Hike and Fly 2015 !

This saturday I had the chance to take part to a very new kind of wingsuit competiton, the first "Hike and Fly" !

The new thing with the "Hike and Fly" is that it's not only the flying part that count but also the hiking. Over here in the alps, on most jumps we spend more time hiking than flying. With the time we are getting more and more used to big hikes and a lot of height difference. The goal of this event was to see who is the fastest but all of this in a very friendly and relaxed mood. 

Busy day at the exit.

28 hikers/jumpers run the trail that had a +1000m altitude gain under a perfect sunshine. The winner Julien Millot from the Flying Frenchies made a time of 1h03. I ended at the 10th place with a time of 1h18. I'm really happy with this result for a first try. It was pretty fun to see everybody at the top of the race. It's not ussual to have that much flyers on an exit. We jumped in small groups. I jumped right after a slider down jumper and made a cool flyby on him.

Flyby with the Mont Blanc as background.

Back view.

At the begining the competition should have been in Samoens. We wanted to jump the Criou. Unfortunately the local mayor was against it saying "wingsuit base isn't a sport, it's like russian roulette". It was pretty dispointing to realise how our sport is seen by most people. The good thing is that Aurel, who is the organizer, didn't wanted to abandon the event like this. He found another jump and the event went on perfectly ! We hope that next year we can jump the Criou. I also hope that this event will help to change people opinion on our sport.

Posing in front of the Criou (and Samoens' administration)

Thanks again to Aurel and Val for this perfect event ! I'm already waiting for next year's edition !

Finally back in the air and online !

Sorry for the too long time since my last post ! It's now the beginning of spring in Europe and the start of a new wingsuiting season.

As always for me, winter was much too long and pretty boring. I don't do any winter sports so I spent most of my time in the gym or just chilling around. After my KL trip I only did a few jumps. Then I took a kind of forced 3 month break of jumping. Most of my days off work had a shitty weather. I wished I was travelling around tropical countries like last year. To keep my mood good as I wasn't jumping, I bought some new equipment ! I'm now the proud owner of a Vampire Race by Phoenix-Fly and a really nice looking Hybrid LD3 by Adrenalin Base.

The weather started to be good again around a month ago. It was time for a few recovery jumps to get back into it. I went a few times in Magland  to  jump the Belvèdere and Panorama. It was really good to have this feeling of flying again. After three months without jumping you lose part of your flying habits. Once I had good feelings again, I decided to get back to serious things and headed to Chamonix for some Brevent sessions !

Last week on my second session there this year I spent the whole day in Chamonix. I joined some of the local boys and had some really great jumps. Did my first 4 ways jump off the Brevent. That was definitely a great beginning of the season. 

4 way exit off Brevent.

In order Sam Hardy, Nathan J. Jones and Laurent Frat.

This week I went to Samoens to join my buddy Aurelien Chatard. We did the two first "high" jumps of the season from the Criou. We were really happy to see that nearly all the snow melted. Hikes were really nice and the weather was perfect. Usually I try to do some smaller hikes before starting the season, but this year no time to warm up straight into serious things !  

Messing around with my buddy Aurélien Chatard.

Messing around with my buddy Aurélien Chatard.

 

You can watch the video of this great jump with Aurélien on my athlete page on facebook : https://www.facebook.com/GuillaumeBeck