1,000 Smiles and Counting

[guest]

Six bloody good mates...
One Marvelous cliff....
One Thousand jumps to celebrate....


In classic short straw fashion (now known as Nik's lucky stick) we shared a moment with many of you today....

Superb first of it's kind 3 way....scintilating solos...who cares...

Twasn't about whoose pilot chute is bigger or brighter...or even I remember when..

"Twas about 6 mates celebrating a friend's/brother's ONE THOUSANDTH smile....
and really in the long run isn't that's what it's all about.

Congrats my friend......


and I know that I speak for you when I say that there were more than just us 6 loonies at that exit point today



Nik and the Psilly Boys


First Pint and Ground Crew On US

[guest]

Congratulations !

/Smiles from Lukas and the rest of the Swedish BASE scene

[guest]

For those of you who do not speak fluent drunkanese perhaps I could offer an interpretation of Big Niks post.
We all strolled down to our favorite local E for Dwains 1000th jump yesterday.Dwain being the morbid little bastard that he is insisted that we draw straws to see who was gonna go in. Some sort of Australian custom I guess. The good news is Nik drew the short straw. The bad news of course he didn't go in and was able to go on and write that ridiculous post.

We did a killer 3 way, Dwain of course taking the low slot. I was really scared so I just ran off dragging my pilot chute. This left plenty of room for one three legged dog in the middle. We had room for one maybe two more if we were really tryin. Unfortunately we couldnt get any takers.

Just for the record I believe my pilot chute was bigger and brighter ...and I remember very little.

After the big jump we all went back to Niks and had dinner and got trashed.

Congratulations Dwain

There was this wuffo standing on the edge of the cliff when we got there.

D.J.

First pint and ground crew on us?
Maybe if you've got tits.

[feral]

Sh!t he made it that far good on you Dwain but nik the post should have read female jumper makes 1000th jump .......... And the short straw's is funny sh!t ask dwain about how freaked out marko was at our fav gourge .....Nik get back to me with the dates you are going to be jumping with Al as i will get the train down from france for a few days if you guys will be there ok feralshard@netscape.net



bsbd feral


p.s dwain watch out i think the luck bucket empty should make for some funny video :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-(

[Dwain]

Special thanks to PeteF, GregW, TomB, MarkD, GaryC, NickG, Feral, Tarn, Slim, Rune, Yuri, JohnnyU, AnneH, DanielT, Fast Al, TomA, NikH, Doug, DJ, Ray and of course Karin, plus many others, for those extra interesting jumps and bizarre BASE related moments.

Going through my logbooks I came up with some rough stats on those 1000 BASE-jumps (for those that care):

Most jumped object: "E" - almost half of all my jumps.
Least jumped object: "A" - just over 100 jumps (probably has something to do with ladder climbing).
Number of objects: 170+
Slider up Vs slider down: split evenly (about 500 jumps of each). About 150 of the slider up jumps were terminal (> 8 secs).
Person I did the most jumps with: Slim (about 400 jumps).

One serious line over (before the tailgate was invented) on my 100th BASE jump. A number of line overs slider up caught on video which cleared themselves towards the end of deployment.

One tension knot which cleared upon releasing the brakes with a radical 180 (slider up - parts of the red upper control line was melted into the white lines from friction).

Pushed off the wall twice with my feet but have never had my canopy touch the wall. Once I had to climb hand over hand up the line twists to grab untwisted lines and steer the canopy away from the wall.

Zero injuries requiring medical treatment - or anything that stopped me from jumping. Lots of bruises and scrapes and the odd rolled ankle.

Lots of tree landings - some intentional when there was no other landing area or when the trees looked better than the boulders. Rescued once from the trees of Lysebotn by some climbers after an Eagles Nest 3-way gainer ended with a much-deserved offheading (much to the amusement of the entire campground below).

Been to court twice over BASE jumping (once for a bridge and once for a cliff) but never convicted. However both times the legal expense to beat the conviction was more than what the fine would have been.

Just over 50 skysurf BASE-jumps. Most of these were aerobatic in nature. Doing aerials when skysurf BASE jumping was the one sub discipline that I never become comfortable with - especially when I had to deploy in subterminal air.

Over half my jumps involved aerials. At one point (at about the 550 jump mark) I became un-current with "flat and stable" freefall and had to relearn this skill.

Lots of "near death" jumps where luck prevailed and somehow I always managed to stumble out uninjured.
Random memories include: Jumping blind into an underhung vertical crack system, scraping down the wall and almost hitting climbers in freefall, tumbling out of control on a skysurf board through a narrow crack in a ledge system, dumping too low and hitting the ground/water really hard (again and again, and yet again, and then one more time after I vowed never again, and then a bunch of times after that). Freefalling through a deployed canopy on three separate occasions due to botched multi-ways. Bad p/c hesitations on sub 200' freefalls. Wingsuit drama, wind drama, lack of vision drama, police drama....lots of general BASE related drama that always seems to accompany the sport.

Called for a rescue helicopter many times after friends were seriously injured or stuck on the wall. Climbed to injured jumpers on a couple of occasions and assisted many broken jumpers crawl out. At one point in Australia I would always jump with strong painkillers to be administered to those that required them to hike out (hang-overs didn't count despite numerous claims otherwise).

I've known jumpers that did everything right and still got hurt again and again. I've known jumpers that repeatedly do everything wrong and still walk away smiling. I've seen hellish situations crack strong people and amazing strength emerge from others.
I've seen people die who should have survived. I've seen people survive who (according to the laws of physics) should have died.

My objective in BASE from the very beginning has been the pursuit of the envelopes. While longevity in this pursuit is questionable, and time and time again I've tried to back off or slow down in my jumping style, I've always been drawn back. Considering the laws of statistics I guess my future is somewhat written in this respect.

The thing that still scares me the most about BASE jumping is the possibility of object strike. Bad offheadings on vertical walls slider down happen to everyone eventually and no one is good enough to successfully deal with it everytime (given the current technology).

So anyway enough of this introspective babble. Here's looking forward to the next 1000 jumps - to more experiences with the friends I've made, and to jumping with the people I've yet to meet and to those pure solo moments.

[d-dog]

BASE-related drama? I tend to think of it as Dwain-related drama. Has anyone else ever noticed that the drama quotient goes up exponentially when Dwain is around? He's just got that aura of "funky stuff going down" around him, and it always makes for interesting jumps. And he looks like a bloody criminal, glowing hair or no. Whuffos just don't trust someone with that gleam in his eye.

Also, just for the record, DW and I actually backed off a jump earlier this week. Yes, while jumping together we actually made a rational decision due to bad winds and DID NOT JUMP even though we were at exit point and both of us even had packed rigs. So there.

The thing that scares me most about BASE jumping is the prospect (likelihood) of losing dear friends to the sport in the future. That's far more frightening to me than any injury I might sustain personally - and something I've experienced before with climbing friends. Half of me thinks that some of us who really tend to push the envelope (as Dwain says) are going to die either doing something stupid like tripping and falling down the stairs at the pharmacy, or peacefully in our beds at a ripe old age. Or choking on a potato chip.

Dwain, watch yourself out there. Many people around the world consider you a friend and brother, and we'd all miss those random "Dwain moments" and out-of-left-field "Dwain theories of the universe" if you ever do smoke it a bit too low and the gods of good luck don't come to your rescue. And no blind exits, remember? We promised and I intend to hold you to that one promise if nothing else.

Peace, my friend.

D-dog
ddog@wrinko.com
www.wrinko.com

[guest]

Hey, you forgot to thank Robin Heid, BASE 44.

>Special thanks to PeteF, GregW, TomB, MarkD,
>GaryC, NickG, Feral, Tarn, Slim, Rune, Yuri,
>JohnnyU, AnneH, DanielT, Fast Al, TomA, NikH,
>Doug, DJ, Ray and of course Karin, plus many
>others, for those extra interesting jumps and
>bizarre BASE related moments.
>

[Tom B]

Thanks for the jumps - some of the best visuals and "way out there" moments in my life. Some close calls, lots of great footage, many interesting stories, great experiences, new sites all over the world, good contacts, great people, etc.

p.s. we still have to do some CRW from an aeroplane (preferably AFTER deployment).

AND - you've got a long way to go to get more chops and suspensions than me!!!! DARE YOU!!! ;)

p.s. out of curiosity who have you done the most 2 (multi) ways with???

say hello to the Portland crowd!!!

[guest]

Wicked!!

What is most interesting to me on top of the cool stats are the friendships that you have made while travelling around experiencing the various facets of BASE. Congrat's on your continued exploration of this activity and thank you for always contributing your knowledge and experience to further the inspiration that the whole BASE community can share in while pursuing the activity with a balance of reverence and discovery.

Cheers!!

Cygnus and Kimmy Jo:-)
Calgary

[Huckin Idiot]

Yea, yea, yea.......

Dwain, I just have this to say:

Jesus Tap dancing Christ!
You're a sick Fuk!

[guest]

Congrats DW.
Glad I got to be a part of at least a couple of 'em, even if your presence seems to be highly correlated with less than ideal outcomes for me!
Next time I get to fall through your canopy, OK?
-Josh

[Skypuppy]

Did you figure out your lowest and highest altitude jumps?:+

[d-dog]

Well, cripes, I am pretty sure I know the lowest one over hard ground. That's right. . . the Bridge - Hotel Exit, all 136 feet of it. Yeah, boy, that sure was fun ;-) Don't see a long line of jumpers queuing up to get next load off that baby.

We get much lower, and we might as well leave the rigs at home and just get really good with the PLF.

Peace,

D-d0g
ddog@wrinko.com
www.wrinko.com

[crwper]

... and move to Canada.

ST#1

[Dwain]

In response to comments and in answer to questions posted:

DJ: You are the master of speaking fluent drunkanese.

Feral: Yes the luck bucket is empty and I'm very sure the video will be funny.

Doug: No it isn't "Dwain related drama" - I object to that. Things always go smoothly when I organize them. x(

anon coward: Yes I forgot to thank Robin Heid (and others). Robin certainly did result in some bizarre BASE related moments (and also for the 23 jumps I did from Petronas ;-) ha ha).

Tom B: We have done CRW from an airplane (remember our near lifetime-skydiving-ban at the World Meet in '99 for our 2-way "three ring failure" when doing CRW?). Most 2 ways - definitely with you.

Josh: Sure you can freefall through my canopy anytime (you just have to dump after me to do that &-) ).

Skypuppy:
Lowest jump: 60ft into knee deep water (pounded in). Did this twice. Stupid.
Lowest jump over hard earth: This crappy bit of metal sticking out of the ground. Probably under 100' (Jump, open, immediate rear riser flare, pound). I didn't have anything to measure the height of the object. It wasn't much fun though. Stupid.
Lowest freefall over hard earth: In the 156' range (according to ranger finder). I've done this a bunch of times with customized gear. This is asking for broken bits.
Highest altitude exit: cliff at 12,600' ASL. A 9,000' canopy ride followed. Fun.
Longest vertical distance traveled in freefall on a BASE jump: With wingsuit: about 5,000'. Without wingsuit: probably about 4,000'. Fun.


I'd be interested to hear other people's stats with, say, over a hundred BASE jumps.
Especially:
-Most and least jumped object (B.A.S.E)
-Total Number of objects
-Slider up vs slider down
-Number of serious injuries
-Number of times you've been to court
-Number of times you've been busted but let walk away
-Number of object strikes
-Number of serious gear problems
-Number of near miss/carnage incidents
-Number of tree landings (or light posts or whatever).
Plus any other random bits of interesting information.
Names can be changed to protect the guilty if need be....