what I'm living right now, in this moment.
A nice ending, we're at the end now. I think it all turned out well. Let's just say, a nice podcast episode, and if I look at...
Kili was, I think, all good for me, and then it...
It was definitely super interesting, Thomas. Thomas, thank you so much! I wish you all the best with your continued recovery and being able to run even better, and also that you can still climb those Kilimanjaro goals yourself, and all that—that you can experience all of this with joy and still perceive it as a gift. Great, thanks for that.
That was Thomas Laemmle 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. By the way, I can highly recommend Thomas's special breathing technique to all paraglider pilots based on my own experience. It works perfectly as a variation to the classic pressure breathing when flying a steep spiral. A quick recap: 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 "sh*t." It's the "shh" sound that matters. 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 be able to push the air out.
This pressure ensures that more blood stays in the head, so we don't experience greyouts or blackouts even under high G-loads in the spiral. Unlike high-altitude mountaineering, where you breathe in and out to the slow rhythm of your steps, you should, of course, also significantly increase your breathing rate in the spiral. If
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