813

[mknutson]

Having bagged our E, we we now rolling with the wave of enthusiasm (a bad thing) so we decided to go check out a B that had been jumped before but had been locked up but was now back under renovation (rigs in hand), we sat having a beer going over street plans and various meeting points if we got split up, where we should park the car and where we should wait, where the hospitals were and what the situations may end up and the reactions to these situations - we were planning to the nth degree. It was windy at this point and we thought we would just be finding a way in (but with rigs just incase)

After planning we decided to walk over and try and find an entrance. There were several security guards in several portable offices on site, so we found the best place to scale the wall (which they nicely had put broken glass on top) and once in the compound we started our way to the B. Several times we saw people in other portable offices and driven on our buzz we were ducking and hiding and basically playing at “being kids” - it was a kick!

We found some open stairwell down to the basement, which took us into a space that you could not even sit on your knees in, we were crawling on our bellys pushing our stash bags as we went through this laberinth of small tunnels and pipes, it was dusty dirty and just plain nasty.

This place was a fucking maze, we spent about 2 hours going around trying to find a way into the B, then we found a way to another area with room and a set of stairs and thought “this is the fucker” as we came out at the top, we put our heads over and realised we were about 70 ft from the B and looking back at it from a service access.

The first thought was “ah fuck” but then it dawned on us, we were looking at a stairwell on the side of the B with a missing window at the bottom! (the B is under refurb) - not only could we have walked a bit and round the corner and found this, we had just spent the
last 2 hours crawling around the maze getting covered in shit just to come up away from the B!

We made our way to the scaffold and open window like kids playing at war, and climbed up a story of scaffold to the open window and we were in!

We started the climb up the stair well - all the time nervous as fuck that the echo of your mates scuff of his shoe is someone in the same stairwell, we must have taken an hour to climb up towards the 350ish ft mark. Then the access was blocked, we had to go across a level that had lights on with 20ft windows - again we were on our chests slipping across the floors to each access point (2 guys walking around a B at midnight in London with big arsed windows and lights is noticable) trying to find a way onto the roof.

AT LAST we find another set of stairs and a way onto the roof, we look about and there is not a decent exit point due to all the scaffold, back down we go a couple of levels and again on our chests to find another way out. We find a ladder leading up through the blockage in a set of stairs and find a platform to get off. Its not pleasant as if you have a >90L off heading you hit alot of scaffold if you are not right on your shit. With the landing area being a car park of a well know national exhibition center and our ignorance and arrogance we choose this exit point, and the wind has also died down.

My friend decides “I am going” - I decide with the marginal winds “Not for me” - so I shake his hand and wish him luck and arrange to call him when I get back to the car.

All is good on his jump, and I pick him up and we drive off laughing about the whole night.

The next night after next night, I was at home alone and looked out of the window and it was breathless, I jumped in my car and travelled 70 miles to the B, this time I went through the easy access and went straight to the exit, I called my friend at the top and explained where I was and ask for telephone groundcrew.

I got off, all was good and drove away laughing to myself once again.

The night my friend got off he became BASE811, the night I got off I became BASE813.

And it was not long after I looked back at our B and E and thought “what the fuck were were thinking” - time to slow down a bit and get off this wave of excitement.

Edit to add: Its now 2009, I have been jumping for 7 years, I am now getting my BASE number tattooed onto my body. The number still has an impact on me.... its all about memories.

Edit to add: Picture of my tattoo under my bone graft scar.



BASE Numbers