Rumor has it that a LZ is being cleared to make it easier to land there for beginners. Itīs a cliff site. My opinion is to adjust the jumper, not the site. feedback please. Please donīt go green, consider the dis and advantages long term effects for the the society vs environmental aspect.
take care,
space
hi space,i think this is not only a jumpers question.the humanīs are to clever...they always try to change the facts if itīs possible,much more logic then to change themselves.
what do they do, putting grass on the stones?
Climbers have a long history with this issue.
In climbing, what you are referring to is called "chipping" or "manufacturing". Basically, it entails using tools (drills, chisels, etc) to adjust the difficulty of a route (generally downward) so that it is accessible to more (or any) climbers. With the advent of climbing gyms, the issue has generally disappeared, and manufactured routes have moved indoors.
It turns out that the chipping of routes actually made the general climbing population better climbers, albeit with somewhat weaker ethics. Since this is a BASE board, I'll refrain from rehashing that debate. Suffice it to say that the chipping Europeans climbed far harder than the ethical Americans for most of the 80's and early 90's.
So, by "manufacturing" easier landing areas, can we create safer, easier training grounds that will help improve the general level of skill in our community, and pay off in the long run by making us, as a whole, better or safer jumpers?
Leaving aside environmental and access considerations (as per Space's initial post), let's consider the effect of some of our existing "gym" objects. These are the easy ones that beginners are taken to, that are fairly "safe", and that have good, open landing areas.
The legal bridge in Idaho is an excellent example. It's nearly 500', has a huge water out, and a gigantic grassy field to land on. Is this bridge making us better jumpers?
It is certainly making our sport more accessible to beginners, who can make their first jumps in relative safety, without worrying about getting busted (probably not a consideration in Space's original question, as he lives in the enlightened part of the world).
It is also probably saving lives on more advanced jumps. Now, instead of trying your first aerial from your home object, you can drive out there and throw your flailing gainer off a relatively safe bridge. Once you get it under control you can take it home to your 450' solid cliff.
So, I'd argue that the existence of easy "practice" object both increases our overall level of skill, and keeps beginners safe.
The next question, then, is whether manufacturing these "gyms" is an acceptable practice.
In my mind, this depends on where the "gym" is, and it's proximity to another safe, easy object. If another "gym" is within access for a long weekend, I'd say no. But if not, then by all means. So long as we limit the number of these sites, and point all our local beginners to them, I believe they will have a positive impact on the sport.
Many areas would benefit tremendously from having a local "training" object. Australia comes to mind immediately (why do Aussies have such high injury rates? because their idea of a beginner object is 200' high). What about Malaysia? Did anyone besides me notice the first jump students being put off buildings there, because there were no suitable first jump objects?
The western U.S. obviously has a training ground (our most popular). So does southern Europe, I believe (I've never been to the object, but that span in Hrvatska sounds like it fits the bill). Perhaps Northern Europe need one? Not being a local, I don't know. South Africa appears to have one (from the video I've seen).
Perhaps, judiciously applied, a little cleaning of legal sites, to create training grounds can make us all better, safer jumpers.
--Tom Aiello
tbaiello@mac.com
P.S. Thanks for starting the thread, Space, I can't wait to see where this goes.
Not to be excessively nit-picky, Tom, but a few points:
1. I don't think most climbers would agree that outdoor chipping was what made European climbers in the 80s and 90s climb technically harder routes. Remember that in the US, even in the late '80s there was a phrase called 'hangdogging" and in many US climbing areas 'dogging was strongly frowned on.
I'd credit the European embrace of "working routes" in the late 70s first and foremost for their technical prowess. Close second would be rap bolting, and bolting in general. Europe embraced bolting far earlier than the States, opening up steep faces that only an alien like Johnny Woodward could climb on lead on natural gear. They got on the steep, hard faces long before we did (in most places, anyway - our very own Smith Rocks is an exception to this rule thanks to Alan Watts) - and pushed standards very high.
2. I DO think most climbers would agree that "gym culture" has pushed standards around the world. Heck, I remember when .13a used to be HARD. Now, I know of at least three instances where .13a/b routes have been free-soloed by frisky young kids. . . in bare feet! These kids grew up in gyms, pulling hard from day one. For them, anything less than .13d/.14a or V9 or so is a warm-up. Man, that used to be friggin' hard! (ok it still is for me ;-) )
Since hard climbing is very, very power dependant, having gyms in which to train power (and power endurance) is a huge boon. When I was learning to climb in the Stone Ages, we trained in the winter of Pennsylvania on an outdoor bridge buttress, running laps on a 60 foot, dirty traverse. When it got too cold, we'd warm the holds with a butane torch before climbing. Not conducive to getting sick strong, really.
Remember that BASE is not power dependant - we aren't training muscles so much as our brains and our coordination mechanics.
3. I worry about BASE standards actually going down if too many objects had "gardened" landing areas. Yes, I did my first jumps over easy landing areas - but then I quickly was forced to step up to tougher landings since many of our fun objects have more technical landings. So I had to up my canopy control skills fast, which I did one way or another (ok they still aren't great but they are functional damnit). If I could have kept jumping easy landing areas, would I have done this as quickly? Would my skill level be where it is today?
Would I have broken two ankles? Ok, let's just forget that minor problem and stick to my point ;)
When I've traveled to places where most landing areas were cush, often I found that local jumpers had canopy control skills just good enough to hit these areas. . . but not much more. If things got funky (dark or windy or some other problem) a safe jump could become high-risk even though, for me being used to more ghetto landing areas, these objects still looked safe in those conditions.
And, from there, I've seen DW easily hit a 5 by 5 foot landing area on a new E - to him the landing area was "great" - by Aussie standards. Everything is relative, and we develop our skills to match our chosen objects.
So, anyway, I dunno. In climbing, we use the word "comfortizing" to describe the practice of subtly modifying painful holds to make them more useable (for example, a razor-sharp crimp being sanded off a bit to avoid fingertip laceration). I am STRONGLY against comfortizing - it lowers our standards by making us less willing to mould to the rock, versus forcing the rock to mould to us. Sure, there are some boulder problems that are "pain threshold" dependant since their crux holds are super sharp or uncomfortable. If you don't like that, don't climb those problems. Harden up, tiger!
It is worth noting that perhaps the two strongest climbers in the world today (and, likely, ever) are strongly, strongly anti-chipping: Sharma and Graham. Of the top 20 or so, I'd say 10-12 are strongly, publicly anti-chipping (and anti-comfortizing). That's up from perhaps 1 or 2 a decade ago. So, in climbing I think chipping is dropping in popularity - even in Europe, its birthplace. This as standards continue to rise every year.
Even with that said, I'd not hesitate to rearrange a few rocks at a landing area to make it less ankle-breaker friendly. To me, this doesn't feel like comfortizing, but more like cleaning off loose holds on a new boulder problem before the first ascent. It sure seems like a grey line separating the two, but I guess it is like good pornography: you know it when you see it!
Peace,
D-d0g
ddog@wrinko.com
www.wrinko.com
Geography makes the jumper. Like you mentioned, in Australia they have to make do with awful stuff to land in. In Scandinavia we are quite spoilt with LZ's, and good accuracy skills, classic style, are not part of the skydiver curriculum anymore.
We are also unfortunately not allowed to jump our BASE canopies from aeroplanes either, due to the restrictive policy of our sport skydiving association, for want of good or bad. (Adam, are you reading this :-)) When this restriction gets lifted, and it will eventually for one canopy/manufacturer at a time, am I sure we will see a lift in canopy skills when it comes to BASE landings.
/Lukas
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