France’s Tanguy Renaud-Goud has set a new hike-and-fly world record for elevation gain over 24 hours. He hiked-and-flew 17,534m over 23 hours on 25-26 April 2024 in Samoëns, France, beating the previous record by more than 500m.
Tanguy hiked the 800m ascent to a take-off on Le Criou in the northern French Alps 22 times, flying down each time. A temporary permit allowed him to continue through the night.
The conditions forced the team to make last-minute changes to the site and start time. “At first, I didn’t believe I could do it,” Tanguy said. “I told myself: it will be difficult anyway, don’t dwell too much on the details and just keep going uphill after uphill.”
Tanguy said he started out “a bit fast” and between accumulating 6,500m and 8,000m he was worried and experienced a lot of stomach pain as he was unable to eat properly. But, he found his form again and pushed on, with the only problem towards the end being his legs which “started to hurt severely”.
At 2pm on Friday, after 23 hours on the go, he decided to stop. “There wasn’t enough time to make one last ascent,” he said. “It was too difficult to walk in the snow and reach the mountaintop.”
He added: “But we finally made it! Without my friends this record would have been impossible… I never walked alone.”
Tanguy flew a 16m Niviuk Kode P with the Roamer 2 P harness and Expe 30 backpack during the day, switching to a single-surface 20m Skin 3 P during the night for a “better take-off with backwind”.
The record
The hike-and-fly record is not an official FAI world record but has nevertheless been fiercely contested over the last decade.
Florian Ebenbichler, Pascal Purin’s future Red Bull X-Alps supporter and trainer, got the ball rolling when he completed 8,860m in 2014.
Two years later Pascal Purin himself completed 9,540m on 18 June 2016, flying in the Stubai Valley, Austria as part of his training for the X-Alps in 2017.
Italian Olympic biathlete and paraglider pilot Lukas Hofer then moved the bar significantly higher on 1 July 2019 when he spent nearly 20 hours climbing the Kronplatz 10 times for a cumulative total of 13,040m (also reported online at 13,390m)
In June 2021 Tanguy then used the longest day of the year to complete 13,390m in one day. All the pilots to this point used available daylight and stayed within VFR (visual flight rules).
A little under a year later on 14-15 May 2022 pro trail runner Andy Symonds got permission to fly his single-skin wing at night and completed 16,976m. The decision to fly at night was a new twist and allowed Andy to take full advantage of a full moon for maximum visibility.
In 2023 Jeremy Paxson from Germany headed north to Norway at midsummer to take advantage of the 24-hour daylight at that time of year and had a crack at it too. On 19 June he ran up and flew down a mountain above Norangerfjord in central Norway 13 times in less 24 hours. Although he did not break Andy’s record the passionate ultra-runner and paraglider pilot covered a cumulative 14,690m of altitude within 21 hours.
This year Tanguy adopted Andy Symonds’ tactics and got permission to fly at night – and managed to set the new record at 17,534m. He beat Andy’s previous record of 16,976m by 558m.
For the record, 17,534m (57,526 ft) is almost twice the height of Everest (8,849m) or four times the height of Mount Whitney (4,421m) in the USA. It is 17.5 km or 10.9 miles high, or like climbing a staircase with 52,600 steps.
