Basejumper.com - archive

Inspired by Calvin19's rules of BASE jumping, which appear to all be bylaws created by mistakes of others

I, hereby start this light hearted thread, where people can post things from funny to ridiculous, scary to insane, all that can be learning experiences (of what not to do perhaps) for others. The caveat being, the outcome of the "incidents" can not involve doctors, or judges, post those in the real incidents thread.

And... I will go first.

Rural gas stations are not open 24 hours.

to save face, those were all mistakes that my retarded BASE partners made, not me.

Ill go second-

-On a night jump, if you do not have phones or radios, if there is a post jump meeting before hiking back to the car in the 3' of snow, GO TO THE FREAKIN MEETING. that way, we dont have to look for your body for an hour. the kid pulled at 1300' and flew back to the car so he did not have to hike, without telling us the plan. bastard.

-leave at least a spare key at the car. on a paragliding XC adventure, a freind of mine put the keys in the bag he later decided to leave at the drop off car. the car was 6 miles up a dirt road. that was a fun hike.

-this one was me- for my first wingsuit jump, A 2000' tower, i had no idea how to climb with my rig and suit on. it took me 20 min at the bottom complex to figure it out, while the other jumpers were waiting. not fun.

Jumping in the valley in Switzerland, weather front coming in but light and variable breeze at Y.O. Buddy of mine who lives and jumps locally said the winds were wrong and I shouldn't jump but I ignored him and went ahead. I had one of the funkiest openings I've ever had and a real rollercoaster of a canopy ride.
The front was coming in west to east and very strong winds were barreling down the opposite mountains and swirling in the valley. The only place this wasn't apparent was at the exit points on the east side of the valley.

1) Listen to the locals.
2) Know the weather.
3) It's no shame to walk away.

I learnt a valuable lesson that day.

Stay safe,

Max.

Me and my friend planned to jump a 500ft Power tower around dusk, we got there later than expected so it was a little dark, we hopped over the fence, I noticed that there was a cow inside the fence with us, usually the cows are on the other side of the next fence over... I started to climb up to the first section, at this point the cow was about 30ft away.
all of a sudden I hear snorting, I took a good look at the cow and realized it was a Bull my friend was still on the ground and the bull was pissed.

I yelled to him that it was a bull, it started running at him, he climbed up to the first level faster than I have ever seen anyone climb. By the time we got to the third level we realized that the winds were way to strong and the 50 or so cows in the landing area that were all fired up by the bull that was now going ape shit below us would make this a no go. So we started our climb down, when we got to the first level
we decided that the best way to escape the wrath of the bull was to try to calmly walk out and if he came after us we would run seprate way and try to hide behind the pillars.We waited a half an hour for the bull to loose interest. We climbed down and started walking, the bull didnt notice us. We got about 60 feet from the fence and my friend screams in the girliest voice of all time 'THE BULLS COMING' he starts running I figure since we were so close he was fucking with me 'no its not I said, I turned and sure enough he was full speed barreling right at us I scremed in a slightly less girly voice 'OH SHIT'
I ran as fast as I could and did a front flip over the fence. the bull stopped just short of the fence.
we decided to go and jump a b that was about 2 hours away........


-Check to make sure that the cow is not a BULL

2 contributions:

1) Arriving at the top of a scaffold and not having a break-cord. Luckily, having enought gaffer tape on my helmet.
2) Making 2 jumps in a row from a bridge, assuming the second rig had a PC. Of course, it did not. Yelling back to my friend a the bottom to get in the car and drive to me.

Preparation, preparation, etc.

Ronald

I once went on a demanding 5 hour hike up and then spent an extra 6 hours alone on top of a large rock searching for the exit point at night. My friends had taken a different route up. I had run out of food and water hours before and I was exhausted from the hike. My cell phone was dead and I didn't have spare batteries for the headlamp. A light dust of snow would blow around me sometimes. Several times I was just about ready to stop and camp for the night and walk down in the morning, but my friends urged me to keep searching for them. The radio reception would go in and out and my friends screamed for me and I tried to follow the voice. I slid a few times on steep slippery sections and wondered if I was going to fall off the edge without my rig on. I eventually found them, grabbed some food and water, got a few hours of freezing cold sleep, and we all had great incident free jumps, I'm very glad I didn't give up the search, and thankful that my friends didn't give up trying to help me find them.

We too have been chased by a bull/cow (it was very dark). I had no idea that I could get over a barbed-wire fence at a full sprint! We all got torn up, one party member almost impaled a VERY important part of himself on a barb.

We call that site Mad Cow

Katie.

I'll ante up

I went on a not too frequent solo a while ago and was not current. The winds were almost nada and I'm never comfy about a no wind A jump.

I exited fine but opened with a lovely 150ish right with half line twists. After I straightened out, I was almost on the tower. I risered over to the left side of the tower and flew right between a set of guy wires.

I got a little silly and flew back between the lowest 2 wires to get back towards the originally intended landing area. Not he brightest thing, but I had that canopy dialed in.

I f*cking hate no wind A jumps

ahhh... come on!

there is nothing like being at 1800' on a tower alone with ZERO wind, its a very surreal feeling.... I love that. tracking is fun.