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Treejumps

Perrine Memerial Day Weekend Carnage?

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I agree. BASE is a very personal/ interpersonal decision. Many people have higher/lower, basically different levels of tollerance, views, and exceptance of risk/ percieved risk.


Leroy


..I knew I was an unwanted baby when I saw my bath toys were a toaster and a radio...

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On the other hand, I have the luxury of not needing to jump on any particular day, because when everybody has to go home at the end of the weekend, I'm still just a few minutes away. That makes it easy for me to wait for better conditions.



Ok, it's official, I hate you:P

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Like Tom said "It's all about Learning"
First I would like to say that I have busted my ass
more time than I can remember from mistakes
under Canopy.
* But *
The wind was Not the KEY Factor that people
got hurt on Sunday.
The winds were not that radical or wild.
*People Dropped break lines.
*Blew break lines.
*Down wind landing
*Hooked it around got dumped.
Most I think did not understand how to make
a flat 180 deg. turn and land into the wind while
getting a good fast tail push.
Extra fast tail wind can make your canopy respond
Shitty if you don't get much practice or don't have
the experience to handle it.
If you were flying down wind you were hauling ass.
**Set up for landing was important**
Hooking it around to land combined with a bad flair.
Or Just Wasting to much TIME F###ing around after
you Have a problem with a real fast tail wind.
* Bad Move *
I sat out on Saturday and drank Beer. It's just takes
a lot of fun out of it when the wind was that fast.
The stiff wind was just that little extra that would
bite you in the ass if you screwed up.
I saw a bunch of people standing down on Saturday
and Sunday.
They played there own game plan and walked
away to jump another day.
* Smart Move *

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I'm the dumb@ss who broke his fibula Sunday evening. As soon as I opened and looked up to see my brakelines fluttering in the wind, I knew what I did wrong... stopped in the middle of my last pack job and forgot to stow my brakes.

But even more than that, the underlying mistake I made was trying to do an 850-mile motorcycle ride (on a sportbike for God's sake!) then immediately bang out a few jumps.

Even though I just celebrated my 46th year on this planet, I thought I could still push myself that far. Heck, I used to be able to do that kind of hard-@ss stuff! But no, I learned the hard way that I get fatigued sooner than when I was but a young pup.

For me, the winds were a little high, but still inside my comfort range. While I was on the bridge, a still, small voice tried to tell me not to jump. Too bad I didn't listen.

Lemming syndrome? Nope. I've walked off/down obects a dozen times before when the voice called to me. But this time, I was too exhausted to listen.

Fatigue inhibited my judgment when I thought I saw I was too far from the river for a water landing. Video review at the ER showed I could have easily made the river.

Moral of the story for me... go easier, don't try to push through fatigue, cuz that's when my judgment goes out the window.

I'll find out tomorrow when I can jump again, but the ER doc told me to expect another 3 weeks in the cast. Fortunately, I'm in pretty good shape, so my leg muscles won't deteriorate too fast. Plus, I have some killer video of the landing!

Check with Jimmy if you want to see the finished product. I just learned I'll soon head to the big sandbox and probably won't be able to show it to my fellow jumpers for 565 days.

The fun part was trying to ride the Kawasaki back home. I made it safely, with my right leg strapped to the side of the bike.

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The fun part was trying to ride the Kawasaki back home. I made it safely, with my right leg strapped to the side of the bike.
....................................

You rode that old Kawi. Z-X 10 with a
broken leg, 800+ miles back to
NewMexico ? *WOW * :o
That has to be the Hard Core award of the week.
I hope you had some good Persciption Medication.
That thing must have been Throbbing and
ready to fall off.

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You rode that old Kawi. Z-X 10 with a
broken leg, 800+ miles back to
NewMexico ? *WOW *
That has to be the Hard Core award of the week.



I'll second that. Talk about a new definition of "Cowboy Up!"
----------------------------------------------
You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

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Heck, the ride wasn't that bad. I had perfect weather and the best scenery I could imagine. A little Tylenol can go a long way to ease the aching bones.;)

Hey, I owe a big debt of gratitude to the fine folks who caried my busted carcass out of there and drove me to the ER. Anyone involved, please e-mail me (BASE841@hotmail) so I can send you a copy of the finished video product.

And saying "thank-you" is inadequate for Bobby, the retired TF native who considers herself our surrogate mom. Boy, she went above and beyond the call with me. She escorted me to the ER, took me in to her own home, and made sure I stuck to the doctor's orders... kept me on my back with my leg iced and elevated for 4 days, housed me, fed me, and was the most gracious host I could imagine! If you stop by the visitor's center on a Sunday when she works there, you can meet her and shake the hand of an angel.

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Im interested to know where this wind report comes from. Perhaps it comes from the airport which is what, about 8-10 miles away.

Some of the wind figures on the report are not reflective of what the winds were at the visitor center, the bridge, and in the canyon. Tom you called me at 6:22am on Sunday morning and said you had just returned from the bridge. We were there at 7:20 am and the wind was very calm. Right away I called down to Don who was in his boat by the landing area and he said the wind was 1-2 mph. The wind on the top was about 3-5 mph. We did the first jump right away and the wind was basically calm. This was definitely the sweet window for jumping. Conditions were prime. We did two rounds before the winds started really picking up and that was around 9:30-10:00 am.

There were some jumpers there that early but not a whole lot. A lot of jumpers seemed to show up right when the wind started picking up.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the weather trends there, here is what I have noticed. I have been jumping that bridge since the mid-90s and on many occasion when a day is windy, the sunset usually gets real nice and the early mornings are often decent. Also you will probably notice that the weather can change drastically multiple times in a single day there.

Hopefully we will have better weather Labor Day and next Memorial Day.
Thanks for all the fun jumps. Great visuals on some jumps as well. ;)
Have Fun, Don't Die!
Johnny Utah
My Website
email:[email protected]

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Hard as nails.

Nice work fella;)

Just goes to show that the huervos grandes that got you into trouble yesterday can be put to excellent use today.

Outstanding! Hard as nails, dude.
$kin.

Prizes to anyone who gets to read my posts before Mr Aiello's son, Tom deletes them.

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At any rate, it's my opinion that the injuries largely resulted from too much pent up "jump fever", which caused a very large number of people to jump in marginal-to-bad conditions.



We talked about this a bit after that little spate of injuries.

I think it was jump fever combined with a bit of "lemmings effect". More experienced jumpers could go off and land without major problems (or less experienced jumpers could just get lucky) and other folks see them and think "Hey, they're landing OK, so it must be fine."

I personally chose to stand down Saturday and most of Sunday. Yeah I might have missed a window or two, but I had just as much fun hanging out, talking BASE, sharing videos and working on the platform for Russell.

It's all good. B|

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

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