base428

The ropes have not come out any further since I've been involved in organizing and I make sure of this each year. I am aware of rope strikes in the past. I am also aware of one year, maybe 1999 or so, where they tried to come out further. The following year, the ropes went back to normal. If anyone has photos of the rope positions for anything other that 2003 (see attached), please let me know. (c)2010 Vertical Visions. No unauthorized duplication permitted.

Try Supercircuits or Polaris I use a color (day) and BW (night) IR camera in front of my house and it does fine. During the construction of my house, I actually caught some vandals on tape that led to their prosecution and repayment of damages. Pic is attached. Good luck. (c)2010 Vertical Visions. No unauthorized duplication permitted.

Yep.....refer back to CPoxon's 2nd post to this thread to see the line twists he had. I believe that was Marvin. (c)2010 Vertical Visions. No unauthorized duplication permitted.

Passages to Adventure has handled the rappelling for years. They've already selected all their teams for this year. As for the number of ropes, there are too many of them as far as I'm concerned. Ropes stretch from the South end of the bridge to a point approximately 1/3 of the length of the bridge. If you have a 110 degree opening to the right and some line twists, you can hit the ropes. (c)2010 Vertical Visions. No unauthorized duplication permitted.

I have no data on how Steve packed. He used to jump a Raven back then, and in the video, it appears that this was the same canopy. Direct bag = yes (someone held the D-bag). Trampoline = No. (c)2010 Vertical Visions. No unauthorized duplication permitted.

Firetruck jump was 80' according to Johnny Utah. Thread here (c)2010 Vertical Visions. No unauthorized duplication permitted.

Judge for yourself. 63' Cliff Jump Video (Windows Media format) As far as I know, this is the world's lowest BASE jump. No rockets or other pyrotechnics in this rig. The jumper is Steve Ball, who I used to jump with quite a bit in the mid-1990's. The jump was performed in Ohio in the early 1990's from what I recall. Steve used a tape measure to determine the height of the cliff. Note that he exits over land, but canopy inflation allows him to fly into shallow water. He was unhurt on the jump. Steve gave this video to me and allowed me to put it on my FIXED 2! video in 1999. I also D-bagged Steve off a 100' bridge with a round several years back. He survived, but the canopy never fully inflated. I'll have to dig that video up and post it as well. (c)2010 Vertical Visions. No unauthorized duplication permitted.

I finally got it to work. His forum links at the main page (www.blincmagazine.com) still don't work though. I have to goto this thread just to find the link to access the BASEBoard. I'm sure he'll fix it soon enough. (c)2010 Vertical Visions. No unauthorized duplication permitted.

I would post more at Blinc, except for the simple fact that all Mick's links are dead. I can't read any forums in IE or Opera browsers (404 errors!) I think Mick can learn from the success of dz.com. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Blinc needs to stick with one particular look and feel. Web surfers like to know where everything is at. Just some constructive criticism from a friend. (c)2010 Vertical Visions. No unauthorized duplication permitted.

Have you ever been to Bridge Day? Bridge Day has recently been overshadowed by the greed of collecting $750-$1200 each from new jumpers for BASE FJC's. Bridge Day is a REAL BASE jump with REAL consequences. We always suggest that new jumpers get additional training after Bridge Day if they want to continue in our sport. The bottom line is that Bridge Day sold out in 6 days this year. 450 jumpers will be there having a ton of fun. Cya there. (c)2010 Vertical Visions. No unauthorized duplication permitted.

I, along with many, many other BASE jumpers made their first BASE jump at Bridge Day. Before the year 2000, there were very few BASE First Jump Courses (FJC) in the US being offered (probably none that were legal). Bridge Day WAS the best place to learn (and sometimes the only place). In the last 4-5 years, a bunch of BASE FJC's have become available, which DO offer the best training. However, Bridge Day is and always will be a place for skydivers to make a safe, educated first BASE jump. It actually may be SAFER for a jumper to make his/her first jump at Bridge Day with all the water rescue, ambulances, gear checkers, 876' of altitude, and hundreds of experienced jumpers around to offer advice. The newer BASE FJC's are longer and do teach in more detail than Bridge Day (and they cost accordingly). Perhaps saying "But don't anyone think that means this is the best way to get into BASE itself" would be more appropriate? (c)2010 Vertical Visions. No unauthorized duplication permitted.

Airports? If you're looking for commercial flights, try Charleston, WV (CRW) - 1 hr drive or Pittsburgh (PIT) - 3.5 hour drive. I'm not sure about Beckley? Do they have a "real" airport, or can you just fly your own plane in there? If you're flying your own plane, there is actually a small airport about 2 miles from the bridge where "$5 Frank" used to fly at. (c)2010 Vertical Visions. No unauthorized duplication permitted.

I think you have the wrong thread, Space. I neglected to answer you in the "Felix In The News" thread. Please post your request in that thread please (c)2010 Vertical Visions. No unauthorized duplication permitted.

5 slots left as of 4:42pm July 8th. Feel free to release this thread, as we're pretty well sold out. Waiting list slots will be offered once the last few slots are sold. Cya at the bridge!!!!! (c)2010 Vertical Visions. No unauthorized duplication permitted.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001973650_base07m.html

Man dies attempting 'base jump' off Wash. cliff 09:42 AM PDT on Tuesday, July 6, 2004 From KING Staff INDEX, Wash. - A search team on Tuesday recovered the body of a base jumper who fell more than 1,000 feet from a cliff in Snohomish County. The identity of the 33-year-old victim was not released. Monday night's search near Index was called off because of darkness. The remote area in the Cascade foothills about 30 miles northeast of Seattle had made recovery by foot difficult. The Snohomish County Sheriff's Office said one person successfully based-jumped off a cliff early in the evening. A second jumper didn't make it. "He fell approximately 1,000 feet. Parachute did not deploy and he impacted down into the talus on the mountain," said Danny Whikstrom of the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office. Three survivors hiked out and called police. (c)2010 Vertical Visions. No unauthorized duplication permitted.

425 of 450 slots sold as of 8:23am, July 6th. We have sold many more slots than expected for only the first week. After 450 slots are sold, we'll take a few waiting list slots, as there are always cancellations. Thanks everyone. (c)2010 Vertical Visions. No unauthorized duplication permitted.

373 of 450 slots sold as of 11:33am, July 3rd. 77 slots are left, then we'll take a few jumpers for the waiting list. If anyone has questions, don't hesitate to email or call. I'm busy, but not busy enough to help anyone who contacts me. cya. (c)2010 Vertical Visions. No unauthorized duplication permitted.

I guess I should have cited my source for the "Flatbed Ten" paragraph and the word "asshole". It didn't come from my mouth, but straight from this website (it's all I could find on the Flatbed Ten). I was way too young in the early 1980's to even attempt to write that paragraph myself.....nor would I call someone I haven't met or interacted with such a word. (c)2010 Vertical Visions. No unauthorized duplication permitted.

I delete all DOB, SSN, and passport data each year. However, I do still have a list of jumpers names from past years, so if you were on the BDay 2002 or 2003 jumper list, they WILL NOT do a background check on you again. We'll just make sure you were on the BDay 2002 or 2003 roster..... (c)2010 Vertical Visions. No unauthorized duplication permitted.

First of all, I want to mention that I like Shane and Miles. They have done well in our sport and they are excellent jumpers. However, jumping from the rail is a well known rule. Jumping again from the rail after being told by the cops to refrain from doing so is no better than the boneheads that drove a pickup truck up a logging road to El Cap in the early 1980's (the "Flatbed Ten"). The same applies to jumping with skiis after being told not to do so. The only punishment this type of activity will result in is closure of the bridge to jumping. We all will be punished. Shane, Miles, JT: We don't get many second chances in our sport. Please respect your fellow jumpers and the objects you jump from. A Little History - The Flatbed Ten ---------------------------------- In 1980 the park experimented with allowing skydiving. Some people who wanted to legalize and promote jumping off of EL Cap convinced the USPA to establish legal jumping with the NPS. Reasonable guidlines were set up like permits, license requirements, time of jumping, probably similar to what is happening now with hanggliding. This lasted about 2 or 3 months. There were a lot of problems such as people leaving trash and damaging the environment and not following the requirements.In general many people were not behaving responsibly. There were a few rescues and minor landing injuries but no fatalities of major injuries. While all this was happening 'the assholes' decided that they didn't want to hike all the way to El Cap so they drove their truck up an old logging road as far as they could. This must have been from Big Oak Flat. The Park may have arrested or cited them, but the USPA thought It would help our image if they took action against them and expelled the people involved. Then these people sued the USPA claiming they had no business regualating base jumping. The USPA decided to drop the whole thing. The NPS outlawed base jumping in national parks. Skydivers and base jumpers did not make a very good impression with the NPS and base jumpers alienated the USPA. 20+ years later, it's still the most illegal object to jump from in the US. (c)2010 Vertical Visions. No unauthorized duplication permitted.

Some orders have 2, 3, or 4 jumpers on them.....that is why the order numbers don't equal the same number of jumpers. We took 400 jumpers last year and had some lull time around 2pm. Nobody was in line wanting to jump. So we made it 450 this year. Plus, we always have a bunch of no-shows due to various reasons. (c)2010 Vertical Visions. No unauthorized duplication permitted.

If you have an invoice #, you DO have a slot. The system does keep track of inventory. We started with 450 slots, and there are about 181 left according to the website (we've sold approximately 269 so far) (c)2010 Vertical Visions. No unauthorized duplication permitted.

259 slots sold as of 8:40pm EST, which is pretty normal for the first day. Just to give you all an idea of what group you'll be in: Order #1626 was jumper #1 (start of first group) Order #1714 was jumper #113 (end of first group) Order #1823 was jumper #259 (middle of second group) There will be four groups of about 113 jumpers. All jumpers from a specific group will jump before we move onto the second group. Above numbers are approximate. Thanks to everyone who kept me laughing at their posts throughout the day! Have fun everyone and cya at the bridge. PS. Since my server was not very nice to many of you today, I'll let you in on a secret.......we are working on getting Jean Boenish to attend and speak at Bday this year. How cool would that be? (c)2010 Vertical Visions. No unauthorized duplication permitted.

You can register up to 4 jumpers per order. Website is up and running smoothly now. If you continue to have problems by clicking the REGISTRATION button, you probably have not refreshed your browser. Here is the direct link: Bridge Day Registration (c)2010 Vertical Visions. No unauthorized duplication permitted.