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Rigger Lee Interview: The Enigmatic Adventurer
February 15-19, 2009
By: Cynthia Lynn


Enigma
1. An obscure speech or writing 2. Something hard to understand or explain 3: an inscrutable or mysterious person

If ever there was a man that fit the definition, it would be the BASE community's Rigger Lee. He will tell you that he is an open book; however for many he fits the bill of an enigma. I set the interview in motion with a standard 58 question document for this series of profiles and what I received in return where some of the most intriguing answers. In Lee, you will discover a man who claims to have set no goals and yet has achieved a great deal in his lifetime.

Lee’s story begins in Irving, Texas, while he has spent most of his life referring to his mother’s home in Euless, Texas as his residence for the purpose of collecting his mail. His partner at “the shop” , friends and family have grown accustom to Lee being “away” from his home base for 6 or more months out of the year. Lee is known to have packed up and disappear for a month or two at a time, “wandering about the country”.

Lee’s enterprises managed from “the shop” include a sign store, rigging loft and T-shirt company. A current project is constructing sailing covers, but he still thinks of “the shop” as being more of a “hangout” for when they “aren’t out playing”, than as place of business.

A 37’ Endeavor, ketch rigged became the latest addition to Lee’s toys to make his fascination with sailing came full circle. The recent purchase is docked in Houston, Texas. Lee explained to me his reasoning behind the sailing fascination. “A friend of mine had bought a 16 foot Hobie. I had been out with him on that a couple of times, and pretty much, I was hooked. The Hobie was too much fun and with it a sense of freedom that comes with sailing. There is no motor and beats the hell out of paddling.” He went on to elaborate, “I had spent a month on Lake Powell with a kayak and sailing sure beat the hell out of paddling 250 miles with the wind blowing. I developed an interest in sailing prior to even those experiences. I recall taking a ferry across the North Sea. Standing by the window and gazing at the waves changing as we left the mouth of the harbor. I have the same emotions when I am in the mountains, the desert or flying. You couldn’t imagine three more different environments and yet they bring forth the same feeling. I suppose it is all about being beyond the boundaries of civilization and societies rules. I am leaving behind all of the false entrapment's and regulations that are supposed to insure my safety at the expense of my freedom. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I do find that I enjoy it as I do the other adventurous sports that I participate.”

Lee doesn’t have an IPod filled with music; instead he thinks the first thing he loaded onto his was a book on tape. Books are a part of his life. While stranded in the Arctic with a disabled snowmobile, he read a book by Tanya Abbie titled “Maiden Voyage”. He is also quite a fan of Captain Joshua Slocum’s books. As one of his reads he listed “West is the Night” by Beryl Markham; the story of a woman raised in East Africa who in the 1930s, became an African bush pilot, and in September 1936, became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west. I sensed that the solo adventurers and explorers in the books Lee read would consider him a kindred spirit.

Lee was a 19 year old college student when he was baptized into the world of skydiving. As a high school gymnast he had always wanted to give bungee jumping a try. During the fall season of his sophomore year of college he signed up for bungee jumping from a hot air balloon at the local small airport outside of Dallas, Texas. When he arrived on the following Saturday, the wind was too intense for the balloonist to tether the balloon for the bungee jumps. Lee instead ended up meeting with skydivers at that same airport before leaving with his refunded check in hand. The skydivers were more than willing to have him spend his money with them and he made his first tandem jump that day in 1991.

Years later while working for John Stanford at the Adventure Loft he was introduced to BASE jumping and his first BASE jumper, Ernie Long. Ernie and two companions had come to the shop in need of a tail pocket being sewn onto a new Raven3 canopy. Ernie had both feet caste and the men were struggling with Lee’s assistance to even get him through the door. Apparently, as best as Lee could piece together the story, Ernie had a mishap out in Moab Utah. There was talk of “a worn out canopy, a cliff, and being able to see the ring on a woman’s hand as she waved from the bottom. Then there was the problem with a boulder being in the landing area”. A whole new world had opened up to adventurer Lee.

He hadn’t begun received his senior certificate towards his career as a Rigger career, but was dead set on learning about BASE. He built himself a rig and headed off to Bridge Day, with 4 to 5 hundred skydives already in his log book. He located some help at Bridge Day in packing the rig that he had built and made his first 2 BASE jumps. Lee returned home hooked on the sport when all he initially ventured to West Virginia for was to learn about the equipment and technology.

When I asked Lee what BASE jumping has contributed to his personal growth, he shared this “It’s led me into worlds I would never experience otherwise”. One of those “worlds” is Baffin Island. For those of you, like myself who know very little about Baffin Island, here is a little data snippet.

Baffin Island, , 69˚00`N 72˚00`W, is the largest island in Canada and the fifth largest island in the world, with an area of 507,000 km². It has a population of 11,000 people, most of them living in Iqaluit, which is the capital of the territory Nunavut. Much of the treeless island, and the waters around it, are protected national parks. A mountain ridge goes across the island and the highest peak is Mount Odin, raising 2147 m above sea level. The vast, unspoiled tundra, the mountainous interior, the big glaciers and the hundreds of bays and fjords of the rugged northern coast make Baffin Island to a unique place in the world.

Baffin Island has a typically arctic climate, with short summers and very cold winters where the temperature can drop down to -50˚C. The average monthly temperatures are below 0˚ C for nine months of the year. The sea ice stays around the island throughout the summer and the harbors can just be used a few months every year.

I suspect there are not many tourists clamoring to spend their vacation time on Baffin Island, however that hasn’t stopped Lee from visiting 4 times in the past 10 years. The area has become more popular among trekkers’ and cross country skiers over the last few years. This only reiterates the fact that Lee is not your average person, nor your average BASE jumper. Seems fitting that a man who claims his favorite meal as “anything that crawls, flies or swims” would set his sights on Baffin Island’s Big Walls. His first expedition came in 1999. I asked Lee what draws him to Baffin Island. “Oh, man. That’s an open ended question, “Where the hell does one start?” What draws BASE jumpers there? It is the big cliffs. I mean really big cliffs. Some of the biggest cliffs in the world if not the biggest, we are talking 6000 foot cliffs. The whole NE coast of the island is cut with Fiords just like in Norway. There are valleys with ten times the vertical cliff face of Yosemite in California with 25 Fiords on that side of the island.” Lee has traveled solo to the island, having to ship 400lbs of food alone and equipment, along with a rifle to protect himself from the Polar Bears. Spending three months time solo in the Arctic is no easy feat and takes plenty of planning and preparation. One could easily add “survivalist” to Lee’s name alongside “adventurer” and “explorer”.

Lee replied to the question of marital status as such, “Are you joking who would have me?” When I pressed him on the matter as there are many other skydivers, BASE jumpers and climbers who are happily married I received this explanation as part of my introduction into the world of the skydiving Drop Zones.

“Being a skydiver is a big liability relationship-wise, being a BASE jumper even more so. You spend all of your time out on little tiny airports in the middle of nowhere. The sport is 85% male and that’s if you are lucky. The 15% of females are married to a jumper or their there because they are dating a jumper. Very rarely does a single female show up at a drop zone wanting to learn how to jump. Females that do come out to the drop zone or become divorced from their attachment, usually find themselves surrounded by a group of men humping their leg. A woman that might be considered a 6 on a scale of 10 suddenly becomes a 10 at a drop zone. Young single men with good jobs and significant disposable income will be fighting over her attention. Now this may be all well and good for the female, but for us men that aren’t exactly “A” list material, it’s a fucking death nail.” I chuckled at Lee’s explanation, but he insists “it’s the truth”. “A young boy wandering onto the drop zone and then like Rip Van Winkle, I wake up single at 36 years old and it’s like “how did I get here?”

Besides the trips to Baffin Island, sailing, traveling, his shop, BASE jumping and skydiving, Lee named these 5 Random facts that people may not know about him.
• Never consumed Alcohol
• I dip my chocolate chip cookies in vanilla pudding
• I enjoy old Science fiction movies
• I am old school and still indulge in text adventure games
• As a child I spent countless hours searching for the door that would take me to the land of Narnia, after having read “The Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe”

He doesn’t have a favorite jumper instead he looks to the founding fathers of BASE for their foresight “to actually figure all the technical aspects of BASE and whom with all that reasoning had the faith to hurl their selves from a cliff.” Lee’s jump philosophy: “I try to enjoy what I’m doing, that being the point of doing it. I try to not to die while doing it as that would reduce the enjoyment.” Right there folks is a “Lee-ism”. He is a fountain of information and being a card carrying BASE jumper he is chock full of opinions and yes, “Lee-isms”. He considers his biggest weakness in life and BASE jumping to be “cowardice” and offers this advice to newbies , “Don’t make the big mistake of seeing what other people do and thinking it’s not dangerous because they make it look easy and don’t die while doing it. Be afraid.” After all, his final thought prior to jumping is “Shiiiittt” after creating “a flow chart of the possible errors and corrections that need to be made in the jump”.

Rigger Lee claims his life isn’t organized to a point of having goals. He prefers to drift along from one interest to the next, like a ship sailing with the current. “I never really know where I will wind up going or doing for that matter. All the past currents in my life have lead me to some interesting places and situations. One of the problems I experience with drifting is at times you can be carried over the falls, but it can be one of hell of ride. Today’s currents continue to take me to places yet explored and I have no reason to believe my life will be any less interesting tomorrow then it was yesterday.”

When Hank Caylor discovered that Rigger Lee agreed to his own interview, he can be found saying, “Rigger Lee is a freakin' great choice. The whole world will finally know the mad genius that is Lee! This will be goooooood.” If there is a “mad genius” that is Lee, it is the way he has managed to live his life one moment, one day at a time all while remaining true to his passions and himself. An enigma? Defiantly. If you were Lee would you give away all your secrets?

Quick questions with Lee:
Q: What do you feel is your contribution to BASE?
A: I have spread the word and educated BASE jumpers about Baffin Island.

Q: What makes you unique to BASE?
A: Few people are as foolish as I am.

Q: What will your epitaph read?
A: “I can’t believe he did that”

Q: Of all your jumps is there one that stands out?
A: First Antenna. La Marto, Titon, hang over hill.

Q: What has been your life’s greatest achievement?
A: I don’t think that I have achieved it yet.

Q: What is your current dream BASE jump?
A: Getting naked with the “Baffin Babes”.

Q: Why do you think Hank chose you to be the next interview?
A: He just wants to hear stories about Baffin Island.

Q: Who do you chose as the next interview subject?
A: Walt Appel

Q: What is your favorite Science fiction movie?
A: The Men in Space Series

Lee’s Statistics:
Age: 36
Marital Status: Single
Location: Whitewright, Texas
Number of Jumps: a few hundred
Year of first Jump: 1993
Container: Rigger Lee Special
Canopy: Maveric or Peg




http://www.baffinbabes.com/...be-gathering-in-oslo

All rights reserved. No republication of this material, in any form or medium, is permitted without express permission of the author.

Holy Crap! What a great read. I really like the Walt Appel as the next interview idea as well. I love you Lee.

Hankster

Photo has lee on the far right at the Little CO Boogie.

I do not know Lee, but now I feel like I should get to know him at some point. Great interview with a very interesting and unique person. Maybe a B trip is worth it just for the time spent talking with a mover/shaker.

Nice one, im enjoying these.

+ 1 on Walt. Though he may have withdrawn from society again. He deleted his Facebook page.

"Mad genius" doesn't begin to describe Lee...

I was going to Dallas on business and put out a call for local BASE help. Lee was pointed out as a possible contact. I sat down in the loft and Lee and I started swapping stories. Needless to say I was duely impressed with his knowledge, humility, boldness, out-of-the-box thinking, etc. We stayed in touch for a couple years afterward as I was involved in big-wall climbing and enjoyed hearing of his exploits in Baffin which, at the time, was more of a climbers destination. He matter-of-factly blew me out of the water with his stories every time! Never a pretense. Always looking for like minded thinkers to bounce ideas off of.

I think what really blew me away was when he had difficulty getting anybody to commit to a trip into the unknown of Baffin he decided to head up on his own. WHOA! That was bold but he keeps on going. I am glad people and the sport can appreciate his drive. I for one see him as a Shackleton, Tristan Jones, Amundson, balls-out explorer.

Best regards to Lee. Good on ya.

jon

Just when I thought I knew you Lee. Great article! I remember when we first met in Quincy, IL. You, me, and Dennis McGlynn were trying to repair that damn balloon envelope for the BASE event. What a nightmare. You come a long way since, and our paths have crossed many times. But not frequently enough. Hope to see you soon, up high, in the middle of nowhere.

Dead ons and tippey toes
Blake

You have to get Walt he is the man of men............

Peace,
Pauly

it would be cool if a friend of Walt let's him know there is interest. maybe he is willing to participate.

460 knows him. They used to be lovers.

Walt thinks you should interview Phil Smith.

I was fortunate enough to meet Lee up at Baffin in May '07. Watching him huck off 3500' walls with a self-made alpine-pack-base-rig that held rope, tent, ice tools, shotgun, food, water, bivvy bag, full rack, and the kitchen sink was amazing. "Exits are a little interesting", he would say. Jumping with enough gear to setup a full camp does have its drawbacks though... his tracking was almost as good as a bowling ball!

Here's an excerpt from my journal:

"Day 16:
Another windy day precluded us from jumping a different cliff across the fjord that we had been eying. So to keep in the spirit of doing crazy things when not jumping, I got the bright idea of digging a hole through the ice to do some fishing. Guesses for the ice thickness ranged from three to six feet, but there was only one way to find out. For the next two hours, we took turns slamming a heavy harpoon into the ice, breaking off chunks and scooping them out of the hole with a snow shovel. Eventually the hole got so deep that the shovel wouldn’t scoop anymore, so the hole was widened to accommodate the ice extraction. Somewhere around four feet deep, Chad punched through the bottom and broke through to sea water, and the hole started to fill up… fast. The water level was rising so fast that Chad and I thought the hole might actually flood and spill out into camp. There were some cynics in the group saying something about ‘Archimedes principle won’t let it spill out…’ but at the rate it was filling up, the rest of us had visions of our gear getting soaked with freezing salt water. Luckily for us, Archimedes saved the day, and the water level stopped just a few short inches from the top of the ice layer. But now we had a problem. The hole letting water in was only a couple of inches wide at the bottom… it needed to be much larger if we were to pull up the massive fish we were hoping to catch. So after some more chipping with the harpoon, I cut the last pieces of ice at the bottom of the hole by using our snow saw, reaching four feet into the water up to my shoulder to cut the ice away. It was cold, but well worth it. The hole was now wide enough all the way down to allow me to jump in for a dip. Being an overcautious group, we fired up the stove in the guide tent and had dry clothes waiting inside, along with a few hot water bottles. I strapped into a climbing harness and tied into a rope, with the idea that if I couldn’t get out of the ice under my own power, I could easily be pulled out by the rope. As it turned out, the rope wasn’t needed. Laying the stout harpoon across the hole to use as a crossbar, I slid into the hole and ducked underwater. I was in and out of the water in less than ten seconds, and raced to the guide tent to dry off.
Lee came over that night with a frozen five-pound chunk of roast, which Chasen turned into a great beef and potato stew. Heckling us for our amateur fishing techniques in our freshly-carved ice hole, he gave us a detailed lecture of all kinds of fish that could be found out here, everything from large halibut down to small bullfish, resolutely stating “I’ll show you how to fish.” Later that night, as we crawled into our tents, Lee was last seen crawling around the edge of the ice at the base of Kiguti, dropping lures into the ice cracks by the shore. We just shook our heads, thinking that he’d never catch anything over there.

Day 17:
Approaching the door to the dome tent the next morning, my eye caught sight of an unusual brown shape sitting on the large snow block just outside. Looking closer, I started to laugh. No more than four inches long, their lay the most pathetic and ugliest looking fish I have ever seen in my life. Lee, true to his word, had shown us how to catch fish. Not that there was any meat on the thing; it was all fins and head, no body. It was a species of fish closely resembling a bullfish, and if this specimen was anything to go by, you would probably starve to death before you could catch enough of these to make a meal."

Thanks Lee for a great adventure and the great memories.

ohhh dude, I just about cried from seeing Jerry in that photo . . . harsh reality . . . .

Great inteview to botoh Lee and Cynthia!!

More support for the Walt Appell interview

Great read:) Is there a place where I could find longer storries from those base trips to baffin islands? Seems like crazy adventure:)

 
Awesome writeup, Cynthia!

Very inspiring Rigger Lee.

It's been a dream of mine for a long time to climb and jump in Baffin. The Midgard Serpant on Mt Thor looks amazing.

Hope to see you around.

Cheers, Ammon

 
Skip Thor and head for the NE coast. I recamend Sam Ford.

Lee

  good story.... poorly written. don't give up your day job.

 
Chill. I've PM'ed back and forth with her too when she was writing that interview. I don't know what her story is eather. I'm not sure how she stumbled into our little corner of the world but she's here. She seems like a nice person. She's very much a wofo but seems interested. I don't know that she'll ever win a pulletzer but she's trying to work on her writeing and I think that's the only way she'll ever do it. I've never read the earley works of Shakespear, I mean before he ever became famious in the play house. I'll bet there were a lot of paper crumpled up in the waist paper basket or what ever the equivilent was back then. I wish I could see all that was lost so I could make fun of him. He didn't shit Hamlet out of his ass while he was sitting in grade school. He learned to do it and he practiced. I wouldn't shit on a student trying to learn to do center point turns And I'm not going diss her efferts to improve her writeing. I'm in no position to critisise. We can easily tolerate a wofo in our midst. I've thought for a long time that we needed a good writer to tell some of our stories. I'm obveously not it. If none of us have the skills or inclination then the answer might be to find a wofo to do it and the way to do that might be to rase our own writer. So as long as she wants to try I'll give here what help and critacisem I can just as I would with a student. I see no reason to make her less then welcome.

Lee

 

I know that's where it's at, both climbing and jumping. My goals are influenced by many obscure experiences, and characters... but, jumping off is just a perk from my main objective's. Lots to do out there... all talk until I actually do it, haa haa.


Cheers matey!

The inteview: [thumbs up]

The Replies: [shutthefuckupfuckinwhiners]

I've cleaned up the most of the stuff not related to Lee and his adventures.

let's keep the focus on Lee. I can't imagine going solo to Baffin, let alone create a special rig. amazing stuff.

 
Most of those actions relate to a basic lack of inteligence. If I was smarter I probable wouldn't do any of this. It also relates to a certin level of fatalism. Most people in this sport have that to one degree or another. They accept that one day they may die doing this. Many people would like to base jump but we are the ones that accept that price others just lie to them selves but thats another subject. It also helps to not have much of a life. With out ties or comitments that price is a lot more bearable. If you don't have any thing to live for you don't have any thing to lose.

Haveing said all that Baffin really isn't that bad. I wound up going alone for the simple fact that I couldn't find any one willing to step into the unknown like that. And the first trip was in every way a shot in the dark. After that first year I really thought I'd be able to find people interested in going but it's still a big commitment in time and money. I was a lot more intimadated by it in the begening then I really should have been. I could have done more if I'd been more agressive. And I was affraid of the wrong things. I worry about diffrent things now. I worry more about stepping in a hole then any thing else. I still sweet bears. They've been a nonevent for me so far but they are there. A hunter was killed in his tent a few years ago. Weather is not as bad as I first thought. The jumps don't have to be scarry. It is in fact a very beauttiful place. It's not harsh and dessolet. It has a very rich ecosystem. The people that live there are good people. They have a rich culture but they cought in transition. The last of the old ones that grew up in the camps are slowly dieing off and culture, what it means to be Inuet is dieing with them. They are the last of their people. Every thing is changing. I feel very privlidged to have been there and have seen and known some of these people. I encurage every one I can to go there while at the same time trying to caution them on what's involved.

As to the infemis pack, Yes it's scary. Absolutely fucking terorfing. Now on the other hand it's better then some of the things I did before that. You don't even want to hear about that. I've seen other people go much lighter but haveing been there. I perfer to have more with me. I think you should be ready to bivi. You need a stove, fuel, food, etc. I've been stuck up on top before. Once I was up there for five days before jumping. So it's a trade off. And when your alone and face the posability of being hurt the scales weigh diffrently. I make no exscuses for it beyand five late nights with no sleep and lissening to too much Baytovin at 2:00 in the morning. Honest it wasn't ment to be so big at first.

Lee

   i always prefer stories being told from the point of origin. thanks