That happens to me quite often. When you're flying a bit of a distance, you often can't explain anything, or if you land in the evening and it's still turbulent somewhere, you think to yourself, that's not happening now, it has to be calm. But it's just constant learning. That's why the sport is so interesting, because it's never the same. You can stand at the Grubi or fly down the mountain a thousand times, it will never be the same. And that's also true in other sports like snowboarding, where it's no longer cool to just go fast downhill. But it's almost always the same. If I ride down the slope ten times, it will almost always be the same. Flying is always different. The takeoff is different, the landing is different, the flight is different. And that's what makes it special.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast.
Stories from the cosmos of paragliding.
Today with Alex Rauter. And I'm Lucian Haas. The
Grubigstein, Leer-Moos, the Zugspitz arena. Many paragliders will be familiar with these names, especially in connection with the Red Bull X-Alps. Because for many editions of the famous hike-and-fly race, Leer-Moos has been an official waypoint, from which the pilots then sprint onto the Grubigstein to continue their flight. When it comes to the question of where the best place to take off is under the prevailing conditions, it's not just X-Alps riders, but also rookies and veterans who trust the local, Alex Rauter. Alex is THE point of contact for everyone who wants to fly the Grubigstein. He knows the mountain like the back of his hand, has spent his entire flying life there, celebrated his greatest successes, but also experienced his worst setbacks.
In this 137th episode of Podz-Glidz, Mister Grubigstein, as I call him, tells us all about it. The stories span more than three decades. From the beginnings of paragliding, when Grubigstein was sort of too flat for launching, to today's conditions, where X-Alps pilots sometimes completely exhaust the mountain directly from the landing field. Alex has experienced all these developments himself during this time. And even though the 53-year-old already has thousands of flights from Grubigstein in his logbooks, he is no less fascinated by flying and hike-and-fly on his mountain today than in his younger years. It's just that more flights come now. And that the flights also involve more knowledge, more experience, and also more humility toward the game.
The Podz-Glidz podcast and the associated Gleitschirm-Blog Lu-Glidz are professionally made, time-consuming projects. I deliberately do not finance them through intrusive advertising, but solely through donations. To those who already support my work, I say thank you. If you also want to contribute something so that the podcast and blog can continue, then go to the page www.fördern-im-Gleitschirm-Blog-Lu-Glidz.de. But for now, just listen to the stories of Mr. Grubigstein, Alex Rauter.
Alex, what does the Grubigstein mean to you?
Yeah, the Grubigstein is my home mountain. Back before the early days of flying, you couldn't fly down from there at all because it's actually way too flat, meaning it doesn't have enough incline. We used to go to the other side, to the Daniel, Uppspitze. And there, several people would ride up to the Lamos Alm. Then you'd hike up, fly down. And back then, the gliders had such a bad glide ratio that we flew in left and right curves. Then people would say, "Today was insane, that was a real dream, today went really well." And our biggest dream, or my biggest dream, was actually to fly from the Grubigstein at all. Because I thought I'd never experience that. That such good gliders wouldn't be built.
And that was my dream. To fly down from the Grubigstein just once.
You've been flying for so long that in the beginning, the gliders had such a poor glide ratio that you wouldn't have been able to get away from the Grubigstein.
Yes, I started from the very beginning, as it turned out. And those were actually arrow gliders. And they had a glide ratio of 1 to 2, 1 to 2.5. Maybe they had three. And it was very difficult to launch at the top. You needed steep terrain, a lot of wind. And then you flew down. And maybe a left or right turn over the village. And that was it. And a landing field.
So, that was, when did you start? '86, '87, sometime around then? I started in 1986, yes. Did you already have an instructor back then? Or did you just basically buy a parachute and say, I'll give this a try?
That's how it was. My father was always mountaineering in Chamonix. And in those months, the French were flying down there, as it turned out. And he called me. I was on vacation at my uncle's place in Kitzbühel. I was still a little boy or a teenager. And then I said I really wanted to do that. Because I actually wanted to become a helicopter pilot. I always wanted to fly. And then my uncle said he knows Steinbach, the inventor. And he's developing paragliders on the side now, as parachutes. And the next day we drove to see him. And then I actually already flew down from the small hill. Or something on the middle mountain. And then I called my father. And he said you absolutely have to bring it to Laumus.
Then he came. About 25 people started flying in Laumus. And you go up from the small hill to Linn. A teacher was already there. But all it said was to lay out the glider. And then run, run, run, run. Better to have ten steps too many in the air. And nothing can happen anyway. And you can't pull left or right as much as you want. Not much moved. And the funny thing is, you don't move that much. The funny thing about the whole story was that the gliders were open at the back edge, they weren't sewn shut, they were open. Aha, the air just came right out. The air just came out. And in Laumus we have this tinkerer who's always messing around with stuff. And he was there too. And then he just walked past the glider. And then he said, I'd sew that part shut at the back.
It's much better. Then Steinbach actually said, yeah, I'll just sew it up a bit more at the back. Then the air won't escape anymore. But that it would result in that profile, nobody knew that. And
then you sewed it yourselves and then the gliders were suddenly twice as good as before? He sewed it and then it went much better.
If '86 or '87 was your start, when did you actually fly from the Grubigstein for the first time, where you say it was actually too flat for normal gliders?
He can't give an exact time. You'll have to check my logbook for that. But that was definitely ten years later. First? It took that long? Until the gliders were that good? It took a very long time, and only then did we fly from Grubigstein. And it was also the case that we didn't know if it would work out or not. And it actually wasn't a very good day, looking back now that I have a bit more experience; it was actually a tailwind or crosswind, and we somehow made it out anyway. And thank God it worked out, because otherwise, you probably would have scrapped the plan right away.
Well, there are two large high-voltage power lines here at Grubigstein that cross the slope. Did you get over them, or did you have to fly under them?
So we flew over the power lines, but in the early days, you often had to fly out perfectly straight with the modern gliders. Mostly they were high-performance gliders. They were really dangerous back then. And if you were just hanging around a bit at the top of the slope—you couldn't help it, you'd just fly around a little to look at something or whatever—you'd often end up landing in front of the power line. But there was a huge field there, so we landed there quite often. And then I'd climb back up to the middle station and drive back up again.
Well, Grubigstein is a terrain where, from what I've seen, I was totally positively surprised by the fact that it's a well-equipped area. All the launch sites were signposted, there were notes on them where you could see where you could take off, there was a brochure in which every launch site was described in detail and so on. And I believe you did all that back then and paved the way. What motivated or drove you to become the person who basically promotes, pushes, and wants to advance paragliding at Grubigstein?
Yes, basically, it has all grown slowly and it has always become more. And Grubigstein is not a beginner—I don't want to say it's a total beginner flight area—it's not a simple flight area, but you just have to know a few basic terms or ask around. If you understand the valley wind systems, if it's föhn-like, that it's a föhn-prone mountain, if you know all that, then it's a lot of fun because it's very early thermals; sometimes you can already start turning at 9 a.m. That's comparable to the Osterfelder Kopf in Garmisch. You can fly cross-country in all directions, it's very good thermals, and we have thermals almost all year because the Latschen are clear or there isn't much snow. It's actually always quite good for flying, and the whole thing with setting up the launch sites—we have 9 different launch sites, it's often the same wind direction, but if there's too much wind up top, you can just go further down.
And then at some point, we set up our own wind vanes so we could see for ourselves, because back then, it was a dream—not that we had cell phones, but to be able to check the wind stations. That just didn't exist. Nowadays, there are the Hohlfuß stations or whatever else others offer, but you couldn't have imagined that was possible. The lift stations or the masts had wind wheels, but you couldn't check them; you had to call the lift, and if it was busy, they'd say, "Yeah, it's 3, 4, or 5 meters per second," or something from Innsbruck at the airport on a tape recording. But being able to just look at your phone and check the wind station—that was a dream. And that's how it all started with tandem flying for me and...
With tandem flying, in the meantime, when you have the next flight, you don't have much time to talk to other people or answer questions, and they'd just be standing down there saying, "Where do we go to fly?" And then I'd say, "Yes, you have to go up to the south staging area, or the north staging area, or the west staging area," but that didn't work out right away because people don't know where north is, and sometimes they don't even know where south or west is. So we started with flyers, numbering them so they know exactly where to go, and that they can also find their way down, that it's just simple, that you don't have to go to the phone ten times or explain every time, "Where is it? Where is it?" And the same thing happens at the landing field, because the more action there is, the more people land outside with the farmers and so on, so you always have to make sure you don't get into a conflict. So we wrote that down and
The lift is also very cooperative, and the tourism association—they've written everything down, they've financed the signs, and so it's all grown.
I once gave myself a working title for this podcast, like Mr. Grubigstein—the person who shapes everything here. When I met you, I think it must have been about 15 years ago, when I was here for the first time and also later on, you didn't have a flight school yet and at one point you even said that you didn't actually want to be a flight instructor, but rather you had your tandem and still flew yourself and just gave people a bit of an induction, but said, no, I don't want to be a flight instructor at all, that would be too much stress and all that. Now you have a flight school. What changed your mind?
Yeah, that I didn't want a flight school, maybe that's not entirely accurate anymore, but through tandem flying, I do that every day. I still go flying a lot myself, I enjoy it, and in the Grubigstein, tandem flying is often not easy, but that's exactly what makes it great. Because it's still really fun afterwards and represents a challenge, and it's just not standard where you just fly down; it means you're in thermals, you can spiral and have a bit of fun, starting is sometimes more windy and you have to do a back launch, and that's just fun in tandem flying. But then it was like, there were more and more guest pilots there and they were flying down with prone harnesses or other harness systems and gliders, and I'd say from below, "Excuse me, but your harness is set up wrong."
I just bought that, it can't be. Then I said, look, I unfortunately don't have time right now, but if you feel like it, come by my place in the afternoon and set that up. Then they came over and it just kept growing, and they asked, why don't you start a flight school? Like, that would be great, or something like that.
Do training or technique training or area orientations or hike and fly. Then I thought, that's not a bad idea at all, and then I got a flight instructor and set it up like that. And was it a good decision for you? I think it's good, so for me it was a good decision. My goal was always, I want to keep it that way, I don't want to get big, I want to have a small flight school, I still want to do it myself, I can't do everything myself, but I still want to be in the harness, give advice, because that's actually important to me, I think that's what makes it, that you're there yourself, but it's also about me being able to go up the mountain with the people myself, that I can fly myself, because only if I fly myself can I continue to assess the situation well in the future.
So, if I'm just standing in the office or at the practice slope and we have these small groups, it's a lot of fun working with them and you can see that they're having a huge learning success because of the flight area, since it's not easy. And I always say, if you can fly here, then you can fly all over the world. So I don't need to take them to the Dolomites afterwards.
You have to do that thinking everywhere, but I have to be able to make decisions there. Regarding the flight path, the wind, which launch site... I can't just drive up and say, "Yeah, the windsock is right there and it works." There are different launch sites where you have to walk to.
They are also very different; one is where you can do a perfectly normal flat forward launch, and the other is almost a cliff launch, where you have to be able to launch backwards and control the glider well enough to actually get out of there. So, it really demands all kinds of skills.
Yeah, yeah, it's everything from medium-steep or flat meadow starts to cliff starts. I don't want to always say cliff start, it's actually
a good launch site, you just have to be able to start backwards.
You have to consider whether an abort is still viable before you do it.
...or not. Now, you've been flying for 39 years, and if you say you only flew the Kubikstein for the first time after 10 years, give or take, that means you've been flying this mountain for 30 years anyway. Doesn't that get boring at some point? Haven't you seen everything and experienced everything there is to experience here on the mountain, even in the air?
So for me, flying is never boring, even if I only had to do tandem flights,
commercially. I don't know if I'd still fly. For me, flying is simply a privilege, that you can do it. And
for me, it's all about hike and fly. If hike and fly didn't exist, I wouldn't know if I'd fly this much or if I'd fly at all. So that's the best part, when you head out in the morning or evening or during the day and do a hike and fly tour and then fly down.
What fascinates
What fascinates you about it so much? Yes, that I'm doing something physical, that I'm in nature, that I can enjoy nature, and then I can combine that with a flight down or maybe a longer flight or a bivouac flight. But it doesn't matter at all how long the flight is. For me, a 10-minute glide counts just as much as, let's say, being in the air for 6 hours. The experience counts. And that's exactly what makes paragliding so special for me.
So you're looking for the experience. Also, in this combination of saying, I can always head out early in the morning at the first rays of sun. That's a fascinating experience for you.
Exactly, that's what paragliding is actually about for me—the experience of going up there, and I go up with the mindset that I might have to hike back down. And I say, the day has already paid off. I was up there at sunrise. The flight is then just a bonus, a reward. If it works out, great. If the wind is too strong, then you head down. You've still had a nice mountain tour and can then go to the shop or the flight school afterwards to start the tandem flights or the training. That's already a dream.
Do you go up the mountain in a hike and fly style on every flyable day? Early in the morning? Is that like a morning workout for you?
Yeah, if the weather's right. You have to make the most of every day. If I'm not sick, then every day.
That was quite a while ago. I think it was in 2008. You even set a world record in hike and fly back then, basically hiking up the height of Everest multiple times in one day, then flying back down. I believe you hiked up seven different peaks, each over 1,000 meters high, and then flew down again. Where did this idea come from? What appealed to you about it?
Yeah, some friends of mine hiked up the Zugspitze five or six times and did the 8,848 meters of vertical gain, then took the cable car back down and hiked up again. And then I thought, I could do that too, but I'll fly down. And then, it was a rainy day and I drove over with the Zugspitzbahn and thought, they've already done that, doing the exact same thing again is not an option. And then it occurred to me, I drove up as far as Bichlbach and said, first I'll go from Bichlbach to the Kohlbergspitze, fly to Lenz, go to the Uppspitze, fly down to Ehrwald, go to the Zugspitze, fly down to Ehrwald, Sonnenspitze—then it would even be a first flight if I fly from the top.
back to Lermus, Grubigstein, Lermus Bleispitze, and then back to Bichlbach and up to Almkopf. Insane, we calculated it to be 9,300 meters of ascent in total, and I said, yeah, I'll do it. I actually wanted to do it for myself, but then I needed a sponsor, and that sponsor—it was NOBA—they said, yeah, if you want a glider, then you have to bring us a photo or do something. So I went to a photographer, and he said, no, no, we have to make a film. Then I thought, yeah, I'll make a film too, and he was immediately enthusiastic, a young filmmaker, and then it all just grew from there. Then they made the film, with a photo to go with it, and that's how the whole story came about.
By now, I think, as far as the 24-hour Hike and Fly is concerned, they've always just climbed the same mountain, but now the record is over 17,000 meters. What is it like for you when you hear a number like that? Would you say, "Hmm, I could have managed that in my younger years," or do you say, "Those are just animals crawling up the mountain"?
No, I have a slightly different perspective because for me, it was all about the experience. So the mountains I flew over and climbed, nothing was guaranteed—whether I could always take off at that time, like the Zugspitze or Sonnenspitze—and that's what made it special. On top of that, there was the thing with the gliding saber weather; Stefan Hörmann was also involved and told me that you can actually predict the weather in the Karakoram in Nepal better, with these mountains and the valley wind system, and everything fit perfectly. I wouldn't have believed there could actually be a day where everything aligns so perfectly. But now, the new Hike and Fly records they're breaking—last year, someone did that again at the Grubigstein.
with an e-bike and one person ran and one flew. Yeah, there was much more in there. Again, with the Frenchman and his 17,000 vertical meters, I'm convinced that the ski mountaineer can do even more if he skis back down. So it wasn't really about that. Probably more vertical meters could have been done. But the route was striking and the mountains were an experience for me.
With the achievements you've shown there, and also with your enthusiasm for hike and fly and stuff like that, you actually would have been a good candidate—maybe in slightly younger years—for the X-Alps. Did you ever apply back then or ever think about applying?
Yeah, in the early days I always applied, but back then the Austrians were still involved. The ones who always started in the early years, they weren't really selected. They were mostly people from Salzburg in that area down there, and they were involved for years, and then at one point it was said, "Yeah, I could start for Bulgaria or for Romania," and I'd have to take care of all the citizenship stuff myself. Then I said, "Well, no, then I'd be fully Bulgarian and couldn't participate, and I'll just come back as an Austrian." And then they said, "Alex can only participate if he's Bulgarian, otherwise they won't take him anyway." And then it was all about the flight school and everything, and now I wouldn't participate anymore because you have to be a full pro; you're not allowed to do anything anymore, so flying isn't an option anymore, I'd have to do it every day.
flying, flying, flying and being a test pilot or whatever, a total pro. Otherwise, you have no chance. Otherwise, I find it dangerous and you have no chance. Just that I'm back there in the midfield or whatever, flying along in the back and, let's say, really risking my life, I wouldn't do that anymore.
Well, Grubigstein and Lermoz are probably, I'd assume, the ones most listeners will know as a turning point or one of the turning points. For the X-Alps, in the last few years, during the latest editions, that's always been the case. Did you also push for it to be like that?
Yeah, that was actually a coincidence. No, I didn't push for that. The tourism board applied for it themselves and then called me and said, "We're getting the X-Alps here." I couldn't believe it at all. So they say for them it's great publicity and they hope that we'll be involved again next year. So until now, I haven't been asked anything by the tourism board themselves, but we've been there four or five times now, I don't know exactly. And for me, it's great publicity, and for the region as well. There are a lot of pilots coming from far away, some from New Zealand. They just stand there and want to photograph the sign or take off once at the launch site where Kriegel Maurer took off or where Kokanea landed on the point. That counts for them. It's great publicity.
How do you see the X-Alps when they come through here? Is it a big celebration for you, or is it basically a hassle too, because then you're asked to be a consultant again and all that other stuff?
Yeah, basically it's not stress. It's fun, but you help the athletes, they ask you questions and you hike up with them or show them launch sites. Basically, I help everyone who asks me. It's not like you only help the best; everyone gets help.
And for me, I can't really call it stress, but on that day I can't do tandem flights or training, and the X-Alp is the main focus. And it's always like this: first you think, "Okay, the X-Alps are coming," and then you think, "Yeah, it'll just build up," but the closer it gets, the more fire and passion you put into promoting it, and then on that day, it's something special—it's a really cool story.
Especially here at the last X-Alp, some pilots basically just walked up a few meters from the landing field, stood there, and then soared up the mountain directly from below in the valley wind. Did you know that was possible? Did you recommend it to them, did they try it, or how did that happen? How did they come up with that idea?
The top pilots, we're in contact or they were in the past or they're there for training and you've already talked on the phone shortly before, maybe a day before, about what one could do in Launmus, whether to go back to the launch site like a year ago or what one can do there, and then it just happened to be the case that the north-east wind was so strong and you only have to go up a few meters. I think even Tommi Friedrich didn't go up at all, he just moved a few meters and took off immediately; he could have gone up too and done that. So, I've also realized over the years that it works, and these days it's happening more and more. It used to be rare, but now the north-east valley wind is coming through stronger and stronger and works quite well, yes.
How has flying in the Grobstein area changed over these 30 years of experience? Are there any classic trends, for one, perhaps climatically, but also regarding what is done here, how people fly here—has something changed? Or has it?
I do think that a lot is changing regarding the weather. I often talk to older pilots, or I've spoken with Uli Wiesmeyer, who is also a fairly experienced older pilot, and the dynamics—in my opinion, they are getting stronger, more unpredictable; either there's nothing, or it's very strong. And the winch too—we used to have a nice valley wind system, but now the wind comes in from Reutte and from the Garmisch valley, up from Garmisch, and now we always have very strong east winds. There are days where you have strong thermals and you have almost no valley wind left, or zero valley wind; you can be at 50 meters off the ground and it feels like a sauna, or where there are no valley winds at all, and that's happening more and more. And I do think the weather is changing significantly.
Whether it's because of global warming or not, I don't know, I can't claim that right now, but it has changed.
Do you perceive that as a negative, like a development you fear, or is it something where you'd say, well, we're also getting new opportunities from it—for example, if you say you can sometimes still turn around from 50 meters above the seabed today, which I basically never could have done before?
Yeah, I see it as a new opportunity because I can't do anything about the weather anyway and have to make the best of it, and I just have to see if I can live with the situations. And there are many positive sides, like you said, that I can take off from 50 meters off the ground, or that I have more northeast wind and can soar away from the landing field and then enter the thermals—so I don't see it as a negative, in that sense.
And the fact that thermals are so much stronger nowadays is also potentially a bigger risk, even if it can be nice for very experienced pilots because they can say, I can maybe fly faster now, I can get up faster, so I can fly further faster and set a new XC record or something, but for average pilots or students or something like that, it's something where you might have to say much more often, it's best to avoid the midday period, so either go out until 11 o'clock or not again until after 6 p.m. or something like that.
Yeah exactly, that's the problem, but I can often assess whether it was a strong or weak day, or if it was turbulent. Others might say, "Today was turbulent," and I'd say, "It was normal if you're flying for that long," or "It doesn't matter that much," but for normal pilots or guest flyers, it becomes harder to judge. It would be good if they got some information; of course, I can't always be there on-site giving info, but as I said, we have all of that at the flight school, and if they ask early enough or the day before, they'll get the information. And then, for example, they can still fly beautifully until one or half past one in the morning if it's a strong day, and they can fly quite far then, but in the late afternoon, you just have to skip the strongest period.
For a pro or a frequent flyer, none of that is a problem if they know what they're dealing with. And we also have, if someone can't land at the landing field because it's already too small, we have a huge moor down between Erber, Laumus, and Biberwier, and there are fields there; usually, a field is mown somewhere and you can find a spot where you can land even in very high winds.
There are also paths in there. If you...
goes out right away and
No one has said anything yet. From the 30 years you've been flying here, you see people arriving and going out to fly all the time. From your perspective or experience, has anything changed in the pilot community? Are the people paragliding today different from the pilots who flew 20 years ago?
Yes, that varies. I'd guess in the paragliding scene, there are many casual flyers who only fly on vacation, and then there are many who fly every day or do a lot of hike & fly, and in my opinion, that already makes a big difference. And I find that nowadays, people can read a lot of books, watch DRV videos, listen to your podcast, read info booklets—they have all the options, which we didn't have back then. They can attend a G-force training, do SIV training, maybe take a private coaching session at the flight school, or do a launch training. Back then, you had to learn all of that yourself. They have so many opportunities to make a lot of progress in a very short time, if they're willing to put the money into it and want to.
But I also see a lot of people saying that flying is just a side thing. A new bike is fine, or a bike technique training, but with flying, I don't want to spend that much money and
I already do that. I don't need it right now, and I can see a bit of risk there. Because the gliders are getting better and better. People say it's easier to fly, but in my opinion, the gliders fly way too well. The problem nowadays is coming down. Up there, the students almost stay up on their own. The gliders take off okay, they almost take off on their own. The equipment is top-tier stuff, and you just have to engage with the sport and deal with it.
How can you manage to make people who might see flying as just a bit of a side hobby—something they do alongside many other things—understand the risks that are naturally associated with flying, so that they aren't intimidated by them, but instead feel like dealing with it more seriously?
Yes, maybe, when I talk to people, the personal conversation makes a big difference. Maybe say once, "Come on a flight trip with us," it's not about making money now, sure I make my money from it, but if they go along, they see what else can be done. And you can also teach something to a good pilot; if the flight instructor or the flight school director or his employees also keep training and fly a lot themselves, testing gliders or flying different equipment, then a good pilot keeps progressing too. And he'll come on a trip or a training session with you again because he sees he can still learn something from you, and in my opinion, that's what matters. Where are you particularly good at, what could I learn from you?
Don't overestimate me; I don't have all the mountain experience you do. I'm mostly a lowland Tyrolean who mainly flies around Bonn and is in the mountains only occasionally. I can take off there, but I can't do a lot of other things. But are there things where you'd say, "In these areas, I'm particularly good"?
Yeah, I've seen you fly, so you're good at thermal flying and you've probably been on the cross-country route a lot, but maybe you could combine that with a hike and fly, maybe land at the top somewhere, or do a bivouac flight. I don't know, I haven't flown with you myself yet, but maybe also fly efficiently, using a speed bar even more, because a lot of people are flying a C-glider or a high-B now, and if I use a speed bar, then I don't really need the glider because a low-level B climbs just as well. And you could build on that, saying you want to fly the route—say 50 or 100 kilometers—and do it in a certain amount of time, not just drifting around all day, but really going into the gas in between, not always heading back to the base, and you can build it up like that, or land at the top somewhere once, on a hut, enjoy the flight, and then keep flying.
Are you someone who used to look at XC points, or still does today, and was so obsessed with it, saying, "I want to be high up in a ranking," and got annoyed if the flight didn't have 200 plus X, but only 199 or something?
No, that was never important to me, because if it gets too turbulent for me or I no longer feel comfortable in the air, then I land. I don't say, "I'm going to fly into the lay out back now because I still have to finish the next few kilometers." I just land and enjoy the flight, and maybe I'll go up with the Aerogebo and fly home again, but the fact that I'm now at the launch site or the landing field and enter all that into the GPS right away, or how many people glide down and immediately enter it into the DRV or XContest, that doesn't interest me.
Were you back then
more like a wild dog? I don't want to say wild dog, you just didn't have that experience. You couldn't look anything up, you had to test it all yourself.
And from that time, are there any really stupid experiences you had, or maybe really great ones, where you didn't understand something, but then something great came out of that misunderstanding? What...
What actually went really wrong was my crash. I crashed in 2016, and I'm always flown—in the rain, in the snow, it always worked. And I always thought, even on that day, I can fly down four or five times in the rain. And the start was difficult; you already knew, I'm on the speed bar and have to watch out, don't brake. And that's not strictly... okay. And I told everyone, no one is allowed to fly except me. And while flying down, I thought to myself, all that stuff in the books is nonsense. It's not true. And then I really fell down. And I couldn't do anything anymore. The glider just fell backward. I was inside the speed bar.
And it just fell backward. And I slammed full-on onto the street. And it had to be, because I also did first-time runs on a snowboard and other extreme stuff. And I really thought I was immortal, that I could do whatever I wanted. But that wasn't the case. And that was for the best. Now, that was a serious accident, but a broken foot would have been too little. I would have kept going. And that really gave me something to think about. But also in a positive sense. Because before, when the weather was really bad for a few days, you couldn't talk to me anymore because I couldn't fly. And then I was angry and you were better off staying away from me. And now, after the accident, I think to myself, I know I can fly again. I can do my sport again. That could have turned out completely differently.
If I can't fly tomorrow for business, of course, that's bad. But then I'll fly the day after. If I can't fly tomorrow, I'll fly next week. And you learn to appreciate what you're actually doing more. You fall down and in the first moment, all your thoughts are, you don't know what you have. You know it's a serious accident and you just want to get better. Nothing else matters. How long did it take until you could get back into the air? Well, I had an open elbow fracture. It couldn't be straightened anymore. I had to train a lot. Three vertebrae broken, and that was in September. And on New Year's Eve, I flew in front of the Zugspitze. Oh, that
was pretty quick, though.
Yes, I trained a lot. The doctors said the advantage was that I was already trained, that I recover faster. And the will was there. Even during the serve, I already knew I'd fly again, because I knew, how can you be so stupid and fly in this kind of weather.
But you still did it before. But you told the others, you're not flying, but
I can.
I just had a flight ban.
Then they said I called myself or someone called me, and they said, "Yeah, we knew it was you anyway, because who else would be flying there?"
And was that flight from the Zugspitze, where you said you flew from the Zugspitze again on New Year's Eve, was that the first flight after the accident?
To be honest, I did fly in La Palma, but the doctor had still forbidden me from doing so. We were in La Palma and then...
my girlfriend flew there too and I just watched, and at some point I stopped laughing about it. I thought, okay, I'll do one or two flights too. Without a doctor's note and on New Year's Eve, because officially they were allowed to fly there, and then I went down from the Zugspitze. It just worked out that way, and that's why I went to the Zugspitze.
Isn't that also a huge risk to take? I mean, the Zugspitze is probably not the easiest mountain to start from, and maybe especially not on New Year's Eve, right in the middle of winter.
That day was great, everything was perfect, which is why I went up there. Light westerly wind, snow at the top, no rocks, and you just had to move backwards. Then you were already flying. I knew that it was all completely normal, just like it used to be, except I crashed in between. But if you didn't know why, if I didn't know why I crashed, if there was something there that I couldn't explain, then the problem would be bigger. But as long as you know why it happened and can analyze it, you'll keep flying.
With all the experience you have now, how often does it still happen that you think, "Something's going on here that I don't understand, that I can't explain"?
That happens to me quite often. When you're doing some distance flying, there are times when you just can't explain something, or if you land in the evening and it's still turbulent somewhere, you think to yourself, that shouldn't be happening, it has to be calm. But it's just constant learning. That's why the sport is so interesting, because it's never the same. You can fly down from the Grubigstein or the mountain a thousand times, it will never be the same. In other sports like snowboarding, it's also always cool to ride in deep snow, but it's almost always the same.
Flying is always different. The takeoff is different, the landing is different, the flight is different. And that's what makes it special. What's the last big thing you've learned for yourself about flying? Yes, that you have to have respect. You always have to have respect. So when you go up and you have no respect at all—I don't want to say "fear," but if all of that becomes normal, then in my opinion, it becomes dangerous. And you have to learn that. When you're flying on your belly for longer, you can't listen to your gut feeling. Because you don't have one yet. You might not feel comfortable at first, or you might already feel comfortable. But the willingness to take risks, you should have that under control to some extent and listen to your gut feeling. And if something happens to me again, if I don't feel good and there are 25 pilots at Grubigstein and I'm heading up, then I tell the tandem passenger, "This has happened before, I'm not flying today."
Then he asks why? The others are flying, so I say it's because I don't feel well. But they understand me because they know how long I've been flying, so they aren't angry, but they'll come back. And you have to listen to that. And I tell the students or the people, to call off the flight or to abort a takeoff, I think that's good. It's better than if they somehow just dive out there. It shows that they've learned something like that. And there's no shame in not flying.
That's much nicer than the others.
At the beginning, you said you dreamed of becoming a helicopter pilot. Did you ever try to make that happen? Or did your flight dream come true with paragliding, and helicopters were no longer an option?
Well, it was like my parents didn't want that. I always wanted to be a helicopter pilot, but they somehow talked me out of it. And on top of that, we thought, okay, now I've started or am starting paragliding.
So, if I were to come back into this world and be young again, I would become a helicopter pilot. That's one thing for sure.
If you haven't realized this dream yet, but certainly still have other dreams, what dreams do you still have for paragliding? I mean, what would you like to be able to do or achieve again?
So I still have one project. What I want to do, he doesn't want to say right now. He can tell me privately, because I want to keep that a secret. But I just want to have fun flying again. What I want to do more of is a bit of a timing problem, because the days where it's really good for flying are getting fewer. Bivouac flying, but not for performance, but maybe with my girlfriend or with a friend or with several people. It's just difficult to make that work. And the experience is what counts there. Maybe staying somewhere for a day if it's beautiful there. Maybe if you're in another country, experiencing the culture, exchanging ideas. That's something I want to do.
Do you already have the gear for that? Like a tent and other things you might need?
So I'd have all that.
We also fly there for bivouacking and stuff. So the glider gear, and the sleeping bag and equipment, we have all of that with us.
When students come to you, how often do you do Hike and Fly with them? If you say that's actually your passion, what do you pass on to your students because of that?
Yeah, I have a lot of people there who come from climbing, or from mountain rescue, or who grew up in the mountains anyway. I always say, just come here for the first day, don't worry about it. We'll decide, because they say, I need equipment, should I buy something used or something. I say, nothing at all. Now come for one day or two, then we go to the practice slope and it'll crystalize anyway—does he want a light glider that he can still fly well, does he maybe only want a mountaineering glider where he can still glide and do a bit of thermal flying, or is he not interested in hike and fly at all and just wants normal equipment. And I actually think that's worked really well over the last year. People aren't making impulse buys and they also know that I'm not trying to sell them something or push anything on them.
...but they really see, "Yeah, this is good for me," and I also tell people, "Look, I want to do my job, I'm not selling you something that I'm going to have a hard time with." And by now, I even have people who, after the course—well, we meet up anyway, it's not like with us that you finish the course and don't have to show your face anymore or I'm happy if I don't see you or something; no, on the contrary, they can come by anytime. I don't call them now, they have to write to me and call me. I drive up every day for tandem flying, then they can come along, we do a quick weather briefing, I take them up, and then I say, "Look, once I've flown away,"
you go up to a different launch site, I just go down there because it's easier for the tandem, and they won't be left standing alone or in the rain after the course or after the training.
Are there skills that flight students should learn for hike and fly and stuff like that, which are missing from the normal flight school curriculum—you know, from what's in the syllabus or whatever—where you'd say something is actually missing, so that these people pick it up during the training as well?
Yes, that's not just missing for hike and fly; that's my dream, if the training lasted much, much longer. Of course, it would be much, much more expensive, but then it would be good for the student too, and for the instructor anyway, because you can give them something—ground handling, we do that anyway in our training—and various launch sites. It doesn't do you any good if you have a nice meadow launch site and I let you have two different launch sites, once on the left, once on the right, and it's all meadow, and then immediately an instruction; that doesn't help him if he then stands somewhere where it's mid-field, maybe transitions into steep terrain, or has a steep launch site. The student will be overwhelmed if he hasn't heard that; you'd have to train that much more, but that's clear to me.
I can't start with the prices, otherwise nobody will come, or "Alex's training takes way too long," but of course, that would be the dream—that after the training, they should be able to be independent pilots, not have to ask someone else or go along with someone again. It's good if they go along on a flight trip, but as I said first, they'll go along again if you can continue to teach them something, even as a good pilot.
Your car says "Hike & Fly Specialist," so basically, you could maybe say, after a training session or something, "I'm offering special Hike & Fly courses again, where I say we're training a few specific things you need for that." What would those be? I mean, what would you specifically train with people like that to say, "I'm getting you fit for Hike & Fly adventures"?
Yeah, we've done that; we've offered things like the Ortler and Wildspitze, and that makes a huge difference. I've sometimes had very good pilots with me who, let's say, are reasonably fit and have the stamina, but when you go up the Ortler with people and they're so tense at the top, it can be like this—one of them took his shoes off up there on the mountain, on the middle glacier, because he doesn't know why either; they normally fly high-performance shoes, they're good starters, and here he has to let them off like a...
...students with the first high-altitude flight, because sometimes the altitude and the tension make such a huge difference. And that's the consideration: if I can't get away now, everything has to be walked back down, and we're supposed to get away. We have to set the clouds, cloud formation, that has to be right, there might be a crevasse up ahead that I can't see, I have to take off, and then you have to land with us afterwards, that you still keep your cool, that you can assess the wind conditions, the launch conditions.
What would you say is the hardest part overall, looking at the big picture of Hike and Fly when you combine it all? Is it actually this assessment of the top landing—where can I still land safely—or is it actually the start assessment that's difficult?
I think the takeoff assessment is the difficult part because you're out there, you might not have a wind indicator, you're not quite on the mountain, you don't know—you have to inform yourself beforehand, what's the main wind direction, am I maybe in a rotor or is that just a thermal lift? And you don't always have ideal takeoff spots; it could be that you only have a gravel field or a snowfield, and of course, if the snowfield gets steeper and icy up ahead, I have to be able to assess that too. We do that on the trips or with the Hike and Flys because I'm saying, where I'm standing there, you have to abort; if you keep going, you'll fall down because you'll slip, and that actually makes it hard because for the landing, you don't have to go into the slope at full throttle like the XF pilots, you can...
pick a great spot, then you just fly a bit further and land across the slope—so you can definitely manage that.
Do you do top landings often?
Yes, I do, I do them often. For example, when we fly the Talkessel round, you fly up to the Coburger Hütte, land there, then fly back over to the Grubigstein, and it's fun. I do it for myself as practice because you have to keep at it and practice; you can't just do it once a year and say, "I can land on top," because it won't always go well.
Sometimes I feel it's a shame because so many people fly with these XC points, and you have to have a continuous flight—without any interruptions. There's actually never an option to land somewhere and do a top landing, because then the XC flight is ruined, even though it would be totally great. Or you could just go pee, if that's all it is—just go pee and then fly on from the same spot. I always find it a shame that in these XC rules, there isn't an option where you can just say, "Look, I landed there, and if I take off again from the same spot, that should actually count as a continuation of the flight, or at least as a fly-in for the route." Because basically, I had the bigger difficulty; the person who just kept flying didn't have the bigger difficulty.
How do you see that?
Yeah, that just gave me a good idea, because I hadn't really thought about that at all, but I see it the same way as you—it would definitely be more interesting if there were an option to invite them once. Of course, looking at the whole thing, that's going to be difficult, but in terms of the experience, it would definitely be better, or you could invite them once and maybe wait until the conditions improve or until the base rises or something. So, that would obviously be a cool thing if it existed. That's why I'm not really interested in the whole thing with the XC points, because if I invite them now, I'm inviting them, I don't care if there...
...put points in or not. You can
Can you find any flights of yours in any XC databases?
I put something in Lefkada last time, but I never put anything in there anymore. I'm not flying those long-distance routes now; for me, it's about the experience and flying somewhere where you can land perfectly again and maybe sit in the sun—that's what it's about for me.
Where is the
Grobigstein - record, do you know that? Adrian Keller flew the 100er last week, two weeks ago, and I just know that Marcel Dürr has been planning something here for a long time, another triangle, but it never worked out in the spring. Either the lift wasn't running, or the lead guide didn't have time, or the assistant guide, but you could fly very long distances there. Many people just don't know, and on good days I just don't have the time, I have to do something else.
Are there any flights you've done that were further out, which just aren't in any database?
Yeah, we used to fly to Italy often—back then, flying to Maran was just standard. From here? From Grubigstein to the Ötztal. And you still had to take Lire with you. Yeah, to get back again. So that was... that was actually the furthest from Laumers, flying to Maran, that we'd ever done.
How far is that, roughly?
About 80 to 100 kilometers. Would you like to do that again? Yes, you can do that easily now. So now, none of that is a problem. I mean, if you're ever in the Ötztal or Ötz, you can get there anyway via the Dimmelsuch. Nowadays, you could fly that with plenty of people. You just have to watch out for the airspace. To fly in Nassreit, you can use the Leitensattel, otherwise the airspace is lowered a bit there. But nowadays, with the gliders and the performance, that's not really an issue anymore.
That means your next Hike & Fly course will then include a flight from Grubigstein to Maran. That
would be a dream.
Alright. Alex, thanks a lot for sharing. From Grubigstein to Maran, if you're offering that, I'll sign up too. Then I'll practice it with you. I'd be interested in that as well. Otherwise, yeah, you've got some great stories there, and good luck with your flight school. Yeah, thank you.
I recorded this episode of Podz-Glidz in Alex Rauter's flight school container right next to the Grubigstein slope. In the end, a heavy downpour still lashed down on the roof. You can find the show notes for this episode, along with some links related to Grubigstein and Alex Rauter, in the Gleitschirm-Blog Loglites.
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