What Is BASE To Me?

[Zennie 0]

What is BASE to me?

It's the moment the foot leaves the rail.

It's the moment the door opens for the bull rider.
It's the moment the pace car leaves the track.
It's the moment the bulls are released in Pamplona.
It's the moment you sign a mortgage, or swing a bat or say "I do" at the altar.

BASE is being in the moment of absolute commitment...
The point at which there is no turning back.

- Z
"Always be yourself... unless you suck." - Joss Whedon

[Zennie 0]

Every now and then I write (bad) free-form poetry. Figured I'd share.

- Z
"Always be yourself... unless you suck." - Joss Whedon

[TomAiello 25]

Thank you for sharing that.
Here's a (longer, and less poetic) piece I wrote on a similar subject a few months ago. I posted it on BLiNC at the time. Sorry if I'm boring anyone with the repetition.

Quote

What is BASE about?
It's about...
...the flying Dutchman pedaling up on a bicycle, and, upon learning that you have decided to eat mushrooms rather than jump in the rain, shrugging, and responding "this happens."
...the crazy Belgian opening the door onto the giant crane, and turning to you, with a gleam in his eye, and saying "welcome to paradise."
...spending four days trying to get off one exit point, and still not doing it, and somehow having that be ok.
...sitting alone on a park bench in southern France, drinking a bottle of red wine, and trying to wrap your mind around the fact that earlier that day yet another friend made his last jump.
...watching some guy play with a boomerang in the Zurich main train station, then returning two weeks later, and seeing the same guy, playing with the same boomerang, in exactly the same spot.
...explaining to a a ski lift operator that it's ok to traverse a glacier in tennis shoes and street clothes because "I have a Norwegian friend."
...getting wind info from the tram operator, who seems to know all about downdrafts, rotors and turbulence, and later being grounded by the same tram operator because she feels conditions are unsafe.
...hearing Lukas' exuberant voice on the radio asking "who's the fastest motherfucker in the valley?"
...learning that in Belgium, a "flaming" tower, really does have thirty foot flames shooting from the top of it.
...randomly seeing a dam on the side of the road, pulling over, and jumping it, and finding Sector stickers all over the exit point.
...backing off at 4am for the third night in a row, and still having that be ok.
...having to call your friend in to see the insane self-cleaning Swiss toilet, and later learning that a different set of friends had exactly the same reaction.
...skipping loads at a world famous site, and having to make your friend pull the car over, because Vin Rouge Francais is too strong for your weak American stomach.
...jumping in "sub-optimal" conditions.
...sending Flare on a wild goose chase to drink an entire Giraffe himself...and later learning that he has joined the founder of the Mince Division in achieving the rare and coveted title of "Giraffe-man."
...buying a one way ticket to a roundtrip only destination, being told that hiking down is impossible, and responding "we are flying down," while flapping your arms to illustrate the point.
...finding a beautiful, overhung slider up exit, only a 10 minute walk from the cable car, and somehow having it end up named "Teddyland," then changing the name to "Cold Steel" two days later, after a friend goes in there.
...asking "do you exit from the flame?" and having your friend reply by holding his arms out, miming crucifixion and saying, in a haunting voice "I am Jesus, and I have come back from Hell."
...frantically pumping the toggles to bring the slider down as you snivel toward a nasty ledge at 13,000 feet.
...three Swedes singing a little number from the Lion King, and doing a few dance moves, in the rain in front of the Horner, then later giving an encore while packed into the back seat of a rental car.
...waiting for a friend in a foreign city, at 3 am, in a parking lot where the only other people are young women in tight clothes, and men alone in cars who pick them up and drop them off at irregular intervals.
...having déjà vu when a new friend asks you if you've seen the video you shot last week, because two weeks before three other new friends asked you if you knew yourself.
...giving a bag of weed to your friends in Switzerland, and getting happy SMS messages all the way to Italy.
...standing at a pitch black, windy exit point and saying, "it has to be each person's own decision," and hearing the reply "absolutement."
...sitting totally alone at the exit point where your friend died, whispering "Cheers Mate," and wondering if he hears you.
...feeling the cornice you are exiting from collapse as you plant your foot, and somehow not panicking as you fall through a narrow gap in a ledge, accompanied by the ice and snow you meant to jump from.
...falling in love with a different waitress in each city you jump in.
...learning that Smart cars cost just as much as the normal, dumb variety.
...having dinner with three people who all switch language, just to make you more comfortable.
...rolling into some strange city (was it Zurich, Munchen, Brussels, Milano?) and having a friend to take you in, at four in the morning, after an insanely long day of mushrooms, BASE, glaciers, traveling, and whatever else.
...trying to explain to an angry Dutch woman in a severe brown suit, who is screaming "Verbooden!", and having the only excuse that comes to mind be the totally inadequate "je parle seulement le Francais."
...successfully walking away from a spinning line over, then playing on the slide in the Lauterbrunnen city park, and not being sure which was better.
...having a collection of round trip tram tickets that are only validated for travel in the upward direction.
...driving all night, then crashing in the car for two hours, and being woken by a climber explaining to his friend, in French, "it's Chamonix--there are always two guys sleeping in a car."
...spending a day making three loads in heavy rain, and one in swirling snow, because--why not?
...hearing, yet again, that "this is not possible."
...getting totally lost, trying desperately to find a place to sleep, and then stumbling on L'Auberge La Vie est Belle, an incredibly hip, rave-like hotel where the hostess and the cook end up drinking with you, and offering to ground crew the following day.
...merrily writing "finding out that 'Nothing is Harder than Cold Steel,'" while riding a train, then arriving, finding an internet terminal, and discovering that losing Cold Steel is in fact, much harder than Cold Steel.
It's about Bryan and Doug. It's about Andrea, Neil, Mick, and Flummi. It's about Steve, Alex, Vrank, Peter, Eddy, Fabrisse, Maurizio, Percy, AnneMarie, Will, Andrew, Luki, Claudio, Edu, John, Fonz, TJ, Scott, Remy, Per and Lou. And yes, it's about Nikolas and Rob and Lukas.
It's about you. It's about me. It's about all of us.

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[Zenister 0]

Quote

Here's a ....less poetic) piece

bah..sir you underestimate yourself...that was wonderful..bravo

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[Dd0g 0]

Quote

Quote

Here's a ....less poetic) piece

bah..sir you underestimate yourself...that was wonderful..bravo

You should know that he made the whole thing up!

Well, some of it might come dangerously close to the truth in certain areas. . . not that I had anything to do with any of that craziness. Of course.

Peace,

D-d0g

+~+~+~+~
But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

[MartinRosen 0]

That my friend is the best, sadest and funniest description I heard/read about this matter. you nailed the point and even If I havn't been on any of these events you are describing I have heard about them and also had similar experiences. Its all crazy, its all fantastic, and its all tragic in the same way.

But as you say, Why the hell not.!?

/martin

/Martin - Team Bautasten of Sweden

[d_goldsmith 1]

Thanks for digging this one up. I probably wouldn't have ever read this.

[Calvin19 0]

Base? hmmm. base.

Base is looking up from the landing area, at your freind who just jumped, as he screams in horror as his line-overed tension knotted canopy thats stuck in his boot is gaining spinning-speed, now less than 50 meters up, him loseing consiosness as he passes below the trees. then running as fast as you can to the beach, as he drags his wet canopy out of the snake river. and he sais. "yeah, thats the potato" and you reply "no, thats what you get when you try a gainer tard"

[Calvin19 0]

hmmm... i havrnt had any overseas experience, but to me, Base is a lot like flying low and fast, or rope jumping. here are my close calls etc in those areas.

Its glancing over at your best friend and say "so, lets take it down before the cops show up" because you sat in your car at 4am parked on the side of a bridge, where you have been sitting for the last 3 hours in perfect silence, watching the traffic light turn 84 times a half mile in front of you, after you did the first jump on a new ropejump system where everything went wrong, even though there was 2 competent people that set it up, and there was a reliable backup, you still freefell 60 meters, and at the last second realised that something went wrong, lock off the grigri, and brace for impact. your feet slam into the ground. but thats it. you bounce back up into the night sky and realise that another meter, and you would be dead.

Its hiking 3 miles at 13,000'msl, even though your broken ankle hurtslike hell, and you still havent been cleared for weight bearing, just so you can have a glass of red wine over your destroyed airplane that one of your best freinds crashed a week before. saying goodbye to her, and "you wouldnt have wanted to grow up anyway, i love you"

[dbagdrew 0]

BASE to me is:

During my first week (not that long ago, this summer) watching two people on my first jump course land in the boulder field and break their hip and foot (respectively).

Landing in the trees/bushes and then the water myself, after being shaken up about my new friends.

Running to the bridge to hear that a dear friend of mine has died, or at least probably died. And then spending a week with him in the Boise ICU with his family while he goes through intensive back surgery and is on a ventilator for most of that time.

Having to miss my own mothers birthday to stay with my friend in the ICU and having to call her and explain why I had to miss her birthday. She was not okay with starting BASE jumping and likely never will be now.

Hearing that someone died at that same bridge 2 days after that. And having my Mother ask me if I heard about THAT.

and sticking with it, so far...

I got a real crash course my first week.

[JOY 0]

It is rare in any sport that a person makes a commitment quite so intense as jumping off a cliff. Your are dead the second you exit and you must take action to save your life. Very few events post this challenge and I feel it is the Ultimate Celebration of Human Life Force rather than just existing. No question at the point of no return, the rush is pretty great. BASE defines a perrson. I've been a jumping lawyer for 30 years and I still consider my self a BASE jumper as who I anm, a lawyer is what I do, not who I am.
Rick Harrison
[email protected]

[email protected]

[PerFlare 0]

Tom,

Thanks!

I love that, one one my favorit lists!

PerFlare - a Griraffe man!

[tungflik 0]

i'm sorry.. what was the question...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Calvin19 0]

some think base is commitment. its not commitment. commitment is sticking with somebody or something, commitment is haveing a choice to get out. when you step off a cliff, there is no hope. BASE is not about commitment, its about hopelesness.

[base736 0]

Love your list, Tom.

I was talking with crwper the other day about the good and the bad of BASE. The way I see it, a person could make up a list for BASE (or for anything else, for that matter). On the left, the bad. On the right, the good. On the left for BASE, the people we lose, the people we almost lose... On the right, one thing so spectacular that it balances the left, if only barely -- "I can fly".

[base736 0]

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BASE is not about commitment, its about hopelesness.

While I appreciate your bringing up the importance of choice, I can say about every jump that I've made that if I had believed it were hopeless, I never would have left the exit point.

[n_pertuset 0]

BASE is many different things to me. It's the letting go; the stepping off the edge. It's the freedom; the go anywhere, jump anything power. The late nights, the early mornings, and the depressing back downs. The tall buildings, small antennas, and breath taking cliffs. The friends, the objects, the sunsets, the jumps, the beauty, everything. It's all part of it. (and hard to explain.. as all of you know!)

btw.. nice post Tom. I like it!

-Nathan

Nathan

[Calvin19 0]

yeah, i think that hopelessness is more beautiful than haveing faith. what i mean by hopeless is not what a wuffo would originaly think, its just a way i look at things.

[GreenMachine 0]

Hey Calvin, maybe you mean "Acceptance" by your use of the word 'hopelessness'...

Tom A. -- great list man, it really offers a glimpse into the wild ride BASE has been for you. Thanks for sharing.

Rigger, Skydiver, BASE Jumper, Retired TM

[Pendragon 1]

Why hopeless? Do you think that's sad?

It's committing to the idea, the act, the following through, the never giving up, and making the right decision in the moment.

There are choices and outs, be they to wait a few minutes, not to go, time to pull, tightness of the aerial... - and all can be changed in a heartbeat if need be.

If your view is that of hopelessness, does that tell you something about your jumping style? Are you happy jumping that way?

Just curious...

--
BASE #1182
Muff #3573
PFI #52; UK WSI #13

[crwper 7]

Quote

There are choices and outs, be they to wait a few minutes, not to go, time to pull, tightness of the aerial... - and all can be changed in a heartbeat if need be.

Not completely true. Those choices can be made at the exit point, but as soon as your feet leave the object, they can no longer be made. After exit, you have a different set of choices, and a lot of things which are not a choice at all.

The commitment in, say, a long-term relationship, is ongoing. The same decision (stay or go) must be made constantly throughout the relationship. In BASE, on the other hand, the most obvious commitment is momentary. After that, it doesn't really matter if you're commited to the jump. You can never really say, "You know what, this jump isn't working out so well. I'm through with it."

Obviously there are still choices to be made in frefall and under canopy, and particularly on long delays/flights it might seem overly dramatic to say there was a momentary commitment and then only hopelessness. But I think every jumper eventually experiences a situation where the inevitability of BASE jumping becomes obvious, for example if you're under canopy in turbulent conditions with no "good" landing options. Just then, you might wish you could walk out on the jump.

Not that it's all bad. One of my favourite things about BASE jumping is having to make hard decisions in a stressful situation. It wouldn't be the same without that.

Michael

[HydroGuy 0]

My father to me this morning: "You drove 840 miles round trip to make a single jump off a bridge and the whole jump only lasted 8 seconds? That's fucking stupid"

I just smiled...

Get in - Get off - Get away....repeat as neccessary

[mfnren 0]

people talk about how short the jump lasts,but to me that little leap we take is to step out of time. If it's a 1 sec. delay or a 13 sec. , it's a glimpse into the eternal, and being able to bring a little bit back with me every time. After every jump I feel more aware of my surroundings, my life slows down and whats important becomes more apparent.

[stitch 0]

Helter Skelter

"No cookies for you"- GFD
"I don't think I like the sound of that" ~ MB65
Don't be a "Racer Hater"

[stealthfighter 0]

so nice to read your postings. ive never BASE jumped but i have vivid dreams about it.