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Anyone know who is organising a Baffin Island trip in 2014 or 2015?

Just look on FB.

havent seen anything after baffin 2012 on there.can you post a link?

Well, 2014 certainly isn't happening. I've heard it's a massive effort to organize that. However I've also heard (maybe 3rd or 4th hand..) that the people out there are still willing to organize something with jumpers. If anyone puts it together, sign me up!

i hear that...i also have it first hand from a guide in the baffin area he is willing to get jumpers to exit points...of course that is only on spoke in a wheel with a whole load of spokes

Yah huge effort... you need about 30 days notice to get decent airline tickets. Back when you could mail things there cheep you had to allow eight weeks for parcel post to make it there. So the real commit date was about two months out. You should give Levi some notice to make sure he can have somebody with a working snow mobile available to give you a ride out. And you'll need an HF radio of Sat phone just in case you need to change plans. Basically it takes a couple of months to throw a trip together. That's assuming YOU are ready to go.

Guide you to the exit point? They will take you to the bottom of the cliff and drop you off. From their you're mostly on your own. If you've got the cash you can pay them to camp out there with you. It's awesome to have access to a snowmobile. But now you're racking up the bucks. It takes multiple people to split that kind of cost.

So basically if you want to go next year in 2015 then go. All you really have to do is buy the tickets. If you need some one to hold your hand... that's a whole different matter. Baffin is not a place for fools or small children. A large well organized group will not make up for any short comings. All that will give you is a false since of security and enough courage to get your self in trouble.

Lee

Well, I was expecting someone to correct me and you are certainly the most qualified to do it! Will be sending a PM for more info shortly!

Stew

I'll consider organizing a 2015 expedition if there's enough interest.

It's a HUGE pain in the ass but I've done it twice and wouldn't mind going back. The 2014 team would have to be leaving in a few days so that's probably not happening unless someone is going up on a smaller scale.

Putting that trip together is not rocket surgery but the only way to make it somewhat affordable is to take the right size team and have a few connections to keep cost down.

Expect that it would cost around $6,000 per person and require about 10 people who can be gone for about four weeks.

Whoever organizes this trip ends up losing money on the deal (if you don't believe me ask my friend who led the last two trips) but there are other personal rewards to leading an expedition.

Strongly thinking about deleting this before I post it....

ah, what the hell...

Well for sure I would be interested and have the time and cash to go ....2015 would suit me just fine if its gonna happen...so is that four interested? Looks like its on you dexter...still trying to find the difference between post and delete?

I would definitely go. I could probably find a few more guys.

FB group https://www.facebook.com/groups/270697503054782/

I've been getting messages about this already and I feel like there's a few things that need to be put out there before going further. I typed this reply to someone who asked me some questions in a PM and I figured I'd just post it here so I don't have to write it out a bunch of times.

Be honest with yourselves.

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Baffin is the real deal. The remote location makes rescue and recovery/evacuation literally impossible from many of the areas the team will be jumping.

Before we even go further talking about money and dates and all that stuff, a discussion needs to happen about the serious nature of this area and the requirements to just stay alive even without involving parachutes in the equation.

I'm not even 100% sure I want to take this on again.

Something that would be a simple ambulance ride and minor surgery anywhere else can kill you very quickly in a place like Baffin.

It is extremely cold, the weather can change very quickly, and there is not a single exit point to my knowledge that does not require an alpine climbing approach. Unless you are a penguin or a polar bear, at some point on the trip you will be the coldest you have ever been in your life. That point will probably occure before we even get to BASE camp.

The ideal candidate will have a lifetime of outdoor and camping experience, some climbing experience, solid snow camping experience, and above average physical fitness to even go to BASE camp.

The jumping is another thing altogether.

You will NEED to have the skill-set required to open a new terminal cliff. Because conditions change so quickly up there you need to be able to self-assess every aspect of the jump from whether or not it is even safe to attempt the approach, judge time to impact, how the weather and wind will affect the jump (whether you are tracking or flying a wingsuit), and be able to plan for contingencies in the event the jump isn't doable or doesn't go as planned.

The same piece of stone will be a completely different jump from one day to the next.

The expedition is exactly that, an expedition in every sense of the word. There are no trails to the exit points, the exit points are not marked, there will be nobody to make these decisions for you.

If you wouldn't feel comfortable opening a new terminal cliff completely on your own, realistically Baffin is probably not the trip for you just yet. There are some more forgiving exit points that are well documented and only moderately technical in approach and execution but those are certainly the exception rather than the rule.

The expedition will get you to camp, make sure you have access to warm food, water, and shelter, and support jumping logistically by having snowmobiles drop jumpers off at approaches and pick up at landing areas.

The actual jumping is up to the individual team members.

We have accumulated a LOT of information about the different cliffs and exit points, so naturally you will run out of time long before you run out of things to jump off of.

Reality check: I know of only one other jumper who has run a trip like this to Baffin. Someone died on one of my trips and someone died on one of his.

Think about that. 50% of our (combined) expeditions have produced a fatality. Both were solid jumpers. One of them is still up there.

Still want to go?

Oh, and there's also a chance a polar bear will kill you and eat you while you're sleeping or approaching one of the exit points. And no, I am not even kidding about that.

yes i still want to go

Fun Baffin stories just to illustrate the nature of the trip.

Longest approach. It once took me four days away from camp to find my way to the top of the cliff and the exit point. But 36 hours of that was pinned down in a storm. Bring a bivy.

Fauna. Waking up to find polar bear tracks circling your tent. They run around a thousand pounds but the scary part is that you never knew it was there. Bring a gun.

Hikes. Totally depends on snow conditions. Seen more avalanches then I can count. Late season, June, is treacherous beyond belief. Depending on the year it can get dicey by mid May. In truth some of the approaches are fairly easy and short. The beak is one of the easiest and shortest hikes on the island. Totally non technical. And it's the one that that English guy almost died on. He slipped. By nothing short of a miracle he got caught on a ledge. Could have fallen the rest of the 2000 feet to the glacier. If you'd seen the profile you'd understand how lucky he was. I'm not joking about it being a 2000 foot fall. So he was fine. Not hurt. But the ledge was too small for him to move. His friends were able to go and get enough rope to retrieve him but by then his feet were frost bitten. I think he got to keep all of his tows. Lucky. And that's the easiest one.

Travel. You're joking, it's the arctic. Pay your money and take your chances. I've been stuck in airports for four days. I've seen towns closed down to travel for two weeks at a time. Bags arrive three weeks late from a flight. I've been pinned down in a blizzard on the ice for ten days. And then the ice may be un travelable. You can have twelve inches of water on top of the ice. Not to mention break up. One climbing team was stuck there for a month past planned pick up. No hope of contact or rescue.

Food. No one ever brings enough. The most weight I've lost on one of these trips was twenty pounds. I don't have twenty pounds to lose. A bear got one of my cashes, I got hungry.

Weather. By alpine standards, mild. Not to be confused with forgiving. I don't know if the vid of the jump off the cliff by hang over hill still exist. I would guess the wind was around 60 mph when I landed. You can have a week of perfect weather followed by a week grounded. Storms blowing down off the land can shed a tent.

Time. All in all, I like to allow two months for a trip. Less then six weeks is a gamble. If every thing goes against you, you might wind up with nothing.

Isolation. In some ways, when every thing goes smoothly, rare, it doesn't seem that bad. On the other hand when the weather turns or equipment breaks down you start to realize just how far extended you are. For example there isn't even a doctor in Clyde. You could be ten days away from a hospital in moderately poor conditions. You can bled a lot in ten days. That's a very realistic number. If it really storms... well nothing happens till it's over however long that is. Consider your self to be on your own, and I am not joking about that.

Oh, and we haven't even gotten to the jumping. It depends on what area you go to. Some places like Sam Ford have had quite a few jumps. Maybe half the jumpable cliffs have had at least one jump made from them. ITW it's not. Some places are totally virgin. I've probable traveled as much as any base jumper up there and there are still valleys that I have not even seen. If you are not ready to stand there on the ice and look up at a mountain that no human being has ever climbed before. Find you way up it. Evaluate the cliff. Find an exit point. Evaluate the weather. And Jump it. All alone. Then don't even think about going up there. And that is the easiest part of the whole trip.

I'm trying to think of other general comments. I could probable write a book about it. Every one that's been up there is happy to share what they have learned. We've all written extensively about it. I think it's one of the greatest most beautiful places on earth. But there is a certain harshness to it.

Lee

goddamn it RiggerLee you are giving me a hard-on. i didn't get any mcmurdo condition 1 last season, and i know i can run faster than the slowest jumper, so i'm not worried about polar bears. Sign me up for the 2017 expedition.

This is the coolest thread I've seen on here in a while. Fo reals.

If you could write a book, clearly you haven't written extensively enough. Please write the book.

Not exactly an auther. Maybe you've noticed my speling?

Lee

I'm pretty sure you could write the whole thing in the style of a semiliterate teenager and it would still be worth reading.

But just in case, editors are wonderful things.

The trippy think about Lee is he's actually one of the most intelligent people you'll run into... dude just never learned to spell.


If Lee gives you a piece of advice about Baffin, take that thing to the bank because he's certainly speaking from experience.


They say wisdom comes from experience but experience comes from a bad judgement.... well Lee is very wise. Nobody has done as much BASE exploration up there as he has.

 
They say wisdom comes from experience but experience comes from a bad judgement.... well Lee is very wise. Nobody has done as much BASE exploration up there as he has.


Let's do the math on that. By your logic, if I'm so wise that means I've gotten a lot of experience. But experience comes from bad judgment. So I must really be a stupid son of a... Hmmm.

Actually I was just thinking about the fatalities up there. Both of them really kind of surprised me. It didn't surprise me that they happened. If large groups of people started coming up there I fully expected some one to get into trouble. What really surprised me was the nature of the fatalities. They were both straight up base jumping fatalities. Could have happened any where. I always assumed that it would be related to the environment. Rock fall, or a broken leg on an approach, avalanche, storm, a bear... All of those things were always more frightening to me then the jumps. There are so many tall cliffs with seriously nice exit point. I'm talking big over hangs. I never would have imagined that some one would get into trouble on a jump. May be it's the hikes or the size of the trip that messes with some ones mind and interferes with their judgment. But even that doesn't really seem to apply. In one case there was a totally forgiving exit point 200 yds away. The other wasn't that long of a hike. I just never understood how ether came about. I wish I knew what they were thinking at the time. With so many outstanding exit points around them what inspired them to jump such sketchy exits. Did they feel doubt of some kind of premonition as they stood there. Was it the huge investment of the trip that inspired them to push the limits of their abilities. How does one equate to the other. When I'm that extended I if any thing get more conservative. Was it the group dynamic? The smaller groups that have been there seem to have exercised more conservative judgment.

I was always just really baffled by those accidents. If I had been asked how the first fatality there would have come about I never in a million years have predicted that kind of event.

Hahahaha... email me Lee. We need to catch up.

This thread reminds me of Game of Thrones where the old knight describes what it's like north of the wall. Are there any good exits around the Fist of the First Men?

This isn't my image but it illustrates that no fantasy can compare to the reality of Baffin Island

nothing compares to Baffin