220' PCA from a deserted B with a nice open Landing area
This is interesting. When we asked what object should be jumped by a beginner, 100% say spans, but only 71% (so far) actually jumped spans. Is this because of geographic location, availability of local spans, has the addition of the Perrine bridge as a legal site made such a difference that almost 100% of new jumpers are now starting on spans, or are some 30% of new jumpers still starting on some other local object just because its there, despite the knowledge a span might be safer?
(run-on sentence - sorry).
I think it's an interesting idea to look into. There could be a lot of interesting polls that could be done here - how many people took a formal first Base jump course from a manufacturer, etc., how many years have you been base jumping?
Maybe some of the big wall jumpers were early base jumpers, before NRGB, Perrine and other bridges opened up, but maybe not.:+
I started BASE jumping by what I call the old-fashioned way...
I was surfing the internet and one day discovered the BASE Board...back when it first got started. I read every single posting that ever went onto the Board for nearly 8 months. I looked up to all these people that I read about on the Internet. Yuri, Mick, Adam, Harry, Muff Brother #1....the list goes on.
After 8 months, I moved to Northern California and one day while I was jumping at Lodi...this guy showed up. He had long blond hair in a pony tail, had a very cute girlfriend ;-) and was showing everyone a video of him and his friends jumping off some Tombstone-looking rock in a place called Moab, Utah. (I had never heard of it before)
He started to pack his BASE rig in the hanger and I watched the entire pack job start-to-finish from 20 feet away. When he finally finished his pack job, I went up and introduced myself.
"Hi, I'm Bryan", I said. "Hey bro, I'm Mick" was his reply.
Holy shite! It's Mick -- the guy that owns the BASE Board. (Now before all of you start puking...keep in mind that I had been fascinated with BASE for over a year at this point and this was the first live BASE jumper that I had ever met)
I told Mick the usual stuff that we all hear almost every day. "Dude, I really want to learn how to BASE jump!" I gave him my phone number and told him to call me anytime he needed ground crew.
That call never came.
Two months later, there was Mick again, packing in the hanger. (a tough feat to accomplish at Bill Dause's place)
So I went up again and expressed my desire to learn more about BASE. I explained that I had read 4,359 posts on the BASE Board, researched as much as possible, and that all I wanted to do was ground crew so I could learn more.
Four days later, the phone rang and I was off on my first mission as ground crew. We went to the Jolly Green Giant that everyone knows so well (sorry Canadians, not the one in your neck of the woods). I was so awed by what I saw -- I even got an adrenaline rush as an observer.
Every single time Mick called, I was there, rip-roaring and ready to go. It was a sad site...when I ground-crewed, I had the works in my "ground-crew backpack". Serious first-aid kit, extra water, radios, chem-lights to mark landing areas -- you name it. I was quickly becoming known as reliable ground crew, so other jumpers started taking me on their missions which is good, because it exposed my to other styles of jumping.
Mick eventually took me to other objects -- a concrete dam and even on a scouting mission to jump a virgin site in a very urban environment. And all along the way, I was soaking up his knowledge on all the various issues that surround BASE. This is the true value to doing serious ground crew before attempting your first jump.
Then one day while I was sitting down to eat some dinner, the phone rang.
"Hello"
"Hey Bryan, this is Mick."
"Hey Mick -- thinking about a mission tonight?"
"Yep" he replied.
"Cool. Do you want to meet at the usual place?"
"Yea, that's cool. But just to let you know, I'm not calling for you to ground crew..."
I was confused.
"I'm calling to see which one of my rigs you want to jump tonight"
A loud thud was heard as I dropped the fork right out of my hands and it bounced onto the table. Tonight was going to be the night...
So in answer to the question of "What was your first object?", a span it was. And the rest was history...
C-ya!
Bryan Stokes
>He started to pack his BASE rig in the hanger and I watched the entire pack job start-to-finish from 20 feet away.
How odd. I had this exact same experience, watching a the first real live BASE jumper I'd ever seen, packing the first real live BASE rig I'd ever seen, in Bill Dause's hangar at Lodi. Only in my case, it wasn't Mick. It was some guy named Bryan Stokes.
Thanks Bryan!
Great story, Bryan. My only comment is that I considered the 'old-fashioned way' to be reading about BASE jumping somewhere, trying to find someone who does it, talking to a couple of people who said they knew how to do it, and then going to find something to jump off.
I was fortunate that at one stage Jo told me to hold off until Bridge Day ('84). Three jumps there, then I started going around with a few other guys who might have had 1/2 dozen themselves for another half dozen jumps, but it was difficult to hook up with anyone close enough to jump with on short notice, so next thing I know I'm doing antennas, sometimes with a whuffo for a ground crew, sometimes without any. Usually called someone up and told them what I was doing and if I didn't call back in a couple of hours, better call out the army.
This was all on modified skydiving gear. A big pilot chute with a 9' bridle, no bag usually. Slider tied down sometimes. Eventually heard about something called direct bag. Read an article on it by some guy named Mark Hewitt - didn't look that hard. Burned some holes in an old db, attached a couple of steering toggles to it with connector links, and a s/l, went up and tried it.
It worked (can't say I wasn't nervous). But the guys down Piney-way didn't like our set-ups the next year. Wanted us to buy special dbags for the purpose.
The good ol' days. Never really expected to live through 'em - but I'm glad I did.
:+
Wow - you've got to be kidding me?!?
Sometimes in our day-to-day lives, we don't realize how much impact we may have on someone who is simply watching from the side. Something to think about...
Before you know it, it is that person watching from the side who is in turn, leading you to the next level...
Bryan
Reflecting back on my post -- it should be modified to "Old fashioned way for the Modern Day"
With respect for our past, modern day jumpers (such as myself) have it far easier than the true pioneers of our sport.
And that my friends, is the hard core truth.
Bryan
>220' PCA from a deserted B with a nice open
>Landing area
Well, praise jesus!
:+
Can i get an AMEN?! How about a HALLELUJAH?! :+
Boy was I scared when I made my first jump from a 600' cliff. After I landed, JD Walker, Kenn Noble, and "Dead" Steve Morrell launched a linked three way nude. Even today, it's still the most unusual thing I've ever seen on a jump. --Chris (460)
Amen to that! I came into this sport with guidance from jumpers who themselves have hundreds of jumps under their belts. Not only that, they've seen thousands of other jumps - putting the total "experience pool" from which my beginnner advice came well into the thousands of jumps.
Thus, I have statistically high certainty that some things are risky, and other things generally aren't. The only way to get at these data was to have a bunch of crazy guinea pigs do those early jumps and learn that, gee, tailgates are good things (for example).
Which, when all is said and done, allows a young pup like me to say with a straight face that I know more about BASE than the best/most experienced jumper in the world did 10 years ago. The sport, today, is progressing so fast due to the number of jumpers doing the number of jumps and thus driving our overall knowledge base down the learning curve faster and faster.
So, hats off to the pioneers! Us young bucks have a much more cushy time of becoming BASErs thanks to their pioneering work and risks taken.
Peace,
D-d0g
ddog@wrinko.com
www.wrinko.com
My first jump was from a 200' bridge in Long Beach with a couple of pioneers with double digit BASE numbers. I believe I used a Swift reserve but I really can't remember. One of them had to kick me squarely in the ... to invoke my exit. I had fun and lived. I haven't done it since, but I'm glad I did it once and just maybe I'll do it again sometime. I sort of follow your website as a means of staying in touch with my deceased brother's favorite pastime which I've have always admired greatly. Long may you run.
Did 600 odd skydives & got current (tracking especially), read as much as I could find for 6 months on BASE, talked to as many BASE jumpers as I could, obtained new BASE specific gear, went to Norway with likeminded friends, did the (very brief) course that is said to be no longer running, had the gear inspected, did the recomended delay off the safest cliff (No#7) & moved slowly but steadily on since then. Loving it!
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks