<center><font size="1" color="#ff0000">LAST EDITED ON Jan-03-00 AT 03:10&nbsp;PM (EST)</font></center>

WHAT A TRIP!!!

_Shout Outs_

Shout-outs to Earl, Spike, Steve, Joe, Rob, Jacko, Jay, Mari, Karen, Greg, Clint and Jill!!! It was so nice to meet _ALL_ of you in MOAB! Further Shout-outs to Mark and Steve, the C182 pilots who were visiting the Mineral Canyon airstrip!

_Thank Yous_

Well.. where to start??? Thanks to Earl for his hospitality and friendship, thanks to Spike for keeping the loads moving and sleeping on the floor all week, thanks to Steve for taking me to the airport and for helping me get around post-ankle injury. You guys are ALL COOL! Thanks to Mari for pointing out my flails on video; I thought it was great to get laughed at by a newbie... funny part is everything she was laughing at was dead-right. Newbies... gotta love em. Karen and Greg: I have great video of your two-person packjob.... what were you two looking for among all that dacron and nylon??? LOL you'll see it on video someday I'm sure (it looks like one of those documentaries where monkeys are picking nits from each other). Thanks to Jay for the private email You are _all_ cool (Jay, Mari, Karen and Greg).. glad to meet you. Clint: what can I say?? nice delay, dude. You have a GREAT attitude, too! Jill, you're sweet (Clint is obviously quite blessed)... interesting opening you had there on friday... glad you didn't hurt yourself landing (I got it on video, btw). Joe, Jacko and Rob... it was nice to see BASE jumpers sharing exit points, huh? Everybody was so Cool! SPLENDID!


_MOAB_

As to MOAB - needless to say this little-traveled Georgia boy was impressed!! The canyons and landscape in and around MOAB meld to form another world. And that freakin' road down into Mineral Canyon is wild (actually, it comes the closest yet to my recurrent nightmare of having to traverse an off-camber, ice-covered ridge road in a car with sheer 3000 foot cliffs on either side - without a rig). I say next time we get some dune-buggies and have a downhill road rally!!! What a scary thought that is. I finally managed to get used to the road once I was the driver (in control) and didn't have to ride in the back of Steve's truck in the death camper.... geeez what a way to die THAT would be! Those cars scattered in the talus below are a bit un-nerving, to say the least. I wonder how many people have died just _driving_ on that road?? LOL


_The ankle_

On my sixth jump, the variables all came together to hand me a less than desirable landing. I screwed myself long before the start of the trip by jumping a ragged out piece of dreck, hole-laden, tired canopy, which makes my landings a little harder than normal. I love my orange raven III and my scary-looking 12 year old BASE container... no matter what all of you people think or say (so, maybe I AM I'm retro-man). Then _I_ screwed _myself_ further by taking a long delay - which left me with less altitude to overfly the talus. Couple that with a tailwind and a well-camouflaged rock and I got me a sprained ankle cocktail... At least the folks at the hospital made it all feel better lol I was doing the major drousy/drooling/head-bobbing thing that night at dinner. heh heh. I guess you all heard. There's no TELLING where you guys dragged me to have my picture taken... ...and with whom... or what... at least I don't remember _ANY_ of it.


_Mari's Rescue_

Well well... that was interesting. Sorry you had to go through that Mari, but that's the nature of the beast sometimes. A good, hard leap will go a long way toward helping you out of a 180 (even if you flail a bit - ha ha), and immediate toggle inputs will usually finish what you started. I'm going to be a constructive critic here and state that RUNNING or seriously launching yourself off the object is almost _ALWAYS_ a good idea (is that a 'duh' kinda statement??? - maybe not; it needs to be said). Mari, you tend to just robot-walk to the edge and fall off (I'm taking advantage of this opportunity to get back at you for poking fun at my flailing exits - KARMA, sweetie... KARMA). A jumper cannot wait one microsecond (whatever) to be on the toggles (forget the risers - they don't get the job done)... I think that is evident, but should be re-stated constantly. Immediate action will get you out of many situations.

Kudos to the rescue team! Although I stayed out of the way due to my injury and - as a result - didn't get to talk to many of you, I heard lots of subsequent praise about all of you rescue folks! I met Loren (SP?) of BLM at the Something or other Brewery one night while drinking beer with Steve. Saw him again on the canyon road the next evening... fancy meeting him there (Shout out to Loren - if you read the board). I counted a total of 16 vehicles (besides jumpers' vehicles) that night. Many NPS vehicles were there (kinda gave me an itchy feeling), and from what I heard you guys were cool, too. Thanks for being cool! By the way, thanks to 'whoever' for finding that new road-route to 'Mari's Gash'... it's a real time-saver.

Anyway, I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to say good-bye to you guys (Jay and crew) before you left - hopefully we'll meet again soon. Oh and btw Mari, the codeine is running dreadfully low now!


_The Airstrip_

It seems the general aviation folks have access issues, too. The Mineral Canyon airstrip is struggling for existence. The pilots we ran into are in an access battle with some Utah tree-hugging organization. I am environmentally conscious, but it seems to me that if there is already a useable airstrip out in the middle of freakin' nowhere and the only people around are pilots and BASE jumpers... what's the issue? You can't mess up someone's day if they are not around to have it be messed up. The Southern Utah something or other Association has mounted a battle against this nice little airstrip and these guys (Mark, Steve, et al) are fighting to preserve it; they need help. I'll try to find out more and post later. When are we going to stop legislating ourselves out of being able to use our public lands? These enviro-groups need to get a serious grip...


_The End_

All in all it was a fabulous week. GOD himself could not have prescribed better weather; it snowed the day I left (Steve and I had a time keeping the truck in the road - whether it was the snow, his slick tires, some other influence or ALL of those items, I'll never tell ). I did managed to cash in on someone else's misfortune: my flight from Grand Junction was cancelled and I thought I was going to be 5 hours later getting home. As it happened, a flight to Vail was re-routed to Grand Junction because of heavy snowfall in Vail. The misfortunates got bussed to Vail and I got that flight back to Denver and made it out of there on schedule. Now I'm home and my perspective is forever changed.

THANKS BASE JUMPERS!

blue skies and squiggly squirmy black nasty awful evil death!

Love,
Gardner