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REGISTER TO JUMP HERE


EVENT DESCRIPTION - Bridge Day is an annual legal BASE jumping event held on October 18th at the 876' tall New River Gorge Bridge in Fayetteville, West Virginia. Over 450 BASE jumpers and up to 200,000 spectators are expected to attend Bridge Day 2008 on Saturday, October 18. For most jumpers around the world, Bridge Day is a chance to make legal jumps, see old friends, and meet new ones. For 100+ jumpers each year, it's the chance to make their first BASE jump. For those interested in BASE training, The Snake River BASE Academy will again be teaching a 4-day long course shortly before Bridge Day and a 6-8 hour Introductory Course on October 17. If you're new to Bridge Day, please read our Frequently Asked Questions. Last year, jumpers from 38 US states and 10 countries made a record 876 jumps (average 2+ per person), drank six kegs of beer, and consumed 150 pizzas. Jump slot purchases include as many jumps as you can make in six hours, pizza, beer, soda, T-shirt, shuttles, water rescue, seminars, video festival, etc.

Jumper registration begins on July 1, 2008 at 2pm EDT (18:00 GMT). If you don't crash my server this year, refreshing your browser at 2pm will allow the "ADD TO BASKET" button to be enabled. You will then be able to fill out the questionaire and add a single jumper to your basket. If you have multiple jumpers on one order, please add each jumper's information separately to your basket.



CHANGES FOR 2008:
1) 38" PC's are OK for delays of 4-7 seconds. 42" PC's are recommended for 2-4 second delays.

2) Packing clamps and weights will be available in both upper and lower packing areas, free of charge. No need to bring your own. I now have the largest collection of BASE jumper packing clamps in the world (180 clamps). I love that number.

3) Water and/or other beverages will be available in the lower packing area and at the exit point, free of charge.

4) Late Arrival Option - You can now complete the Bridge Day waiver, 2x2 photo, and video waiver prior to the event and simply show up at the exit point on Saturday morning to retrieve your Bridge Day jump pass and ID badge. This option is intended for experienced Bridge Day jumpers who may have difficulties arriving in Fayetteville, WV by Friday at 5pm. Click here for more info.

5) We're now offering full refunds for military personnel who can't attend due to a last minute deployment.

6) We're going to have a large BASE vendor booth near the upper packing area on Bridge Day. It's finally time that BASE jumpers be represented! You'll be able to purchase basic BASE supplies, T-shirts, etc. We'll have BASE rigs in all sizes for people to try on and have their pictures taken. We'll also promote our sport, show videos, etc.

7) The accuracy contest is gone. Only two people hit the accuracy pad and remained standing last year (lame).

8) We dropped our contract for 50 hotel rooms with the Quality Inn New River. It seems like most jumpers weren't interested in staying here since only 18 of our 50 rooms were reserved by the jumpers that asked for them.

9) We'll have cool contests at the Holiday Inn, such as:

• Stash Bag Contest - Simulate a BASE landing, remove full gear, and put in a stash bag in record time. We'll have a junky old rig available for you to use. Prizes go to the quickest stashers.
  
• Best Bridge Day T-shirt Contest - Jumpers come to Bridge Day every year with some of the coolest T-shirts I've ever seen. This year, you can win some cool prizes by entering your own Bridge Day 2008 T-shirt design (must be an actual T-shirt brought to the event). More details shortly.
  
• Craziest ID Badge Contest - We see some insane 2x2 photos every year at Bridge Day that are used to make your ID badge. Now, you can win some cool prizes by having the craziest 2x2 photo. You'll still need to have an identifiable picture of yourself to comply with Bridge Day Commission rules, but feel free to wear a pink wig or shove a pilot chute in your mouth during the photo.

10) We might raffle of a front of the line pass or other privileges and donate the money to charity. Stay tuned.....



HOTELS - If you registered early enough to qualify for a hotel room, we'll email you with further instructions in mid-July and you can call the hotel from August 1-7 to hold your room with a credit card. Jumpers who did not register early and have no chance of obtaining one of our contracted rooms will be notified in mid-July, allowing them plenty of time to secure a room themselves at alternate hotels.

OTHER INFO - There are exclusions to most of our rules and we're pretty accommodating to jumpers who have special situations. We are not the BASE police and we want you to have a great time at Bridge Day. If you have a special situation, don't hesitate to contact us.

ABOUT US - All BASE jumping activities at Bridge Day 2008 will again be coordinated by Vertical Visions LLC, owned by West Virginia BASE jumper and skydiver Jason Bell (BASE #428, D-16725). Jason will be assisted by his wife Jennifer, Charleston native Bill Bird (D-6977), and over 50 staff members.

MORE BRIDGE DAY EVENT INFO - Bridge Day is the largest extreme sports event in the world held on the third Saturday in October every year in Fayetteville, West Virginia. Bridge Day is unique in that it is the only day visitors may walk across the bridge, BASE jumpers can parachute from the railing, and rappellers are allowed to descend and ascend fixed ropes. Vendors line both ends of the bridge selling stained glass, crafts, shirts, photos, and refreshments. Bridge Day is West Virginia's largest one-day festival and is rated one of the top 100 festivals in North America.

Jumpers from all over the world will be lined up to take their turn leaping from the world's second longest single arch bridge. Most will fall from the bridge for 3-4 seconds before deploying their parachute. Then they'll spend the next 20-30 seconds floating down to the designated landing zone located on National Park Service property at the edge of the New River.

BASE jumpers have jumped from the New River Gorge Bridge every year since the first Bridge Day on November 8, 1980 (the only exception being the cancellation of Bridge Day 2001 shortly after 9/11). The first Bridge Day saw five skydivers making BASE jumps from the bridge in the early days of the sport of BASE jumping. Over the years, Bridge Day became the place for thousands of skydivers to make their first BASE jump. It is also the largest gathering of BASE jumpers each year, complete with first jump seminars, packing classes, and a BASE gear trade show.

The popular 16' commercial aluminum diving board, first introduced in 2003, will be returning to Bridge Day this year. BASE jumping aerialists from countries as far away as Australia and Russia will again travel to Fayetteville, WV to amaze the spectators with multiple flips and twists from the massive diving board before deploying their one and only parachute. The Vertical Visions team plans to have a BASE jumping film festival and some special jumps that should make for an exciting Bridge Day 2008 for both jumpers and spectators.

CONTACT US - For questions regarding Bridge Day BASE jumping, please contact Jason Bell (jbell AT vertical-visions.com) or visit www.bridgeday.info. For further whuffo-type information on Bridge Day 2008, please visit the official Bridge Day website located at www.officialbridgeday.com.

Here are a few more links:
Schedule
First Timers Page
The LZ
Hotels/Camping
Shuttle Buses to LZ
Our Main Staff


-------
Vertical Visions LLC
Jason Bell - Owner
PO Box 934
Bridgeport, WV 26330
Phone: 304-203-8500
Email: jbell (AT) vertical-visions.com
Bridge Day Website: www.bridgeday.info

Bridge Day 2008 job openings:

1) Videographer - Please email me if you and your video crew are qualified to film, edit, and produce the Bridge Day 2008 jumper video that is sold to hundreds of jumpers.

2) Vendor Booth Coordinator - Must handle the setup (tent, tables, TV, generator, t-shirts), operation, and tear-down of our new BASE vendor booth on Bridge Day. This area is on the South end of the bridge in the vendor area near the jumper packing tarps. Need two people. This is a paid position for jumpers or non-jumpers.

3) 2x2 Photo Photographer - Takes passport photos of jumpers Thursday night and Friday from 9am-5pm in exchange for a free staff slot. Some basic photography experience needed.

4) 15-Passenger Van Drivers - Must shuttle jumpers from LZ to exit point for a 2-3 hour shift on Bridge Day in exchange for a free staff slot. I heard this is a pretty cool job, believe it or not.

Geez, I think we finally got the kinks worked out of this Bridge Day mass registration thing. You guys didn't even come close to crashing my server this year.

Sitting at my PC on July 1st at 2pm each year is a real adrenaline rush, believe it or not. I'm either fighting against jumpers trying to find backdoor routes into my webstore or I'm watching the server request times increase as 2pm grows near. Regardless, I'm looking forward to another great Bridge Day!! Later this summer, we'll let you know about some new and interesting activities that will transpire in the NRGB area later this year (stay tuned). Don't hesitate to contact me via email or telephone if you have questions. Cya at the bridge.

Some recent news:

1) We've registered 410+ jumpers so far, which is a faster pace than the past two years. I guess gas prices and a lousy economy don't deter BASE jumpers.

2) Mark Kruse with Rigging Adventures is donating a new "Exciter" dual-pin BASE rig with 44" vented ZP PC, risers, and toggles ($1065.00 value) for the BASE Videofest. Other BASE vendors are donating cash ($350 purse), pilot chutes, 50% off coupons, T-shirts, hats, etc. Therefore, NOW is the time to get started on your video entry. MC Donk will post further information on the BASE Videofest shortly.

3) Marija Potkonjak is an editor at Country magazine, a Reader's Digest publication based in Greendale, Wisconsin. She is putting together a travel spread for the magazine, and she'd like to include Bridge Day. She needs to find a base jumper who would be available for an interview about the experience. If you are interested, please call her at 414-423-3107.

Thanks.

How many basejumps we must have to jump there??

don't be LAZY.
http://www.bridgeday.info/faq.php

# Must have made at least 100 parachute jumps (skydiving and/or BASE jumping) prior to Bridge Day.
# Must have made at least one parachute jump (skydiving or BASE jumping) in the two years prior to Bridge Day.
# First time BASE jumpers are required to attend one of the following courses unless they've been trained by an approved mentor:

it seems that several of your recent posts have had a certain edge to them, yet they contain useful information.

but does the information get through? some people stop listening once they are offended.

feel free to contact me if you have any questions, we don't need to hijack this thread any further. I just want to remind EVERYONE to work on the "friendly and inclusive" bit. that requires self-editing from ALL, including avoiding asking basic questions.

(I'd hate to navigate a French website, and the poster may not feel comfortable navigating Jason's...)

If you're reading this and you have never made a skydive or BASE jump, then PLEASE do not register for Bridge Day. Bridge Day is not an amusement ride. You need to have 100 skydives or BASE jumps in order to register.

I am growing quite tired of people with no parachute jumps trying to register. Then I have to call them, educate them on how they'll probably die without the proper training, listen to them whine about how long it'll take them to get 100 jumps, and eventually refund their money (at my cost).

In a world where wealthy people can pay for a guided trip up Mount Everest or travel to space in a Russian rocket ship, perhaps it's not out of the ordinary for non-jumpers to think they can pay to BASE jump at Bridge Day.

</end rant>

I hate to say this, and hope it doesn't happen, but it seems kind of inevitable. . .

Financial success has always depended on finding a need and satisfying it.

Somebody, sooner or later, using a dedicated boat with a well trained crew, a team of packers, and specialty built gear canopies, could make a bundle on tandem BASE jumps into the water at the NRGB.

You'd have Tom doing his death course, Johnny doing his life course, and on the other side of the room, the largest group. where the only instruction is, "Banana, Banana!" . . .

NickD

That is great & sick Nick

Sorry Nick, this wont work. The rules state that you must have at least 100 tandem skydives before you can make a tandem BASE jump at the New River Gorge Bridge during Bridge Day.

Ah, I missed that rule. Gee, there's always a fly in the ointment . . .

BTW, just in case some aren't aware of it, there have been at least two or three tandem jumps with skydiving tandem rigs made at Bridge Day. Harry Rooks did some and so did did Ted Strong, yes, that Ted Strong.

They went hand held with the drogue release already pulled. Sort of like you'd do a low emergency tandem exit from a plane.

NickD

Yep, I have some old 1984/1985 Bridge Day video of Robin Heid as a "nut to butt" tandem passenger. There have also been tandem cliff jumps in the past.

Nicknitro was talking about doing some of that the other day. He's thinking about having a Memorial Bash for Magot catered by midgets in TF and maybe jumping some of them. Sounds like fun, huh?

http://www.tekzoned.com/games/midgettossing/

here ya go.

NickDG wrote:
They went hand held with the drogue release already pulled. Sort of like you'd do a low emergency tandem exit from a plane.

= = = =

Well, no, not at all like you'd do on a low emergency tandem exit from a plane, at least for Ted and me. Ted removed the entire drogue apparatus and just used a standard bag and bridle with a curved pin and a 42-ish pilot chute to deploy the 425-sf main (not much bigger than a lot of base canopies today).

He asked me if I wanted to go with him, and I said "let me watch you first."

He was a little head-low but otherwise fine on his solo, so when we went off together on the world's first tandem base jump (this was 1984), i pushed up into him to keep us angled properly and we did about three seconds and then dead-centered the sand bar.

Afterwards, people asked me how I could trust my life to another person on a jump like that. My reply: "Ted Strong is the most reliable piece of parachute equipment I've ever had on my back. He's worked several thousand times without a glitch."

base 44

Hey Nick, I just received this email:

Hello,

I'm curious if it's possible to tandem jump with a professional during Bridge Day? I am interested in the jump but I have no prior experience and would prefer to do it tandem if possible.

Thanks,
Valerie XXXXXX

Yep, the BASE tandem market is soooo untapped.

It's just a matter of time till they start issuing tandem base numbers.

>>Well, no, not at all like you'd do on a low emergency tandem exit from a plane, at least for Ted and me.<<

Thanks Robin, I thought since that's how Harry Rooks did a later Tandem at the bridge I just assumed so did you guys.

I assumed myself right into a hole on that one . . .

NickD

Badass! Climbing up an antenna with a dude strapped to the front of ya would be so hard!

nah, if you're on back you get to ride to the top!

Ha! I don't think I woulda been near as interested in doing it if Ted had left all the tandem contraptions in his deployment sequence.

One big reason I went for it (along with having Ted) was that the way he rigged it was SOP for most bridge day jumps in 1984: skydiving rig, deployment bag, long bridle, big pilot chute, handheld. woohoo!

base44