Basejumper.com - archive

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/01/hayley-laflamme-dead-yosemite-half-dome_n_915571.html?ir=Green&icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl1%7Csec3_lnk2%7C82835

1. Yes, there does seem to be a double standard,
which begs the question why can't WE use the
14th amendment regarding equal protection,
the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and the 1990 ADA to
assert our RIGHT to use Our Own Parks

2. Huff - Green - Post

3. Beware, looks like the ninja has a new handle

http://youtu.be/m6qJNsIuVCM

I something to say about this:

"I LIKE TURTLES!"

This thread went to complete shit, so very very quickly... And got derailed from the topic. I have hidden a load of posts, people are welcome to talk shit about users, but it's best done via PM and not by hijacking other threads.

Buzzkill.

I was sent here to destroy all possibilities of fun you may have. And I love it.

Nah, but for the record - these forums are pretty slack in moderation compared to sites like dz.com and there's no desire to be strict with the moderation. But when there is a whole thread of people attacking each other and someone complains, taking action is kind of needed.

Calling someone out in the forums should only be done in cases where they are a risk to others safety.

Now stop being a bunch of whiny bitches

Hi Lee, interesting link. Have you ever seen a book called "Death in Yosemite" one of the coauthors is Butch Farabee a former chief ranger. It has a chapter devoted to BASE fatalities of which there are only 5 documented. Interestingly they classify Frank Gambalie's death as an accidental drowning whereas the general consensus among jumpers and climbers is that it was due to excessive actions on behalf of the Rangers. The same could be said of Jan Davis's death, where the park service has excused themselves of all responsibility, by actually changing their longstanding policy of confiscating jumpers gear prejump, and now saying they can't do anything until after someone has exited...covering their ass after the fact. If you are to look at all the incidents and fatalities in the parks you would see that BASE represents such an infitisimally small proportion that it is baffling why they put so much emphasis on pursuing it at all.A major expense in the parks is rescuing Rangers and NPS employees from there own dumb actions but they won't tell you that. I am sorry I got carried away on this thread when I saw a friend of mine being profanely, verbally abused, I sank to that same level myself for entertainment and out of boredom, Respect, sincerely,B.

RE: Jan Davis's death

With all due respect to the fallen & her
friends, family, jump buddies, and fans
seems cause of death was jumper error
not sure we can blame the NPS for that.

 
5... Hmm Trying to remember. I guess that's counting the drowning. I don't count that eather and honestly I don't blame them. I could argue that they were just doing their job. He was a big boy and knew what he was risking when he dove in. But I do think it says some thging that he would rather risk the river then to be taken alive by them. Think about that and what that says about them. Ask around and talk to some of the people that have been captered by them.

as to the Davis feasco... I don't blame them for that eather. she was jumping old gear because she knew they were going to grab it. But I don't think it's to much to ask for her to be able to find her pilot chute. Sorry that's all on her. I list it as one of the biggest tragedies of our sport and set us back ten years.

You know I keep thinking that this feude will just die off But it's like it's prepetuated from one generation of rangers to another. I honestly don't know how they rationalize it in the face of all the other problems in the parks.

Lee

I tried some google searches for things along these lines, but couldn't come up with anything, on one side or the other. Do you have any references?

Thanks

Hi Colm, I have never sat down and tried to put the numbers on paper, although I think it would be a worthwhile project and the information should be accessable with a little research, so I base my statement on some circumstantial information, for example in 2005 when park ranger Jeff Christensen went missing in Rocky mt national park, after a solo backcountry trip, they found his body after what was reported at the time to be the most expensive search and rescue ever undertaken in the park. The NPS posts a daily morning report of all incidents in the NPs. http://home.nps.gov/applications/morning report/ I haven't been into checking it for a while but I think if you were to peruse the archives you would be amazed at the number of incidents involving Rangers and Park service employees,(and concessionaires) and how few you can find involving BASE? All search and rescues have a price tag whether it's for Joe tourist or Smokey. The incidents are not just S&R, they include suicides, crimes such as drug smuggling, and heart attacks. Also check out the book, Death, Daring,and Disaster", by Chuck Farabee the retired park ranger.Hope that helps. B.

Ay...I agree with lee and the green machine on this one. Please don't turn this into some 'amnesty international' debacle where somehow we manipulate the park service being at fault for those jumpers deaths. You can jump, and you can die. You can run and you can get arrested. You can jump in the river, or take your chances with the popo. Unless the park service is sitting at the exit point pushing people off with no gear, don't bring them into the fatality blame game.

I agree with you that we should all take responsibility for our own actions, but I originally posted on this thread because it was entitled "do I smell a double standard?" to which my response is HELL YES!!! I'm not so much blaming the park service for the deaths of jumpers(we should all be aware of the risks we take by participating in this sport),although their anti-BASE policy and the way they enforce it has certainly contributed to fatalities of BASE jumpers but we ARE the ones choosing to make the jump in the first place. I'm not sure what you mean by, "some amnesty international debacle", but if you are a BASE jumper and agree with the double standard of the NPS allowing people the freedom in all sorts of manner to kill themselves in the parks while prohibiting BASEjumping then I would say you are in the minority, sincerely, B.

Sounds like an interesting book, thanks for the lead. My roommate is very involved in SAR and I think he'd like it too.

I agree it would make an interesting study regardless of what it showed. The SAR money and resources come from so many different pots... it just drives me nuts when clueless people hear about a rescue and say "charge dem all for der st00pdity!!!1"

(reminds me of a pirate joke...)

 
I'm curious about how all the money works. There seems to be a lot of creative acounting involved in this. I get the feeling that a lot of it is "funny" money being shifted around internally inside the buricratic structure. I've heard diffrent stories over the years some from better sources then others and a lot of it probibly changes from one agency to another. Examples:

A frend, ex mil capt in the army, tryed to explane there budgets to me. Alocations for this, alotments for that, etc. They had a "budget" to spend but a lot of it was spent internally paying money from one group to another. He had budgets for training for things like ammo. But part of the deal was you HAD to spend it. It you didn't use it all for training then next cycle you might not get it. Example, he got a call from one of his friends saying that his unit was coming up on the end of their training cycle and that they had not used up all of there amunition. There was some 5.56 left but apairenty there was this huge pile of 9mm. He was affraid that if he turned it back in his budget would go up on the chopping block for review. Tom was one of those guys that liked to shoot but even he didn't think he could put tha mmany rounds through a pistol. No problem the guy says, they've got a bunch of sub machine guns. Toms like, I'll be right over! So he rounds up some of his men. He had half of them loading and the other half shooting. He spent a long day at the range burning through this huge reserve of nine mm swapping out guns as the ballels over heated. This is just one example of "forced spending" in the goverment to justify their budgets.

Another example he gave. Flight time. Helicopters as an example. Again there are alocations for fuel and flight hours. Well what are you going to do with them? Often they have to get creative finding uses for that fuel/hours. This is where a lot of the sport skydiveing programs in the mil came from. The clubs would put in request with the diffrent units that needed to spend their training alotments. That was how they got aircraft. Again use it or lose it. I've also heard that that is how the border patrole gets a lot of their air cover. The miltary needing to "train". I hear they lone them to the police/dea to look for pot growers. More training. I've also heard that that is how most of the search and rescue is flown. Eather for free or at substantaly reduiced cost by mil units that need to train. Some times it's only the millitary aircraft that can do the job. Most civilion air craft could never do high altitude landings on mountians.

I've also heard the stories from a park employ about some of the "special" permits that they were able to get. access to closed areas. One story was about how she had twisted an ankle in the rocks and had to call for help. They flew a chopper out to pick her up. The people onboard had not been told that she was an employ. From the moment she was aboard they were berateing her for her stupidity, that this was closed area, the fines she would face, and the HUGE cost of the rescue, over ten thousand dollars, that she would be fined. She was apalled. Once they found out she was one of them it all changed. They were helpfull, sempathetic, careing, and that bill for ten thousand dollars... well that was torn up. The one she got was for... I think it was $300. About on par for an hours worth of flight time.

So how was that billed? What are the real cost? Is it a real cost when budgets are just passed around in the same organisation? It seems like medicen. Hospitals, insurace companies, you, whether you have insurance or not. How much do they really charge each other? How much do they charge you? How much of it is monopoly money and how much of it is real? Mine is real. That about all I can be sure of.

Where does the money come from in all of this? Who makes the decisions? As an example I know of one case where it was the coriners office that made the call of whether or not to fly a helcopter to recover a body from a mountian side? In short I've gotten a little cynical over the years and a little skeptical about the out landish numbers some times thrown around when people talk about these things.

One last note. I've told these stories as well as I understood and can remember them. That may be imperfect. If you have a better understanding of thee things please corect me.

Lee

I have managed several multi-million dollar
DOD contracts and my experience matches
your stories of the spend it or lose it

Well I do know about one source of funding for SAR in one National Park(the Black Canyon of the Gunnison)....BASEjumpers!!! The climbing rangers there might tell you that they sympathise with BASEjumpers but they have a real incentive to bust people since the fines($2,000 to $4000 per individual, arbitrarily imposed) go straight back to them in entirety to fund their toys. Keep in mind that there is a huge need to prevent BASEjumping there, it has an atrocious history of carnage...BFL #2 occured there in 1981(actually that was before it became a national park) and in the 30yrs since , the park service has had to spend GOD Knows How Much ???on the ZERO rescue efforts for BASEjumping(D thanks for hauling NK out, MD at least you didn't drown even if you did hike out naked through the poison ivy), now climbers, hikers and fishermen, that's a completely different story! Right on America, Land of the free, OUR National Parks?....what a joke!

You are right Lee it is about as confusing as that. In fact, understanding government/military finance is a career field unto itself with many sub-specialties.

As far as the budget for flight training hours goes... there are few pilots in the air force (especially active duty... guard/reserves is not so bad) who actually get what we'd consider "enough" flight time every month to maintain our proficiency as strong as we'd like it. The saying goes, "the day you graduate from flight training is the most proficient you will ever be in your career." Partially true, at least for many people. When you are deployed to war, it's a bit different, there is lotsa flying to go around, but it might be focused on narrow mission profiles... resulting in other parts of your training geting rusty.

There are many pilots who only log a few hours per month due to other desk responsibilities, big-picture budget situations, and aircraft availability/reliability issues. I'm sure it varies a lot from unit to unit, and airframe to airframe. Speaking only for my own past situations, when we've burned hours for SAR purposes, it's always time gainfully spent. Others' mileage may vary, so to speak. I can't speak for everyone!

Talking about "funny money" i.e. money spent between government agencies, yes it is the rule. And it sounds really dumb. Why does the government pay itself to buy its own services. But if you think about it, it kind of makes sense. Mimicking capitalism. After all what is money, but a system for allocating finitely limited resources. It allows local supervisors to have some discretion in how they spend their budgets, yet have some set limitations... and avoid a central authority micromanaging a gazillion budgets. the soviets tried being the ultimate micromanagers... called it a "command economy," and look what happened. The problem with our system is the "spend or be punished next year" mentality. we need a "be thrifty and be rewarded" system, instead.

And the downside for hiring smart people for government jobs, is that they will be good at finding away to ensure job security! even if the original purpose of their job becomes obsolete... they will make themselves seem totally necessary as long as their own job is on the line.

You are right on the money bro