“One morning I had this crazy idea to give people an opportunity to experience the world of paragliding like never before” – Rhys Fisher, Agile Existence

In June 2017, along with Mark Baldwin and Fons de Leewe, we will attempt a coast to coast Pyrenees crossing–powered only by the elements.

From the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean sea, We will navigate through epic peaks, confront demanding flying, loaded hikes, and wild camp deeper than any of us have ever gone before.

To get you closer to the action, I've co-founder Adventures Unbound with Alice Horwood, and soon we will have a custom project website (reachinglostmountain.com) where you'll get access to LIVE tracking and social updates and an exclusive paragliding game level.

Project Thermal Crossings

Thermal Crossings is a “bold new approach” for adventuring that makes vol-biv paragliding more accessible, more transparent and more engaging to fans. Above all this, it allows Rhys, with your support, to inspire the next generation of adventurers.

“Everyone who lives, dies. Yet not everyone who dies, has lived. We take these risks not to escape life, but to prevent life from escaping us” – unknown

Rhys is assembling some of the most successful and recognisable names in paragliding and adventure athletics to guide him through a demanding training to prepare him for this expedition. He is once again questioning untested assumptions and taking his team through an innovative new model. This model starts by inviting you to crowdfund the first phase of the project--budget and itemize.

In return, he will provide fans with HD videos edits that capture his XC flying and vol-biv paragliding expeditions in stunning detail. Revealing a never before seen perspective into such an expedition, and providing you with an opportunity to nudge an adventure into existence.

"It's the first time anybody has offered the opportunity to be so involved, to be able to access all of the training data, and the inside stories” – Stan Radzikowski

Read more of Rhys's story here.

The History of Paragliding:

In the 1960s, the military needed to train parachutists how to perform safe landings. In order to fit more landing practice into a day, they would attach the parachutists to a truck with a tow rope and once high enough, would release the tow rope so the parachutists could descend back to earth. Many parachutists soon became more interested in the floating part instead of the landing part.

For fun, they would launch themselves off steep hills and parachute to the ground below, experimenting with how they could harness air currents to stay in the air longer.

This soon became a sport and really picked up steam with the invention of the ram-air parachute. Also known as the parafoil. Developed by Domina Jalbert in 1964, the ram-air parachute called a wing or canopy -- was broken up into cells. As the canopy caught the wind, air would "ram" into these cells, inflating the wing. The shape allowed the wing to glide further.

Modern paragliders have evolved a lot since the early days and have since become highly sophisticated ultralight aircraft. A complete gear can weigh between 8kg–20kg, and enable pilots to fly at speeds between 20km/h–70km/h. They have glide ratios of 10/1. The performance enhancements allow pilots to stay in the air for many hours at a time and to fly many hundreds of miles in a single flight.

Here's what one of Rhys's Flights looks like visualised over a 3D map.