Fred’s Tips and Tricks: Hike and Fly Mountaineering

Fred Souchon is a mountain guide, paraglider pilot and search-and-rescue professional in the Chamonix Valley, home to Mont Blanc (4,808m) and numerous other high mountain peaks.

In this video, created with Jake Holland, Fred, an Advance team pilot, explains how to approach a high mountain paraglider launch in the Alps or other glaciated mountains.

He takes us through some of the kit you need to stay safe on the ice and snow of the mountain, and shares some of his tips to make sure you launch cleanly and first time. How about the lollipop trick – heard of that one?

Mountaineering on snow and ice does demand a specific skill set, including knowledge of how to use ice-axe, crampons and crevasse rescue technique – and this video is not aimed at teaching you that. But it is about what to have in your bag, and how to manage the combination of mountaineering equipment like crampons and ice-axe with your paragliding kit.

In the film Fred launches from nearly 4,000m on the Aiguille du Midi, almost 3,000m above the mountain town of Chamonix in the valley below. It’s a classic flight and a bucketlist flight for many pilots in the Alps.

Produced by Jake Holland and Fred Souchon