xAlps or not

The application deadline for the xAlps is coming up soon and the big question is, are we going to apply again to represent Canada in the race?
It often crosses our minds, especially during the race, why are we doing this. What pushes us to train so hard, spend our "holiday savings" on it and dedicate so much time and energy in preparation and during the race?
There is something very special about the xAlps, and something that  no one will really understand unless they are part of it. However, one of the reasons for participating in it, is the adventure, which I share with my partner (Penny). The other is the mental aspect of the race, and to be able to do things you dream of. Many of which are hard to do on your own. Also the whole atmosphere of the xAlps, which includes everyone from the organizers, volunteers, supporters, sponsors and competitors. They are all like family or brotherhood, and everyone we have met over the years have played some sort of roll in our life, whether it be during the race or afterwards in a continued friendship or mentor.
We are very proud that we have been accepted/invited 4 times to this amazing race, to experience the adventure, and to meet and make so many new friends.

Since the 2013 race, many new things have happened in our lives. Last October, I started a new business (www.TrappeurHomes.com) with a good friend, Aaron Cameron, which has taken off in a big way. It has been a lot of work, but a lot of fun at the same time. Furthermore, I have decided to get back into Ultralight flying and teaching, and we are looking to get a float plane to explore the mountain lakes around here. Also on the agenda for next year is a holiday to Penny's "homeland", South Africa and experience the African life with the kids. Penny has recently also finished a refresher in open water sailing and she wants to go on a sailing trip with the kids for a couple months too.
As you can see, with all this, and focusing on the new business, we will not have the time and dedication for the preparation and participation in the 2015 xAlps. For this reason we have chosen not to apply to represent Canada in the next xAlps.
This decision was no an easy one, but in reality you only have so much time in day and instead of spreading ourselves too thin with all these plans and projects, something had to give.
Thanks again to everyone who has cheered us on and supported us over the years, and who keep following our adventures through the available social media.

Max, Penny and the kids

The xAlps are finished

The xAlps finished Friday July 19th at noon. This is 12 days after the start and was the minimum time set for the race. Crigel Maurer set a new record and finished the race in just under 7 days and it took more then 2 days longer for the next guys to arrive in goal.
From the start, I felt pretty good and was very happy with my pace and performance until I had to do an emergency landing past Innsbruck (by Seefeld) into restricted airspace and I received a 48 hour penalty.
I could have done a tree landing (in very rough conditions) on top of a ridge to avoid the penalty, but I decided to land 500 meters lower, and to my disadvantage, safely in a field. The good part was that Christa Vogel and Juergen Kraus (flying friends from the 80's) lived near by and we could enjoy visiting them and were treated with their amazing hospitality. It got even better as the kids just showed up for a visit and stayed with us for the 2 days. It was fun to invite all the other competitors for a snack or meals while they passed us, or landed in a field close by. After 2 days of watching 13 pilots pass us, we had to refocus and get back into race mode. Thanks again for the mental support from Stewart Midwinter to be able to start my own race and adventure from that position. We came from the very back of the pack (only 1 hour ahead of the last person) and fought ourselves into position 23. I was enjoying being in a close pack with such a great group of people/pilots and I was always close to my good friend, Andy Froetscher, who finished 17th. I was hoping to finish the race with him or better.
Overall, it was an amazing race with very good flying conditions. We experienced a lot of set backs due the lack of local "area" knowledge. It was very frustrating thinking you know where thermals "should be", what ridges and terrain would work better than others, only to find myself flushed down from 3500m to the ground and ended up having to hike up very high mountain passes more often than the "locals"
The good weather also brought a lot of windy and dangerous conditions as well. We had flights in plus 50 km winds, in rain and thunder storms, but at the same time we had some long flights (one over 150 km) flying over glaciers and very beautiful terrain. We had hikes in areas we never would have gone to and met such a wide variety of people along the way, some who we're sure were the start of a long friendship.
All this would not have possible to do without the support I received. Thanks again to Mik Broschart for all his technical support, and who drove with his "fancy" RV and made it possible that Penny could walk and fly most of the route with me. Penny did an amazing job as a pace setter, along the flats, up the mountains, and because she figured she needed more of a workout, she'd run back down to the valley!! My stats for hiking was, 6 km/hr, 471 km distance and 40 km elevation gain. I would say that Penny did at least 90% of that, plus going down, cooked dinners, cleaned most of the dishes, checked weather, and was up earlier than Mik and I everyday to have breakfast ready, and everything ready and prepared for the day ahead ..... she is more then living up to her name (Powers).
I would also like thank everyone who cheered us on and supported us throughout our training and during the race, A photo gallery will follow soon.

2013 www.RedBullxAlps.com route released

I had the pleasure to be in Salzburg at Hangar 7 for the 2013 www.RedBullxAlps.com official route release.
Wow, 1031 km as the crow flies and going across a lot of very high alpine terrain. No doubt that this year will be for sure a big challenge and I am sure a very interesting race.

Start: Salzburg
1. Gaisberg 1,287m
2. Dachstein 2,995m
3. Wildkogel, 2,224m
4. Zugspitze / Garmisch-Partenkirchen 2,962m
5. Ortler / Sulden 1,906m
6. Interlaken 568m
7. Matterhorn 4,478m
8. Mont Blanc 4,810m
9. Saint Hilaire 995m
10. Peille 600m
Finish: Monaco

Thanks again to Hannes and Flo to put on this amazing day.

Here is a video from Mik about of Hangar 7 and the DC6 flight.


Red Bull Douglas DC-6B flight from Mik Broschart on Vimeo.

Wonder why we are participating in the xAlps again, for the 4th time?

This question is very often asked to us, and my answer, in short, is "we have not learnt how to do it right yet and therefore we have to do it again!”. Well, that is one answer, but not quite true. We also say it is the adventure and experience, which is one of the reasons, but there is more behind it than just the adventure and experience. If we look back at how our lives were before the xAlps and how it is now, it shows that the xAlps have had an impact on our lives way more than we ever expected the race would when we first started.
Firstly, we have learned about the Alps and know more about the geography and history of these mountains than prior to the race, and we have learned a lot about our bodies and minds, and know ourselves way better than ever before. But the most rewarding result I got out of the xAlps it is to see and realize how lucky I am to be with my supporter, best friend, and the mother of my kids. The xAlps are a serious “relationship checker” and it will bring out and show how well your team leadership skills are (on both ends),  how your self discipline is, how you respect and trust each other and how important it is to accept things for what they are and accept people too, for who they are. This is all something we kind of know, but these fundamentals can get forgotten very fast when you are in a 2 week long race , extremely exhausted and when things are not always going the way you want it to go. Penny and I learned how lucky we are to be able to have so much fun with the race and everything that comes along with it. Even though we, and everyone else racing the xAlps, have a lot of stress factors against us, such as the race itself, the time to prepare, work itself, the financial burden of the race, lost income, the training, sacrificing time with the family and the interference of our regular family life.
 Now how can we still do this and still be fun? It all comes all down to the very basic fundamentals of life, such as trust, respect, the right attitude and self discipline. Once all this is in place, one needs to deal with his ego and has to simply learn to accept other people and situations as they are and make the best out of any situation. Obeying these fundamentals helps make what one would consider the impossible, possible, and makes a race like the xAlps fun. Everything I feel and have written about, does not just have to apply to the xAlps, it will work for everyones personal life, relationship or family, for any sport, in the workplace, work career and  leadership. What we really enjoy and what has impacted our lives, through our participation in the xAlps, is that we really enjoy sharing and influencing others with our stories and experiences. We have done, and continue to do, a lot of "motivational/educational" presentations and leadership training in schools, to Rotary clubs and Corporations (mostly oil companies), for entertainment and also to educate them how much fun and mileage you can achieve with the right attitude. Do not just sit and wait ... take it to the Max

Left Canada and now I am all over the place

I left Canada on June 1st and since then I am all over the place.
The hardest part leaving Canada was the last 2 weeks in Canada as I missed the kids already then (and of course Penny as well). Now since I am here things are moving along pretty fast.
On June 3rd, I arranged my phone and Internet connection plans and headed to Krumbach to meet Andreas Boehl.  Andreas is a former Phantom fighter jet pilot and logs 3000 hours in glider flying. Andreas offered to help me out in exploring the route with the CT from www.flightDesign.com.
For everyone who wants to get into powered flying in Germany and or is considering to buy the "best" ultralight on the market, check out his website at www.flyingBoehl.de.

The first day was very busy as we had to get the plane from Bagnang (airport near Stuttgart). We manged to get airborne from Bad Wörishofen at 6:00 pm and headed south into the Alps. We flew by the Schloss Neuschwanstein down to Innbruck and tried to get to Brixen over the Brenner Pass.


We had to turn around at the Brenner Pass due heavy rain showers, so we headed East and found a clearing where we could cross the main ridge of the Alps to check out the area around Brixen and up to Meran. In Meran the weather was terrible again and we had to turn around to the East. This way we could checked out the route backwards from Meran to Brixen, then south of Kronnen Platz to the Drei Zinnen (xAlps turn point) and then over Sillian to Lienz. Due the weather we decided to keep on flying east to Mauterndorf as we hoped to have a better chance to fly north across the main ridge of the Alps the next day. We landed at 9:00 pm just before dark and found a nice hotel for the night. Once we arrived at the hotel, it started to rain and kept raining hard the whole night. The next morning it was still a bit of rain, ground fog and dense overcast, not looking promising to get north over the main crest of the Alps. A local pilot told us about a pass where is always a approx. 50 m clearance to get to the north side or the Alps. We decided to give it a try and sure enough after circling up a valley between clouds we found the passage to bring us to the north side of the Alps.


The weather was good on the north side and we headed to the west and flew up to the Grossglockner. We where able to fly right up the Grossglockner pass but then the clouds stopped us to check out the higher elevations. From there we turned around and flew to the Dachstein Glacier (2nd turn point) and then to Salzburg and checked out the Gaisberg (first turn point of the xAlps). To get a better idea of the route, we flew from there again to the Dachstein and to the Grossglockner. It was well worth doing it and I got a much better idea about the route then just checking it out via Google Earth.  From the Grossglockner we headed over Kufstein direct to Bad Wörishofen (Germany). The flight for this day was 3.5 hours.

The amazing part is, that we only burned about 72 liters of fuel for 6.5 hours (both days) of flying and flew an average of about 170 km/h (top 200km/h). Again, flying the CT is not the same you would think about flying an Ultralight, this plane outperforms a small Cessna, way more fuel efficient and you can fly through some pretty wild weather.


The next couple days I spend in Germany and I started to get back into my training routine. The first day I did a 4 hour climb up the "Gelbe Wand" via the new Klettersteig up to the Tegelberg. Wow, that was way more challenging then I expected. The climb itself took me just over an hour.

The day after I hiked from Immenstadt to Mittag, Steineberg and Stuiben (about 20 km) and ended up in a huge thunderstorm. The lightening show was fantastic and I was glad that we where not flying at all.


Today I hiked up Gruenten and had a fantastic view of the Allgaeur Alps right down to the Bodensee.

Tomorrows weather forecast looks promising as the thunderstorms are moving east and we have a chance to fly to Switzerland and then to France. Lets hope the weather will cooperate.

Max

flying in the Rockies

We still had a lot of snow in May. The weather was very unstable and had very strong conditions. I got a couple nice flights in which was great to get used the new "Advance Lightness" harness. It took me a while to get it set up right. Flying with it is very comfortable and it took a couple flights to get used to it. I am very happy with it and the combination with the backpack is a very good combination.

Overall training went very well and adding the Invermere Fitness Centre aerobic and yoga sessions rounded up the whole training. Penny is in a very good shape as well.
Last weekend she did a 25 km trail run at Nippika and she came in 4th overall and 2nd in her age group. That is very good considering she run 27 km as she got lost in the first 10 km.

Last week I did the mistake by overstretching my back which resulted into some muscle spasm which forced me to slow down for half a week. Noting was lost in this week as I spend more time with Google maps to study the route.

Now I am getting ready to pack up my stuff as I will fly to Munich in a couple of days. Penny and the kids will follow June 29th and I miss them already.

xAlps training in Canada

We are now in full swing with our training and will slowly work to our peak by mid June.
As most of you know, my better half and supporter, Penny Powers (she does not just sound powerful, she lives up to her name) has worked out and written an x-alps training program for me.
The goal is to be able to do 4-5 hour hikes with full gear for 4 days in a row without getting tired during and after the hikes.
Besides hiking and flying, I have a weekly schedule to train on the Lakeview Meadows stairs, at our rec-center to swim, and in the gym to work on core strength.
Right now the lake is frozen which also gives me the opportunity to Nordic ski at least 3 times a week in the evenings.
I am very lucky to be able to do all this training right from our house. As I work from the house, it allows me to work 8-10 hours a day and still have fun with my young family.

The video shows a couple hikes with toboggan rides and flying over the ice.

Update of summer and fall 2009

It is already December and we had an amazing summer and fall.
We where so busy with all the cultural events, enjoying the amazing infrastructure of the the alps, we did countless hikes and flights all over the place.
As you can see, we are still in Germany. Since September the kids are going into a German kindergarten 5 times a week from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm. Penny is taking and enjoying German lessons 3 times a week.
In the mean time we have held several x-alps presentations and came up with a online slideshow here in the blog.

Everything is in best order, we enjoy every day in Europe and at the same time we miss Canada, our friends and the community. Pretty soon, in March we will be back and get ready for the easter meet.

Thanks again to everyone who was helping and cheering for us at the 2009 x-alps.

Here are a couple videos of our adventures

X-alps 2009 slideshow

Flight in the Dolomite's

Hike and fly in my local area

Here is another way how we get our heard rate up (5 times a week in the morning)

Seasons Greetings and a very good, healthy 2010

Max, Penny, Katia and Erik