Somewhere in the fields over Sopot, Bulgaria:
The Tent
“I got into an argument with a girlfriend inside of a tent. That’s a bad place for an argument, ‘cause then I tried to walk out and slam the flap. How are you supposed to express your anger in this situation? Zipper it up really quick?” These are Mitch Hedberg’s words, but at the moment I could relate to them. Continue reading
New Takeoff, New Landing, New Crowd – Ethiopia
New Gear, New Passion – Rila mountains, Bulgaria – 27.11.2020
Kenya XC Tour
Low Save, High Focus
Low saves are fun!
So why am I shouting “ne!” (“no!” in Bulgarian) over and over in this video? Because I’m in the middle of one of four FAI triangle record attempts I did last week, it’s the middle of the day, and I’m refusing to obey this stupid law of gravity, which appears to be at such odds with my ambitions. Continue reading
New Bulgarian FAI triangle record – 235km
On the 4th attempt last week, I beat my own Bulgarian FAI triangle record by 1.6km, in challenging conditions. Continue reading
The Step – 6000m at Lalibela, Ethiopia
After a week of driving and flying over giant canyons and plateaus, we had reached the end of the Ethiopian highlands. Now, 2000m above that last 4000m ridge, we were riding the better side of a giant step in the atmosphere. To the east, the terrain was dropping towards the lowlands of east Ethiopia and the sub-sea-level volcanoes in the Danakil depression, then the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. So we were flying at the meeting point of two great air masses – the dry one of the highlands and the moist one of the Indian Ocean – and our cloud base was 2000m higher than the sea of cumulus in our feet; we were at 6000m! Continue reading
How races start, hopefully again this summer
6000 meters in Ethiopia
The axis of desire rotated to 90 degrees, this XC flight was not about distance, but height. From the takeoff at 2800m, up to the 6000m cloud base, down to the 3600m village where we stopped to say hi to the locals, and finally off again at sunset to the 2000m valley floor, which even with the sun gone was sending 3m/s thermals in the near-darkness – we sliced through that day like knives through layered cake. Continue reading