The fates of Czech pilots are very diverse and we would like to introduce you to the lives of some of them. I firmly hope that for some of you, the stories of other pilots will be inspiring, motivating, and definitely thought-provoking.
Today we start with an excellent XC pilot who is also a promoter of paragliding and one of the creators of the page Cloudbase Hunters. Are you interested in the fates of pilots? Their motivation, path to flying and snippets of their personal lives? Do you have a tip for other pilots you would like to read about? Write to us in the comments at FB page of the association.
Journey to the Alps by Tomáš Vidlák
The title might make you think that it's going to be a description of a long weekend flying trip, but that's not the case. It's a bit of a life story that Klára Hadašová gently nudged me to write because she said it might be interesting to a lot of people. Well, I think she was actually just trying to get another article for publication 😉.
A few people may know this story, but for most it will probably be news, for some it may be an inspiration, and for others it may be a deterrent example.
My journey to the Alps began about 45 years ago in Brno. Right after I was born, my parents took me to Loučná nad Desnou, in the Jeseníky Mountains. This is where my relationship with the mountains began to take shape. My dad ran a local ski lift after work, so I felt right at home on the slopes, but my family also dragged me everywhere, both on and off the road, through frost and frost, through mud and mud, and I probably liked it. Well, it had to be, right, because there was no other way. Gradually, my dad started dragging me to bigger and bigger mountains, and climbing both on rock gardens and in the mountains was added. Well, if you know the movie "How to Pull a Whale's Stool", that's just a weak version of what happened at our house 😊.
After eight years, however, our family decided to move back to Brno, or rather, it was a result of circumstances. I started playing hockey following the example of my grandfather, who was in the national team and was always climbing. In the end, climbing won out and became the number one sport for a long time, to which alpine skiing was logically added over time. The mountains got bigger and bigger and more frequent. Sometime when I was about 16, the first mountain bikes appeared and the first edition of the King of the Šumava marathon was held. So we set off there and, what the hell, I finished somewhere in the top fifty. And my life started to turn upside down again…. First I threw myself into racing, then my brother and finally my dad, who had nothing else to do because he went to races with us every weekend. I changed teams, including the then Merida, and only occasionally went climbing to Ádr or in the Tatras in the winter.
After a few years in the racing carousel and finishing school, I started my first job and started flying around the world. At that time, I was only flying by plane and as a passenger. There was no time for training, so my motivation to race slowly decreased, so the bike remained just a second hobby for me, and the climbing season and sandboxing started again in full force. My wife and I spent almost every weekend in Ádr or the Tatras, and we became so at home in Ádr that we eventually got married there on the tower. Not directly in Ádr, but on Bišík. Well, in a short time, we were going to Ádr as three, little Linda slept among the blueberry bushes and we climbed the surrounding towers. Before long, we were going as four, and in a short time, we were climbing as four 😊.
One day I decided to change employers and my colleagues started thinking of a leaving gift for me. They remembered how I had often talked about climbing in the Dolomites and especially about how guys were flying everywhere on wings and how it was so beautiful and I would like to try it someday. Well, what the hell, my wife didn't want to, so they gave me a basic PG course.
Well, I could probably skip this passage, because you all know it firsthand. “Grab those A’s, let go of those A’s, run, run, don’t brake, to the left, no, that’s the second left, pack it in a cauliflower and come up, etc.” I took the course with Honza Krátký and Honza Hájek and I’m still incredibly grateful to them. I think that it was incredibly humanly satisfying (maybe it’s not just my feeling 😊) and gradually after the course they led me to my first flights, sometimes even up to 10 km long. At that moment, climbing went completely aside and gradually disappeared almost completely. The bike remained, but flying literally consumed me and gradually I started riding and flying further and more often.
We all know that flying over mountains is a time-consuming pastime, especially since there are no real mountains in the Czech Republic... Added to that was a weekend trip with the family in the summer, where else but to the mountains, because we all love them, and suddenly we realized that we were sitting in the car a lot and it was eating up a lot of our time.
In our lives at home, we thought many times about going somewhere else closer to the mountains, but we always found some excuse. Yes, I say excuse consciously, because after we took that step, we realized that if we had done it earlier, it would have been easier. But my opinion in life is that one should not always look back and think about what could have been done better, because when one made those decisions, one did them with some available knowledge and information and to the best of one's knowledge... So there is no point in thinking about what ifs.
So excuses were put aside, we finished the renovation of a beautiful half of a First Republic villa in Brno and started looking for housing in the Dolomites. Since then, I always ask my wife at home, when she starts to think about something, if we are planning to move somewhere again 😊. It was January and Covid came. We had a deal with a guy that we would move into his house in the middle of the slopes on Kronplatz in the summer, we spent a week skiing and my wife a week with brutal temperatures, coughing, back pain, etc. Now you know who was patient 0 in the Czech Republic and who made it. Well, because Covid ruined all the agreements, we kept looking. The goal was to live in the mountains in September.
And it was again a combination of various coincidences that led us to Radstadt. For those who don't know where it is, it's between Flachau and Schladming, right below Rossbrand, which is a popular composting hill for flights from Stoderzinken. So quite a strategic location. We came to try it out for a year and we've been here for almost five years now. The children went to the local school with zero German and today they both speak like nothing and we're fighting. It's not easy, it has its pitfalls, but we're fighting. And the reward for that fight is that we can be in a beautiful environment in the mountains, where we spend a minimum of time in the car, whenever possible we pack up and go cycling with the kids, alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, walking in the hills and of course I fly. And that environment has an incredible power to charge you with energy.
And what is the point of this whole trip to the Alps? I don't really know. Maybe it's that fate will eventually take you where you're supposed to end up. Maybe it's that there's no need to be afraid to make some major life decisions. Or maybe it's just inspiration with a clear message that it can be done...
See you in the air!
