In general, do you think information on LEGAL jumping sites should be available on the internet?

[346]

I'm going to play devil's advocate here...

There are a number of sites on the internet where cavers and rock climbers can find information on sites to practice their disciplines. They often include GPS coordinates, difficulty ratings, who to contact for permission if the site is on private property, etc. In general, do you think similar information should be available for legal BASE jumping sites?

I'm sure there are as many answers to this question as there are jumpers. Some might say it is OK as long as its limited to this area or that area. Others will point out that jumpers in this country or that country do not want their sites listed, legal or not.

I'll accept that there are exceptions - hence the reason I'm asking "in general" and limiting answers to "Yes" and "No". Feel free to post any additional comments you have.

I'm pretty sure I know which way the poll will lean. I would be curious to see the results of a re-poll a year or two from now to see how/if opinions on this matter change.

Mark

[imported_Tom Aiello]

I think the locals in any particular area should take the lead. It's rather poor manners to post (or publish) information about a site you live thousands of miles away from when the locals have explicitly asked that such not happen. We Americans are particularly guilty of this.

--Tom Aiello
tbaiello@mac.com

[imported_mknutson]

OK, I am going to add just few comments...
Climbing UP, forces a person to be _ABLE_ to climb at or around the level needed to attempt a given climb.

Falling OFF, just needs gravity. Not a parachute, not a brain, and not skill.
So, I think legal climbing sites, verse legal BASE sites are very different.

Legal climbing sites are governed by the difficulty to go against gravity.

Legal BASE Sites just need someone to know how to get to the top of an exit, then the notion that he/she can make the jump.
All the _GOOD_ footage of BASE on tv makes base look easy. Well, what that footage does is give the impression that all you need to do is pitch a PC and magic happends YAHOO! Well, this is far from the case. So, by forcing jumpers to go through another form of governing is mandatory I feel. I am not stating here my opinion of the level of governing....
The less governing we have, the more low-time jumper fatalities and or injuries we have. Actually, I am going to make a poll on injuries right now, come to think of it...

[346]

> Falling OFF, just needs gravity.
> Not a parachute, not a brain, and not skill.

If one was intent on committing suicide, I'll agree it would be easier (and faster) to just fall off something than it would be to climb up something and subsequently fall off.

> Legal BASE Sites just need someone to know how to get to the
> top of an exit, then the notion that he/she can make the jump.

Barring suicides, I think all it takes is a little information and a desire to try (either BASE, climbing or caving) to put one in a position where serious injury or death can result. I think they're on the same page in that regard.

I wonder how cavers and climbers would vote on this topic if it was regarding information about their sites...

Mark

[imported_Tom Aiello]

>> Falling OFF, just needs gravity. Not a parachute, not a brain, and not skill.

>If one was intent on committing suicide, I'll agree it would be easier (and faster) to just fall off something than it would be to climb up something and subsequently fall off.

I disagree with Mark, and agree with Mick.

Climbing up somewhere you don't have the skill to be takes hours and hours of bad judgment (and mechanical intervention, in most cases). Stepping off an exit point takes only a split second of poor judgment.

Honestly, I don't think that beginning climbers are in very much danger of overextending themselves into hazardous situations.

Look at it this way:

What's it take to hike up to the base of the frozen pizza cliff? Not much. What's it take to hike to the top? Same answer.

Now, what's it take to get halfway up the same cliff. Lots of skill. What's it take to step off it? Not much.

Not much + Lots of Skill = self selecting.

Not much + Not much = lots of maimed beginners.

I don't think the climbing/caving analogy is really analogous at all.

--Tom Aiello
tbaiello@mac.com

[imported_mknutson]

>> Falling OFF, just needs gravity.
>> Not a parachute, not a brain, and not skill.
>
>If one was intent on committing suicide, I'll agree it would
>be easier (and faster) to just fall off something than it
>would be to climb up something and subsequently fall off.
>
I am not talking about suicide. I am talking about "Ignorence is bliss". What you don't know.......


>> Legal BASE Sites just need someone to know how to get to
>the
>> top of an exit, then the notion that he/she can make the
>jump.
>
>Barring suicides, I think all it takes is a little information
>and a desire to try (either BASE, climbing or caving) to put
>one in a position where serious injury or death can result. I
>think they're on the same page in that regard.
>
I disagree. If I was a new climber, there is no way in hell I will get 50' up a 5-12 climb, then fall to my death because I was on a climb they just should not be on due to my experience level.

However, on BASE, this has happend before.....
There has been an occation where I saw a person jumping a round at perrine they got from EBay.

>I wonder how cavers and climbers would vote on this topic if
>it was regarding information about their sites...
>

I just do not think cavers and climbers has our same issues.

If you do _NOT_ govern the mandating of training, and you _DO_ allow public access to the exit locations of Legal sites, then do you really think that people are not going to start getting killed more often?

[346]

> Climbing up somewhere you don't have the skill to be
> takes hours and hours of bad judgment.
> Stepping off an exit point takes only a split second of
> poor judgment.

I think we are in (at least) partial agreement here... "it would be easier (and faster) to just fall off"

You don't have to be climbing "hours and hours" up a cliff to put yourself in danger of serious injury or death. I wish I could dig up that statistic... "xx% of falls over xx feet result in death". Anyway, I think it is something surprising like 50% of falls over 12 feet. How long does that take to climb? Not much.

Since we're discussing putting site info on the internet and the possibility of an inexperienced person using that info, I think it's only fair to compare a person with zero BASE jumps and a person with zero rock climbing experience who each found site info on the net. IMHO, each person's episode of poor judgement begins the moment they decide, without training, to visit the site with intent to perform their respective activity.

Mark

[imported_mknutson]

>> Climbing up somewhere you don't have the skill to be
>> takes hours and hours of bad judgment.
>> Stepping off an exit point takes only a split second of
>> poor judgment.
>
>I think we are in (at least) partial agreement here... "it
>would be easier (and faster) to just fall off"
>
>You don't have to be climbing "hours and hours" up a cliff to
>put yourself in danger of serious injury or death. I wish I
>could dig up that statistic... "xx% of falls over xx feet
>result in death". Anyway, I think it is something surprising
>like 50% of falls over 12 feet. How long does that take to
>climb? Not much.
>
That is true, but with even a 10' climb, the percieved danger is only 10' away and we as children learn about falling from the swings.
So it is more in our heads about a fall climbing.
BASE is just not natural as the way we grow up. It is learned to leap from tall objects. This is why I think the human mind does not really have an educated judgment of fear of BASE, just the unkown fear of it.



>Since we're discussing putting site info on the internet and
>the possibility of an inexperienced person using that info, I
>think it's only fair to compare a person with zero BASE jumps
>and a person with zero rock climbing experience who each found
>site info on the net. IMHO, each person's episode of poor
>judgement begins the moment they decide, without training, to
>visit the site with intent to perform their respective
>activity.
>

Don't get me wrong, I agree with this episode of poor judgment. But, what people don't know will kill them. If you fall off the swings as a child, then you "Know" that it hurts and you remember that. You did not grow up jumping from a 300+' swing set with a parachute. So there is nothing for you to have learned or any fear that you actually "Know". You know it looks easy as seen on TV, or from friends videos.

[346]

Your swing set wasn't 300'? :P

Seriously, I can't disagree with anything you said there.

Thanks to you and Tom for the discussion. Hopefully the people that need to read this will.

Mark

[imported_mknutson]

>Your swing set wasn't 300'? :P
>
>Seriously, I can't disagree with anything you said there.
>
>Thanks to you and Tom for the discussion. Hopefully the people
>that need to read this will.
>
>Mark

But that is what this is, discussion. Without good discussion among the entire community, we will never learn from our mistakes.

[clint]

As long as the GPS maps don't get posted online for any yahoo to go do it. How may jumps are legal in the USA anyway?

[imported_Tom Aiello]

>How may jumps are legal in the USA anyway?

Tons. And most of the legal site locals I've talked about it with generally don't share your views.

Any input from folks living in U.S. legal lands? PNW? AZ? ID? I know folks from those first two read this board...

Plus, there's all the non-USA legal sites you're talking about. Anyone from Southern Europe, Norway, or RSA want to add your thoughts?

An interesting exercise: Try putting two or three identifiers from the web into google, and seeing how close you get to locating the actual jump site you're thinking of. In the one I just tried (the sub-terminal wall in Northern Italy) the very first Google return had both a map to the town, and a picture of the cliff. The waterfall in Switzerland returns maps or pictures on three of the first five hits. Those are both access sensitive sites, that almost anyone could get to based on information posted on the internet.

--Tom Aiello
tbaiello@mac.com

[imported_Mac]

my thoughts are that if you get one yahoo who takes matters into his own hands and can find exits on the internet - then one death from this is one death too many.

There will always be people who will have the mindset to go out alone. I know of one guy from my old DZ who without any guidence or knowledge decided to SL with a bungy tied to his bridle a 180ft crane with a CRW rig - he spanked in and hurt himself but broke nothing! - he has not jumped since and from what I heard loves the reputation of what he did - he even boasted once to a BASE jumper "so whats the lowest you have jumped - blah blah blah" - he had strips torn off him for that one!

The same way that BASE equipment should not be made easily available to non-jumpers, exit information should not be easily available.

People should be made to work to gain the information about objects........... part of the skill is evaluating objects and if you give people an easy ride to find exits / objects then this skill starts to get lost.......

Of course I am talking about a database on objects in general rather than legal ones - as most legal jumps you are shown how and where anyhows so perhaps my argument is worthless........

Oh well me being bored after a daytime climb up and climb down coz of this crappy UK wind!!!

:+

[Skydawg]

>>How may jumps are legal in the USA anyway?
>
>Plus, there's all the non-USA legal sites you're talking
>about. Anyone from Southern Europe, Norway, or RSA want to
>add your thoughts?
>

I think a database for legal sites would be a great idea, perhaps with a difficulty rating/risk assessment.

RSA has some awesome legal E's, Cape Town has literally hundreds of exit points within a 120kms radius of the city, including a whole bunch from Table Mountain where you can land at the cable-way station, pack and get a discounted ride up, or down on the beach, or on the lawns of a very cool pub, or the president's official residence. (definitely not recommended }( ) And two hours drive further north the Hex River mountains have to be seen to be believed :)