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WBraun
climber
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Jun 29, 2016 - 08:34pm PT
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If you die doing B.A.S.E you'll come back as a bird.
Now you have devolved and have to evolve back up again.
It very rare to come to the human form which is the springboard to escape.
But most remain stupid and think it's all in all.
Only Papillon jumped off the cliff into the ocean and Based into the water to escape.
Water is life.
and life come from life.
Don't make yourselves a prisoner in your own stoopid box like those nutcase politards .....
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bixquite
Social climber
humboldt nation
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Jun 29, 2016 - 09:08pm PT
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River mouth, a plus surf, shark season, ..?
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Slabby D
Trad climber
B'ham WA
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Jun 29, 2016 - 10:16pm PT
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You can't just say that BASE jumping is more dangerous than trad climbing. That depends on the risk a person is willing to take doing either of them.
Four dead U.S. base jumpers this week. 6 MTD. From a population that's a tiny fraction of the size of trad climbers.
Seems pretty clear that proximity fliers are not able to make a reasonably accurate quantification of the risk level they are accepting.
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jstan
climber
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Jun 29, 2016 - 10:21pm PT
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I think we are missing the mark here. As Joe Blow none of us can get away with making decisions for another, Who may?
1. Family member: You are not thinking of us. You may well ruin our lives.
2. Spouse: Take a hike Butch. I am not willing to play a role in the little drama with which you are playing footsie.
3. Child: Do what you like. I don't need you.
4. Taxpayer: Don't look to me for any help.
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
Boulder climber
ne'er–do–well
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Jun 29, 2016 - 10:41pm PT
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Cast the bantling on the rocks,
Suckle him with the she-wolf's teat,
Wintered with the hawk and fox,
Power and speed be hands and feet.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Jun 29, 2016 - 11:04pm PT
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Heisenberg, actually most climbers on this forum know a helluva lot more about risk and BASE than your average Mississippi bridge gawker and you know it. Don't belittle our understanding of the topic.
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Charlie D.
Trad climber
Western Slope, Tahoe Sierra
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Jun 30, 2016 - 05:49am PT
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One of my best friends and climbing partner for many years was an early BASE jumper, a contemporary of Carl B. He'd become animated when describing his experiences and I of course would listen in amazement to those vivid descriptions, wild escapes in Yosemite and watch his astonishing videos. It was always very entertaining and stimulating for me to imagine it all, in some ways myself and his friends cheered on his many exploits.
Unfortunately I can't ask if he thought it was worth it all. I do know however the answer of that question for his grown children. I can only imagine for him not being able to see his kids grown and the beautiful grandkids now is something he would not have traded anything in the world to miss. As for myself as entertaining and stimulating as it all was when we were young I'd trade it all in a New York minute to spend some more time with my great friend.
I don't kid myself for a second that virtually everything we do isn't without the risk exposure to objective dangers. Throw in high risk sports and you've increased the disaster odds. Deny it or not no matter how careful, how studied, how informed, how skilled, how smart, how experienced you are when venturing out the dice have been thrown.
Many of us here on ST have taken the additional "risk to love" beyond a relationship and have children. Not only that we've introduced them to these games we play! That's the rat that gnaws on my heart. We do what we do and some of us will die being who we are. Unfortunately the definitive answer as to the question of worth only comes when you've lost.
Charlie D.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Jun 30, 2016 - 06:34am PT
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A blind post .
I've not followed since the 50th post . . . [Click to View YouTube Video]
Lurkers': as I address y'all, imagining the haters,
I dreamed of combining BASE, well, the, E part, anyway;
jumping back down after climbing up, from a very young age.in the '60s.
Starting when we all met, in 1977? & then thru the early 1980s,
Andy Tibbits, Brother Alex Gloden Hair, a real pisser, . & I were
the guinie pigs, for John Bouchard's early kites. In New Hampshire.
So Hiesenberg, you do not have any right to say who has or has not experienced flight.
Wow okay then I'm sorta caught up.
The stats on the fatalities, relative to your understanding, of the nature of addiction is where I see a rift, that we, the finally more mature, are driving our combined knowledge through
like a truck. Go and jump enough and you will go splat.
As I've implied as a youth I did not weigh 100 pounds, so bikes & kites were a big part of my play ground.
At the tender age of 17 a couple of good friends, from down the block, took off for a dirt bike ride around the abandoned Quarry. A passing cop saw the cable down, and replaced it securing it to the top of the 5ft high post.
Jack & Andy. Always a pair, were gunning it side by side. The flat slightly downhill grade, was their favorite place to race.
Both died, Jack was 1/2 a second in front, hitting the cable 1st, with the front tire, creating tension in the cable decapitating Andrew. I & many others Never rode again.
Ho Great ! Finally!
I knew and was liked by Xaiver, he was a fun cat!
We spent a bunch of time together in the Ditch, in ? '86,
He I & Yabo did Serenity/Sons together, they took me up after some wankers gave me
Grief about wanting to stick clip the opening moves of that pounded out greasy start.
The wankers took my place, cut in line, so I went and led the finger crack that is just below the start some .11 thing, Xavier saw this whole crap event take place, that's when we met.
Yes. The kites we were trying only had 3chambers or "ferals"& no glide ratio to speak of.
VVVVVVV
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deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
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Jun 30, 2016 - 06:44am PT
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four 'merikans last week: http://www.blincmagazine.com/forum/wiki/BASE_Fatality_List
Still, looking at the statistics, and gathering that the sport has really bloomed since my little foray into it back in the early 90's using traditional skydiving equipment (and along with the cognoscenti BASE104's observations on how many BASE jumps take place each week), it seems that the ratio of participants/flights to number of fatalities has possibly decreased since my great friend Xaver had his double malfunction back in 1994 (fatality #31).
Has anyone done a statistical analysis?
(Gnome, I was also one of Bouchard's subbies--I believe I had one of his first 4 "Feral" paragliders imported to the USA. We had a aborted training lesson in Bishop, where the winds were too strong to fly, then my first flight was off a 2000' cliff in Baffin Island near Pangirtung. Now I am learning to fly paragliders again, the equipment is much better!!)
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Slabby D
Trad climber
B'ham WA
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Jun 30, 2016 - 09:01am PT
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I think the point is that there are some activities you simply cannot make NOT Extremely dangerous and risky.
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overwatch
climber
Arizona
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Jun 30, 2016 - 09:11am PT
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like banning ever stopped anyone
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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Jun 30, 2016 - 09:14am PT
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You can't just say that BASE jumping is more dangerous than trad climbing. That depends on the risk a person is willing to take doing either of them.
I think you can. Without qualification that statement implies BASE jumping on average and trad climbing on average. You can't say A BASE jump is more dangerous than A trad climb. Because it could be a relatively safe jump vs. a relatively dangerous (e.g. X rated) climb. Or the jumper could be very experienced and the climber a noob. But with either statistical or a carefully reasoned analysis BASE jumping on average is much more dangerous than trad climbing on average.
Some people have discounted statistical analysis on previous threads on this topic, but in my opinion it's one of the primary factors I use to make decisions, even though the numbers are hard to come by and may not be entirely accurate. They will give you an idea of general risk. Like many other people I tend to think "I'm not going to make those mistakes that cause most of the accidents". But accidents do happen even to the best of us. Everyone makes mistakes and everything is not in your control. So statistics play a part of my decision making process.
It's tough with BASE because it's so unregulated that highly reliable statistics are not available, but you can still get a pretty good idea. For BASE it's roughly estimated to be 1 death per 500-1000 jumps. And yes different disciplines are inherently more risky. Statistically compare that to skydiving 1 death per 100,000 jumps. I think about it over a lifetime of doing it. I'd see myself doing 1,000 BASE jumps or about 5,000-10,000 skydives. That means there could probably be a 1 in 1, pretty good chance I'd get killed BASE jumping vs. a 1 in a thousand chance I'd get killed skydiving. BIG difference.
In Yosemite the risk of death from climbing is about 1 in 10,000 to 20,000 climber days. https://pwrcms.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/climbing_safety.htm From that link 80% of deaths and injuries are easily preventable! When I think about how many climbing days I have I realize rock climbing IS pretty risky. But still at least an order of magnitude less than BASE.
As mentioned different disciplines change that statistics. Close proximity flying in BASE and high performance landings in skydiving increase the risk significantly. X rated climbing in trad climbing or free soloing also increases the risk significantly.
If I compare statistical risk to a reasoned analysis they pretty much line up like I'd expect them to, which is no surprise.
Again the risk you are willing to take is a choice you make. But for me a statistical 1 in 1,000 risk of death is a huge red flag for an activity I'd like to do. I see a good chance of death happening. And a reasoned analysis also reveals all kinds of objective danger I can't control, which also concerns me.
Spaceflight or climbing Everest are even riskier than BASE statistically. With about a 1 in 200-400 chance of death. I'd be interested to do either, but knowing those statistics gives me serious pause. It is interesting that when an astronaut dies you don't typically hear "he was selfish to do it since he had a family".
The important discussion IMO should be to acknowledge the risk and find ways to reduce it, and how to be a better judge of your abilities. And Heisenberg is right in that that discussion is beyond the scope of climbers and experienced jumpers are the ones to be doing that. Although they can probably learn a little from climbers in some respects such as judging the weather, not slipping off exit points, general guidelines about when to turn back.
Rock climbing is more established, more mainstream, and has more professionals involved in SAR. So rock climbing is probably better setup to have these discussions and analysis regarding reducing risk than with BASE jumping.
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snakefoot
climber
Nor Cal
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Jun 30, 2016 - 09:34am PT
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many good points from this discussion and i will speak only for myself here, not addressing most of these. The cost of this activity is beyond words as it is always on my mind and that burden is the cross i bear. Most of us have always dreamed of flight from a very young age, now only possible due to the technology that took so many lives to develop as 104 has often discussed. Major injury and lost lives with resulting pain for families and friends is what comes to mind for me as the worst outcome. The latest incident was a very close friend, one of my fellow flyers (RIP JVH, we had so many plans and dreams to say the least, you are loved by so many people) and the devastation is rippling through the community right now. I do not know all the details as of yet regarding the last two incidents, and the risks these guys were taking is still debatable. I could go on with a wall of text, but these latest deaths leave me in times of serious self reflection, pain and then healing. Fly free my friends as i will continue to fly, sometimes over you when you least expect it.
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guyman
Social climber
Moorpark, CA.
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Jun 30, 2016 - 10:46am PT
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Fly hi snakefoot.
I can not imagine the feeling of flying like a falcon.
The folks who BASE do.
i bet it's pretty intoxicating, much like the feeling when free solo.
100% alive
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John Duffield
Mountain climber
New York
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Jun 30, 2016 - 10:51am PT
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I've only paraglided once off a ski resort in France. It was pretty cool! But it sounds too dangerous now, I'm thinking I may yet die of old age.
Last year, I discovered Tiger Beach in the Bahamas. Seems much safer.
My photo...
and this offa the 'nep
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Jun 30, 2016 - 11:41am PT
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BASE is like anything. We are always looking at risk. BASE looks a lot more risky than it is.
Trad climbing? Geez. It makes Outer Limits sound dangerous.
The thing to realize is that the risks are known beforehand. Anyone in any of these activities understands that, and as your experience goes up, you become better at evaluating risk. Also, you can start pushing it as your ability grows. With wingsuiting, it is a very fine line.
Those guys refine the lines by doing them many times. How close is too close can only be answered once, though.
There are a finite number of things that can go wrong. You do everything you can to minimize them, and then, if you think it is OK, you go do it.
It isn't just BASE. You can also get killed walking across the street. You guys don't understand parachutes, modifications to the gear based on height of the jump or type of jump, canopy choice, container choice. A whole bunch of factors.
Climbing seems risky to outsiders, but you already know the risks of a climb before you leave the ground. Most of the time, it isn't that risky, but still, people die. It is hard to explain, but so many people have died on the Nose of all things. How to do you justify climbing the Nose if you have kids? Well, you know that the Nose is actually pretty darn safe if you know what you are doing.
That is what I meant when I said that nobody here understands. I meant that you don't know anything about the gear, so you don't know the likelihood of an off heading opening, or a lineover malfunction, or yada yada. Jumpers know this, just as you can look at a topo of the Bachar-Yerian and say, "Not for me."
I will say that most of the time, it is less risky than it looks.
So you guys look at statistics. Right now the statistics don't look good for the wingsuiters. It could be super safe if they just flew out over the valley and jived around. It is the proxy flying that is killing them.
They know this. Don't you think that they would know this?
Wingsuiting is so different from BASE that it should have its own name.
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dikhed
climber
State of fugue and disbelief
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Jun 30, 2016 - 12:01pm PT
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You guys do realize that you're not actually flying right?
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AKDOG
Mountain climber
Anchorage, AK
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Jun 30, 2016 - 12:06pm PT
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Good points/post BASE104, risk is personal, knowledge is king, and in the end it is entirely impossible to mitigate all risk. You get these same conversations all the time on backcountry ski forums.
From the outside it seems that when something goes wrong in BASE jumping it is always fatal. Most other risky sports there seems to be more of a continuum of consequences to the risk. That said, I am sure there are more than a few minor ankle/knee/back injuries from successful BASE jump landings.
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snakefoot
climber
Nor Cal
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Jun 30, 2016 - 12:17pm PT
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hey dikhed, we know we are gliders.
and yes, AKDOG, many low level injuries occur for any variety of reasons you can imagine that go unreported, though i have none as we speak
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