NickDG

I've taught more than my share of JCC's over the years and I know exactly how much the average jumper doesn't know about being a static line jumpmaster. Just lately we are starting to see a rise in student accidents and if we do anything we have to fix that. We survived a time when anyone with a "C" license was considered a jumpmaster and now we know so much more about how to handle students. To say untrained and unrated people can "handle it" is BS on the highest order . . . NickD

It's kind of funny, but you've hit upon the very thing that crystallized the battle between parachutist and the NPS in the first place, a battle we are still fighting today. In Elsinore, California in the early 1970s hang gliding was becoming a full fledged sport (as well as in other parts of the world). Many participants were skydivers as well as hang glider pilots including Carl Boenish and Rich Piccirilli. The pilots at Elsinore called themselves the "E" team and their history is here: http://www.theeteam.org/eteam7.htm One day in 1975 Rich Piccirilli came to Carl Boenish with a request. He wanted to launch a larger than normal hang glider over Yosemite Valley piloted by himself and carrying two other jumpers who would release from the glider and land in the valley below. Rich wanted to know if Carl would film the stunt. Carl, who loved filming anything out of the ordinary that concerned parachutes, quickly agreed. For Carl, who lived in California all his life, this would be his first visit to Yosemite and it would become something that not only changed the course of his own life, but the lives of every BASE jumper that would come along later. The stunt went off without a hitch as the two jumpers left the airborne glider, hooked up for a quick two way, separated, opened, and landing in the valley below. Carl and Rich didn't go out of their way to hid there actions as it probably never dawned on them that they were doing anything wrong. But the Park Rangers went ballistic and it was a classic over reaction that would foretell how they would handle parachuting in the park to this very day. Nine years earlier, in 1966, Mike Pelkey and Brian Schubert parachuted from El Capitan (look for them at this year's Bridge day) and although the park service overreacted in that case too, I say the "battle" actually started with Carl as he then began a campaign to legalize jumping that lasted the rest of his life. A very heated argument between Rangers and Carl and Rich ensued in the valley. As there was no law that specifically made manned parachuting illegal in the park, the Rangers eventually charged them with the already on the books aerial delivery law. This law was in place to keep back country hunters from being re-supplied via parachute and extending their time on the hunt. Carl was charged with filming without a permit and I believe his film and cameras were confiscated. But something even more important happened that day in the park. As Carl waited with his cameras staged to film the hang glider stunt he had time to just sit and take in the grandeur of the valley. Carl had heard, like all jumpers of the day, about the earlier jumps from El Cap made by Mike and Brian but as he stared at the shear granite walls the possibilities of using more modern gear and freefall techniques that were available struck him like a bolt of lightning. For BASE jumping in general it was the "eureka" moment, for Carl in particular it was the moment that sealed his fate. Carl was now on a road that would end, along with his life, in Norway nine years later. Carl, Rich, and the two jumpers are dragged through the court system of Yosemite and it caused much grief for all involved. However, Carl is already in the early stages of planning the first modern Yosemite cliff jumps that would take place three years later in 1978. When Carl got to the part of the plan that was to pick the actual team of jumpers he went first to Rich Piccirilli who made some of the early recon mission with Carl back into the Park. However, at the last minute Rich turned down the offer to participate. He was just starting a family and a rigging business back in Lake Elsinore and he understandably decided he never wanted to see, or have anything to do with, Park Rangers ever again. Carl eventually recruited a Lake Elsinore 4-way team and in August of 1978 (27 years ago this month) with Carl filming, the first four modern jumps are made from El Cap. More than just a stunt Carl showed these jumps were repeatable and the sport that three years later he would name "BASE jumping" was born. All the jumpers on this load along with Carl and his cameras and film successfully left the park undetected. Carl swore the jumpers to secrecy and went to work on the film that would turn the world onto cliff jumping. A few months later I was jumping with Tom Start, the first one off on Carl's El Cap load, at Lake Elsinore. He told me to hang around after sunset as Carl Boenish was going to show a new movie. That movie was the El Cap jumps and to say the entire drop zone is blown away is putting it mildly. The response was 180 degrees from the initial effect the 1966 El Cap had when jumpers called it a "knucklehead stunt", but in 1966 the parachuting community wasn't ready for cliff jumping. And it showed just how ahead of the times Mike and Brian were in terms of what's possible. I shook Tom Start's hand later that night and he told me how glad he was that Carl finally screened the film. He had been busting to tell someone the news and it was killing him. I went to sleep that night now knowing why I was skydiver, and all of a sudden it had little to do with airplanes . . . So your plan to re-create the hang gliding stunt would probably land you in the Yosemite dungeon, but more than that it would piss off many in the hang gliding community by bringing the heat down on them. And now, more than ever, we need all the friends we can get in Yosemite . . . NickD

I can't speak for all, but I'm happy you are there at this time of great change, Jason. I think we have the right guy in the right place with the right amount of across the board jumper support to swing a big hammer . . . Jean couldn't do it as she was too divisive, Andy couldn't do it as he was too busy selling us out. Of all the Bridge Day orgainizers you are the only one so far that could pull the trigger and have a majority of the jumpers behind you. But we need you to tell us what we should be aiming at. It seems like they are trying to price us out and some type of drastic response is needed. I mean no pain, no gain, right . . . NickD

Yes, it was while I was in New Zealand . . . We had 125 jumpers on board for a mass demo jump into a big airshow. One of the crewmen said they could easily lift over 300 skydivers! NickD

A Russian Il-76 . . . NickD

One take being missed is the "slippery slope" that brought us to this point in time. It helps to have jumped at Bridge Day prior to the NPS's involvement at Bridge Day to see it, but we had our chance to put our foot down and we missed it. The NPS began their campaign to control not only the LZ but the entire event during Bridge Day 1991. However at first they basically hit the brick wall that was Jean Boenish and it wasn't until Andy Calistrate became the organizer they made serious inroads. The first attack came in the form over the controversy of giving the list of registered jumpers to the NPS which later morphed into why you get warrant checked. Jean simply said no way while Andy gave it up like a new fish in cellblock D. Then there was the pre-jump Friday briefing where a new NPS tactic was rolled out. They are now hiding the more militant anti-BASE Rangers like Bill Blake in favor of presenting a younger long haired and bearded Ranger whose name I won’t mention as he was a pretty good guy who I thought was being duped by his bosses. When this Ranger, instead of an experienced BASE jumper, gave the water landing briefing I was the only one asking how many water landings had this fellow done? While the briefing itself was basically the same as any jumper would've given, the scary thing is the jumpers saw this fellow as the "friendly" Ranger rather than the wolf in sheep's clothing he really was. The next thing is the Ranger presence on the bridge itself. Again, except for the Bridge Day article I wrote that year not much notice it is made of the fact the Rangers are video taping everyone and everything. I wondered what their authority on the Bridge was in the first place as the bridge isn't part of the National Park. What they were doing was sniffing the breath of jumpers and looking for drug use. They were exercising "control." Fast forward to Bridge Day 2004 and now we have a time when after landing a Park Ranger will scream at you to clear the landing area, well gee, I've been dodging landing jumpers all my life, but okay, thanks for that . . . The NPS says they need extra money to cover expenses incurred for monitoring the LZ. Well, what the heck are they monitoring? And how did we survive all those years before the NPS arrived on the scene? The NPS sometimes seems like a traveling road show that sets up their tents under the guise of education and preservation simply to start collecting money, bloat their own numbers, and then have an excuse to collect more money. The NPS has grown into 1000 pound gorilla that morphed first into a police force and now can almost be considered a new and undeclared branch of the armed forces. Here is a snapshot of the NPS world: BTW, the current Bridge Day LZ isn't technically a National Park, its The New River Gorge National River. Besides the sixty-nine places called National Parks the NPS also controls the following areas. National Historical Parks, National Monuments, National Preserves, National Reserves, National Military Parks, National Battlefields, National Battlefield Parks, National Battlefield Site, National Historic Sites, National Memorials, National Seashores, Parkways, National Lakeshores, National Park System Rivers, National Historic Area, National Heritage Areas, National Recreation Areas, National Heritage Corridors, National Historic Trails, National Scenic Trails, International Historic Site, International Park, and National Cemeteries. What we do at the NRGB over the next few years is going to be important to the very future of BASE jumping in National Parks. I'd like to see an "opt out" provision made for jumping at Bridge Day. What this means is a jumper declares his preference to decline the offer of landing on NPS property by landing on the RR tracks (yes I realize the consequences of that), in the river itself, or somewhere along the banks downriver. There's no reason we can't contract for separate boats to accommodate the "opted out" jumpers. It's not perfect solution of course. And it will make jumping there more dangerous, but that's what the NPS does anyway every where else, the lengths we go to in avoiding contact with them makes BASE jumping more dangerous. Right now the only way for me to "opt out" is not to attend the event. They win and I lose and that's what they want anyway. Depending on how it goes a few hundred landings on the RR tracks, depending on how the RR pursues it, may individually cost less than a night at the Holiday Inn . . . In any case I'd much rather donate, if it could be arranged, a hundred dollar bill to the home for retired RR workers than give another dime to the NPS. We are simply paying them to persecute us . . . NickD

A mechanism to issue permits for BASE jumping, or most anything else, has always been in place in National Parks. However, the NPS may start looking at their problems with BASE jumpers as the good old days. They are now in a full fledged battle with corporate and religious interests. Whatever side of these issues you support could be less important than figuring out how we, as BASE jumpers, take advantage of the confusion. NickD

When Carl started to film BASE jumping he was filming something new and unheard of in modern times. It was only after a few years that it became clear it was something to be kept close the vest, not because it was cool, but because it was dangerous. And if you think I sound like an "old timer" well you don’t have that right to call me that so fuck you. Someday we'll run into each other and you can explain it to me in person. NickD BASE 194

>>are you talking about the big A. that went up after the red and white striped one? Cuz I know of some super sick footage of the red and white one that Carl Boenish shot back in the day, and when I say day...

Marcia, All BASE instruction, since the very beginning when we passed it from jumper to jumper in the 80s, has been incremental, so that's nothing new. All training from the beginning has been stressed as continual, and nobody with a clue doesn't get that. In Tom's defense a look at your profile reveals an understandable motive for you preference to Johnny's way of doing things, and that's fine. But, you are picking on the wrong guy and not really saying why. If anything Tom's decision to give BASE knowledge away in a responsible manner, continues the way it has always be done. Maybe we can have this talk again in 20 years when in the end people who sold BASE information for money are going to be seen like the people in the old west who sold whiskey to the Indians . . . NickD

>>Frank Gambali took to this paticular tower after he found it in '96 or '97.

Jimmy, Now that some rationality has descended on the discussion I need to inform on myself. In 1983, right around the time AFF started, we took a 15 year old girl on a first skydive. I gave her the FJC and went main side and her father was reserve side. It all went perfect, or in your parlance, she stuck it. However, over the years that followed I regretted being involved with that at all. On the most basic level we have been trying to save you the grief and guilty conscious that comes later. In ten or fifteen years you aren't going to think like you do now. You may not believe that, but it's inevitable. On the other hand you a still a dirty stinking site burner as those towers have been jumped since before you ever saw a parachute and you are really fucking up by selling commercial videos that include them . . . The striking difference between you and others is most build on, and even celebrate the past, while it seems you ignore it, or worse, belittle and tear it down. The last argument you and I had concerned the fact your website called old-timer's "reckless" and presented yourself as some kind of new breed of BASE jumper. You’re the poster boy for the guy who doesn't get the fact the boat filled with BASE pioneers has sailed and you missed it. I especially take exception to your stand the Fatality List holds no value for your student. What could be the harm in making her read it? Sure, she won’t understand it all, but even wuffos who read it get the point that BASE jumping is very dangerous. This can do nothing but better equip her to make future decisions. From everything you've written here its clear you are the last person in the world who should be teaching anybody to BASE jump. I'll echo an up-board sentiment that you continue to document the sport, but I'll add my hope that you think about giving something back to a community that did nothing except make it possible for you to BASE jump in the first place. Right now, you are doing nothing but spitting in the soup we all have to sip . . . NickD

Might be Peanut . . . http://groups.google.com/group/rec.skydiving/browse_frm/thread/af6aca8fc4888c09/0b01d14f29ffc30f?hl=en#0b01d14f29ffc30f NickD

We were screening some of Mike's stuff last night and it brought back this memory of the bumper sticker I included with the first issue of the Fixed Object Journal in 1989. And yes, most didn't actually put these on their cars . . . I had about 200 of them and have exactly one left. NickD

Try this if your OS is Windows . . . http://www.videolan.org/mirror.html?mirror=http://downloads.videolan.org/pub/videolan/&file=vlc/0.8.2/win32/vlc-0.8.2-win32.exe NickD

Hey guys, This isn't Walt's fault as I'm sure he didn't know, but Mike Allen has a niece named Marah who's a pro film maker and she's spent the last two years working on a film called "Gravity." It's a mix of new stuff and her Uncle Mike's old stuff and Mike's videos belong to her and shouldn't be out there without her permission. She's a very nice person so it may be alright with her but you better ask first. She has a website you can contact her through here http://www.scissorkickfilms.com/index2.html And gee . . . this was a thread about how cool I am. NickD BASE 194

Walt, Check your PMs . . . NickD BASE 194

Thank you Brittany . . . NickD

Dear Mike, I finally have all the newspaper clippings from your 1966 jump from El Cap copied and will drop them in the post office tomorrow (Thursday.) It has to be said I came by these by way of an open minded Park Ranger who copied them right out of the NPS file on BASE jumping in Yosemite. He sent them to me many years ago after reading about our plight on the BASE Board I hope you make it to Bridge Day this year; there are a lot of people who want to shake your hand . . . NickD

You Rock, Brother . . . NickD

I just thought airing our dirty laundry (skydiving really has no borders) in public is not the way to affect change within the community . . . I've been to certain drop zones where what they are doing is so wrong and so entrenched you just want to scream. But handling these things internally is always more effective . . . NickD

You mean you turned starboard and I went to port . . . LOL . . . NickD

>>just grow some balls

>>For the few of you who may not know, Nick was one of a few people who

BTW, Casey Hoover was nine years old when he made his BASE jump, not twelve like I wrote . . . And I'm with r/l and think we are getting yanked around by the yonkels here. But, I'll say this much; in trying to come up with arguments against this I keep hitting walls of my own making . . . NickD