Basejumper.com - archive

Hey all !

Just a quickie, who inspired you to get into or show a intrest in BASE, everyone must have a story what sparked their intrest ?

Mine for example was a small bit on TV featuring Jeb, though i had seen BASE before over the years i never had the desire to do it before like i have now and im 28 ! After seeing the small piece on Jeb i looked online and found a 10 min vid on Slim Simpson and was hooked , that guy just seemed to have constant joyfull gazes on his face and not sure i have ever seen a guy that looked like he was having so much fun !! That was 6 months ago this is just the start of my journey into BASE and i have a long long way to go yet before i can imagine doing my first jump and wont run before i can walk and will allow myself 3 years "schooling" or however long i feel i need....should imagine ill know in my own heart when im current enough to do my first jump.

Regards dudes

Clay

P.S It was Jeb who sparked a intrest and Slim who sold it to me !!

i have to say leonardo de vinci... i consider him the true god father of human flight and he developed my interest in the idea when i was about 4 and took my first jump and subsequently my first real trip to the hospital and deff not my last!

LoL Ok Nice, hope not too many more trips to hospital for thee

Yeah he had a lot of fun. And yeah he's dead.

LoL My Gi Joes use to jump of the greenhouse with plastics bags attatched, but not sure in constituted base back in then when i was 5

the whole old school base community from the 90's. I saw it as a kid and decided that I wanted to do that someday (but never thought Id have the guts to).

Nice one KiKI glad you found the guts to do it !!

my small penis.

Small man syndrome eh !

no one inspired me.
truth.

I was driven to experience things, not mimic others.

It was not a person in my case... much more a series of
experiences & circumstances that led me to the dark side.

In doing my research I contacted three old school dudes:
Avery Badenhop, Nick DiGiovanni, and Tom Aiello.
All three basically told me these three truths:

1. It is suicide without the commitment.

2. If you do not need it then do not do it.

3. It will change your life, maybe not for the better.

Watching BASE videos online is easy... climbing,
packing, jumping, and watching others get hurt
or die is not easy. Few people ever post their
carnage footage or talk about their fuck ups.

I'm with Kiki, all the guys from the mid 90's because of a trip to WV. Then a few Colorado locals(Hank and Peter) kept the hype up as I started skydiving

I fell into skydiving. It was something I was only going to do once like bungee jump. Never thought I would be able to afford doing it as a sport. I have never been the sharpest tool in the shed and always thought these sports I considered to be elite sports would never be at my reach. As it happened things just fell into place at that time in my life.

For BASE also. Something I never thought I could do. I saw a discovery thing on Frank Gambalie I really liked. Then after having started skydiving I read a very cool article on Moe Viletto in some skydiving magazine that was lying around on the dz.

Locally, it was Nic Good's films that had a lot to do with sparking my interest. Legends such as Andy De Klerk, John Van Schalkvyk (dunno if I spelt John's surname right) whom I eventually met and the person who would become my mentor, Karl Hayden, all contributed in some way.

I never thought I would ever be able to experience the things I am doing today, things just fell in to place and I was very lucky.

That super cool dude Travis Pastrana and the super rad Red Bull girls. And of course youtube.

Red Bull of course........and Mr Pricks small penis

HAHAHAHA

First heard the word BASE from Trevor Yates' mouth in 1987..

" Base?? What's that??" I asked "Are you fukn' kiddn' me!!??"

Then I was shown Carl Boenische's BASE Tape #1

My life was never the same after that.

g.

Some great feedback there great to know not all people on this forum and negative (mr prick &others) aswell as sarcastic !

Cheers for the feedback guys

Clay

I don't think Mr. Prick was trying to be negative, he really has a very small dick. And sometimes when he is in a good mood he shows this dick before and after the jump and belive me or not, it's much much bigger after the jump.

That's true.
I can confirm that ;-)

magot. RIP

... 27 yeas ago (was then 8) I looked at my fathers house and the roof ridge on the gable of the house and thought that it would be fun to try to jump from it.

I took a parasol from the terrace, climbed it, jumped it … it was the fist time I did get a fractured bone in my body, I guess I'm kind of a slow learner because as soon as the pain stopped I got that feeling … that millisecond of zero G after exit probably is my cup of tee anyway, just bad luck the first time.

PerFlare

when i was a kid, and we would rake leaves in the fall, my father would pile them up next to the house so i could go up on the roof and jump off into leaves.

My father would sometimes gather leaves , but then we would just burn them , maybe thats why i liked fire as a kid

my father was a 101st airborne man and that developed my interest in parachuting. after making a few skydives, i was bored with the activity. i then saw a video on TV of a man riding a mountain bike off angel falls. that was the key ingredient for my discovery of base jumping. i then went to a boogie when i had about 25 skydives and met a base jumper, Steve Morrell, BASE 174, who took me on my first jump a few months later in Utah, a 600 foot cliff.

My father was in the 82nd when I was a kid, so I always freaked out about anything to do with parachutes.

Dr. Thrill is the driving force behind my BASE jumping though. The Spiders From Mars also pushed and shoved as well.

i then saw a video on TV of a man riding a mountain bike off angel falls. that was the key ingredient for my discovery of base jumping.


Nice one, any idea who the guy on the bike was ??

i have no idea who he was, but he accidentally did a front flip while wearing a helmet cam and i fell in love with the idea of base jumping and object rush. i had an incredibly rude jump master who really had a lot to do with turning me off on skydiving. base just seemed perfect for me.

Bummer because it can be a beautiful thing.

Based on my own experiences...

Most DZOs are burnt out jumpers who should
go do something else because their negativity
can really dampen what is otherwise usually a
very pleasant activity.

Chances are, though, you saw something or met someone involved in modern BASE in order to bridge the gap, or else you'd be jumping homemade gear all alone and figuring it all out from scratch. Even if you were heading in the direction of jumping off of stuff anyway, you had to have been somehow exposed to BASE in order to pursue it.

For me, I think that moment occurred one night when I came home from one of my first static-line jumps (skydives). I flicked on the tube and saw a TV show called Extreme Tribes, which followed Miles and several others around some remote snow-covered location (I don't think it was their Baffin trip, though), and showed some ski-base and interviews. It was different from most BASE-related stuff on TV in that it wasn't in the XTREME, fast-paced heavy-metal-soundtracked adrenaline-pumping action style; but rather more mellow, relaxed, and focused on portraying the subject at hand in a unique and more honest light.

While my first impression was that "that Miles guy" seemed like a goofball (and it turns out he is, but we love him anyway ), I was really drawn to the idea of going out to the middle of nowhere with a group of good friends and just exploring, jumping, and having a good time. That type of jumping atmosphere is still my favorite to this day

Great response Ghetto you put in words what i was thinking about the whole spark of intrest thing !

That was Jake Lombard, who also was the stunt double in a number of James Bond fliks.

it seems like a reasonable speculation, but I don't see it that way.

aviation always has tugged at me. when I hear of a new activity, I investigate to see if it's right for me. for years any exposure to BASE inspired me to stay away.

years later, I first glimpsed a certain giant rock and felt like I needed to jump it. (I had no clue if it could be jumped). A month or so later, I took a skydiving FJC. a few years later, I drove alone to BD and jumped my Javelin, making it up as I went along.

eventually, I did a solo off that giant rock.

I've never had a BASE (or skydiving) hero that inspired me, but I've happily listened and kept my ears open.

hmmmm. interresting question.

I was influenced by combination of things

When I was just starting to skydive, a friend of my showed me the BD boxman clip. I thought it was nuts. I did search around and found a picture gallery on website of some DZ where they showed their BD jumps. I figured it'd be a nice thing to try.

I made plans to attend BD2002 and see what it's all about, but ended up getting too drunk the night before and never made it :( It's entirely possible that subconsciously I was a bit scared and not ready. even though I was not even planning on jumping.

I would say in general it was the people who started before me who inspired me - reading about their exploits, seeing the occasional video/picture and every once in a while bumping into someone at the DZ who had made a BASE jump made me feel like it's something I could do as well.

Chuck Norris

chuck norris doesn't base jump. he stands on an object and the ground comes up to meet him.

sky fucking punk

Mine is smaller than yours!

interesting question. can't say it was a person but more a feeling i got when i went into a burning building many years ago, it was exhilarating and i felt alive. for years i looked for that feeling again. found it on my first skydive but eventually lost it. maybe it's a natural progression, maybe it's genetic. not sure why i still want it, i don't jump often, it scares the shit out of me everytime, but after i jump, i am at peace.

haha, maybe cause somebody said i'd never do it.

I got into this, probably like a lot of other people, due to a combination of factors.
First, and maybe foremost is the fact that i decided that i was afraid of it. When i was 18, i was afraid of heights, AND flying, so i joined the Army to be an Airborne Ranger. My first flight was to basic training, and i was terrified. My second flight was only 1250 ft high, and i had to jump. I decided then and there to seek out the things that scare me, and if even close to sensible, i would defeat them.
Fast forward a few years, and I got into skydiving. I would hear talk of BASE jumping, and it was usually someone dying because of it. The general consensus was that it was crazy, so i convinced myself that i should fear the activity.
A couple years farther down the road, and i realized that i had another fear to conquer.

Also, I have some close friends that i used to skydive with that talked me into going to bridgeday. When i left that bridge and took a full second to take a deep breath and enjoy it, i knew i was hooked.

The final reason i like BASE is because not many people are willing to do it. It's an underground thing i guess.

As far as who inspired me, i guess i'm with our esteemed moderator. I inspired myself!

that's great.

i too used to be afraid of heights. much less now.

when i made my first jump, it was with JD Walker, BASE 37, who was the most experienced cliff jumped in the world at the time. He was still scared of heights and wouldn't get near the edge of any of the cliffs like the rest of the jumpers.

 you base jump????

I fell into skydiving by shear luck and ended up getting all my student jumps and most of my subsequent jumps paid for by the US government. I knew I would get into BASE before I made my first static line even though I was still scared shitless on my first skydives. Just a personality trait that I knew I always had I guess.

I spent the next two years in skydiving taking full advantage of the opportunity I had, learning all I could about BASE online and from talking to a few people, perfecting my canopy skills, and picking up a rigger license and instructor rating. After that it was just time to take a FJC and the rest has been a ridiculous and amazing ride.

The videos helped a lot too. Although I can't point to a single one that really sparked my interest.

Snap !! I too am scared of hights at the moment .... strange what draws us to be fascinated with what we fear !
Some of the storys here are really intresting thanks guys

when i made my first jump, it was with JD Walker, BASE 37, who was the most experienced cliff jumped in the world at the time.

what a guy to have by youre side on youre first jump...

i jumped an 1800' A with our esteemed moderator, he does in fact base jump.

I probably first saw Carl Boenish's El Cap film in 1980 or 81, but it still seemed like something 'others' did. Then while in Z=hills for the Xmas boogie in 83 I heard Shoobi and Pink Floyd talking about getting back from Bridge Day, and heard stories of Scotty Carbone and crew doing a tower in Tampa.

After a few months of reading about fatalities in Robin's articles in Skydiving Magazine (Black Canyon, Royal Gorge, etc), that was it. I heard some local guys were doing some jumps (Jo Stanley and crew) so I called up. He convinced me to wait until Bridge Day (1984) for my first, and that was it.

Funny thing, when I eventually jumped my first building and got my number, I called my girlfriend up and she said "good, you don't have to do it any more!" Couldn't figure that out.

my mom!

Yeah youre mom alright

When I was doing AFF I met Baseknut who was talking about BASE and he was really working towards it at the time.

I had no interest in swooping, BASE or wingsuiting at the time and ended up getting into all three but I would credit Jake with planting the seed in my mind.

After seeing his passion for it I have been thinking about BASE non stop. I've made a couple of jumps but don't have any interest in pursuing it further at the moment. I'm having fun with life staying alive and doing what I'm doing and the objects will always be there if I change my mind.

But I do have Jake to thank for opening my mind to it.