Basejumper.com - archive

I just finished reading about the merger between DZ.com and RC.com and I'm posting here as I wanted to look at this from a BASE perspective. From an advertising angle combining skydiving and climbing is fine if you want to attract mainstream adverts like car rental agencies and hotels.

However, climbers and BASE jumpers have a history and it's not all that stellar. Skydivers and climbers don't compete for the same access that BASE jumpers and climbers sometimes do. A search for "BASE jumping" on their forum shows that the majority of climbers are semi-hostile toward BASE. Jason Bell was over their bravely holding up the BASE flag and he was getting the business . . .

I suppose I could ignore all the above as once they get to know us they'll be crazy go nuts for us. Climbing crews will each adopt a BASE jumper and we'll share skills and all will be swell and groovy. But if not, and considering I pay to play here. Am I going to be semi-supporting a community that doesn't like me . . . ?

NickD
BASE 194

 

I was a climber before I was a jumper. It's my observation that climbers generally hold reasonably positive views of BASE jumpers.

And, as Abbie points out, in more cases every day, they are us.

I just looked at RC.com and no announcement, eh, eh, they don't know we're coming . . .

NickD
BASE 194

You didn't look long enough. It's in red on the home page.

http://www.rockclimbing.com/topic/98001

what about here?
http://rockclimbing.com/topic/98001

Give it a little time . . .

NickD
BASE 194

 
>>I like how the climbers refer to the park rangers as "tools". Them climbers is all right I tells ya!

I don't get it either Nick

It's just an internet site management thing I bet. We're different as chalk and cheeze.

Maybe they're going to start outsourcing the greenie's jobs, I hear volunteer labor is cheaper in East Asia.

There's a climbing gym I pass sometimes that has a huge mural of Half Dome on it and it always makes me smile. When the first BASE jumpers went online in the mid-1980s it's because we are starving for information. This is before the web went graphical and I sat in front of a black screen and the words of the late Mike Allen appeared as from nowhere. "Wow," he wrote me, "we must be some special sub-techno species of BASE jumper."

We had magazines like BASEline, and later some others, but BASE technology in the 80s and early 90s could have supported a daily TV show. These are the smaller changes, things like different mesh in your slider, a new toggle system, various sized pilot chutes, and going stowed for the first time (if you started BASE later you may have missed that little adventure). And I remember a good stretch of years when something is always new inside my rig and scaring the crap out of me . . .

The internet "was" for BASE jumpers the only place to get timely information, but that era has ended. BASE is now more out in the open and the best place to get BASE information is in a BASE course. Or, go knock on a BASE gear manufacturer's door. The demise of the BASEBoard proved it when all of a sudden they weren't sharing tips and ideas as much as eating each other alive.

I thought the relationship between BASE and the internet was over, but then I started to see smaller regionalized and password protected BASE sites where you can name names and sites, give directions, and talk more directly about what you are doing. For BASE jumping this is probably the best use of the Internet. When DZ.com first appeared I thought the premise of helping skydivers who transition to BASE as, hey, any opportunity to say, "Carl Boenish," and spew a little BASE history is alright with me.

And now, a new chapter begins . . .

NickD
BASE 194

Here's another opportunity

>>Here's another opportunity<<

I know, but I'm thinking always forward and never back . . . I'm thinking we could split to...

NickD
BASE 194

edit to remove link by request of administrator of linked site ~TA

And, I hope I don't run into the guy who informed on Frank . . .

NickD
BASE 194

It's alright with me too.

I don't BASE yet but when it is time I will make that transition, and I love reading your posts. Something about them just makes me think 'Damn, I'd love to have a beer with that guy'.

Hope you keep on teaching us young 'uns about history.

All base jumpers are climbers not all climbers are jumpers?

I was talking to a well respected climber yesterday and those TWO guys were brownnosing ranger's for whatever reason. One has disappeared and the other has "entered his own private hell" as a result of his actions. I miss Frank. Pete.

That's good. I did hear something about one of those two fellows . . .

Our own house isn't so clean either. For years back in the late 80s there was a snitch at the Perris DZ. If you mentioned anything specific and out loud about visiting the Park you were screwed.

NickD
BASE 194