Picking up a VW Westy by air.

This year we are staying at home (Canada) and Penny really wanted a camper van. Well we kept looking on the net and came across a 1984 VW Campervan (290.000 km) and in good shape. There is some rust which needs some attention, but other then that it is a beauty.

The only problem we faced was to get to Vernon (6 hour drive) and back. The weather was great and we could rent a Cessna 172 from www.BabinAir.com to fly to Vernon and get Calvin (from BabinAir.com) to fly back the plane.
So we started to get my check out "Touch & Goe's" in Invermere before heading to Vernon. The flight to Vernon was just amazing, blue sky, a couple clouds here and there.  There is still a lot of snow in the mountains and the glaciers looked magnificent. We flew from Invermere to Panorama Mt. Resort and crossed the Purcell's over Jumbo Pass. What a great view, a ocean of mountains and glaciers. We could see from the Kokanee Glacier up to the Bugaboos. We crossed over the Arrow Lakes (by Nakusp) to Lumby and down to Vernon.

I have flown over the Purcell's many times and every time it is like a new experience. All I can say to all the locals and who is coming to this area, go to www.BabinAir.com and take a flight as words and pictures will not justify the experience. For all the Paraglider pilots, hang  glider pilots and people who like the no-motorized flying, see Trevor at www.SoartheRockies.com and to take you up to the glaciers with his Duo Discuss.

Early start to fly XC in the Valley

Since we are back in Canada, we had a lot of good weather and great flights. Beginning of April I had several flights to cloud-base (+3000m). The thermals where big and easy to fly but my hands got cold very fast and I had no intension to go XC.
Now last Wednesday (April 21st) we had up to 27 Celsius at our yard and great flying conditions. Jeff, Dominic and I got ready around 1:00 pm to head up Mt. Swansea. The thermals came already through and we launched right away. The first 15 minutes in the air where a bit choppy with a SE wind drift, but soon I could get high enough to head north. It was a blue-thermal day which made things a bit more challenging but the conditions got better by the hour. I planned to fly to Golden and back, but once I got to Harrogate (about 4:30 pm), my ground speed slowed down to 10-15 km/h as the wind from the north got stronger, so I decided to turn around and fly back home. On the way back at Spillimachine I got up to at 4000m (with a small cloud) where I had a great view of the snow covered Rockies to the east and the Glaciers at the Purcell's in the west.
Flying home from there was easy going and I got back to our house with plenty of height. I could have flown at least to Fairmont Hot Springs of even to Canal Flats which would have resulted in a 165 km plus flight. But after 5 hours and 125 km in the bag it was much nicer to land right at my backyard watching my kids play and Penny getting ready to head up for an evening flight. After I packed up and we where just about to head up the mountain again, the North wind got to strong on the ground and we ended up drinking a "Landing Beer" with friends.

You can see the flight details at
http://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:maxfanderl/21.4.2010/19:41

Here are a couple pictures of the flight

just about 4000m looking south from Spillimachine

Same location looking north

Easter Fly-in Meet at Panorama

Photo by Stewart Midwinter

We think this year was the 13th Easter Fly-in meet. Our main goal was to come back from Europe early enough to keep on running this great event. Our prep-time was kind of short, but we still had 28 pilots show up, who came along with their families and friends. The main reason why we started this event was to have fun with family and friends. This is not just an idea I have now because I have 2 little kids (Katia 5 years old and Erik 4 years old), it already started 13 or 14 years ago. We don't often see a lot of family and friends come along on flying trips, as hanging out at launch or at the landing site soon gets boring for them. But at Panorama, the resort is ideal for everyone. If the family or friends aren't skiing, they can also go shopping, go to the spa, or swim in the great outdoor pool (and watch the paragliders from there) The best part of it all for the pilots is that there is virtually no "Para-Waiting". If the winds aren't right at the moment, we go for a run, check out the landing, and go back up to try again.

Because of all this, we saw more families and partners out this year. Bob and Natalie Gardener were here with 4 generations of their family (I think about 12 people) to celebrate Easter and having fun.

Here is a quick update of the event:
Friday we got one flight in the morning before the conditions got too strong for flying. Friday night we did an x-alps presentation and showed the RedBull 2009 x-Alps movie.
Saturday we set up in the morning. and all went to the launch with our wings, but it turned very quickly into a very windy day. So "Para-Waiting" turned into a ski-day and some of us had races top to bottom with our packs. Jeff Grieve was the outright winner!. Saturday night we had a great dinner at RK Heli-plex. The rest of the night we spent at the T-Bar, and of course had our traditional "Boat Races" (thanks to Frank, sponsoring most of the beer), but it resulted to some headaches the next day.
Sunday was a blue sky day and we started as early as 9:30 am to fly. The conditions were so good that we could sky-out around noon. Stewart Midwinter and Raul could not resist the lift and decided to fly out to the Lakeside Pup in Invermere, while we were still doing target landings at the resort. After we wrapped up the meet at Lustie's patio aropund 1:00 pm several of us headed up the mountain again and 5 other pilots flew out and landed at the Lakeside Pub. Some pilots decided not to fly as it seemed to easy as Raul flew 2 times to Invermere that day (I am a bit sarcastic here). The flight out was amazing, not too easy as it started to cloud in a bit. The clouds where not big and the cloud base didn't seem too high, but we could still get high. A few of the clouds were even dumping snow. It took a while to get enough height over the top ridge. Once you got up, there was tons of lift and some of us flew between 12.000 and 13.000 feet. It was spectacular when you flew into the Windermere valley over the valley clouds. I flew right over to Mt. Swansea and ended up in snow and decided to fly back to the Lakeside Pub.
What a great weekend.
Thanks again to all the volunteers, Panorama Resort for all their amazing support and donation of such fantastic prizes, and to everyone who come. Thanks also to Glenn Derouin (www.paraglidecanada.com), Trevor Florence (www.Soartherockies.com and Kootenay Coffee for their donation of prizes.
The winner this year was Glen Comfort, 2nd Glenn Derouin, and in 3rd place was Scott Watwood.

We are back home ...

ard to believe we are home already. We have been in Europe for 10 month and already back in Canada for 1 week. Now looking at this blog, we must have been busy as we did not update this since December. Well, this will change as I like to share so many ideas and new things I have seen and experienced.
Here is a short review of the last couple month. Starting with December. Like everyone else, we have been busy with Christmas and to start with the ski season. Skiing was amazing and we had most of the time very good conditions. The kids did very well on skies and started to snowboard (see attached video) as well. We did not bring our skies and run into some really good deals at one of the countless "Ski-Basars". Penny and I picked up a very good set of touring skies (binding, skins and crampons) for 100 Euro each. To get most our of the great skiing around the Allgaeu and Austria, we purchased a Season Pass (only 355 Euro) for about 20 ski resorts. Meaning we had had 580 km on downhill runs within a 45 minute drive from our home.
It even got better with the "Kindergarten" system we had the kids in. They spend 5 days a week from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm in Kindergarten and had a blast, learned to speak a better Germany then I do and we could go skiing almost every day. 3 times a week Penny was going to school and took German lessons and the rest of the time we had a very good Penny & Max time. I still could work full steam as I worked most of the time during the evening hours (from 6:00 pm to midnight or 1:00 am, which is daytime in Canada) and a little bit during the day. Everything was perfect, maybe a little tiering with the full schedule, but for sure a lot of fun. The kids had a great time with all the local activities and the Grand-Parents. It was great as they lived just one apartment below. So they could go downstairs any time and if needed we had baby sitters very close by. In January we run into a pretty sweet deal with MEC. We did a 12 day Mediterian Cruise for 798 Euro (the whole family with outside/balcony room and food) Starting in Genua/Italy, to Barcelona/Spain, to Funchal, Madeira/Portugal, to Teneriffa, Canary Islands/Spain, to Arrecife, Lanzarote (Canary Islands) / Spain, to Malaga, Andalusien/Spain, to Civitavecchia (Rom)/Italy and back to Genua/Italien. What a great experience and fun we had while I was still able to work.
We did one more weekend trip to Praque (also a must see City) and the rest of the time we enjoyed the great skiing in the Alps with our area seasons passes. 

Now being back for a week, we had great weather and I already had 4 hikes up to Mt. Swansea with 2 great flights right up to Cloud-base (3100m and once at 2800m) and one day of skiing at Panorama. Now we are getting ready for our Easter Fly-in Meet next week.

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

x-alps statement and more details

It has now been a few weeks since the completion of the Red bull X-Alps, and it has given us time to reflect and write this blog.

We are having a great time here in Germany. We are all recovered, no more dreams of having to get up to get ready for the next hike, where will we take off and what route will we go. The kids love it, Penny is settling in to the "local lifestyle", I have high speed Internet and am able to work from here without any problems, the beer is good and cheap, so everything is just pefect.

The main question I am hearing, is if I would go for the 2011 x-alps again?

I am very happy with my 13th place finish this year. I did have a good chance to be in the top 10, if I would have choosen the "North Route", as I was sitting in 9th spot with 48 hours to go. The weather seemed to be in favour for the north the days I was traveling through that section, but had already positioned myself in the south. The "South Route" did have a lot of wind and it was hard to gain distance. It is not that the north or south route is better, it all depends on the wind and weather at the time you are there. Christian Maurer (winner) took the "South Route" and Alex Hofer (2nd) the "North Route" and both where very successful in both areas. It is just how you hit it, and being in the right place at the right time.

The major aspect that seperates the top pilots from the middle and end of the pack is the skill level of these pilots and some of them, being from around here, have a lot of local knowlege. The top finishers are exceptional pilots though, are in a class of their own, and did take more risks than I did. If I would go for the next x-alps, I would have to spend at least 2 months with a motor glider (motor sail plane) to really explore the whole route and fly it several times to get more familiar with the area and different valleys and landing areas. I also think the next x-alps, you will see more professional mountain guides as supporters, as had Christian Maurer.

Another important point is if I/we are willing, and able, to to free up the necessary time for training and also the time for the training in Europe. Further more, it is a matter of money as well. This race cost us more then $20.000. We were able to raise $10.000 at our fund raiser, but our personal costs exceeded $10.000. Thanks a lot to everyone again who came out to support us and spend money at the BBQ and on silent auction items. This obviously was such a huge help to us. We had a couple product sponsors too, (which I will mention in a bit) who helped us as well. The biggest expenses are the airplane tickets, car rental costs, gas, shoes and hiking boots. (I had about 12 pairs of shoes & boots through training and the race), phone, internet costs during the race (checking google earth, routes etc), maps, GPS, light weight equipment, and the wing, not to mention the time you are not working.

We got the wing for about $3000 from Nova. I was very happy with the wing as it certainly was better then most wings in glide. Ogi even thinks that the Triton is pretty close in glide with his Bommerang. Very good from the performance perspective and even better if you look at the saftey aspect as the large Triton is rates as a EN "C" wing.

Vincene Muller with www.MullerWindsports.com sponsored me with the Apco "ChairBag" harness. This is a very comfortable harness. The reserve is under the seat and the harness is reversable and very light. For the race I ended up with the SupAir Altirando XP which I got sponosred from SupAir. The reason why I chose this harness over the Apco is because the backpack is developed by mountaineers, is extremely comfortable and perfect for the hiking I had to do. I did not once have sore sholders during the race. The harness also has an optional leg fairing (pod) and an additional bag which can be mounted on top of the backpack. The backpack itself is very large and easily fit in my large triton, helmet, and other gear.

Craft clothing line, who sponsored me with clothing, has such an excellent line of clothing for active sports people. I used a sweater which was perfect for warmth around the neck, which is so important, and at the same time it drew the sweat off my body, and believe me I was sweating!! Very impressive is their underwear. I wore this during night time hiking, and again, your body never stays wet from sweating, you stay warm, but do not over heat either. It is hard to explain, but it certainly is different from what I have used in the past. Once you use the "Craft" line of clothing, you will not use anyting else.

Ark'teryx supplied me with a light Gore Tex jacket and pants which I used as my fly gear. The pants and jacket together, weigh only 590 grams. I did not have to use the pants too often though as the leg fairing of the harness (pod) was so good and kept me very warm. The jacket was awesome, keeping all air and wind out, keeping me very warm.

Another sponsorship which I was very grateful for was the "MBT" shoes. During training, I tried a number of different styles, and found the best for me, and the best for the different conditions I would be in. The shoes made it possible to walk long distances, on the pavement and on some hikes, without any pain and too much blistering. I had no problems with my knees, as I had in the 2007 X-alps, and by the end of the race, all I had was swollen feet, swollen achilles and a couple blisters. I would say this is normal with the kind of walking and hiking we ended up doing! I did not use any regular runners, only the MBT hiker, runner or sandal, or a solid hiking boot.

I would like to mention a few people I met because of the x-alps and have become very good friends with. Thanks to Till Gottbrath (Team Nova leader and owner of KGK) who connected me with Craft, Ark'teryx and with Garmin. His connections helped me get these product sponsors. Thanks also, and again to, Michael Phol (one of the best Austrian x-country pilots and super nice guy). Michael helped me in route planning and took time off to meet and fly with me before the race. Mik Broschart, simply a super nice guy, who was always there to help any way he could. Lloyd Pennicuik and Lewis Nott - Team Australia, who I spent some time with before the race and found that we were together quite a lot during the race. And of course, our great friend, Frank Kernick - 2007 supporter, who convinced me to go me into the x-alps, who helped raise funds to cover some of the expenses, sponsored me by paying for some expenses and joined me in Europe for a week prior to the race to check out the Frensh Alps.

Since the race, we have done a few presentations about the event, with information from the preparations (training, nutrition, logistics), the race itself, and the variety of equipment we used. Please feel free to drop me an e-mail if you have any questions.

The race is over

The race is over ... Not quite for our minds yet.
Our bodies are almost recovered and we are already catching up with work and getting things organized. 

The race was very intense and it was impossible to update this blog. We updated our race blog at the www.RedBullxalps.com. Check it out, there you can read others and see a gallery of photos and videos as well.  

I have to say that I had a lot of fun doing the x-alps adventure with Penny this time. Not that Frank was a bad supporter for the 2007 x-alps. Actually he was way easier and more human with me than Penny was. To be a supporter and a team for the x-alps is a huge test on your friendship and partnerships. We have seen some teams never talk to each other after the race, and on the other hand, it connects can also connect an amazing bond. As you all know, Frank and I are still very good friends and now Penny and I are even talking about marriage!!! Whew

I know that a lot of you want to know how we are doing and want to hear about what happened during the race. Most questions are:
How was it?
What was so special about it?
Would you do it again?

Here is in short was I/we think about it:

I have to admit, having my kids and Penny as my partner is still the most exciting adventure of all. But following in excitement right behind is the x-alps. What makes it so unique is that you are so fully involved 24/7 for numerous days on end. Nothing in the outside world even filters into your mind, work, kids, news, rumours. For both myself and Penny, we realized the focus we had and the concentration you have on the moment, you are absorbed in everything about the race. You do know the overall plan for the race, in where and how to go, but being able to do it physically, you need to concentrate on the moment you are in and this allows you to push the limits of physical stress or fly in conditions you never would fly in.
If someone tells you that you only can sleep 2-4 hours a day and have to hike up to 4000 meter in elevation or 50 km or further distances a day, for 12 days without a shower or bath, everyone would say you are crazy. The most amazing part is how the power of your mind can allow your body to do it.
As an example, one day I started hiking at 3:30 am, almost fell asleep walking along the road at 6:00 am, but Penny gave me a Red bull and I was a new person!! Then was flying at 11:00 in lee thermals while we had plus 100 km/hr winds build up behind the mountain. Eventually I got flushed down and managed to land in very steep and alpine terrain in the dolomite's, hiked over another pass (1000m elevation gain) and decided at 5:00 pm to hike up the 3300m Marmolada Glacier and rock climb in 120km/hr winds and to be down at 10pm in time for a pub to still be open and feed us spaghetti and beer. All this in one day and we were out there for a total of 12 days or so ( I already forgot how long it was) This was also one of two meals we were able to eat in a town at a restaurant!
Out of this ordeal, all I had was a couple blisters at my toes, heels and hands. I had swollen feet and archilles tendon which is all good again.

I am more amazed how Penny did all she did. She kept the van clean, had my bed ready when it was needed, got up an hour before I got up to have breakfast ready and the morning worked out, worked on the computer checking other athletes routes and updates on weather, had all the technical details in order, cooked, and made sure I have all the liquids and gear I needed and to top it off, she hiked all the mountains with me and most of the peaks to help carry up gear and supplies. Ask her how much her backpack weighed and she will tell you at least 30lbs of extra gear, food and water - she was probably right. Where ever I flew down, she hiked back down, up to 2500m elevation differences, and  somehow found time to stop in at a grocery store to restock, and then catch up to me again. Most amazing part is that she always had a smile in her face and was still talking as much as usual and what you know of her.

Now would we do it again?
Hard to say, It is an amazing adventure. The competition is extremely strong (Paragliding World champions and world cup winners) and the main benefit to most of the Europeans is that they know the alps and routes very well. They had alternate route plans and take off sites dependent on weather conditions, winds and time of day. Most of them are extremely good pilots and willing to take huge amounts of risk in how they fly and where they fly. To compete with these kind of guys is very hard. If I would do it again, I would have to spend at least the same time in physical training as I did for this race and next time I would travel the route for 2 month with a motor glider (sail plane).
It is too soon for me to make a decision on whether I would go through all this again. We still have some some time to think about it.

Even though my body's aches and pains and feet are back to normal, and the fatigue has diminished, we are both still having "nightmares" about where to launch, how is the weather, what are the valley winds doing, have we over-slept. It still takes both of us a couple minutes to realize where we are and that the race is actually over. We have both enjoyed a few flights this week.............hiking up 800m elevation gain, even when there was a perfectly good gondola right above our heads!!
 
We want to thank so many of you for helping us getting to this race. All your support at our fundraiser was incredible. It is a huge undertaking and a huge expense, and with your support helped make it a reality for us. And thank you too for all your comments on our guest book. I am sorry we didn't have time to respond, but we enjoyed reading them when we found a moment.

Max & Penny