JaapSuter

What the ...?

No, I'm pretty sure it's Unpacked Ray.

I'd agree. Until you are a comfortable solo skydiver don't mention it. The only BASE specific thing you could focus on, without mentioning it, is accuracy and riser-control. Also, once you pack yourself and you're not jumping with an instructor anymore, nobody will stop you from packing intentional line-twist and toggle releases. Of course, I would never advocate actually doing these things. Caveat emptor. Then, once you have about fourty to fifty jumps and you are still thinking about getting into BASE, you can drop the word. This will provide a background for discussions about doing some intentional downwinders, riser only landings and ultra low approaches. The kind of things you need to talk to others about first, otherwise the downwinder can turn into a collision and the riser landing can turn into panic when they see your steering lines dangle (on an LRM). Admittedly, all of those techniques would be equally useful for non BASE jumpers, but it seems that the skydiving curriculum doesn't focus on these kind of things anymore given the number of landing incidents occuring these days. Having said all that, forget everything about BASE for now, enjoy the course, approach it as a skydiver, suck up as much information as you possibly can, and then start thinking about BASE again when the time is right.

I don't think it's that bad, although I'll admit that having done a jump will give you an advantage here. The reason for some of the harsh replies to non-jumpers lies in the fact that occassionally they have not bothered to do a search on Google or in the archives first, nor have they bothered to use proper capitalization or worried about where periods and commas go. Well written posts, like yours, always get my full attention and if I believe I have something useful to add (which doesn't happen often) I will reply.

Berkana.com is down for me as well. What is it, should I have known what it is already, and how is it BASE related? Edited to add a smiley; so as to point out that no harm was intended with this post, just trying to satisfy a curiousity. Cornishe and I go way back and we still cuddle every time we see each other.

Wow, interesting read and interesting person. Thanks for the link, there's more cool stuff on that website. For the record, Gossamer offers sewing patterns for some of their packs on their website, in case you want to make your own. Also, when I offered Gossamer to add a small gratuity surcharge on top of my order for speedy service and the hassle of overnight shipment, they strongly refused, suggesting instead that a photograph of myself wearing the pack would be more than enough.

Most jumpers on this rock are recommend to go slider-down on their first jump. The shape of the face can freak first-timers out causing them to pitch too early, so slider-down is better for the first jump. I'm pretty sure that Faber's second attempt there will be slider up. Edited to add; that's all AFAIK. He could be talking about a different rock.

I'll have to agree with this.

Remember that picture I posted a while ago? Myself and two friends went to check it out this weekend, and unfortunately it turned out to be unjumpable. There was a series of staircased ledges starting 160 feet below the exit point, as well as a nasty butress on the right side that turned a 90 left into imminent death. Several other exit-point were equally unpromising. We found one exit point that provided a 180 feet static-line or PCA jump but because of the winds I decided not to jump it. Of all unjumpable exit-points I have ever seen in my life, this one has to be the most beautiful one. It's a real shame. If the diving board was sticking out thirty feet further, we would have had 2000 feet to play with. The trip was incredible nonetheless. We did a two day hike and camped on the summit. The hike itself turned into a 6 hour to and 5 hour return scramble, climb and bushwack. We had to use the rope a few times, do some very steep climbing and bushwack through forest so thick that we were walking on the branches instead of the ground. This gave me an excellent chance to try out a new backpack I bought earlier that week. After doing a five hour hike with my regular stashbag two weeks earlier, I had realized that BASE stashbags are not useful for anything longer than two hours because they start digging into your shoulders too much, nor do they allow for easy carrying of extra gear. So I started looking around for something more useful and somebody recommended the Golite Jam Pack to me. I tried ordering one, but they couldn't ship it on time for my next trip. I figured my local outdoor stores would carry some useful backpacks, but all of them were too big and solid and none had detachable frames. Through the Golite pack, I learned about this thing called ultra-light backpacking which apparently has an entire community dedicated to it. These people get multiple uses out of anything. They wrap shoulder-straps with socks instead of using padding. They use a sleeping-mat as the back-frame of their backpack. Some even cut off the border of their maps and bring a lightweight energy drink because Gatorade is too heavy. Crazy! Reading up on this world I didn't know existed (my idea of backpacking involved a humongous backpack with a metal frame, and bad-ass mountaineering boots) I ran into a company called Gossamer. They sell a backpack called the Mariposa. It has a carbon fiber frame that you can remove and it's completely compressible. I send the company an email on Tuesday night at 9 PM. Five minutes later, I got a phone-call from the founder of the company. Turns out the company isn't very big and that he was just sitting at his desk checking his email. So we talk for a while, and he agreed that the Mariposa might be suitable for my needs. I told him that I planned a trip this weekend and I asked him if he could do overnight shipping. He said he would do his best. Incredible service! Two days later I received an envelop on my desk. That's right, an envelope! It goes to show how stashable this bag is. It weighs next to nothing, has a hip and sternum strap and extra wide shoulder straps. The chest-strap comes with an emergency whistle built into the clip. How neat! Of course the stashability wouldn't be very useful if the bag wasn't durable. So this trip would be a great test. I brought all my BASE gear (rig, body-armour, knee-pads, full-face helmet), a bivy-sack, a sleeping-bag, emergency gear (radios, first-aid, GPS, yadda yadda), food, three liters of water and took it on this total of 10 hours of scrambling through thick forest and on steep rocks. I overloaded the pack a little beyond it's limits and scraped it many times over sharp rock edges and tree barks. Miraculously, it totally held up and came out completely unscatched. I have not yet been able to take the bag on a jump, but I have geared up completely wearing the stashed pack, body armour, my gear, etcetera. It works great! You can't fold the pack into the rig-pocket, but you can wear it across your chest, stash it down your pants, or wrap it up and wear it fanny pack style. All in all, the Mariposa is a highly recommend pack if you are looking for something to carry your gear in for longer hikes. I'll still be using my old stashbag for anything less than two hours, but for those longer hikes I'm counting on the Mariposa. Cheers, Jaap

Hell yeah, and I bet I'm not the only one. I think I have tried all permutations of the keywords "British Columbia, Wall, Overhang, Steep, Sheer, Granite, etc.", and I actually got some good leads through that. Other websites like Bivouac, Summitpost and CascadeClimbers have helped me tremendously as well. There are free online topos available for most areas, and if you use Photoshop to blend those with the sattelite imagery from say, Google maps, you can get some more useful information. I usually do a Worldwind and Keyhole flyby, but unfortunately that resolution is too small to be of any use. I recently spend some time learning more about the world of Digital Elevation Models (DEM). This turned out to be a very scattered world of random data in a multitude of formats, resolutions and accessibility. The most impressive thing that Worldwind and Keyhole do is present this data in a simple way to laymen. I finally managed to get a hold of an Aster DEM grid through the ackward EOS Data Gateway in the hope of calculating some surface derivatives and searching for high numbers and infinity. It's supposed to be up to 30 meters exact, which means that if you find a high derivate, there's bound to be a steep to vertical area. Unfortunately the data was in a rather complicated and uncalibrated format. I had to put it through four filters and tools to get anything remotely representing an elevation image and even then the cloud-coverage errors caused a lot of holes in the data. I'm pretty sure that somebody with more time on his hands could turn the free high resolution DEM data into something potentially useful. It would take a lot of time though, time I would rather spend hiking through the Great Outdoors doing some hands-on investigation on the leads I already have through other sources. Cheers, Jaap

http://www.xe.com/ucc/

Yeah, sorry. My bad. I always find it interesting how much passion people can have for something if they haven't tried the alternatives. I was a tad harsh this time. I need to sleep...

Neah, I'm just an anal twat. Johnny does a great course. As do many others.

Just out of curiousity, how much experience do you have with different courses offered by different people and companies? I have no experience with Johnny's course, but knowing him (a little) I'm very conviced he puts up an excellent course that will make an excellent entry into the world of base... ...but so do many others. Saying that one particular course is "the way to go" is only useful within a context that explains why it is more so than other offerings. Just to stress again; Johnny is a great guy with a great course. But so are many other people and courses. Thanks, Jaap

I agree. Like you say in your "Getting Into BASE Article": Which, while true, strengthes the idea that BASE is a highly dangerous sport (which is also true). I can't help but shake the feeling that it is precisely this that is hurting our quest for legal BASE. So really we aren't fighting the NPS or any instititution. We are fighting for the right to hurt ourselves if we so please.

That would work, but I'm not a big fan of them because everybody and his sister are using bracelets to signal something insignificant. And let's face it, our cause for legal base is not quite on the same level as the cure for cancer and HIV. I'd prefer something more creative and unique. It has to be cheap and available everywhere though. Edited to add: the cure for cancer and HIV are not insignificant. What I meant is that other people copied them for causes that are, in my opinion, less important. BASE would be one of them.

That's an awesome idea! I'm not sure if a ribbon is the best thing, but a shared piece of flair or clothing item that all base jumpers can make at home and wear would be awesome. Imagine the curiousity it would create! Peaceful, friendly and still mysterious.

That only goes for the internet boards Nick. Stand next to any BASE jumper at the edge, look down and then look your brother in the eyes; it's then that all need for explanations evaporates. And that will never change. This poses an interesting question that I have been struggling with for a while. On the one hand, there are valid reasons to keep BASE underground, mostly keep unprepapred people from hurting themselves and to protect our sites. On the other hand, if we think BASE is such a beautiful thing and we are fighting so hard for legitimate and legal jumps in the parks, given the respect we deserve, then we shouldn't be so secretive about it. Every time I make a jump, I want to scream to the world what a beautiful thing that was. I can barely contain myself and just end up spouting my written diarrea onto these forums. If BASE was respected by the public and the parks would be completely legal, would our secrecy change, and would the naming policy for those sites change? Obviously we would still keep quiet on our urban adventures, but I am sometimes wondering if our obsessiveness with the underground aspects of BASE is hurting the image we emit to the outside world. In the scrambling and climbing community, many people write trip-reports. I always find these a joy to read, knowing that there are other people passionate about the same things, and learning that there are other places where people enjoy the same things. Why wouldn't base jumpers share these kind of stories, with or without site naming? If we think BASE is a legitimate sport, that can be practiced safely and can be dealt with the same way as climbing and other outdoor activities, then why are we trying so hard to old on to the past and keep things dark, dodgy and underground? I have my own thoughts and reasons on why we do this, but I'm curious what others think.

And I might be back soon for some more not-jumping when the RB guys visit. Are those bears gone yet? Hey! That water was cold, ok? Tsssssk, the things I do for your camera entertainment.

I would rather have that people (myself included) underestimate my skill than overestimate it; it'll keep me alive longer. So no worries. Yeah, for sure. I have no intention of jumping anything anywhere without connecting with the locals. At this point I was just trying to get information so I can design my travel itinary. Thanks everybody, Jaap

Nice, I like it! If I do a PCA or do it on a skydive, I would even have time to climb above it and do some steering. Thanks!

Hey, while at the Potato bridge this weekend, I packed myself some intentional line-twists. On one jump, I packed a single twist (360) and did a floater. I wanted to practice reaching above the twist and steering away before untwisting and before flying underneath the bridge. Because of the reaching-above-the-twist part, I figured I would cheat a little and already pack the twist as low as possible (close to the risers). The jump did not go as planned. I had a great exit and onheading opening (with the full twist), but because the twist was so low it ended up pinching my helmet and head down to the point where my chin was stuck on my chest. I tried blindly grabbing something above me, but after some futile attempts I figured it was time to untwist and fly back to a landing area. This whole scenario had me wondering about line-twists and how high they usually appear. My only real unintentional line-twists I experienced during my static-line course and I recall them being somewhere in the middle. In what range does line-twist usually appear in BASE? Is it close to the canopy, closer to the risers, somewhere in the middle, or is it completely random and could it be all over the place? Have you ever considered the scenario where risers pinch your head down so you can't look up anymore? Do you take this into account when considering helmet size and camera placement? Thanks, Jaap

Not at all, I appreciate these comments. In Tom's defense, he probably would be the best judge of my base skills or lack thereof. 180 skydives; 40 with my base canopy. 80 dedicated to tracking. Yeah, that's precisely what I am wondering about as well. After the popular Norwegion wall, the Italian wall is the deadliest wall on Nick's list. Do you know of any other good beginner spots in Europe, besides Norway? Thanks! Jaap

I'm not sure what raw means in this context, but he is a beginner with only 57 slider down jumps and zero terminal jumps. He has not nearly enough skydive experience to be a base jumper and his never ending optimism and faith in body-armour will one day get him into trouble. His only redeeming quality is that he loves hiking so walking down is never a problem. I would advice all Europeans to stay away from this guy unless you have a ten foot pole. Huh, what? I already told Nikolaj I would come flik something with you guys when I'm in Europe. Looking forward to it!