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Anyone know what the latest going rate is on fines and punishment for jumping the Captain?

Oh and it would be nice to have a response from someone with some legal experience, or someone who's got recent info. Thanks.

Cheers,

Bigwall

Last I heard it was gear confiscation, a $2000 fine and 12mo unsupervised federal probation. The $500 bail gets put towards your fine and they don't accept bail bonds. That was all current last september and they go with precedent, so I would think it would still be the same punishment.

If you're going to jump it, hope that Link the climbing ranger isn't on the spire. And if he is, scare the crap out of him when you buzz him!

Ahh yes. . . .


Lincoln. Last time I was in the valley I climbed Mescalito and on top out day he was up there lecturing (and perhaps fining) some foreigners about droppin' haul bags. He he. He's actually a pretty cool guy for being "the man" and all.

Thanks for the info.

Cheers,

J.P.

My advice: If you're planning on jumping it, carry $500 cash on you. If you do this, you can bail out as soon as you're done processing and you don't have to spend a night in jail.

They will only accept cash. Not a check, money order, credit card, or bail bondsman. CASH ONLY.

You will be bored out of your mind sitting in seperate cells, and since that bail money goes toward your fine anyway, that's time better spent drinking beer and talking about the jump.

That's good advice, and not only for the site we're talking about here. I spent a night (17 hours actually) from a standard urbran jump... in a cell built for about 30 guys and they crammed about 50 guys in there. A lot of them where a lot more smelly than I was.

ANY time I do a jump that might put me back in the same sort of place, I carry a wad of cash. I want to get out of there as quick as freakin' possible.

Lou

As equally amazing as it is that the fine for merely parachuting is 2000 dollars, loss of equipment, and jail time, is the fact that jumping a yosemite big wall is actually WORTH 2000 dollars, loss of equipment, and jail time. Since Im changing manufacturers, Ill be liquidating my equipment in Yosemite real soon...

cya in jail

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Switching to Asylum huh? Good choice

Just be sure to post video

Now here is another questions for ya. What kinda law is broken? What is your charge if you are caught at el Cap? I ask because I am working on getting into a fire department and that type of charge would probably screw me over bad.

The charge is Illegal Aerial Delivery.

More info here.

Right, so is that a felony?

Generally it's misdemeanor, unless they start trying to tack other stuff on, say, if you were running from the Rangers or something.

You might try to contact some of the folks who have been busted there and ask about specifics in private.

The distinction between a felony and a misdemeanor gets sort of blurry when you're talking about a federal criminal conviction. A state-level misdemeanor is nothing compared to a federal misdemeanor, especially when you factor in the sentencing guidelines. If you have a prior federal criminal conviction, a misdemeanor can present problems.

Air delivery in that national park is a Class B misdemeanor.

Is there any difference in how a non-US resident is treated?

But they always have the option to tack on a conspiracy charge or any one of several other charges, don't they?

That's the worrisome part--not what they do, but what they can do.

rl

Not when it comes to the fines and charges but if they find out you are an "alien" (you gotta love that term) they could contact HLS (the new name of INS) and you might risk deportation...

It's my understanding that a foreign jumper used this strategy to go back home when he ran out of dough. He jumped a very high profile object, got caught, and they bought him a plane ticket to home (the deportation). I think Tom knows the story in details.

Deportation will essentially prevent one from ever entering the US again. So the visitors must be extra careful!

You're not kidding, the max sentence for Illegal Air Delivery is actually six mo in jail and a $5000 fine.

I wonder if they will impose that if you get busted a second time...I don't want to be the one to find out though.

Another side effect, the first bandit load after being busted in the Valley, the juice is ON!

I was so amped thinking about the possibility of getting busted, being freshly on probation and having just lost a rig and taken it up the ass financially. (I was alone in my cell so I didn't get the experience of having that literaly)

Watching a cop car cruise by as you're standing at the exit point, fully geared up, knowing full well that you're going back to jail if you get popped on this jump... and then doing a couple practice touches on the PC as you climb over the handrail.

That is when you know you're fucked. You're totally addicted to BASE.




edit: typo

Any idea what they do with the confiscated gear?

It is commonly accepted and widespread wisdom in the BASE community that the NPS rangers take of all their clothes, rub jello all over themselves, and then roll around in our canopies.

The jello thing only happens in parks located in Utah.

Do the rangers have the right to permanently confiscate your video equipment too? Or do you get the camera and film back?


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could set up a wireless transmitter (perferable with 1watt plus of power) to transmitt to another location for recording?

I don't see how they could justify permanent confiscation of camera equipment. It may be used during the jump, but it isn't a part of the jump. Your rig is.

If they confiscate your camera equipment, they might as well confiscate your wallet and clothing. Said equipment has more to do with those items than it does with a BASE rig, IMO.

They did confiscate my camera. After talking to the prosecutor, they agreed to give my camera back. The footage would be returned once they made a copy of it.

Well it's been over a year and I still haven't received the footage, even after numerous calls.

The video is on MiniDV, a format the NPS doesn't use. Since they have to go outside their little circle to get the footage copied, "they haven't been able to copy it".

Obviously, they don't trust me to copy it. I wonder what the hell they need it for anyway. I plead no contest, paid my fine, and served my probation. There was never a need for them to use "evidence" against me. So what do they need that footage for?

What about a wingsuit? Clearly that's part of the jump.

What about tracking pants? What if you're wearing tracking pants with nothing underneath?

Hanwaag boots? They gave those back.

Katie even got her ProTrack back. I got my camera but not my camera helmet. (Of course in hindsight I should have told the judge I do tandem videos to supplement my income and that extra income was going to be critical in the payment of the fine, so keeping my camera helmet was going to hurt my effort to pay the fine off.)

I bet one could get away with tracking pants... how do they know what tracking pants are?

[of course, I'm sure some NPS person reading this thread will go find out]

One could definitely argue that tracking pants fall into the same arena as knee pads and elbow pads. Pads are to prevent one from hurting their knees/elbows on landing. Tracking pants are to prevent the jumper from hitting the wall... to get him or her far enough away from the wall so that deployment is safe and no third parties [climbers] are in danger.

I suppose the canopy is to prevent the jumper from hitting the ground, but that's a different arena.

The wingsuit is touchier, I bet. One could argue the same with a wingsuit as they could with tracking pants, but in the eyes of a whuffo, they'll be very different. Maybe a BMI could make a good argument for having the suit returned, but I doubt anybody else could.

Now move a few years down the line and lets say that one could land a wingsuit without a parachute. I don't know what kind of landing areas are around Cap [and other Yosemite walls], but imagine if it were possible.
Does the aerial delivery law only cover parachutes? Would a successful jump and landing without a parachute be legal? How would a X,000 foot jump without a parachute be any different [in a legal sense] from a 5 foot jump without a parachute?

I really have no idea what I'm talking about.

You'd be screwed by the second definition of "parachute" below . . .

par·a·chute ( P ) Pronunciation Key (pr-sht)
n.
1- An apparatus used to retard free fall from an aircraft, consisting of a light, usually hemispherical canopy attached by cords to a harness and worn or stored folded until deployed in descent.

2- Any of various similar unpowered devices that are used for retarding free-speeding or free-falling motion.

NickD
BASE 194

If anyone can explain why the NPS can impose fines of this size to me, Id be glad to hear it. With gear confiscation, and fine, and night in jail, and years federal probation, Im thinking drunken drivers get off easier. What the Fuck? Is the judge up there treating you like a criminal? Or is he kind of sheepish, like, sorry guys, rules say I gotta charge ya...



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Ill be liquidating my equipment in Yosemite real soon...

Bah, it was worth a shot!

 

Your question brings me to another thing I've been thinking about recently. Imagine a hypothetical person that keeps jumping in Yosemite, keeps getting busted, and keeps going to jail.

That person is going to accumulate a lot of jail time, which at some point is will cause a judge to think; should this person really go to jail for two years because he's practising his passion while I'm sending drugdealers away with ten weeks probation?

I'm reminded of a bunch of Greenpeace guys that went to jail for a peaceful but illegal protest they did. There was a big uproar in society for it. Obviously the environmental cause is going to find a lot more support among the disinterested public than us BASE jumpers, but I'm still intruiged by the question what would happen if the punishment for BASE jumping was higher.

In some ways, 2000 dollars is not enough. It's almost worth that amount of money from what I can imagine. Now put twelve months of jailtime on it, and the NPS is going to have a shitstorm in their pants...

Who's willing to sacrifice himself to test my theory?

I think it was partially tested by somebody in the early 90s. Was it Dennis McGlynn? I never did quite get the whole story or how much jailtime he did, but I do recall there was a dissapointing amount of support from the BASE community. Correct me if I'm wrong.

>>Was it Dennis McGlynn? I never did quite get the whole story or how much jailtime he did, but I do recall there was a dissapointing amount of support from the BASE community. Correct me if I'm wrong.<<

Besides stealing a helicopter and busting Dennis out I don't know what else the BASE community could have done. Dennis was a giant in this sport even before all this happened, his gear biz called "Gravity Gear" and the generation of BASE jumpers he spawned made him the "go to" guy in Nor Cal throughout the 1980s. Dennis was the first to bring a sewing machine to Bridge Day and rather than partying on Friday like we all did, he'd sit there all day sewing on tailpockets for people who didn’t even know why they needed them.

Dennis' legal problems were magnified by the fatality on the load in question and the fact he wasn't afraid to get in the "Man's" face. He refused to allow a search of the boat and even later when offered a "deal" wouldn't roll over. He fought them all the way. His lawyer tried the tactic that seaplanes are allowed to land on that particular lake, therefore a ram-air canopy should be allowed to do the same. It was an interesting and novel approach but it didn’t fly.

One problem both at the lake and also in Yosemite is the court you are tried in is too closely aligned with the place you are busted. It's like stealing a cupcake from a bakery and finding the judge is the baker's wife. For years Magistrate Pitts burned BASE jumper after BASE jumper in Yosemite in what can only be called a kangaroo court. A tip for future BASE jumpers in places like this is how important a change of venue is, but sometimes it's not possible. Magistrate Pitts hated BASE jumpers and was known as a "hanging judge." One ironic aside to this is one of his relatives, a nephew or grandchild, actually made a few BASE jumps.

Up until Dennis went to jail the longest sentence for BASE jumping belonged to John Vincent who was busted while on probation for a previous jump. I think he did three months. Needless to say John was such a thorn in the side of BASE jumpers no one much cared if he rotted in jail. Dennis, did a much longer stretch, I think it was five to six months, and the BASE community did what they could, (remember we were a much smaller bunch in those days) we donated to his defense fund, (but, we were all pretty broke back then) we visited, we sent books and magazines, we even thought of clever ways to smuggle him in goodies . . .

Dennis is a hero who took the fall for everyone who made jumps over that lake. And he took it like a man. When he was released he went back to the sport he loved, but something was different. The fire in him had burned out and he re-evaluated the course his life was taking. No one could blame him. Don’t underestimate what six months in a cage can do to you.

The problem with just jumping over and over (as someone suggested) and being caught, in a place like Yosemite, is after the third or fourth time it won't be just a matter of fines and losing your gear. It'll be five years in prison. And it's going to sound pretty lame sitting in your cell with Anthony the gangbanging murderer who asks what you're in for.

"I stole some air . . ."

NickD
BASE 194