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Crazy Bat
Sport climber
Birmingham, AL & Seweanee, TN
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May 23, 2015 - 12:57pm PT
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As a tourist, I would love to see Base Jumping legal. It is a huge draw for Bridge day at New River Gorge in WV.
Back in 2004 I spent some time with Lincoln Else when he had Coffee with a ranger at Camp IV. I had just seen my first Base Jumper. I asked him why it was illegal. His take was interesting. He told me how they would frequently hike in with cheap gear from Walmart and just leave it behind, creating a huge trash problem for the rangers to clean up. (Obviously these were not the same folks that post on the Taco.)
Yosemite celebrates climbers. I bet if jumping were legal there would be viewing platforms near the best LZ's.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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May 23, 2015 - 01:16pm PT
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I'd love to see Evil Knevil jump el cap on a rocket motorcycle...
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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May 23, 2015 - 02:13pm PT
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I'd like to see the Flying Elvises base The Captain but even I get that
our national parks aren't freak shows.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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May 23, 2015 - 02:22pm PT
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Keep the freak show in camp 4...Parking lot beat downs are safer and more entertaining than base jumping...
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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May 23, 2015 - 04:48pm PT
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I think wingsuit flying is amazeing. it does seem pretty obvious that proxy flying is takeing way too many people. If soloists were decking at the same rate we would be haveing the same conversation about them.
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overwatch
climber
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May 23, 2015 - 07:36pm PT
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Reason is but servant to the flame...I like that.
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Don Paul
Big Wall climber
Mexico City, D.F.
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May 24, 2015 - 07:52am PT
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Yosemite should be designated as a protected wilderness area. No more NPS, no more Degnan's Deli, Ahwanee Hotel, Camp 4, etc. The goal should not be to maximize the number of visitors, but to return the valley to a more natural state. Then there would be no NPS rangers to harrass climbers and base jumpers.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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May 24, 2015 - 07:58am PT
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I suspect that returning the Valley to its natural state would signal the end to illegal base jumping too. Having to lug that gear for miles would be a powerful deterrent.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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May 24, 2015 - 06:53pm PT
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To give you an idea of how a legal BASE event should be run, look no further than the annual jumps in Kuala Lumpur. The invitation list varied year to year, with between fifty and 100 invited jumpers. All highly experienced. All with good gear.
At each event where I could find numbers, which was listed with most of them, the number of total jumps varied from 1100 or so up to 2800 successful jumps another year.
Sadly, a couple of years the local organizers allowed some jumpers with little experience participate and one year there was a fatality. She had only 20 BASE jumps.
Please read this and things will begin to clear. It goes over each event and the results of how successful a legal event can be:
http://www.kltowerjump.com/about.html
That is the way it should be done. Back in 1980, during that few weeks that BASE was legal off of El Cap, there were no BASE jumpers. Only skydivers, most of whom had never done a fixed object jump before. The requirements were lax compared to modern day standards. Still, there were no serious accidents or fatalities...and the gear was pre-historic compared to the gear of today.
More importantly, this was a skydiver event, sanctioned by the USPA, the governing body for skydiving in this country.
Back in those days, skydivers were a roudy bunch. They were like the "bikers of the sky."
Predictably, they promptly broke most of the rules. It was supposed to be one jumper at a time, but they would do 3 or 4 at once. Those kinds of rules. The infamous flatbed ten were ostracized for what they did. Now, that was before BASE as we know it even began. To do it these days would require a serious vetting process, whittling the number of jumpers down to less than a hundred, taking place only a few weeks per year. Nobody wants to mess up an object, but El Cap has been permanently wrecked since those first days. Today's jumpers are quite a bit more responsible and less rowdy than in those days.
It could easily be done safely and legally, but I doubt it would stop the illegal jumps. I would bet that few would show up for El Cap, because this year at Bridge Day in W VA, they are finger printing all jumpers for the first time. This has caused a huge backlash and threat to boycott. Bridge Day is huge for local business, and you can bet your ass that 100,000 observers don't show up just to legally walk across the bridge.
They have caught guys with outstanding warrants in Yosemite before at Bridge Day. Created quite a stir. They just went through the list of jumpers and found three. I know of at least one who was extradited to California. For a misdemeanor.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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May 24, 2015 - 06:58pm PT
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hey there say, base104... wow, as to bridge day, oh my, i never would have thought that folks with 'outstanding warrents' in yosemite, would be 'looked for there'... i am just too naive, in those ways...
oh my...
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franky
Trad climber
Bishop, CA
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May 24, 2015 - 07:03pm PT
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In Yosemite, bringing in visitors to watch base jumping is not a good thing. It's a big negative.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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May 24, 2015 - 07:07pm PT
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Yeah, and it has kept people away from the event. A lot of the jumpers at Bridge Day are doing their first BASE jumps, but now, Twin Falls is legal. The BLM around Moab is legal. Most people seem to be learning at Twin Falls bridge. They offer and advertise First Jump Courses, similar to a FJC at a skydiving drop zone. Even experienced jumpers go hang out there and jump the bridge over and over. I can't remember the 24 hour record, but it is a lot.
West Virginia owns the bridge. The NPS owns the landing area, which is small. For years, the NPS has been using the list for purposes other than "national security." That is their reason today. It seems like a bad joke, but it does keep some of the more experienced jumpers away. Getting to 1000 BASE jumps will usually get you tied up with the law at some point.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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May 24, 2015 - 07:08pm PT
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In Yosemite, bringing in visitors to watch base jumping is not a good thing. It's a big negative.
I agree. I've never really cared if it was legal in Yosemite or not. The hard-on that they have over jumpers must be experienced to be believed.
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rbord
Boulder climber
atlanta
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May 24, 2015 - 07:42pm PT
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Skyydivers were a rowdy bunch. Predictably they broke most of the rules.
Yosemite .. This is exactly where he'd want his rule-breaking, fringe-pushing, counterculture spirit to live forever.
Did he choose this flying culture and place, or did it choose him? I think this is part of what attracts him and us to this culture, not simply jumping off a cliff ...
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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May 24, 2015 - 08:05pm PT
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^^^ Now your scratch'in at some Void
The draw your talk'in, would that be caused through genetic determinism, or a spiritual rebellion going against the cultural norm ?
vvvv edit, Example A; Pipedream. Biological causation, or product of Environment, with either a positive or a negative energy source?
vvvv
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Don Paul
Big Wall climber
Mexico City, D.F.
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May 24, 2015 - 08:22pm PT
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^ That's true Jim, for climbers even more. You'd have to carry that haulbag from El Portal, not just from the Meadows. I just googled it, and it's about 10 miles. A long walk but not exactly a Himalayan expedition. Just imagine what the valley would be like if this could be achieved. The Merced is a protected river, and that protection needs to be widened to include the whole Yosemite Valley.
* in case someone wonders what this has to do with BASE jumping, the idea is that if the NPS goes away, so do the law enforcement problems.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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May 24, 2015 - 08:40pm PT
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Years ago, the late, great LA Times sports writer, Jim Murray, called the Indy 500 the fastest traffic jam in the world. "Gentlemen," said Murray, "start your coffins."
He might as well have been talking about proximity flying.
JL
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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May 24, 2015 - 08:40pm PT
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Man, yous guys must be smoking some righteous sh!t! The Park Service will leave the
Valley when they drain Lake Powell.
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Sula
Trad climber
Pennsylvania
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May 25, 2015 - 08:30am PT
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Don Paul said:
The goal should not be to maximize the number of visitors, but to return the valley to a more natural state. Then there would be no NPS rangers to harrass climbers and base jumpers. The current state of the valley is, as this implies, quite far from natural. But it would still be so if the buildings, roads and the NPS were removed (which, as we all know, cannot possibly happen).
Certainly there would be far fewer visitors. But Yosemite's reputation is such that there would always be plenty, and without some infrastructure - and the people to maintain it - their impact (trash, sewage, etc.) would yield an environment far from the valley's natural state.
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