Galen Kirkpatrick is a world class paraglider - in 2022 she was the FAI Women’s Pan-American Paragliding Champion, and in 2023 she became the overall US National Champion. Paragliding has become a vehicle for Galen to get in touch with herself and see the world from a new perspective.
Galen Kirkpatrick is a world class paraglider - in 2022 she was the FAI Women’s Pan-American Paragliding Champion, and in 2023 she became the overall US National Champion. Paragliding has become a vehicle for Galen to get in touch with herself and see the world from a new perspective.
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Galen Kirkpatrick:
I've always loved looking at things from above. I mean, I always needed to sit in a window seat on the airplane. And I love looking off of trees that I've climbed, or cliffs, or mountains. It's just to look down on things, to see things from an aerial perspective feels completely magical to me. And so while paragliding, you get to do that repeatedly for as long as you keep flying.
Shelby Stanger:
Galen Kirkpatrick spends her days paragliding through the skies. She takes off from hills or cliffs running and jumping as she pulls her arced fabric sail up behind her like a kite. Once she's in the air, Galen reclines into a comfortable harness and steers her way over mountain ranges, lush forests and deep valleys. Paragliding has become a vehicle for Galen to get in touch with herself and see the world from a new perspective.
I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-Op Studios production brought to you by Capital One.
Galen Kirkpatrick is a world-class paraglider. In 2022, she was the FAI Woman's Pan-American Paragliding Champion, and in 2023 she won the U.S. Open. Galen took her first paragliding flight eight years ago. Now, she has made a career teaching and competing in the sport. Paragliding isn't exactly a mainstream sport, but it's the perfect way for Galen to explore the skies.
Galen Kirkpatrick, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. I'm really excited to talk to a paraglider.
Galen Kirkpatrick:
Hi, Shelby. Yeah, thanks for having me on.
Shelby Stanger:
If someone has never seen someone paraglide, how do you describe it? What is it?
Galen Kirkpatrick:
So it's a way of enjoying the discipline of flight. Paraglider is technically an aircraft, and you hop off of a hill and you're basically trying to fly for as long as possible. You can hike to the top of a mountain and then fly off of it, and you can also land it and then hike out with it. So people are using it as this tool to do unsupported adventures in the wilderness.
Shelby Stanger:
When you're in the air, what does it feel like?
Galen Kirkpatrick:
You're untethered from the ground and it's quiet. So just like as if you were riding a bike gently in a quiet street or trail on your own, or you're sitting on a surfboard in the ocean all by yourself, it's kind of like that except you're traveling through the air. So you're sitting usually in this nice recliner chair sort of harness and you're just flying.
Shelby Stanger:
So back up. How did you get into paragliding?
Galen Kirkpatrick:
So I've been passionate about the sky or I have wanted to explore the sky for my entire life. The idea of being up above near clouds not tethered to the ground was always just this entrancing concept to me. So I eventually made it happen for myself when I was 27 and since starting, I basically have rearranged my life completely to focus on flying.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. So what was that first time like? Where did you go? Who took you? How did you even figure out how to book a lesson?
Galen Kirkpatrick:
I knew about paragliding for a long time because again, I always had this, I kind of felt, or I had this feeling, or I knew that I was going to fly someday somehow. And at 27 I just had to make it happen. I had it on my radar for a couple months and I just happened to be somewhere where it was possible to do it and I booked a one-day lesson. And kind of-
Shelby Stanger:
Where were you?
Galen Kirkpatrick:
I was in Bozeman, Montana.
Shelby Stanger:
Oh, amazing. Okay, so you're in Bozeman. You booked a lesson and it was simple?
Galen Kirkpatrick:
Yeah, so I'm an instructor now, and so I do these sorts of lessons for people all the time. It's easier than riding a bike because you don't have to balance and the paraglider kind of does that for you, especially the wings that we send our beginner students out on. So it's possible to send someone that's never paraglided before and has a moderate or low level of athletic capability on a short paraglider flight by them-
Shelby Stanger:
Alone?
Galen Kirkpatrick:
... by themselves. Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
Wow. Okay.
Galen Kirkpatrick:
Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
So your first time was solo?
Galen Kirkpatrick:
Mm-hmm.
Shelby Stanger:
I'm sure it is just so second nature to you, but I'm curious about this beginner Galen. What was she like when she first went and got in a paraglider, and was out over Bozeman looking at mountains from above, checking off this giant childhood dream?
Galen Kirkpatrick:
Yeah, it was thrilling. So it was just a flight off of a training a minute, but instantly, just being disconnected from the ground I felt this feeling of freedom, and unmet potential, and just this enduring curiosity. It was just instant. And I also didn't anything, so I could be that in a sense. It's like being in the ocean and not knowing that sharks exist or that you could drown.
Shelby Stanger:
I don't mean to be cheesy, but you're kind of describing what falling in love is. You're completely clueless, but all of a sudden you're like, "Oh, this is it. I know."
Galen Kirkpatrick:
Yeah, it's a feeling very similar to that actually.
Shelby Stanger:
Hearing you speak about how you just knew is just so beautiful because there are so many listeners, including myself, who have these wild ideas but they're not sure what wild idea to pursue, and how to find it, and how to know. And I want you to dive deeper and tell me how you figured out that paragliding was it and then you went full throttle with it.
Galen Kirkpatrick:
So I think people assume that it's going to feel perfect at first or that it's going to feel completely natural. And at least for me that's not right. I remember being thrilled, and curious, and super open, but I had no concept that I would rearrange my life to follow this. And I think that the thing we all should watch out for is when we feel that curiosity, that insatiable curiosity. Because that's the sustainable thing and that'll lead to a lifetime of exploring.
Shelby Stanger:
What has paragliding taught you? I'm sure tons, but from a spiritual, humility side and a confidence side about yourself.
Galen Kirkpatrick:
So my choice to pursue the discipline of flying has completely changed my entire life. I'm trans and when I started flying, I was really unhappy. I was unhappy in life. I had never really shown who I was to the world. So being untethered from the ground and getting to experience the air, at first it was this incredible escape from a life I was really unhappy with. And that lasted, I was able to kind of ride on that escape for a little while. And then pretty soon I started realizing that it was a really risky thing to do and I had never shown anyone who I was. I had never actually been myself. And so that experience of being in the sky, submitting myself to some risk and being completely untethered from everything on the ground, initiated me coming out of the closet and finally deciding to be myself on the ground.
Shelby Stanger:
After Galen's first flight, her life shifted. She started to seek out paragliding in her free time when she wasn't working her day job as a seafood distributor to restaurants. Over the subsequent eight years, Galen put in a huge amount of time and effort to become one of the top paragliders in the nation. Now she lives in her van traveling for competitions and coaching gigs, and she's really skilled at explaining the mechanics of paragliding.
Okay. I'm going to ask you kind of some dumb questions, but I am just clueless about this. How do you take off and land?
Galen Kirkpatrick:
So a paraglider, it's a glider so it doesn't exactly go up, but you're using this wing which gives you on average about a one to 10 glide ratio. So that means for every 10 feet you go, you drop one foot. So you can fly off of a mountain in perfectly still air and go 10 times as far as that mountain is high. And what paragliders are generally doing is trying to find places where there's rising air and that allows us to extend our flight. And so there's buoyant air, and basically we're able to stay in that buoyant air and keep flying. And then where it gets really thrilling is when we get to use convective lift. So that's basically a warm Earth kind of off gassing. So the sun heats the Earth, the Earth heats the air, and then that warm air that's kind of blanketing the Earth sort of bubbles up, and we get to find those bubbles and use them to climb.
Shelby Stanger:
This is like the best explanation of flying that I've been given. Thank you. This is great. Science class.
Galen Kirkpatrick:
Yeah, I could talk about this for days. It's truly thrilling.
Shelby Stanger:
It sounds truly thrilling. And so somewhere like Colombia, there's probably more warm air and a higher mountain and a bigger valley?
Galen Kirkpatrick:
I mean there's incredible flying here all over California, but it might be flyable one day in 10 or one day in 30. And in Colombia it's flyable basically every day. So since it's equatorial, there's this special weather pattern that sets up in the valley. And no flight is ever the same, even when the forecast and the mountain is exactly the same, you're going to encounter something else.
Shelby Stanger:
What kind of things do you encounter?
Galen Kirkpatrick:
There's this discipline, which is the one I've devoted most of my time to, called cross country. And that's basically taking off in one spot and flying in a direction down a valley, across a mountain range, and then landing in somewhere completely new that you've never been before.
Shelby Stanger:
What happens when you land?
Galen Kirkpatrick:
Well, that's very nice in competitions because you have some infrastructure, people are watching out for you and they see that you've landed and they send a van for you. In Colombia, or in Brazil, or in Nepal, it can be a little different. Basically you find a spot, and you pack up your gear, and you go for the road. And then you take a bus or you hitchhike and you just try to find your way back. On huge flights, it can take you longer to get back than took you to get there.
Shelby Stanger:
I want to talk about risk. Tell me what risk is involved with paragliding.
Galen Kirkpatrick:
Well, I think everything is risky. At least the way I see it, driving on the freeway is super risky. I like to frame risk in an empowering way and think that all risks can be managed. And so what I'm generally concerned with when thinking about risk is the risk that I can't manage. So I don't ride motorcycles, but a lot of people do, or bicycling in the city in traffic. That's a famous example of something that's really not that risky, but where there's an immense amount of risk that can't be managed. You can't control the driver to see you or from pulling out in front of you. I feel like that's a lot more risky than paragliding because paragliding, I have a lot more control over the things that can cause me harm.
Shelby Stanger:
You have a flight that you really remember that you want to take us through?
Galen Kirkpatrick:
Yeah. So when the pandemic happened, like everyone, life completely changed. I was living in my car at the time, so I kind of went back home to where my family lived and sort of regrouped. And I didn't fly for a number of months because the hospitals were totally overrun and I didn't want to maybe put myself in risk.
But first flight back after not flying for a couple months, it was in this home area in Whatcom County that I was really familiar with. And there was this really good forecast so lift was supposed to be up to about 10,000 feet, which when you're at sea level is really quite high. And I remember launching and climbing up this ridge, and pushing back and I felt like I was at home. It was my home county. There's evergreen trees, green valleys and river.
And I remember just pushing a little deeper and a little deeper, and then eventually finding this thermal that took me from about 6,000 feet to about 10,000 feet. And there's this beautiful mountain there, Mount Baker, which I climbed when I was a teenager. And I got up to 10,000 feet, and I looked around and I could see the ocean and this mountain, which I had climbed 15 years prior, and I could see mountains to the north. And it was just incredibly stunning, and I felt like I was at home and I felt like I was myself. And it was a really special experience that I'll never forget
Shelby Stanger:
When we come back, Galen talks about what happens in a paragliding competition, the type of flying she does and how she's advocating for more women to join the sport.
In just eight years, Galen Kirkpatrick went from paragliding down her first training hill to winning the 2023 National Paragliding Championship. She's always wanted to fly and paragliding has allowed her to achieve that dream. Galen now travels around the world working in the sport. In the warmer months, she's often in the U.S. coaching paragliding lessons. In the winter you can find Galen closer to the equator participating in competitions.
When did you start flying competitively?
Galen Kirkpatrick:
So the best way to get good at flying is to fly in competitions. So I started about three years after I started flying.
Shelby Stanger:
How many people compete at once?
Galen Kirkpatrick:
Generally it's 100, 120 and sometimes up to 150.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. So when you do these competitions, are you competing for distance or speed?
Galen Kirkpatrick:
Yeah, it's called race to goal and you fly with 100 other people, and you race over a course of turn points trying to be as fast as possible. And in my opinion, it's the most thrilling game that I've ever come across or found because it requires teamwork. You have to work together with this, what's called a gaggle of other pilots because you can't see the air. So each person that's flying is showing you what the air is doing, so you're working together more than you're competing against. And to do that requires this epic management of self, of ego and of competitiveness. You're basically trying to win at a game of teamwork.
Shelby Stanger:
That is so interesting. So you can't run into each other, which I'm sure is if you were to go faster, but then you'd run into someone else and then you'd both die. So you have to figure out how to go fast and support the other person also going fast. Is that kind of what you're saying?
Galen Kirkpatrick:
Yeah, I mean sometimes people do hit each other. That happened to me one time.
Shelby Stanger:
And you were okay?
Galen Kirkpatrick:
I was okay. Yeah, we have reserved parachutes. So we ran into each other, our main wings didn't work so we threw reserve parachutes, and then we landed in a field. And he hit me so I was a little unhappy because I was flying along like normal and then he came out of-
Shelby Stanger:
I'd be bummed too.
Galen Kirkpatrick:
... he came out of nowhere and ripped me out of the sky. I remember being so happy when we landed that I was okay. But yeah, midair collisions rarely happen.
Shelby Stanger:
That sounds kind of scary. Okay, so here's a question. How far are these flights? How far are you flying?
Galen Kirkpatrick:
When you're flying cross country you're able to potentially fly 100 miles. I actually hadn't flown 100 miles yet until this summer. And so I was doing a competition in Utah. In a competition we usually fly for seven days and we set a different task each day. We have this series of turn points, and we go all try to tag these turn points and then land in the same spot as fast as possible.
Shelby Stanger:
Wait, how do you find the turn point in the air?
Galen Kirkpatrick:
It's like a little GPS, so it's almost like orienteering except you have a little GPS unit that tells you when you've made it to that mountain, that spot.
Shelby Stanger:
Amazing.
Galen Kirkpatrick:
And so we were in the process of deciding. It was early in the morning, we were in the process of deciding where we were going to fly that day, where we were going to send the whole competition. So I was part of this little committee. And we were looking at the forecast and trying to figure out, and we decided on this about 160 kilometer route. And 160 kilometers was really close to 100 miles. I think it's actually 167 kilometers. And I was in this group of really experienced pilots who had flown 100 miles. And I was doing quite well in the competition, I was maybe in first or second place. And I just mentioned, I was like, "Oh, I've actually never flown 100 miles." And they all turned their heads and they were like, "What? Really?" And I was like, "No, it's just never quite happened. I've gotten really close, maybe 99 miles or 99 and a half." And they were like, "Well, let's make the task 169 kilometers then. So if you make it, you'll get your 100 miles."
Shelby Stanger:
Awesome.
Galen Kirkpatrick:
And so yeah, then we flew that task. And so there's a couple mountain ranges there. We're about a couple hours south of Salt Lake City. And for this route, because the forecast was good, we decided to go out into the valley that wasn't usually flown. And we were in the mountains for maybe 15 or 20 miles and it was pretty easy. And then we all as a big group headed out into this valley where we didn't really know what the conditions were like. So we're playing in the sky in between 10 and 15,000 feet and gliding, sinking, finding a climb and then topping that out, and then continuing to glide. And it's just so thrilling in cross country paragliding because we went on this 10-mile glide across the valley, and then we get right down next to the terrain and we're a couple hundred feet high just trying not to land. So we're trying to find little bubbles of rising air. People are going right, people are going left, and we manage to find a climb, and climb back up and continue going.
And so then for the next 50 kilometers, it was a lot more difficult. And then we got back into the mountains and then it was easy again. So you get this idea of the macro weather system, what's happening on a grand scale, what's happening in a mid-level scale. And then you go and you look at the forecast and you have an idea what you're going to encounter, and then you go actually experience it. And you go from little microclimate to microclimate to microclimate.
Shelby Stanger:
That is so cool. And what are you seeing when you're doing this? I know you're focused on competition too, so there's a lot going on.
Galen Kirkpatrick:
In this case, in a competition you're mostly focused on other pilots, but I don't know, you're also looking at the clouds. Clouds can kind of tell you what's happening with the weather and where there's going to be lift or not. You're looking for birds. Since we're trying to find rising air and you can't see air, you're looking for indicators of that air. So if you see some birds, there's a good chance, and they're not flapping, then there's a good chance they're in a thermal. You can go join them and you can fly with them to get back up to elevation.
Shelby Stanger:
Galen told me about some cool experiences she's had like flying with huge human-sized birds in Nepal that hovered just above the wing of her sail, but Galen isn't just admiring the wildlife while she's flying. Like she said, there's some teamwork involved in the sport. Galen has become a member of an unofficial club of American woman paragliders. As you might imagine, it's a small club. But one of Galen's missions is to make the sport more accessible and inviting to other women.
You've become this great advocate for women in paragliding. Do you feel like women are getting more recognition in the sport? I'm just curious how many women compared to men do this sport?
Galen Kirkpatrick:
That's changing. The percentage of women who are flying is getting a lot higher. I'm really curious. It's been a little while since I've been at the training hill, so I'm really curious to see what the ratio of students will be, the gender ratio. It's really exciting time right now because there are four women in the U.S. paragliding scene that are doing really well in the world ranking. And so we've just kind of gotten together and we've created this team, and we're trying to figure out, "Well, we made it to this spot, what can happen if we start working together, fundraising together?" So we have some fun ideas coming up and it's just really special to get to work together, which is what we're doing in the competitions anyway, but also on the ground in order to support each other and build each other up.
Shelby Stanger:
It seems like it's a really supportive sport, at least among the women are really supporting other women right now.
Galen Kirkpatrick:
Yeah, I think communities of aviation have traditionally been really quite gatekept by men, and that's certainly a factor in paragliding. I've experienced that, almost all women who fly have. Being talked down to on launch, or being helped in ways that are unfair, or being taught by sexist instructors who don't know how to teach women. I had some sexist instructors when I started flying and it sucked. It's like you had to navigate learning to do something dangerous and not being given the benefit of the doubt, or not being treated equally, or being downright mistreated.
So I worked with a group of women this winter in Mexico. We did an all women's XC clinic, so we basically just had eight women and two of us guides. And we just got to create this incredibly supportive space for learning how to link flights and make them longer, and it was really incredible.
Shelby Stanger:
How do you hope to inspire other people doing what you're doing?
Galen Kirkpatrick:
Well, I think I've done that in some parts by doing competition. I think pursuing high-level performance is kind of inherently a self-centered thing. You have to develop a relationship with yourself, which is both comforting and forgiving, but also you have to push yourself. You have to continue to be curious, you can't be satisfied. And so I've done that a lot in the last couple years, really focused on my relationship with self. And I think the results were part of that this year, winning the national championship. I think they were a product of years of working on my relationship with myself, but I'm also really excited to share that more and do more advocacy, do more clinics. I'm really excited. There's a women's fly-in event, which will have 40 women, and I'm going to be a mentor at that in May. And those events are super incredible.
I'm really excited to share that or share myself more because I think as you focus on performance, you kind of shut out. I say self-centered, and I don't think that's a bad thing. I think especially for people who've been marginalized, kind of like choosing only to listen to certain voices, to yourself, to focus on yourself is really incredible and valuable, and I've done that. And now that I've gotten to know myself where I have a really healthy relationship with myself, I'm excited to share more of that.
Shelby Stanger:
If you want to follow Galen's adventures and see some incredible videos of her flying and competing, check her out on Instagram @readysetgalen. That's Ready Set Galen, G-A-L-E-N.
Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Peers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producers are Jenny Barber and Hannah Boyd. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby.
As always, we love it when you follow the show, take time to rate it and write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.