Advanced Paragliding Volume 1

Gavin McClurg

Feb 2023 · Advanced Paragliding Book 1 · Cross Country International

About this ebook

Advanced Paragliding by Cloudbase Mayhem podcast host Gavin McClurg is packed with insight from some of the very best paraglider pilots in the sport. Aimed at all intermediate pilots up, it will help all pilots build solid foundations and progress in the sport. The book draws on over eight years’ of in-depth interviewing with over 100 of the world’s best pilots and covers aerology, meteorology, psychology, safety and risk-management. If you have 100 hours or more and want to go places in paragliding, this is for you.

This ebook edition was published in 2023 in three volumes, each designed to capture the flying genius and practical know-how of some of the world’s best pilots in easily digestible chunks.

Vol 1 includes interviews with Adel Honti, Alex Robé, Armin Harich, Bruce Goldsmith, Chrigel Maurer and Cody Mittanck. Plus chapters on: How to build a solid foundation; When to move up; How to progress safely; How to navigate intermediate syndrome; How to manage risk; How to avoid accidents; An advanced pilot’s first aid kit.

About the author

Gavin McClurg is no stranger to adventure and exploration. Following his paragliding expedition across the Canadian Rockies, he was named a 2015 National Geographic Adventurer of the Year alongside Will Gadd. Gavin then went on to become the first person to traverse the full length of the Alaska Range by foot and paraglider, unsupported, the following year. It was an expedition that took 37 days to complete. 

Gavin is the owner and founder of Offshore Odysseys, a global kitesurfing, surfing and sailing expedition where he pioneered hundreds of kitesurfing locations and dozens of flying sites in over 90 countries. He has twice circumnavigated the world by sail, living at sea for 13 straight years, including short-handed roundings of both of the notorious capes - Horn and Good Hope. 

In 2004 Gavin learned to ground handle in New Zealand and got the flying bug bad and has been chasing it ever since. Gavin moved from living on a sailboat in Morocco to Sun Valley, Idaho in the summer of 2012 because he’d heard it was one of the best places in the world to fly big air. 

The next summer Gavin broke the North American foot-launch record - a flight of 387km from Bald Mountain, Idaho across six mountain ranges into Montana. The record held for eight years. Gavin became the first American to complete the Red Bull X-Alps, a race by foot and paraglider across the Alps from Salzburg to Monaco in 2015. In ten days Gavin flew 1,560km, walked 498km and scaled the height of Everest four times (120,000 vertical feet). He competed again in 2017 and 2019, and as this was going to press was in training for the 2021 race, his fourth. 

Gavin started the Cloudbase Mayhem podcast in 2014 and plans to continue it for many years to come. Gavin lives in Sun Valley, Idaho with his wife and daughter because “it has the best backcountry skiing and big air flying on Earth!”