The deep line, part 1 by Gavin McClurg

THE

DEEP Line by Gavin McClurg

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he Red Bull X-Alps is billed as the “toughest adventure race on Earth,” and for good reason: Thirty-two athletes and their support teams race by foot and paraglider across the Alps, from Salzburg to Monaco, via a series of turn-points. Through 2013, only 11% of the field had completed the course. The 2015 edition was the longest and hardest course yet, covering over 1100 straight-line kilometers. Gavin McClurg was the first American to reach goal in the race’s history. The following are excerpts from a book he is writing about the race, The Deep Line, Inside the Hardest Adventure Race on Earth, which Gavin hopes to publish by the end of 2015. Editor’s note: Gavin was supported in the race by Ben Abruzzo, who was in charge of Gavin’s ground game and physical training leading up to the race, and Bruce Marks, who was in charge of Gavin’s flight strategy and overall logistics. This is part one of a two-part series.

Day 1, Out in Front The big day finally arrived. Months and months of training and preparation and doubts and fears and excitement were now officially relegated to the past. It was GO time. And it was excruciatingly hot. Thirty-two athletes were gathered

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under the huge Red Bull tent in downtown Salzburg, Austria, hiding from a vicious sun. I drank a few bottles of water, sank into a beanbag, shut my eyes and instantly fell asleep. I’d dreamt of this moment for so long it felt surreal for it to finally arrive. I was unreasonably calm; I could feel my heart ticking as if it were just another day. Since I’ve always had trouble sleeping, I’d become accustomed to operating on way too little, and had added sleeping pills to my nightly routine, seemingly to no avail. Consequently, I was shocked and concerned that now, a half-hour before the start of the race, my body finally gave me a reprieve? I’d heard stories about pilots in previous races actually catching themselves dozing in flight. Others talked about having hallucinations, which were, obviously, incredibly dangerous. Paragliding is intense even in calm conditions. I hoped my sleep deprivation wouldn’t cause me to take catnaps in the sky! My internal clock gave me a shake a few minutes before the start. I grabbed my backpack and lined up with Paul Guschlbauer and Stanislav Mayer, who had placed first and second, respectively, in the Prologue, while I had placed third. We top three finishers were awarded an extra night pass as well as a five-minute head start in the main race. Chrigel Maurer, who had won the previous

PHOTOS

three X-Alps and was a clear favorite to win again, came over and shook our hands, wishing us luck. And then we were off, running through the cobbled streets of Salzburg, with throngs of people cheering us on towards the first turn-point, the Gaisberg. As the ascent steepened and the pace slowed, I checked my heart rate. I was using the Garmin Fenix watch (Garmin was a major sponsor of the race) and heart-rate monitor, instead of my trusty Suunto and wasn’t familiar with how the watch worked. I hoped I had misunderstood the instructions when it said my heart rate was 188. That was not only well above my maximum but also untenable for any length of time. I felt great and couldn’t understand why my heart was beating so fast. Was it heat? Adrenaline? I knew I wasn’t working any harder than I had in training. But it didn’t drop. About six kilometers into the race, I met up with Ben, as planned, who had walked down from the launch with extra water and a few packets of Gu. I told Ben about my heart rate, which at this point had been above 180 for over 30 minutes. I was afraid I was going to pass out, even though I felt fine. “What the hell is going on, Ben?” I asked. “How do you feel?” Ben asked. “I feel great, man, awesome. I’m worried my heart is going to explode, but it feels fine.” “You’re fine, then; you know your body, and you know your heart rate better than any monitor does. Trust your training.” Thank god! This would be the first of literally hundreds of times Ben’s confidence put my mind at ease. We rallied the rest of the way to launch, arriving in eighth place amongst a sea of screaming fans. My team was ready with a big lunch, extra water and all the non-mandatory gear that I would take with me into the air—crampons and via-ferrata harness for the Dachstein, in case we had to hike to the turnpoint over the glacier instead of flying to it, extra clothing, a dry shirt, gloves, sun block and electrolytes. In this heat, water and electrolytes were critical. Our second biggest fear, behind bombing out, was bonking. Bruce brought out our airspace maps to refresh me. The airspace all the way to the Dachstein and then towards turnpoint 3 at Aschau is really tricky. Violating airspace meant, at best, a 24-hour penalty, and, at worst, a disqualification. Screw it up and the race is over. This restriction was one of my greatest worries. I’d flown the route only once during scouting a few days before; airspace is my Achilles heel. At home it is a

non-issue; we don’t have airspace anywhere I usually fly, and in Europe I always flew with Bruce, who can read airspace maps like most people read road maps and can talk me through the route on the radio. To me, those maps are incomprehensible hieroglyphics. I slugged down a can of Red Bull, adding to the adrenaline pumping through my veins, and took stock of my surroundings. There were throngs of screaming fans, the Red Bull filming helicopter buzzing loudly overhead, and more than a dozen athletes laying out their gliders, preparing to fly. I was so excited and pumped I felt like screaming, but I tried to keep a calm demeanor. Be cool, Gavin, be cool … I kept repeating to myself. Nick Neynans (New Zealand) launched into the air, followed quickly by Aaron Durogati (Italy) and the Eagle himself, Chrigel Maurer (Swiss 1). They were climbing easily. Time to go. I pulled my IcePeak 7 into the gentle breeze blowing up the hill, gave my team a nod and turned and lifted off the ground. Flight number one of the 2015 X-Alps. The plan was simple: Don’t go into airspace; fly conservatively; stay in the air; don’t do anything stupid. No fewer than 20 gliders climbed up to within a few hundred meters of prohibited airspace and went on glide

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towards turnpoint 2, the stunning Dachstein, the highest mountain in Austria, 50 kilometers down course line. I counted maybe 16 wings in front of me as I, too, went on glide, but chose a more direct line out front. And as I hammered down on my speed bar, I began to quickly pick them off. I looked up at my wing and smiled. Flying a higher-performance glider was going to be, of course, more risky, but the decision was already paying off. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s go, baby! Twenty kilometers into the flight, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d pulled into third place, behind Pascal Purin (Austria 4) and Maurer. Maurer was leading the charge, as expected, on a deep line, but he was getting held up, so I stayed wide out front, linking onto a long spine that leads directly onto the Dachstein. We were in the big mountains now. The climbs were strong and the wind was very light. A perfect flying day to start the race. The only real stress was staying below airspace, which I was still having trouble figuring out. Nearly all of the pilots chose the deeper line behind Chrigel, and since they were all higher than I, I

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figured I must be OK. I liked my line better out front and in no time was coming in high over the glacier and the turnpoint, flying fast. I was in fourth place. What an amazing start! The lead gaggle then broke up. Nearly all of the pilots

headed southwest in the direction of my planned route, towards the town of Bischofshofen, where we could glide onto the impressive walls beneath the Hochkonig. This led us to a very well traveled glider “highway” that heads off in a northwest direction toward turnpoint 3 in Germany. It was a route I’d flown twice during our scouting missions and was the sensible way to go, but the conditions were so good I felt a more direct line was possible, if I shaved the corner and dived behind the Hochkonig. I set off on glide and was suddenly totally alone, right up in first place. Even though I was in the lead, I was starting to get nervous about my call to take the deeper line. But I got jumped by Stephen Gruber (Austria 3), who was not only an amazing pilot but, more importantly, lived nearby and probably knew this area better than anyone else in the race. Lead on! Then a wing I recognized was suddenly ABOVE, LEFT © zooom.at/Felix Woelk. LEFT & ABOVE

right next to me. Chrigel! He’d crawled up from way back in the pack, after getting stuck before the Dachstein, and was skillfully picking off pilots one by one. He looked up, and, while I couldn’t see his face, I knew he was smiling, as he seemed to find another gear and accelerated past me as if I were standing still. You son of a bitch. But knowing Chrigel was taking the same line gave me a huge boost in confidence, and I set off on full bar, trying to reel them in. The Red Bull helicopter swept in to film the lead three pilots as we found our next climb. You couldn’t have wiped the smile off my face with a cheese grater. The Aschau turnpoint was only 70 kilometers away, and I was one of the top three. If we could stay in the air, we could cover 15% of the course on the first day. Chrigel and Gruber got a small jump on me at the next climb, and I couldn’t hang onto them. Two pilots working together are always faster than one working alone, but they were easily within reach; I just had to fly fast. We were high, the flying was magnificent, the scenery mindblowing, and, as I went on glide towards the Hochkalter,

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I thought it was doubtful anyone on Earth was having more fun than I was at that moment. At 1900 hours, Bruce called with a strategy update. “Listen, Skipper (Bruce always called me Skipper, a leftover from my sailing days), you need to slow down, stay high, stay in the air. Change gears, stop racing. STAY IN THE FUCKING AIR. I don’t want you to land until 9 p.m.!” The race regulations allowed us to move between 0530 and 2230 hours, but we could only fly between 0600 and 2100. I was now a couple of kilometers behind Gruber and Chrigel, and, as I posted up on a beautiful spire about 50 kilometers from turnpoint 3 while trying to find a climb, a gaggle of recreational pilots and one X-Alps pilot joined me. It was Paul Guschlbauer (Austria 1), being helped out and pulled along by some clearly talented pilots. It pays to have friends in Austria. I gaggled up with this unexpected good fortune. We found a nice climb to cloudbase and set off northwest.

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And then I made my first big mistake of the day. The terrain was getting lower as we headed towards the Bavarian Alps, the day was later, the climbs slower and, as we all transitioned to the Sonntagshorn (1961m), which would be our next obvious climb, it was clear that the day did not have much more to give. We patiently worked the peak, but the climb wasn’t there. When Paul and his crew headed off on glide nearly straight north, I wondered if they knew something I didn’t, because the direct route, the one I chose, was much more to the west. I was silly to leave a gaggle, and even sillier to leave a gaggle of Austrians who fly here all the time. I limped onto a shaded hill above a lake, thinking my day was over, but as I ground around to the west, still sunny-side, I found an agonizingly slow climb. I worked ever-so-slowly higher, and, just as I got to where I could have some breathing room, Guschlbauer flew right over my head. I should have stayed with Paul and his friends. I squeaked over a treed col to the east of a small town

called Unterwossen, while attempting to get my absolute maximum glide, and landed near a small airstrip just after 8 p.m., where we’d identified an easy hiking path up to Aschau. My instrument said I was nine kilometers away, a distance that wouldn’t be possible to cover in less than an hour, which was all the time I had left before no flying was permitted. There was no reason to rush, but I did, anyway, making my second big mistake of the day. As soon as I landed, I started ripping off my gear, instead of neatly piling it, as I’d practiced so many times. When Bruce called, I impatiently tried to give him directions to my location, but he had no data and couldn’t pull up Google Maps. I just said, “Goddammit, I’m on the airstrip, come find me!” and hung up. I packed up my wing, lost my Bluetooth earpiece in the grass and ran off in the wrong direction. A woman who had been watching the race on live tracking ran out from her house, offered me some food, asked where I was going and handed me a glove I’d dropped. I’d been running towards the turnpoint but hadn’t noticed a large river blocking my path, because I hadn’t taken the time to check my maps. The woman informed me that I either had to wade across or backtrack a kilometer to the main road. I thanked her for the food, grabbed my glove and ran back the way I’d come, cursing myself for being such a disaster. I was making a rookie

mistake that many of the race veterans had warned me not to do. Our beautiful van, easily recognizable with its huge Patagonia stickers, pulled up, and Bruce and Ben hopped out, smiling. After they handed me an energy shake, we briefly discussed strategy. I was in fourth place. There was no chance of flying off Aschau before the deadline. The correct move would have been to relax, set up camp and hike up to the turnpoint at the crack of dawn. But the adrenaline and excitement of the day had us all talking past each other. I knew there was a hotel at the turnpoint, so Ben and I raced off, thinking there was something to be gained by hauling ass. There wasn’t. It was our team’s first big lesson of the race. SLOW DOWN. In our rush, we forgot spare batteries and chargers; my mouth-guard, which I can’t sleep without; money for the hotel or dinner and appropriate clothing for the storm that was on its way, which we knew nothing about. The author would like to thank the Foundation for Free Flight, and all the donors of the US Team for their generous support. Thank you!

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