The news actually reached me two days after I had settled back into the camper feeling really happy and said I'd found my mountain. I was up there, I did several hike & flies there, it seems ideal to me, it still does today. And we drove off and I called my buddies and said, hey, I've got a mountain, let's start planning. And two days later this video came out and I called the same people again and said, I think we need to rethink things, the signs are different.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast. Stories from the cosmos of paragliding. Today with Jeremy Paxson, and I am Lucian Haas.
Imagine you're traveling in other countries for four weeks. The mission is to find a mountain, ideally located and shaped, to fulfill a dream there. To hike up it as often as possible in a day and fly back down. So that the total vertical meters result in a new world record. Now imagine you also find this mountain. You're completely euphoric, but then shortly after you see a video on the internet. It shows you that the dream of the world record has already burst before you could even properly get started. That's what happened to Jeremy Paxson. The 41-year-old from Rottweil is both an enthusiastic paraglider pilot and an ultramarathon runner.
Hike & Fly, also in Extras. In its extreme form, it's his passion. In this episode 89 of Podz-Glidz, Jeremy tells his story. I don't want to reveal any more details beforehand. Just this much: Jeremy has grit. And when he sets his mind on something, he shows perseverance. Even if it's just to prove it to himself. It was already like that when he realized another unusual project ten years ago. He sewed his own single skin paraglider at home. Simply to show that a paraglider can definitely fly without a suspension line. At that time, that wasn't clear to many in the paragliding scene yet. If you like Podz-Glidz, then support my work as a patron.
You can find out how that's easily possible without any obligation on the support page of my blog's website, Looglides.
Jeremy, why are you a little bit angry at Andy Simons? I...
I don't even know if I'm really angry. Maybe I'm somewhere between full admiration and a bit of envy. And he actually gave me the push to think more concretely about a topic that's been on my mind for quite a while now. And that's why I'm not actually angry at him, but rather kind of grateful. And I'm curious to see where these reflections will take us.
What exactly did Andy Simons do that made you angry, or thoughtful, and then ultimately grateful?
Andy Simons achieved what I consider to be a truly extraordinary feat. He pushed the Hike and Fly record to a level that, according to my calculations, I actually considered to be the absolute maximum possible at this time. He managed it in a very special way, and that is what distinguishes his record from all previous ones. Namely, he flew at night. And that is a major distinguishing factor, because everyone who has set Hike and Fly records so far—that is, the maximum ascent in vertical meters on foot with a glider on your back within 24 hours—everyone has done so under so-called visual flight conditions and simply flown according to the rules that actually apply to paragliders worldwide, namely flying during daylight.
And Andy actually had a good idea and said, man, if I want to use even more time, then I probably have to just include the night. And I don't think you can be angry or upset with him for that, because he even did it within a legally obviously acceptable framework. He had a special permit. I think a notice was even issued back then. And on the mountain where he did it, he had a small airspace where the night flight permit was granted. But that is also one of the points I want to criticize in a way, because records are also there to be broken. And that is exactly what should now be available to everyone.
And I think that will also make it difficult for future record attempts. Because I don't think it will be that easy to get such a night flight permit in other countries, or even there again.
That means a record like that couldn't be repeated under the same conditions. I mean, the weather is never the same anyway, but at least the framework—saying you have 24 hours and that it can also be flown at night. But do you think you can't always get that? So, does this record stand for eternity? I mean...
I think that under these conditions, it will certainly stand for a very long time at first. Either someone comes along who is really similarly fit—and he is obviously, truly admirably fit, because that is a real achievement—and he gets a similar permit or wants to do it exactly this way, then I can imagine the record being broken. Possibly even by him himself, because at the end of his video where he presented this record, he actually said quite clearly that everything is now basically open. And it's not necessarily just about how much you can do in 24 hours; if you fly through the night, you're not really fixed on or limited by that anymore. You could fly for 48 hours or even longer.
And that's exactly where I see a bit of the danger. And I think we had this whole thing with gliding already, many, many decades ago, when thermals flying always worked better. And of course, it was about, yeah, who can fly the longest? At some point, people were flying all day and only really landed in the last twilight. And until someone came up with the idea that you could also fly dynamically on the dune and use the wind to fly much longer. And then they did that. And then they found the dune where the wind also blew at night. And then they just kept flying there under adventurous conditions. I think the record eventually went up to 50 hours or something, until someone fell asleep in flight. And crashed into the dunes. And at the latest, you have to ask yourself, what is a record like that actually worth?
From my perspective, certainly not such a risk.
But why does what Andy did affect you now? Did you want to set a record yourself somehow? And did you say, "Now he's done something that I can't do or can't manage"?
So absolutely, that's exactly how it was. There are a few things that distinguish Andy and me. We also have some similarities. We are significantly different ages. I'm well over 40. He's a young, top-fit guy. And that's admirable, of course. We're both interested in ultra-trail running. So, these long-distance runs in real terrain or high-alpine terrain. And that's one similarity. Another is that we can both imagine taking on this hike-and-fly record. He's done it now. And funnily enough, he did it during a time when I was in the specific preparation phase to do exactly the same thing.
And ultimately, it's like, after many, many preparations, I was actually at the point where I said, okay, now I'll put two or three people together to form my team. And then we'll tackle it. And just as luck would have it, that's when the news from him came. The video was online. He showed how he did it. And that basically put an end to my considerations. Because under the conditions he did it in, I don't want to do it. I think for me it would be important that it's something like—that's a term you hear very often in mountaineering, when doing high-altitude climbing—by fair means. So, just in an honest way.
I don't want to say that he cheated. But "by fair means" also simply means using the normal means available to you. In mountaineering, for example, that clearly means without the use of supplemental oxygen. In
in this case, only flying during the day. Maybe we should add a note just so people understand. What does world record mean in the case of Andy Simons? So, he reached 16,876 meters, only to glide back down. That was in France, and it was this spring—or I think it was in May 2022. Now, you said that when the whole thing came out, you were in the middle of your own preparations. What was your plan? What did you want to do?
My plan? And where? Yes, absolutely. Those are exactly the exciting questions. Because, of course, I also observed the records before it. And not least the one by Tengai—or I don't know how to pronounce it exactly. I think he's French, flies for Niviuk, who held the previous record in 2021 with just under 13,400 meters. That was the starting point I used for my calculations. And now it came down to this. I was already aware that we're really in the upper range here. It gets really difficult for any professional athlete. Amateurs, anyone who still wants to achieve something here, has to optimize everything. Not least, Andy did that too with his night flight.
Just in a way where I feel like it was a bit of an advantage. Because that's simply not repeatable for everyone. But I also tried to optimize the framework. More specifically, it's just about being high-performing. And you're most high-performing where the air is thick. That means if you do it high in the mountains, you simply have lower performance. For example, if I want to climb 1,000 meters and I start at 2,000 meters, then it ends at 3,000 meters. And there's already less oxygen and slightly less physical performance. That already speaks in favor of looking for an area where you start at the lowest possible altitude.
And it still has steep mountains that are as steep as possible, so that the distance you cover to manage about 1,000 or however many meters of altitude gain is so short that it has exactly the right ratio. And if you look at the values of the slope where Andy flew that record, and look at the values of the slope I found after a long search, you'll see that they hardly differ. We're talking about two kilometers of distance per 1,000 meters of altitude difference. It's so steep that in some areas, you inevitably touch the ground with your hands.
You just said you wanted to go somewhere deep, where you start deep. That means you probably looked for a coastal mountain range somewhere where they say you start almost at sea level or something, and then it goes really high. And you probably also want to say, well, I want to be able to fly for a long time, so during the day, I need a long amount of time. You probably looked somewhere in the high north. Where was that? Exactly,
those are the two other points. And when you take all these search factors together, you inevitably end up in Norway. And Norway is a country with very, very many fjords, where the mountains basically go straight up, right from sea level. That's already a huge advantage. Secondly, Norway is obviously located significantly further north than all the areas where the Hike and Fly records have been set so far. And that's inevitably in the summer months. With a significantly, significantly longer day length, and thus a longer flyable day length under visual flight rules. Of course, you could always go further north and maybe reach a place somewhere,
where it really hardly gets dark at all. Where it's flyable for almost 24 hours. Exactly. But it's all about bringing all these factors together. And that's why I looked at Central Norway and, after a long search, some asking around, and not least by getting in touch with one of your previous podcast guests, Ulrike Jüse, who gave me many tips on where I could look for something like this in Norway. And I found a mountain with an elevation gain of 1,150 meters, which is a very good average for each lap, since you have to do them multiple times. The others mostly had something similar, by the way. It has a distance of 2.1 kilometers. It starts 30 meters above sea level.
And it's located in an area where you could certainly expect flight conditions for well over 20, 21, or 22 hours. However, Norway—and I noticed this relatively quickly during my search—is anything but weather-stable. And that is certainly one of the key issues for this hike and fly record. Finding an area, picking a day that has stable conditions for so long that you can fly with such a light glider, perhaps with a single skin of course, or a light mountain glider over such a long period.
That means, however, maybe like with some other records being set, where they say we have a two-week window where we say it has to happen in that area. We camp on-site or something and wait it out. And then they say, tomorrow is the day of days.
Yeah, exactly. Everyone
The signs are there. We'll head out tomorrow and stuff like that. When would you be able to start at the earliest there in Norway? And by what time in the evening could you land at the latest?
So, about starting early—you have to distinguish whether you mean starting early with the paraglider launch or, of course, with the ascent. Because the ascent could very well take place before sunrise; all the previous record attempts were done that way. Simply using the first ascent in the dark. And really, if—if the sun is just coming over the horizon, say, then starting the first flight. So you'd probably start at midnight and take the first part really easy so as not to waste too much energy. And with the first launch, you could probably start around three o'clock. And the whole thing could then actually be flown until about 11:30 p.m., depending on where you actually start.
That
means you really have, like, 20 hours of time in which you could fly? If
If you calculate it exactly, probably even more, yeah.
If you extrapolate that for yourself now, what were you expecting? How much could you realistically manage in those 20 hours? How many ascents?
So the first projections were based on that—I took the current record of 13,400 meters and thought about how much it could be topped. And the final steps where the records were broken were the following. The records that were improved were all relatively small, but they all actually just took place in flight areas in the Alps. I think it was at Kronplatz, at Bischling, at various... I think there was one at Seiseralm,
as well.
Seiseralm, yes, absolutely, exactly. So these are areas in the middle, in the heart of the Alps. And that means, of course, with correspondingly small daily windows, or smaller ones, at least in direct comparison. And so I calculated that it would be possible, that you could certainly, for example, in Norway, manage it—assuming the physical requirements are met, of course—that you could get to 15,000, 16,000 meters of altitude.
But that means you'd consider Andy Simons' record of almost 17 kilometers unbeatable there? I
I believe if you look at the times Andy took, you can see that it was already quite tight. And I think if you maybe optimize the area a bit more or go towards exactly June 21st or 22nd—meaning really to the minute of the outage—then it's certainly possible to maybe get a time window as long as the one he used, until the bad weather or simply the wind got too strong for him on that last flight. But then you still have to be just as fit as he was, and that is really a huge challenge. And that's why at that point I didn't know that yet and calculated that 15,000 should do it.
That would be a significant improvement on the current record under essentially the same conditions, because it's repeatable for anyone interested. And whether a legendary figure like Andy's is actually possible, you'd really have to look at the specific case. And by then, I might not be the right person for it anymore; one of the young wild ones would really have to step up. But I still want to say that age isn't necessarily the deciding factor, because we're talking about a very long endurance sport, in principle. And the experience I have, especially from these long ultra-trail races, shows that age isn't even primarily the deciding factor; rather, the factors that arise from mental strength, from experience, from knowing yourself well, from listening to yourself well—those play out much more significantly over the long distances.
I remember many races where, until the halfway point, young, top-fit people were running alongside me and basically looking over at me like, "Yeah, what do you want here?" And I just thought to myself, don't let them get to you, we'll see each other again. And that's exactly how it went. I believe that applies there too, because ultimately it's going to be an undertaking where you'll probably be at full throttle for over 23 hours. And I think everything has to line up. That's why I included a small buffer in my calculations, just for the human stuff—that you don't always get a top-speed transition there and off with the next glider, but at some point, you just have to go to the bathroom or need a bit longer to eat.
That's completely normal, they're all just human. If I take out all those buffers, I thought that what would theoretically have to be possible is a Double Everesting—that's twice the height of Mount Everest from sea level to the summit. Funnily enough, that's actually more or less exactly the number Andy managed to get.
Now you were, I believe if I remember correctly, even in Norway at the time when you got the news that Andy Simons had the record there. Absolutely. You were just in the middle of preparing for it. How did that hit you back then? What were you thinking when you read that? Did you just scream "shit" out loud?
Probably, I'll have to ask my wife. We were there with the whole family, it was a huge undertaking. Four weeks in a motorhome, with three small kids, driving through Norway more or less aimlessly to find a mountain, with just a few keywords and pieces of information. And the news actually reached me two days after I had really happily leaned back in the motorhome and said I'd found my mountain. I was up there, I did several hike and fly there. It seems ideal to me, it does to this day. And we drove off and I called my buddies and said, hey, I've got a mountain, let's start planning. And two days later this video came out and I called the same people again and said, I think we need to rethink things a bit.
The signs are different.
Do you still intend to pursue this project in some way? Or are you saying, "That's been such a blow for me. Andy Simons, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to attack you anymore. Norway, it was a beautiful time, those four weeks. I learned a lot, saw a lot. My family might have suffered a lot because of everything I went through there. But that's the end of the story now." Or do you still want to keep going and actually try it out? What is actually possible there? I mean...
I think you can basically distinguish between general records, which just exist and stand there, and personal records. And I believe that the personal record—simply, yeah, always knowing how much I can achieve? Not in direct comparison, but just for oneself. I still find that highly interesting, and since steep mountain climbing and simple paragliding, again, heading downhill are actually my main passions, it's natural to combine them and try that too. But what actually happened through this record is that it really got me thinking about how one could basically handle this misery.
Because of course I'm aware that High-Gain-Fly records aren't something the world revolves around. It's a very, very small niche. And there are a few people who are interested in it, and probably not even everyone within the paragliding scene says, "Yeah, great" or something like that. I mean, paragliding is really versatile. So that's really just a small area. Most
will probably think, "Oh, another crazy person trying to go over the
...want to run up mountains and stuff like that. I mean, you can't really fault them for that. It's, it's really a bit crazy, but those are all records. A record is always, well, pushed to the limit. And that's why I think I do want to try it. But I think I want to try it under the same conditions as the previous records were set. Of course, with the optimizations I've thought of, like going further north, starting lower, finding the ideal terrain steepness, using really up-to-date equipment. But I think it would be important to me, so to speak, to follow this "unwritten code" that everyone before me has basically followed tacitly,
to continue it and see what's possible in this area. And if you really got close to Andy's record, that would still be a great signal. And then it's ultimately up to each person whether they say, yeah, I recognize the other record because, well, he did run more vertical meters. Or you say, no, paragliding simply takes place under VFR conditions, according to visual flight rules. Then we want to fly in daylight. And the record that came out under those circumstances, that's the one we want to count. But you have to say, these are all unofficial records. You could
you could also just say, look, I'm defining a record rule for your record right now; I'm defining a record rule now and calling my record—the one you might set—I'll just call it the one that
you would call it. That's the
Daytime Hike-and-Fly record, because it was flown during the day, in daylight. And the other one by Andy Simons is maybe just the 24-hour Hike-and-Fly record. Those are just two categories. And then you have the record in one category and Andy Simons has the record in the other. And both of them could be terribly happy with that.
So, absolutely. I think that would even be the most sensible way. Just to say there's, so to speak, an open class. Anyone can do it however they want, running and flying for as long as they like, and see what happens. And maybe there's a class that you define by actually sticking to daytime flying conditions. And for example, I personally also think you could do it by saying, okay, you use at least certified equipment. It doesn't have to be LTF right away, but EN-certified. Just the way paragliding actually happens. You take a reserve, you put on a helmet, and you might have a protector with you. Because then you can simply say, okay, the record took place at this and that time.
And this or that was simply possible back then. And maybe there will be even more with the gear. Maybe the gliders and harnesses will get even lighter. That means just by leaving things out. Well, that's obvious. I think in France, people fly a lot of Volibre just like that. And yeah, but I think that would certainly be something where you could create a category. That you just say, yeah, we do it like this. How paragliding is, with the current gear. And try to see what's possible under these conditions. I think that would be the version I could personally get on board with the most.
May it be so. In this context, however, I'm personally interested in one more thing from you now. Namely, what is it for you, where does the appeal lie in this form of, let's say, the ultra-form of the sport? That you say, I really want to push it to the limit. Why don't you just fly around wonderfully, cheerfully, and calmly, but instead say, no, I want to run up the mountain 15 more times.
That's a good question. And to be honest, I've asked myself that too. I think the answer would be very different depending on who you ask. Ultimately, it's become a matter of what it means to each individual. So, it's a very personal thing. And of course, the answer is also to be found somewhere in that primal human drive for improvement or optimization. That you've always tried to, say, be able to do something even better. And as soon as a record exists, it automatically triggers the feeling of thinking, "Man, can't that be done even better?" Either by the record holder themselves or by their surroundings. This competitiveness that arises from that is actually, I think, one of the basic principles that resonates in every competition, every tournament, every Olympics, and thus, of course, in every record attempt as well.
And this competitiveness, I think, as I said, is a very normal human thing. One person might have a bit more of it, another a bit less. But yeah, it's simply about seeing where the limits are. Where are your own limits? An attempt at a record is always a bit like entering uncharted territory or searching for it. You're always going one step further than before. I think having that bit of competitiveness exerts a huge appeal. And yeah, that's certainly the reason.
Well, what you were planning there is something where you'd say it's basically something competitive, especially against yourself. Because in the end, you're running up there alone. You have to beat yourself, so to speak, or fulfill your own plan that you calculated beforehand, or better yet, exceed it, and so on. How does competitive thinking work for you when you're with others? For example, do you also take part in other hike-and-fly competitions and then say, I want to measure myself there and get on the podium as much as possible, or whatever?
Absolutely. So, I think I definitely have that competitive mindset. And it just kind of happened. I discovered it at some point and I actually remember quite well how I found it. Because the story of how it came about actually keeps coming back to me in so, so many areas of my life to this day. I have to go back a bit. It was a time in my youth. We were all very cool, smoked cigarettes, and I was absolutely unathletic. And then the day came when I started my apprenticeship. And on that day, it bothered me. I stopped right then and thought, I'm going to start running now. That's a good idea. I ran a few hundred meters and nearly collapsed. And I thought, for God's sake, nothing is happening here at all.
That's not for me. Even so, I did it again the next day and did it again the day after that. And after a month, I looked at my watch and realized I had just run for an hour straight. And that was incredible, because I would never, ever have dared to think I could do that. I just thought I couldn't. And suddenly, it worked. This sense of achievement suddenly became the engine to keep going. That was the big motivation. Because I was so amazed at what was possible in such a short time. Then I kept going. And after a few more months, I looked and I had suddenly run a half marathon. In just over two hours or something, not particularly fast. But then suddenly, I was able to double that as well.
And so it kept going. Then I thought, man, if I can run a half marathon, then maybe I can run a full one too. So I signed up and ran a full marathon. In a very good time. Yeah, then I was suddenly a real runner. And then the thinking just keeps going. Then you try to run it even faster. And even faster again. And train even more. And a little bit faster. Until I eventually thought, why am I always trying to run it faster? Who says you should actually stop running at the marathon distance? There's no reason for that at all. It's 42, something kilometers. But why don't I just keep running? What happens behind that threshold? And that interested me like crazy.
So I just kept running. And I looked at what happened beyond that threshold. And interestingly, absolutely nothing happened. Because the body doesn't know how many kilometers it is. And that showed me one thing very clearly. This threshold, it's not in the feet, not in the muscles. It's simply in the head. And when I start to get these mental thresholds under control, to think them away, to say they play no role in this context, then suddenly everything is open and everything is possible. And that clears the way for a certain imagination, to achieve things that I would have considered impossible before. And it's exactly these experiences that have led me to get more and more into these long-distance races, and to really seek out races where I would have said before, I don't think that's possible, that it can be done.
And I think that's also the reason why you ultimately do them. Namely, the joy of having achieved something that actually seemed impossible. It's indescribable. And I think there's an English saying, or I don't know if it's a proverb. It goes, "It always seems impossible until it's done." And that actually shows it quite well. You just think that it's not possible. But you think that until you've tried it and proven that it actually is.
Listening to this, you might think we're in a running podcast and not a paraglider podcast. Tell us again how you ended up connecting your running with this flying story and saying, okay, I'm going to combine these two hobbies in a certain way.
When I started paragliding, back in 2003—which was quite a while ago—my very first interest, in principle, once I had this new freedom, was to drive to all those mountains where we had spent our summer holidays as children. A lot in Switzerland. And I remembered how I stood up there on those mountains back then, more or less bored, and suddenly got excited when I saw those mountain dolins being flown around in the slope lift, those true masters of flight. And as a kid back then, I thought, that has to be possible, like flying around here for a whole day, and it has to be, that's the ultimate. As soon as I had the glider, had the license, I drove to all those mountains, hiked up, and settled that open account from my childhood and flew down from those exact mountains.
And back then, we didn't call it hike and fly yet; it was really, it was with the big school glider, equipment with a huge harness, a rescue pack of over two kilos, and some A-glider, it was really exhausting. But for me, it was, yeah, the ultimate freedom. And it kept going like that, and no one called it hike and fly yet, but more and more happened, and I chose higher and higher mountains. At some point, I borrowed one of the first mountain gliders and decided, man, which is the highest mountain here, and I went up Mont Blanc. And more or less alone, with some info I had, and I decided, I'm flying down from the summit now. I made it to the summit in relatively fast time, and found myself there confronted with a 70 km/h wind from diagonally behind.
And it was clear to me even in the early stages of my flying career that those weren't flying conditions. So I mostly climbed back down to the Gouter Hut at the time, and then in a sheltered area, but basically in the same weather situation, I did something adventurous over the glacier and flew down to Les Houches. Yeah, certainly something I wouldn't do again, but at the time it seemed okay to me. Yeah, then I was down, but I hadn't flown from the summit, so I still had a score to settle. And that took a few years, but I was persistent and eventually had my own small glider. That's when it started, these downscaled A-gliders.
Back then, it was the Nova Ibex, the very first one. I had one with 15 square meters and a few years later I packed it up and headed quickly back up to Mont Blanc, and then the summit start actually worked. Yes, with that, I'd basically flown all the high mountains in this area. There simply weren't any higher ones left. I then took trips to Nepal, though not anymore just to get into the high mountains, not to actually fly from there. But from that point on, I've basically never used a mountain lift to go paragliding again. For me, it was simply the most normal thing and, in my experience, the most sensible way to do it—to hike the mountains you're going to fly down beforehand.
So that means since then, you've actually hiked up every single mountain you've flown down?
Yes, I absolutely am. I've always had these two passions. I did a lot of running competitions back then. This mountain hiking with luggage was ideal training. There was no reason to take the cable car. So it's not Swabian stinginess that people might attribute to me—that I don't want to pay for the lift—but I've truly always chosen the walking option out of conviction. And I also have to say that almost every time I flew down, I consciously felt that I appreciate the altitude more, that I enjoy it more, when I've actually earned it physically rather than having bought it.
Do you think—I don't know if you've ever actually done something with that kind of intensity—if you were to do a high-and-fly record like they're doing in Norway now, do you think you'd still be able to enjoy the flying part while doing it?
To be honest, I can't do that yet. From my experience with long runs and other long sporting endeavors, I know that your feeling and perception of your surroundings definitely change over the course of such long events, and sensations suddenly become different; and in terms of perception, you're certainly at a deficit compared to others and perhaps even regarding the things you're doing.
I think that's certainly a difficulty—being able to fly well over such a long period—and you'll definitely have to train for that. I don't think it's something where you can just say, "Physically, I'm fit, now I'll just do it." I think you have to train for that too. Before the very, very long runs, you inevitably know you're going to be running through an entire night. And if you're worried that you won't feel as good anymore, that you won't be able to run through a whole night, then you just have to train for it. And I've done that many times. Just getting up at 12:30 a.m. and going for a seven-hour run. Why not? You can always do well at what you do a lot, and that's why I think that's certainly something you have to train for.
What's the situation right now regarding the choice of material? What kind of glider would you take? You could also say, for example, I'll take the smallest, fastest one possible, which also has a strong sink rate to get back down as quickly as possible. It could also be said, well, I'm delaying or preventing a bit of my recovery phase, which I also have during the flight. Maybe a glider with which I'm a bit slower or on the move a bit longer is even more interesting in the end, in terms of the entire record or the time. The fast, small one is like the young sprinter you mentioned earlier, where at the halfway point you said, watch out, I'll catch up to you. I'm a bit slower, going more comfortably, but at the end, I just have the power for it. What considerations did you have there? What would you have chosen?
To be honest, my reasoning was to take two gliders. And actually, exactly those two categories you just mentioned. There has to be one that is as light as humanly possible, and in my case, I would resort to a small single skin. I personally fly a Sir Edmund in the small size. That's a wonderful glider that flies perfectly without any issues, and you can spiral down well with it, so that would certainly be doable. It doesn't overwhelm you, even if you've been flying for a long time. But you also have to keep in mind that over such a long period, it's relatively likely that there will be wind-intensive phases, and I think it would be a shame if you were two-thirds of the way through, had really pushed yourself extremely hard, and at the end—like Andy is now, for example—you're confronted with such strong wind that you have to say, under these conditions, it's no longer possible.
Then I would take a second glider, and that's certainly something you have to consider, is it okay, like, with two gliders, because that would have another advantage. You could say, couldn't you get a bit of help, someone who packs the glider down in the meantime? So, in principle, two complete sets of gear, so that you could get the change done much, much faster down there, so that the glider is already packed in a second backpack and you could go back up immediately.
I'll take the glider, as my assistant up there is just saying, "Hey, we have 30 km/h wind now," so then I can probably leave the single skin down there. Yeah, then you'd rather take the 12 square meter mini-wing.
And you would combine them accordingly like that?
The idea was that you have materials for different conditions and then choose accordingly from flight to flight. Of course, the small glider would be significantly heavier than a simple single skin, but if it means the flight can actually take place and you don't have to wait or it puts the whole undertaking at risk, then that's certainly something where I'd say, yeah, it's worth carrying an extra kilo.
If I see it correctly, of the others who flew all those records, I don't think a single one was using single skins; they all had light double-sail -Bergschirme. Now, you have an interesting story and I'm jumping into the topic a bit here, but because you also say single skin, you were the first one I noticed, even a few years ago. Back then, I didn't have a clue about your hike and fly and ultramarathons and other stuff, but you were one of the first people to sew a single skin yourself at home. At that time, I also wrote about it on my blog, Lu-Glidz.
How did you come up with the idea to do something like that back then? It was right at the beginning, when the first single skins were appearing and no one knew yet if they could fly properly or anything like that. And then you sit down at your sewing machine at home and sew your own single skin.
Yeah, absolutely, that was exactly the point. We just didn't know how they flew. And I remember very well, we were standing on the slope with some fellow pilots and we'd all seen this video. Suddenly, there was this video of the first prototype from Ozon, the XXLight, and everyone was like, huh, can that be true? Is that video a fake? Is that even real? How can that be? How can it fly? And even if it flies, yeah, if it collapses, it's never going to open again, it has no internal pressure at all, it doesn't have any crossports. I mean, that's something extreme, it has to be a joke. They must be pulling our leg.
And I remembered back to the time when I worked with hollow profiles a lot, first in the model aviation group and later as a designer of many model aircraft. That was a time when we flew a lot in gymnasiums. We always wanted to have models that were as slow as possible with as much lift as possible, and the hollow profile is naturally ideal for that. And upon closer inspection, you realize that the single skin is actually nothing more than a highly curved hollow profile. And that's why it was relatively clear to me that it would fly quite well. And I made some considerations: what is actually happening? Will the glider really not open in the event that the glider has a collapse, a larger canopy malfunction...
...or whatever? My reasoning was relatively clear, and I voiced it quite clearly back then to my fellow flyers, and they basically laughed at me and said, "Hey, you're talking nonsense, you have no idea what you're talking about." But I was so sure that I said, "I'll see if I can get a glider like that, and I'll go over the water and just show them that's how it is." But getting a glider like that was, of course, impossible. It was a prototype back then and there were essentially no others. But I had already voiced it, and then I thought, what do I do now? And then I told them, "Look, if I can't get a glider, I'll just sew one myself and use that to prove my point."
So you really designed, drew, cut, and sewed the entire glider yourself? No.
So first of all, you have to say that those who hadn't already said it before—now he's crazy—they obviously declared me completely insane. Because there isn't really a DIY scene for paragliders like there is now for model airplanes or whatever. And that's why it was very, very difficult to get hold of information. And ultimately, a paraglider is such a complex thing on a single skin. It's not something I can just somehow draw on a piece of paper with a set square and a ruler. The paraglider is, in principle, the two-dimensional layout of this three-dimensional model, as it's supposed to look later. And that this can no longer be done with a calculator and a pencil, that's clear. And that's why I set out to find out where you can get plans for something like that.
And I actually found a site, much to my own surprise. And it was a site that I still visit often to this day. It's called Laboratori den Woll. And it's the homepage of a Spanish designer, Peri Casellas, who has been running it as an open-source project for years. He doesn't just design paragliders, he designs aircraft in general, hang gliders. He has crazy ideas about everything you could fly, has his own unique style, draws a lot by hand, only puts the sketches online, and he's a brilliant CAD expert and also an exceptionally good programmer. I think he even does it as his main job. He works at a university in Barcelona.
He is truly an impressive personality. I found him online and he said, yeah, I saw that with the single skin too, and I have a program with which you can design paragliders. He wrote the program himself. It is very, very cryptic. I think he's the only one who can actually operate it. And he said, hey, I have a design here. There's a prototype right now that Adrenalin Paragliders in Spain built. It looks quite good, but some things are completely wrong. The brake preload isn't right.
So many, many details were completely wrong. He would have revised it, and he's very happy that I'm contacting him because he's looking for someone to sew another prototype.
I found two. I needed construction data for a glider. He needed someone to sew a prototype. And shortly after, I had a file, a huge DXF file, with all the two-dimensional pieces on it that you need for a single skin, as it was imagined back then.
And then you went to the Xtreme Textil website, got some fabrics, and said, wonderful, now I'm going to start cutting something out like that.
and probably plot it out on paper somehow or something to transfer it onto the fabric or something like that.
So, that's a funny story. That's exactly how it was. I found a kite shop that had some nice Ripstop fabric. It was silicone-coated, the Ripstop with about 40 grams per square meter, so basically normal paraglider fabric. And there, I ordered 45 square meters and hit OK, and then it took half a day. Then my phone rang and the owner called me and asked if that was a typo. His usual customers would order about two to four, sometimes five square meters. I had 45, he asked if that was correct. And I told him, yes, it's going to be a somewhat larger kite. That's all correct, and I'm happy if he still gives it to me at the normal
shipping costs. And he did that. And you have to keep in mind, my apartment back then was about 45 square meters. So I ordered so much fabric that I could have covered my entire apartment with it. And then it started, because you can't do anything with those DXF files on the computer. You need them in full size. You have to somehow transfer them onto the ripstop. First, I calculated how many individual DIN A4 pages that would be if you printed them out,
because you need a great roll of Tesafilm to stick them all together. And it was basically hopeless. And then, luckily, I had a flight mate who worked in an architecture firm. And they had a DIN A0 continuous feed printer and could print DXF files. And that was a huge help, because they print their... I think these plans or construction drawings of the houses there. And he said, yeah, you buy a roll of paper for your printer and then I'll print it all out for you. And that's what I did. And then I had them in full size for the first time, cut them out with scissors, and then transferred these templates individually onto the ripstop with a pen, like letting them shine through and tracing them, so to speak.
And that was a job that took well over three months on its own. Several hours every day. A lot of ballpoint pens, many leads used up.
Now let's make a long story short, so it's not—of course, we could go into every single step, but how long did it take you to actually finish sewing this glider in the end?
I was really diligent and worked on it every day, and after nine months, the glider was lying finished in front of me. I went out to the meadow after work and rigged it up for the first time. It took nine months with all the tests, learning how to splice lines, sewing all the parts—of course, also learning how to sew a glider like that. I could already sew quite well, but sewing Ripstop fabric is something completely different from a cotton fabric. The machine has to be adjusted accordingly. All of that happened within this time, and then I was standing there on the meadow with the glider. It was evening, there was a very, very light wind, and that was the moment of truth. And I had specifically brought a Go-Kart with a GoPro mounted on my helmet because I thought, yeah, I'm going to put this online—this first rigging of my self-sewn glider.
And I pulled it up and it deployed perfectly, rose straight up, and I watched the video afterwards—my voice, I don't even know what I said, it cracked. I was so overcome with joy at that moment when this glider, so to speak, revealed itself for the first time, yeah, in a kind of beauty. Because before that, it was just a really annoying piece of tangled fabric in my apartment, which was already too small for me anyway, and now suddenly it was there. And then the glider was here and I suddenly noticed on the risers, hey, this is pulling upwards. Lift is actually happening here.
If I take three quick steps now, I'll take off. In that moment, it became clear to me that it's not about proving whether you can sew a glider yourself or anything like that. Of course you can. In that moment, it became clear to me that my biggest childhood dream was coming true right then. Namely, the one where I build my own wings. And this moment, when I think about it even today, it honestly brings tears to my eyes. Not because I sewed something that provides lift, but simply and purely because of the magnitude of the moment and what it meant to me personally.
Did you actually go flying with this glider afterwards? Or did you say it was enough just to get it up? I can tell it could fly because it has enough lift, but who knows if it's even safe, if it's properly trimmed, or anything else. I'd rather keep it on the ground, but I've shown that it works.
The first tests showed that the glider was essentially correct. I made a few corrections, but nothing substantial. I didn't fly it in that form at that time, plain and simple, because it's an amateur build. I just didn't have a certification. I live here in Germany. I make an effort to follow the applicable rules, and that kept me from actually flying the glider, even though I was absolutely sure that it would fly. Later on...
at a given point, I actually had the opportunity to do high-altitude flights with the glider and I did do that. I also flew it over water and I maneuvered it. And all those things, which is why I actually sewed it in the first place—namely just to show, yes, it will probably happen like this and this and this—ultimately happened exactly like that. However, it was a bit of a late satisfaction, because by that time there were already several single-skin gliders and the proof had long since been provided, but it was still nice and I still remember hanging there in the air and just looking down from over 1,000 meters, and it looked exactly like 1,000 meters look when you're hanging under any paraglider, but when you looked up, that's the moment that made the difference.
When you have this thing, where you cut every centimeter of fabric by hand, where you checked every stitch to see if it had the quality for this structure to hold together so that you would trust it with your life, where you spliced every line and threaded it, and you look up and see it and look down and know, "Yes, it's carrying me," that's a moment—yeah, that was the ultimate freedom, or as Skyman Markus Grundhammer would say, massive.
Yeah, and maybe some nose drilling afterwards and stuff like that. Yeah, exactly. What changed, through this project and the experiences you had with it, or maybe even with the corresponding attention you might have received in the scene—did anything change in your flying career because of that?
To be honest, something did change, and that was quite interesting because that was the part, so to speak, that wasn't planned. The glider was finished, it had been tested during ground handling, that was clear. You had even reported on it, which really, really pleased me at the time, and word of mouth spread a bit in the scene, but for me, this self-build project was finished for the time being. I then flew a lot of normal paragliders, some cross-country and competitions back then, and I remember flying along with Bavue and how we stood together somehow after the task in the evening, and yeah, a few people came over and asked if I was the one who had sewn a glider himself, and then I said, yeah, of course, that's me, and so on, sorry I don't have it with me, but yeah, that's what I did. And then they told me, hey, look, there's a position open, they're looking for someone who can work in a...
...work in a design department and be a bit of a test pilot, wouldn't that be something for you? And I say, wow, I haven't even heard of that, cool, can I still apply? Then I'll do that. That means a job at a paraglider manufacturer. Absolutely, exactly. So I applied there and then they invited me and said, oh yeah, bring that glider with you, we'd like to see it. And then I took my masterpiece, so to speak, under my arm and went there. They really liked the glider; they even attested that it was sewn very, very cleanly. That really made me happy and I got the job, and at first, of course, I thought, man, this is insane. Yeah, because I think that's actually what I've always secretly dreamed of. Building aircraft,
designing, testing, that's exactly my thing. And yeah, I gave up my apartment, I quit my long-time job, I packed everything I thought I might need into my VW bus and moved to Allgäu. It started out really great. In a very short time, I got to meet many big names from the paraglider scene, and that was obviously brilliant for me. Basically, my superstars—I knew them from magazines or maybe from the Stubai Cup or something, but not just like, right next to me, working on something together. And that was already really crazy. And it was a really, really great time, but to cut the story short, I have to say that I realized relatively quickly,
that the flying I do there, while I still enjoy it, doesn't give me the same thing as before when I just flew for myself. I didn't mind flying prototypes, quite the opposite. I actually found that interesting because that's when you learn the most. It was more about the feeling afterwards. It used to be like this: you went flying, it went well, and then you drove home completely fulfilled, thinking, "Ah yes, great, it was worth it again," or whatever. And now, suddenly, it was a job and you flew. The flying was okay, sure, it's still a paraglider, but it didn't give me anything anymore. And then I started thinking and really thought, man, this dream job is actually robbing me of my greatest passion and
I had a hunch that was the case, and looking back, that hunch was right. That's why, after about six months, I went to them and said, guys, I'm sorry, it's actually my dream job, but it has to go on without me, I'm sorry, I can't do this.
How was their reaction? They
it was totally fair and understandable. I don't think I want to blame anyone for it at all. The whole thing was really due to my own naivety and my own obviously very rose-colored glasses in that context, because it's just completely normal. I simply had the wrong idea. It's just different whether you do something simply for yourself out of your own free will as a balance, as, yeah, as a conviction that it's the right thing to do in your free time, or if it's what you do simply to earn money. Either way. That huge difference just became clear to me there, and that's why I'm grateful—they understood and
I'm also grateful that I was able to go back to my old job, and that was my excursion into the paragliding industry. Looking back, I'm glad about it. It took me a while until paragliding gave me the same feeling it did before, but now it's back to that. I'm very happy about that, and I'm also very happy about the contacts I was able to make during that time. I'm still in touch with some of them to this day, and yes, that is a real enrichment.
The lesson you drew from that, basically, from this excursion into the paragliding industry, was sort of like saying, hmm, if you have to deal with it too intensely, maybe with the commercial side, to make money from it, then you lose the passion for flying.
What would you say, generally, as a recommendation perhaps from your long flying career and also your involvement in the Hike & Fly and Ultra projects you have, on how to keep the passion for flying alive?
So I believe you keep it primarily by staying true to yourself and by simply asking yourself, what does flying mean to me? And that's exactly where the difference lies—if you're doing it professionally, for example, it's no longer just your own; it's mainly about the position you work in. And I think you keep the joy of flying when you set new goals for yourself, whether they're big or small—that's up to each person to decide. But staying true to yourself, thinking about why you're actually doing this, yeah? Sometimes it's also just, yeah, when you think about an upcoming flight day, asking yourself what I'm hoping to get out of it?
Why do I do it? Why do I do it? Do I do it because it's cool? Do I do it for my social media account, or do I do it because I can't imagine anything better than just having it in my life every now and then, being able to look down from above and think, man, yeah, it's great that I have the opportunity to see the whole thing from a completely different perspective.
I want to jump back to one thing, to the beginning, or at least relatively early on, the first topic, this Hike & Fly and training for it and ultramarathons and stuff like that. You mentioned in passing that you were in Norway and have three small children, which means you have a family. You go flying and you train for ultramarathons and other things. How do you manage that? I mean, how do you train for that when you basically have a wife and kids at home? How can you even manage to put that together? How can you integrate it?
So I think there are several things necessary. That's actually something you can't ignore, because these are real commitments and you have to meet them. I mean, that was the decision. My specific approach is to try my best to simply integrate the family into the training, and in my case, I did it by structuring my running workouts so that I just take the baby jogger—the off-road stroller—with me and put in the kids who just want to come along. And that's really great, and in the beginning, when we had one child, it wasn't a problem at all, and it still worked well with two. When we had three children, the whole thing became really difficult because strollers like that don't exist.
And I built a construction back then that I still use regularly today, where I connect two strollers with a large aluminum bar behind one another and run in the middle like a sort of middle motor, and this setup gives me the possibility to take all three children with me, and that has many, many advantages. The first advantage is that the children are in the fresh air. The second advantage is that I can train very, very well and very intensely, and the third advantage is that my wife finally gets some peace and quiet, which I think she isn't even angry about from time to time. That
means she says to me every now and then, Jeremy, go train again. Yeah.
Exactly. But take the construction into account, exactly. And that's how we do it. And yeah, with all three kids in it, it weighs well over 60 kilos. When you're really running up steep gravel slopes, it's a very, very intense training pulse and it really trains you well. Secondly, I work in shifts in my main job. That means I often have time during the day because I worked at night and it maybe wasn't that exhausting. Then there's also the fact that I think I just have to say quite honestly that I can be very, very grateful for my family, who are incredibly understanding of the things. Both for the flying, but of course also for the endurance sports. We're talking about 15 to 20 training hours per week during the peak phase.
That's quite a time; it has to come from somewhere. I can integrate a large part of it, but there are also phases where I just go running at night and sacrifice sleep because it's simply not enough. But for example, leading up to the trip to Norway, I really wanted to know—also with regard to the record—how many vertical meters can I actually run in 24 hours?
For that, I signed up for a very interesting race. It takes place in Saxony. It's a stair marathon. It's 24 hours where you run up and down a vineyard staircase. The winner is the one who completes the most laps. It's a traditional race and I went there without really knowing specifically what to expect. And I came in second and covered about 11,500 meters of elevation in 22.5 hours—that's how long we did it. If you compare that to the elevation record now, you'd think there's still a lot missing. But you have to consider that I ran all those 11,500 meters up and down. So, of course, nothing was flown there. And going down is sometimes actually the more demanding thermal as muscular exhaustion increases.
And after that realization, I knew that I believe I am capable of providing a level of performance in a very, very decent range that could make such a record possible.
One last thing. Tell me one more thing. You just said that with your three kids in the sled, you're running up these gravel paths with 60 kilos. How do you manage not flying down the mountain in that case, because those 60 kilos have to be held somehow?
The front of these carts has a brake, and I operate that. This means that about every three weeks the brake pads are worn down and the rim has already had to be replaced twice because it burst through. There's an insane amount of energy being converted into heat, and that's how I try to brake the team, while the thighs have to handle the rest. I have the entire team attached to me with a line around my waist. That way, if I were to fall, it wouldn't go anywhere. It just stays with me. We fall down together. So that's a safety feature I've built in. But it's really, very intense and prepares me well, whether it's for the long stuff, but of course also for the faster ones.
units on the mountain, which are also required in smaller high-and-fly competitions, that I really, really like to do. These one-day events, often these combination competitions with mountain running, mountain biking, paragliding, and whatever else is added. It started a bit with the Grazimann back then, but there are great new formats. Paul Guschlbauer does a lot, a lot there. For example, the Aerodlon takes place in two weeks. So these are great competitions for everyone and you don't have to be a superstar, you can just participate with the glider you have and with the skills you have, and just fly in a competition where the real superstars see it, who are also partially there. These are high-caliber X-Alps athletes who are just participating and it's already great to see how professionally they do it,
how completely different their approach is. But ultimately, it's also interesting to see that they're just human beings and they only cook with water, but just at a very, very high level.
If I remember correctly, you also took part in the Aerodlon last year and were on the podium as well.
That's right, and even the time before that. The first time, I came in third, and Paul Guschlbauer won, while Andy Huber took second place—he's also very, very good. He's an extremely talented mountain biker. Last year, the year you just mentioned, yeah, I came in second. First place was Aaron Durongati and third was Thomas Friedrich, so top X-Alps athletes. I don't really want to put myself in the same breath as these amazing athletes, because you really have to see it in the context of this competition. In a format like the X-Alps, I certainly wouldn't stand a chance.
to keep up with these guys on the same level. But in this format—and that's why I mentioned it before—it is possible, and it's already a great feeling. Yeah, because I mean, these are the cool guys.
So, I'd say in this series you were third, then you were second, and then you don't have to, but you could potentially come in first this year at the Erotlon, if that's happening in two weeks. I'm curious to see, that might be around the time this podcast comes out. So guys, check out the...
final placement list, where Jeremy Paxton ends up there in the end. And maybe next year you'll read on Looglights that Jeremy Paxton somehow set a new Hike-and-Fly world record in Norway. At least in daytime flying. Jeremy, I thank you sincerely for all these stories about all the great passion you have for Hike-and-Fly, for single-skin construction, and everything else. There's really a lot of energy and heartblood behind it. Thank you for all the stories.
Thanks, Lucian, for the invitation, for the opportunity to tell this story, and generally, on behalf of the scene, I'd really like to thank you for your great service in the form of your podcast, and of course your blog as well. What you do for the scene is, I believe, invaluable, and so on behalf of everyone, I'd like to say a heartfelt thank you here.
Thanks as well.
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