Basejumper.com - archive

Based on a conversation between me & riggersam...

1. You sell your skydiving rig in order to fund trips to Moab & Arco.

I know ya'll have more to add....

2. Sell your skydive rig in order to pay for your third BASE rig.

3. You go to sleep at dawn, crawl out of bed a few hours later and you don't have a hangover .

when you find yourself all alone,
in camouflage,
sleepless, nervous,
all snuggled up in some butt-ass-cold gravel
or all wadded up in your car
while
waiting for an inkling of light so that
you can go climb up some
damn frozen piece of metal
so you can get some
really shaky sewing machine legs
because you aren't really convinced
you'll be making it past this morning

and then still go
and then climb faster to stay warm
and then get so quiet that you can only hear
your heart

and then slow it down - slowing time
breathing easy, relaxing.

watch the dawn's colors and FEEL the beauty
the silence and soft cold breeze
peace in the moment you let go and push
freedom in the moment the wind blows on your face
pure joy when your rigging works
and peace again when you're walking across that same frozen gravel, this time looking up knowing where you've been,
how it felt,
and the sun is coming up on the drive to work despite no sleep.

packing that night, after too much work and coffee
everything all over again.

Right ON sneaky!

Doohh laying injuryed in my bed last year i sold my cypress as i knew i wouldnt use it for a while. the mony did i use to pay off my 2. rig... now i found out that i wont fly my skydive gear(if so i want bigger canopies),so im stuck whith a rig whit no cypress in... now who want to buy it so i can get my 3. BASE rig(ie in DK you can only skydive whith gear whith an ADD in it).

you know you are a BASE jumper when

1) skydivers are calling you crazy (or saying that you could be a really good skydiver someday if you don't kill yourself BASE jumping first)
2) the term un-jumpable is a challange
3) you are proud of the object that you jumped by yourself that no one else has ever scene
4) people who see you jumping legal clifs in Utah ask you if..
a) you are hang gliding
b) you are para-sailing
c) free basing (I have heard all of these)
and finally my favorite...
5) the street is a perfectly acceptable landing area as it is flat, consistant, fairly big, and has less obstacales than some other landing areas you have hit

grrr, is my FOX back yet, I am posting and not jumping

YOur girlfriend says "its me or BASE" and you say "CYA"

or if she say´s "OK,go out and play, i cant stand to see you like that"

My corellary to that was...

7. You start referring to skydivers as "whuffos".

You know you're a BASE jumper when:
1.)You find yourself standing on the steel understructure of a 155ft bridge, next to a police station, in the rain and hear a cop on his radio on the sidewalk a few feet above your head.

2.) You find yourself running from the authorities after two of your fellow jumpers were caught, and on the way up one of your friends who was caught calls and says the cops confiscated their rigs, and you wonder "is he just saying this so I have to continue hiking up this hill? Was he really caught or is he just saying he was so I have to hike up this bloody hill?"

3.) You've made two jumps and someone you've never met from Northern California invites you down to jump "real" objects. And you have one of the best and most memorable experiences ever.

4.) You stand on the arm of a power tower looking like a giraffe doing a balancing act, while being constantly shocked by static electricity, and ask yourself "How did I get here?"

5.) You believe the world is completely jumpable and your lover buys you a laser for christmas so you can prove it!

6.) You go to NRGB and hear a tourist say "It's so high", you hear a skydiver say "It's so low", then you, as a BASE jumper, reiterate "It's so high." and prove it ;-)

7.) You meet and make a terrific friend in the sport, and you lose that friend to the sport.

8.) You're the last one off and you enjoy that moment of pure serenity and connection to nature and meditate, even if just for a second, about why you jump.

9.) You go to the drop zone to pack a BASE rig and have the DZO walk up to you and tell you that it'll be $15 for the BASE manifest, and consider that his way of saying "You're alright."

10.) You drag your friends out to a tower on the one year anniversary of your first jump, to find the tower is being blown to one side by the howling winds, and you and your friends climb to exit, can't hear a thing each other is saying, understand you're not worried about object strike, and upon opening with a 180 realize you can land facing the object because the winds are pushing you backwards, have a beautiful stand up landing and smile. And finally have your friends tell you that you're not in charge of manifest anymore. ;-)

11.) You get addicted to online chat, and become skilled at web based conversations, passive-aggressive arguments, childish diatribes and forget what friendship and the sport are really about.

12.) You get offline, get out into the world, and BASE jump.

13.) You jump a 180 building with a required 90 degree turn to landing, stall the canopy, crash into a tree, run down the street in full gear, jump into a car with excellent ground crew, earn your BASE number and consider the evening a success.

As you walk to the edge, internal and focused, you climb onto the exit, sit and take in the views. Your brain is screaming, “What the hell are you doing here”. Suddenly, you are enveloped by a gentle calm, you feel relaxed and accepting of your environment, it’s a peaceful place. All your stresses and worries are a million miles away – you are internal and all you can hear is your heartbeat. When was the last time you felt your heartbeat?
3-2-1-CYA and you can feel the edge push against the soles of your feet. You are now totally committed no turning back now. For 2 seconds, you are floating. There is no noise; time has slowed. The air starts to rush into your face. The ground starts to rise up towards you. Smears appear at the sides of your vision. Now for the finale. Its time to get off the ride, deploy and save your life! From deployment to “the crack” of your canopy you are helpless. You continue to fall, trailing a pilot chute wondering, “Is this going to open?” The ground continues its surge into your face. The 1 second it takes to feel and hear the “crack” seems like an eternity BANG! No time to think! On risers, control, toggles, turn, slow, pick the spot, flare, land, pack away, walk away fast, leave without trace. Overwhelming feelings of well-being and achievement cover you. A warmth runs through you.

You can't comfortably walk out on a rooftop or bridge without a rig on.

It's no longer difficult to get up at 4am.

You can consistently ignore the fact that packing sucks.

You keep having cypres fires without groundrush.

You take your base rig everywhere, and leave the skydiving rig at home.

The DZO is tired of you trying to talk him into a 600' pass in the cessna.

When the DZ has the flour bomb comp. on the overcast day, you "fall" out.
.

Very cool description. Probably the single most thing that feeds my desire to BASE.

That 1 second of being at the mercy of your gear.

Every time you look at an object with some sort of altitude, you contemplate if it's jumpable...and if it is, then you wonder if it's land able. Even if it's a jump you would never do.

Johnny Utah

Utah- Is the rig worn by the blonde in your 2waypca1 pic open on the right side? It looks as if the velcro has pealed off.

nic

Your girlfriend buys you a GPS for X-mas so you can exchange exit point coordinates with your friends.

I think you are correct.

The jumper on the left is Johny 9lives. We did a 2-way, holding hands through opening with both of us being PCAed. The cliff was a rock quarry in Rode Island. The town locals said it was 78 feet. Our landing was into deep clear water (thank goodness). 9lives chose to prime his Velcro and that is what you're seeing. I figure since we were getting a PCA, whatÕs the point of priming my Velcro, so I didnÕt. But hey, if a man wants to prime his Velcro, then thatÕs his business.

You use the range finder that is always in your car to mess with every car you see on the freeway that has a radar/laser detector.

I didnt know that worked another use for that thing i like it

It must have made some noise in one car because they kept slowing down (even slower in 5pm traffic), looking around, pushing buttons, etc...I was entertained between that and lasering street signs and thinking, "if this was vertical I would jump this."

Since this old thread has been brought back to life, and I'm bored:

You know you're a BASE jumper when you sell your personal possessions on Ebay to finance BASE gear, road trips across the US of A, and plane tickets to South East Asia.

your obviously not jumping in DC

Get your BASE number : )


YEAH!

i stole your description for my FB page. nice overview of all things involved, my favorite non jump descriptive "you know youre a BASE jumpr when..." was You start calling skydivers whuffos.

On the way to plane for a load
going to 3,000 feet you ask
Who wants to do a 2-way??

You know you are surrounded
by 3 newbie SKY jumpers when
all you get in return are some
scared looks and loud gulps

you give traffic directions to someone and you say "go down about 837 feet and on your right, there will be a 315 foot AT & T freestanding tower with a bitching landing area, turn left at the 4 way stop there, which could also be used as an alternate landing area, drive a few miles, until you see this nearly shear rock formation to the left of the major road. The shear wall is really too short to direct bag, so just keep going until you get into town. You will see the 4th largest building in town, a grey building, 425 feet tall, with white blinking lights after 5:30 pm (until 6:30 am), that has a police substation on the block across from the good exit point...

When you friends at the DZ are posting on Facebook bitching about the weather for the past week and complaining that there hasn't been any jumping and they wish the weather would clear up so they can jump or they are going to go crazy and you are thinking, huh, I just made three jumps last week, whats the problem?

Why all the way up to 3000'? We used to do 2 ways from 1900' 300 yards out over the pacific at beach day in Seaside Oregon.

You know you are a BASE jumper when you jump your BASE rig from an airplane.

You know when you at the best DZ on Earth when it is totally cool with the DZ owner that is banned from aviation for stealing airplanes and parting them out. After that he did a year in club fed for violating that ban for flying.

Teddy Mayfield and Sheridan Oregon was the Best DZ on Earth - bar none!

#349

When you have more jumps then posts at basejumper.com

As for

Once when we passed 900 feet(our minimal emergency exit altitude), a newbie cautiously looked out the door and said
"Man, imagine if we had engine failure right now and had to go..."
After that 2 guys immediately replied
"Yeah, you can freefall for whole 8 seconds!"

Touche

when you pass by the metal detector and go through the xray to make your flight

you jump off a fixed object intending to use a parachute to descend? perhaps?

when....
its socially acceptable in your crew to poop in the bathtub.

you own more accessories (clamps, PCs, etc) than articles of clothing

"fine evening attire" means camo pants and a pair of leather gloves

BJ.com turns into the new facebook

you look back at that CRW downplane broke at 400 feet and thing "that was SAFE"!

OR- you do a quick hop and pop, land in the parking lot, run to your car and drive off really quick and all the wuffo's(skydivers) are looking at you explaining to the AFF students, "awe, he's just confused."

OR- As you are walking thru the woods to help a wuffo(skydiver) find his canopy and you see it in the top of a tree and you tell 'em "that's what you get for cutting away that line over."

Maybe this story is relevant....two or three years ago we were on the way up in January or Febuary, around 750 to 800 ft the engine began to splutter, and pretty much dies. Pilot asked me "know what that is?" Water in the lines? I replied. "Yep." Can I get get out? I replied....I guess the yes he gave back was sarcastic, but I grabbed that door and he grabbed my shoulder and screamed NO DUDE I WAS JOKING! He talked me into riding in with him "safely" and the entire way I was scared to death I was gonna die and was making my peace with god. Jumping would have been just another day!

i hate hate hate HATE landing in planes with a rig on!

When you read a Skydiver post saying "my buddy will be out this weekend to chase his A" and a registered instantly as antenna and not his license.