BASE. It's a pretty complex issue, and I've devoted the last three years of my life to it.
When I got into BASE, it was the result of a deep personal crisis. I was deeply enmeshed in a continuing emotional trauma (a girl, of course, isn’t it always?), and swung from wildly suicidal all the way up to merely despondent.
In the beginning, BASE presented itself as the next best thing to suicide. I once heard Gowaylow describe BASE as "suicide without the commitment." I treated it as "suicide with some chance of survival."
When I began BASE jumping, I did it in a big way. At first, I was simply trying to jump as much as possible, and as often as possible. I made several long road trips, and jumped every time the opportunity arose. This earned me something of a reputation in the BASE world for "going hard", in the sense that I was jumping a whole lot. In my first year of BASE, I made 293 jumps.
However, it was not the volume of jumps that I was making that was truly frightening. It was the type of jumps. Dangerous jumps--underhung walls, bad
landing areas, no outs, high winds, low altitude. I embraced them all. I quickly repeated a number of technically challenging (and physically dangerous) jumps that had been done as "one offs" by earlier jumpers. Then I went back and started doing them regularly. In one notable instance, I made 17 jumps in one month (sometimes as often as three in a day) off one low dam that Muff Brother #1 had done once, five years before, and declared "never again!"
I jumped another testpiece twice the first day I stood on the exit point—with no ground crew, no friends, no one even knowing where I was. The only people who saw the jumps were the climbers on the wall below me (although they did make me feel a bit like a celebrity, that day). Those two jumps still stand as my best day of BASE. There are two reasons for this.
First, I drove out to the cliff with only a copy of ESPN, the magazine, to find the exit point. That magazine had printed an article about Gambler (it was the one year anniversary of his death) that showed, splashed across two pages, in glorious color, the exit point, with Gambler just entering freefall. I hiked back and forth atop the cliff band, trying to match the exit point shown in the magazine. When I got tired, I would sit and read parts of the article. By the end of the day, I felt like Gambler, who I had never met, was guiding me to the exit point. When I stood at the exit point, I could feel the spirit of a dead man, standing beside me, guiding me.
Second, I drove out to that cliff alone. No one even knew where I was. When I encountered climbers on my way to the top, the asked me what I was doing, and I would reply with small evasions—“nothing”, or “just having fun”, or something similar. After I landed, several climbers hurried over to talk to me. As I said, they basically made me feel like a celebrity. This led to what is, perhaps, the proudest moment of my BASE career. When one of the climbers, an attractive young woman, said “you could have at least asked us to take pictures, don’t you want pictures?” I replied, without thinking, “I’m not really in it for that.” I am still proud that, without premeditation or consideration, that was the answer that popped out of my mouth.
At some point during this time, I realized that the reasons I had begun jumping (to, as I once hyperbolized, "fill the gaping wound in my soul") were not exactly the same as the reasons I continued to jump. The real Black Death jumps were filling that metaphorical hole. But there were some jumps (a particular 650' dam near my home was especially good) that seemed to be reaching into my soul, and giving me a strange sort of peace. My BASE mentor (he was a mangy 20 year old
Australian, not generally given to deep pontification), described it thus: "When you stand on the exit point, everything else in the whole world just goes away." I sometimes found that moment of perfect calm that he was describing while standing, just before the launch, as he did. But more often, I found it in freefall, just at the end of the jump, with my hand on my pilot chute, as I sank into the final moments of the jump. I absorbed the ground rush, and somehow found myself totally centered. It seemed that the entire universe was focused inward on me, and that everything else disappeared. It's very difficult to describe this phenomenon without resorting to cheesy new age-ish references to Eastern Spirituality. But I know that other jumpers have felt it as well (not all other jumpers, but some of them).
For me, BASE jumps devolve into three important parts (not counting things like suffering through a six hour hike, the amazing free fall visuals, the frantic moments evading pursuit after a high profile jump, or a million other intense, interesting, or exciting, but not particularly spiritual bits).
The first part is the moment just after launch. My body has overbalanced, and I am totally committed to the jump. My feet are still touching the object but there is no going back. I always feel as if I hang in this moment for a timeless eternity. My entire universe compresses down into this moment, and my reality is completely focused.. I can feel my feet, still connected to the launch point, and my body, leaving it, and embracing the void. This moment is particularly intense on difficult objects, and it is the most prolonged on new objects (never jumped before by anyone), that are fairly challenging. The best moment of this type that I have ever experienced was on a construction crane, 300' high, on a hotel under construction in Northern California (Tanto was on the ground, and I still don't think he knows how spiritual this moment was for me). The altitude was low, the object had never before been jumped, the outs were bad, and the moment was perfect.
The second important part is the moment just before deployment. I am fully stable, sinking into the very final moments of a jump, absorbing the ground rush, with my hand on the PC. For me, this is the magic moment. The world just disappears. My personal cosmos draws down into a tight bundle around me. I have this feeling on almost every BASE jump, but it is strongest on delays of around 3-5 seconds, and is incredibly strong on that dam in California, where the entire valley, and the concave shape of the object itself, seem to focus the energy of the entire situation back on me. Although I've done
aerials and multi-ways off this object, I always come back to flat and stable solos (the BASE equivalent of missionary sex). There's just so much there, that I can't get enough of it (if I could only find a woman who could give me the same feeling!). I pretty much get this feeling on every jump (at least every freefall jump--maybe that's why I prefer to freefall, even at very low altitudes. If there is a center of my BASE experience, a reason that I continue to jump despite (objectively, and medically) staggering physical injuries, this moment is it.
I wonder if ultra low objects, in which you toss the pilot chute just as you exit the object ("throw and go", in the current, somewhat pejorative, BASE parlance), somehow combine these two moments for me. Perhaps this combination of my spiritual moments is the reason that I find myself drawn to these jumps?
The third moment is quite rare. However, it is this third moment that makes me know that if I die BASE jumping, I will die in a perfect place. I tried to explain this to a new skydiver (not yet a BASE jumper, but with aspirations to do so) who knew one of our friends (his jumpmaster) who had died on a BASE jump. I explained it to him something like this: "I know that in his final moments, Skypunk was in the zone. I don't know how to explain this, but if you become a BASE jumper, you will know what I mean." Whenever I have experienced a problem in BASE (parachute malfunction, off-heading opening, over delay [and resultant impact], etc.) I have reacted in a Zen-like trance. I don't think. I don't even consciously act. I just AM. It all happens, and I just seem to be along for the ride. I have experienced riser corrections, toggle hangups, object strikes, even near
terminal impacts, and still they all happened in a perfect place, a near Zen trance-state. I only emerge from that place well after the emergency has passed. D-Dog once describe this as “seeing God.” To me, it feels more like “being God,” in some, weird, sufiistic moment of universal consciousness. I know that if I die BASE jumping, I will be deep in the zone. Some people hope to die in their sleep, or while having sex. I cannot imagine a more perfect final moment than that deep, trance-like state. I am one of the few jumpers on
earth to know this (having survived not one, but two accidents, both of which should have been fatal), but it gives me some comfort (some--I'd still prefer that I get to know our friends before they go in) knowing that Skypunk, Dr. Death, Cold Steel and all the rest of our fallen brothers (forgive the melodrama) died in this magic place.
OK, back to the main story...
Next, I began jumping difficult cliffs within sight of North
American BASE's most prized object (a 486' legal bridge over water--perhaps the only one of it's kind in the world). Other jumpers heard about the jumps. Many were angry, feeling that I was jeopardizing access to our best bridge. Many just shrugged their shoulders and walked away. I smiled, somewhat grimly, and leapt from the cliffs to silence my personal demons. I was jumping for myself, and, although I knew how they felt, I didn't really give a damn.
It was during this time that I had my first serious accident (spinal cord injury, temporary colostomy, neurosurgery, the works). And still, I kept pushing the limits.
Shortly after recovering from that accident, I made a highly public, politically incorrect, and very low cliff jump. The exit point was within sight of our legal bridge, and (due to an IPBC event in town that weekend) it was also within sight of a large number of America's most experienced jumpers. A few, who I think may have understood, simply shrugged, and went about their business. Many lambasted me, privately, publicly, and (of course) on the BASE board (the joys of anonymous internet posting). But for the first time, I felt at least one person standing with me. I'm not sure he understood why I needed to make that jump. I don't even know that he understood the level of my need. But I was his friend, and he stood by me. After three other people had refused to accompany me to the exit point (at least one after being pressured into abandoning me by one of America's leading jumpers), he cheerfully accepted the responsibility for making my final gear checks. I don't know what criticism he faced for that decision (he never even mentioned it), but I know there was some. He was well-loved by our community, friendly, welcoming and non-controversial (except for his habit of jumping in drag, which was generally accepted as his personal eccentricity). Standing by me that day may have been the most controversial (and hence alienating to other jumpers) thing he ever did in our community. Although I didn't know it at the time, his unconditional support for me (and for my need to do whatever I needed to do) was the first step on the next part of my journey.
Aside: I'm sitting on a park bench in France, with tears streaming down my face, as I remember Dr. Death.
Even after realizing that some of the people involved in this sport could help meet my needs (they are not the only people who can do so, but for whatever reason this sport seems to have an unusually large number of them), I could not pull out of my death spiral. I continued to jump, prodigiously, often recklessly, quite close to death. Many other jumpers continued to misunderstand, mock and even revile me. They pointed out that my jumping style would likely lead me to an early grave. I laughed. They did not understand. I didn't care if it led me to an early grave. I understood, and took the risks. I could stand on an exit point, and rationally evaluate it, and decide that it carried a 20% chance of hospitalization, and a 10% chance of violent death, and simply shrug, smile, and push off with a whispered "See Ya!".
Misunderstanding these risks, is, to me, the great tragedy of BASE. When a new jumper, who does not comprehend the risks, is killed, it is horrific. When an experienced jumper, who knows, and knowingly accepts, the risk, dies, it is terrible, but somehow easier to accept. Our friends die knowing what they risk, and embracing it. The new jumper may be so afraid that they are not even in that zen state I described earlier. The experienced jumpers probably are. I remember when Skypunk died, someone (anonymously) posted on the internet a comment to the effect that we were all fools, and there was no way he died happy. I don't think he died happy, but I know he died in that incredible, magic place where you no longer need to be happy, where you cannot be sad, where everything just IS.
So, I was jumping, recklessly. I had made my final goodbyes with the love of my life, quit my job (which I primarily kept to be close to her), and embarked on my BASE odyssey. At this point, my intention was to jump until I died (in the words of Seppwegian, "go in before you have to get a job").
And then, on my 30th birthday (May 16th, 2002), I impacted the ground at near terminal velocity. My (
slider up) parachute deployed with a 180 degree
off heading (facing the cliff), on a deep (more than five seconds) delay from 600 feet (this probably gave me 200 feet to
impact at deployment, and should have put me under a functioning parachute--assuming no problems--around 50 feet). My slider was stuck above a half line twist, and I streamered into the ground at 50 miles per hour.
As I impacted, I remember thinking, quite clearly, "oh, I've gone in". Then, as I began bouncing down the talus under the cliff, I thought "hmmm, I'm still alive--but I'm sure I've shattered my spine, and I'll be paraplegic, so I'll be committing suicide once I'm out of the hospital." As I came to rest, head down on a 70 degree slab, I tested my arms and legs. The first thing I said on the radio was "I can feel both arms and both legs". It was an odd moment. I know that I was calmer than any of the other jumpers present (I owe a big apology to that local crew for the incident--I hope that BASEfreak can forgive me--as well as an apology to 16F9 [I cut short his first real BASE road trip] for my selfishness). Perhaps it was my fatalistic
mindset, or perhaps my previous accident experience (both as a victim and a rescuer). Either way, I lay on the slab awaiting the search and rescue helicopter for close to two hours, floating in and out of my personal zen state, sometimes screaming in pain, sometimes almost magically calm. There was one particularly funny moment, when a relatively inexperienced local jumper, who had shown us the exit, arrived, panting and covered with sweat, after running up the talus to me. I looked at him, and saw that he was clearly distraught. I said, in an unearthly calm voice, "Sit down, and catch your breath. Don't even thing about touching me until you are calm." He never really had to mess with me, though, aside from reminding me not to move when the waves of pain overcame me. We pretty much just sat there, occasionally talking, until the search and rescue team arrived to helicopter me off the cliff.
Even recovering in the hospital, I was still in my hopeless, ready-to-die place. The day after they released me from the hospital (three weeks, a friend's near fatality, and a body cast later), Dr. Death called me. I will never forget his voice that day. I was laying on my bed, waiting for my parents to come and collect me, so that I could convalesce at their home. I answered the phone. It was Dr. Death (caller ID told me that much) calling from his cell phone. He was normally so chipper, but this time he was choked up. "Thomas, it's Dr. Death." He always began that way. "Skypunk has gone in." I was floored. Not so much by the news (Skypunk had a reputation for recklessness--I'll never forget watching his two way gainer at Tombstone, when he pitched the pilot chute directly between his frantically kicking legs), but by Dr. Death’s obvious pain. I really cared for Dr. Death, and his pain hit me hard. Somehow, the distress he felt over Skypunk's death was harder to bear than the pain (for which my orthopedist had prescribed both Valium and Norco) in my lower back.
It was then, for the first time, that I came face to face with the simple truth that Dr. Death cared more for the jumpers than he did for the jumping. And it came to me that I was one of those jumpers. No matter whether I embraced, disdained, or ignored my own demise, it would pain him. I did not want to give him that pain, if only for what he had done for me.
Over the following month, as I took an enforced vacation (I lost 20 pounds that month--body casts are great diet aids), I reflected on this. I began to realize that there were other jumpers who cared for me, perhaps more than I cared for myself. I even realized that some other jumpers had already been down the road I was then (and now) treading.
It is not every BASE jumper. It is not even the majority of BASE jumpers. But there are some jumpers who are following the same path I have. I have met jumpers who are walking that road ahead of me. I have met jumpers who are just starting down that path. I have met jumpers who were where I am now years ago (I remember one of these, remarking, when I asked him about my controversial 150' cliff jump, "why are you asking me? I've done plenty of stuff just as crazy..."). I have met many jumpers who would think I was embarking on some kind of metaphysical drug trip. But still, I know that there are some who understand where I am, where I have been, and where I have yet to go. For some reason, this heartens me.
I have tried to sort out what makes these people like me. I simply can't define it. Common factors appear to be high intelligence, emotional disturbance ranging from melancholy to suicidal, a bit of social misadjustment in childhood (one jumper told me that his school psychiatrist had evaluated him as a sociopath when he was in the fifth grade), and a general dissatisfaction with life. Still, there are other factors, and there are jumpers who simply don't have one or more of these background factors at all. I can't even recognize these people when I meet them (although I know that some of them have seen the same things in me). It takes some time, and some familiarity, and then one day I realize that, "oh, so-and-so is one of us..." This doesn't mean that we are going through exactly the same things, or that we are feeling them in the same order or intensity. But I feel quite strongly that we are all on some strange spiritual journey. Some of us will spiral off of it into oblivion. Some of us will be rescued from it by happiness, family, or relationships. Perhaps there are some retired BASE jumpers out there who have finished this journey, simply realized one day "oh, now I'm done," and walked away.
And then, Dr. Death died. Just as I was pulling back from the brink of my personal hell, one of the three people who most helped me to do so bounced down the side of a cliff in Switzerland, and impacted wrapped in his canopy. I regret deeply that I was never able to tell him how much his influence helped me (if you are wondering I have in one case written, and in one case talked, to the two remaining people, thanking them for what they have done for me). I may yet die in a traumatic BASE accident. But now I will die reasonably content, rather than tortured. And, perhaps most importantly, now I would prefer to live.
Somehow, Dr. Death’s death gelled all the swirling feelings inside me. It didn't happen that long night (spent mostly sitting by the computer) waiting for confirmation of his demise. It didn't even happen at his funeral and wake (although conversation with another friend that night was one of my keys). Rather, it was later, during a long night, capped by drug induced euphoria and ended by frantic writing the following day on a train [somehow writing helps me, too], that it all came together. I had three major influences (all BASE jumpers) who helped me pull out of my spiral. I don't know that they wanted, intended, or even know the roles they played. But the death of one, followed by a wake spent with another, primed me to personal catharsis after a long night with the third. Somehow, some way, these three people were the keys to my personal recovery. Each had a different method, a different style, a different influence. One was quietly
understanding, one openly supportive, and one emotionally demanding. Somehow that combination saved me from my own personal damnation.
So, in the end, it was the people involved in this amazing activity who turned out to be the key. The jumping itself was important, even critical, but it was the jumpers who turned the corner. And somehow it was the death of one of them that made all the difference. I do not know how to repay this debt. But, I think that I must continue jumping, and caring, and helping others who walk this road. It is not by condemning, or chastising, or teaching, or helping. It is, I think, by quietly supporting, that I can best help those who are embarking on this journey. Some jumpers are drawn to do things that look insane (famously, "risking it all for nothing"). By being quietly supportive, despite their breaches of our community ethics, I can help to move them along their way to personal fulfillment (and, coincidentally to "responsible" BASE, whatever that may be).
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by ZegeunerLeben
Re: Some thoughts from a while ago...
I am scared because now i know exactly what can go wrong (ignorance was a blessing!) but even more so because i have seen plenty of death and i really appreciate life. I now jump for a different set of reasons - not to escape life but to live and enjoy it to the fullest. 
great comment.. i guess they use GC as back up,just in case 
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