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NickDG

The Result of Our Blown Cover . . .

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Things were so much better years ago. Look halfway down the page on the following link.

http://laist.com/

Thanks be to all the glory hounds . . .

NickD :)BASE 194

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Thanks be to all the glory hounds . . .

NickD :)BASE 194



And gear manufacturers and places that allow it legally and................... guys who tell really good stories about the good'ol days!?? And..............

It's not going away, it is only going to get worse so why worry about it?!?

Even in my lonely part of the world there has been a BIG increase in jumpers, a huge increase in people wanting to get into it and the years of experience in related sports dropping rapidly amongst these people compared to even 6 years ago.
SabreDave

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Thanks be to all the glory hounds . . .

NickD :)BASE 194



interestingly, the article mentioned LA adrenalin junkies. so are the glory hounds only in LA?

yes, the glory hounds contributed to our notoriety (and possibly a less than constructive image...). others contributed as well. every person that has fought to gain legal access has made people and the authorities aware of our activities. any video creates a very visceral reaction, postively or negatively.

this forum also serves to publicize our activities.

that said, I'm not convinced any of it is really helping keep sites open... legal or not. (fortunately, cost conscience bean counters will probably keep the best security away from some sites.)
DON'T PANIC
The lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
sloppy habits -> sloppy jumps -> injury or worse

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It is Indian land not NPS lets go talk and see the price for a mass permit. It would make a great place for a heli boogy. I am sure both jumpers and tourists would come and the owners could make a tidy profit.

Greeny

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mabe our cover wouldn't be blown if you didn't point at it:o

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That bridge has been the subject of numerous threads here on DZ.com...makes you wonder if someone didn't get the idea for that article's title from browsing around here.
Get in - Get off - Get away....repeat as neccessary

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Thanks be to all the glory hounds . . .



Define that Nick would you.

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In response to the PMs, sheesh, you guys - yes I know times are changing as I've been watching them change longer than most of you.

My point was I recall when there were no references to "BASE jumping" at all outside the sport itself. Then slowly wuffo writers started using it as a frame of reference as in, "It's not as crazy as BASE jumping, but [enter some new sport here] is, blah, blah, blah."

And nowadays BASE is everywhere. If you just started within the last ten years you'll miss the point of how "weird" that seems to those around for a while longer.

NickD :)BASE 194

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Things were so much better years ago . . .
NickD :)BASE 194



Duude, get over it and stop tellin us over and over again how much better it was in the good'ol golden days. Things are changing, and not only in Base. That's the way of everything. I'm a skier and fuck yeah, there's about 10 times more people skiing off-piste now then there have been 10-20 years ago and as a result it's getting harder and harder to get freshies. Where you could find untouched pow weeks after a snowfall you now have a couple of hours before it's all gone. It's exactly the same thing: it started with films, photos, extreme-skiing-competitions and media and industry using the extreeeme image to sell their products. And since it's called "freeriding" every kid has a pair of fat skis and wants to go big. And I can't blame them - it's a lot of fun, so wtf? In some places areas have been closed for skiers due to the increased numbers of people skiing there and the impact that has on nature - that's pretty much the same thing like a burned object. Still, I never heard anybody blame the guys making those movies or going for the comps for ruining the pow for the old guys. In some ways it might suck, but on the other hand it's cool as a whole industry has evolved out of that movement and the gear we have nowadays is 10 times better than the stuff we had before. It's not our mountains anyhow, so how could we expect to have them for ourselfs only?

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How many of those new kids have died because they didn't have the right skis, or because no one taught them how to avoid avalanches?
-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

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How many of those new kids have died because they didn't have the right skis, or because no one taught them how to avoid avalanches?



Five?

I'm not sure what your point is. Bang for buck we could save a lot more lives through improved avalanche awareness than we ever could in BASE. But I would ask, who cares?

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I'm not sure what your point is.



That BASE is not skiing. The risks involved are different, and are also of different orders of magnitude.
-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

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So what? The issue here is not the risk. It's the amount of pub BASE is getting. Back in the good old days it was much more low profile, and now not so much. That's not a function of risk level, so I'm with MyTwoCents--I don't get your point.

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I'm not sure what your point is.



That BASE is not skiing. The risks involved are different, and are also of different orders of magnitude.



But what I can't derive from your message is in what direction you think the risks and consequences go. I'll easily agree that BASE is on an individual level more dangerous than skiing. However, overall a lot more lives have been lost because of the MTV-ification of extreme skiing than because of the YouTube-ification of BASE jumping.

I'm not saying I agree with Obi (that's a tangent), but I wonder if your point is that since skiing is less dangerous than BASE, it's less of a problem for skiing to be popularized than it is for BASE.

I would argue differently. Even when popularized, BASE continues to have a scare that runs against all intuition. Most people have no desire to jump off things. Back country skiing on the other hand seems too easy and too innocent. It's sunny and fun. Until you see that slab of snow slide away underneath your feet, and you look over your shoulder at a gigantic white cloud that is chasing you.

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cloud is not really chassing you, not any more than a human takes a step sideways to smash and ant.

-SPACE-

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To me, Nicks post wasn't about risks and proper training of new jumpers. It was the n-th complaint about the loss of the good'ol days and the fact that Base is getting more publicity now than it got 20 years ago. I'm just getting tired of that.
I totally agree that it's pretty stupid to illegally jump an object and then make a big thing out of it cause you will of course ruin it. But if you do some cool jumps off mountains where noone cares, I don't think it's oh so bad to speak about it. How should our sport evolve if everybody would hide in their bushes?

I'm very old-school and more than careful when it comes to new jumpers, but that is not the subject of this thread.

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So what? The issue here is not the risk. It's the amount of pub BASE is getting.



Isn't that the same issue?

Lots of publicity wouldn't matter so much if there was no risk involved in the activity.

This goes back to the same old argument. Are we trying to preserve "our" sites, or are we trying to keep people from getting hurt or killed (by trying things they aren't properly prepared for)? Perhaps both, but which do you think is more important?
-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

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Are we trying to preserve "our" sites, or are we trying to keep people from getting hurt or killed (by trying things they aren't properly prepared for)? Perhaps both, but which do you think is more important?



IMHO, site preservation is far more important. Thanks to the hard work of you all, anyone now entering the sport is doing so eyes open and fully aware of the risks. I don't think there's much more you can do there on that front without formal legislation.

However, excessive injury/death can jeopardize site access: as previously discussed, an incident highlighted in the media can cause owners of illegal sites to highten their security, and can increase regulation of so-far legal sites. So yes, they are somewhat the same issue.
Looking for newbie rig, all components...

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How many of those new kids have died because .....avalanches?

Five?



I get the point "My Two Cents" is trying to make...think of this guys:
More little kids die drowning in pools than are killed with guns...
BUT more citizens get really excited about wanting to control guns.
Rigger, Skydiver, BASE Jumper, Retired TM

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the greenmachine makes a good point.

"While the idea of people getting injured or killed bothers me, the idea of hiding something so remarkable in an ill-conceived attempt to protect people from themselves bothers me even more."- Anms

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18 fatalities this season since november..maybe not the right skis, but equipment and training..definately.

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I wanted you to define glory hound so we all knew who to blame for this catastrophic demise of BASE but since you side-stepped the question then I'll pose examples for others.

Carl Boenish - footage of illegal jumps presented in screenings to entire dropzones for 'entertainment'. Target audience - skydivers and a broader general public.

Tom Sanders - Footage of illegal jumps off all objects purely for entertainment sake. Target audience, skydivers and extreme sports participants and a broader general public.

Nick Feteris and Glen Singlemann - BASE climb films. Footage and expose of BASE as part of a specific goal to jump the highest wall in the world. Target audience - anyone with a TV.

Anne H (as a representative to BR) - Discovery documentary where she assists Will Forshay in obtaining his BASE number (legally). Target audience - anyone with a TV.

Tom Aiello - Discovery documentary piece following Tom's rehabilitation after a near fatal low pull at the Perrine. Also features jumps from some illegal terminal walls. Target audience - anyone with a TV.

Thor Alex - Made it his mission on a single trip to jump the 3 highest profile buildings in NYC and then distributed his footage to media associations in an effort to 1/appease them? 2/finance his defence? 3/seek glory?

Shane McConkey, Felix Baumgartner, Mike V et al - High Anxiety films and numerous other Ski chronicles

Marta Empinotti - documentary appearance

Team behind XXX and all other motion picture BASE stunts.

Jumper X who posts his video on youtube or skydivingmovies.com

So the question is.....spot the gloryhounds. Some? All? None? What makes one a glory hound worthy of derision and what makes the other a spokesperson worthy of adulation.

I can't figure it out. Or is it just a case of

"if they're my old mates and i've met them and understand their motivations so i know they're not essentially bad people so they don't qualify............... but this new breed who i don't know personally, think I'll blame them!"

For the record, No i don't think all the examples above were gloryhounds, and no, I have never posted so much as 1sec of my hours of footage on any online site.

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You're right; the sport started with glory hounds. Let the lemmings jump...

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So the question is.....spot the gloryhounds. Some? All? None? What makes one a glory hound worthy of derision and what makes the other a spokesperson worthy of adulation.



your sarcasm clouds your point...

Nick maintains a list. his list provides cautionary tales. it warns us about hazards detrimental to our health, and the sport. he is trying to contribute and help others. and face it, documenting a death a month has to drain the life out of someone. the repeated mistakes must create frustration in the one working hard to prevent just those accidents.

you created another list... is it designed to educate? warn jumpers by listing the mistakes of those who came before? be constructive?

your writing has a very divisive tone. harsh. bitter. angry. and I have no clue to it's source...

I think we share many views regarding distributing video to the public (please see my earlier post). some have done so to gain fame, some to gain wealth, and some to promote the sport. in the end, BASE has become far more public and higher profile. it also means any attention starved politician may use us as a cause to generate votes... (in the US, politicians love fearmongering about somehting.)

but I find I sympathize more with Nick right now...
DON'T PANIC
The lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
sloppy habits -> sloppy jumps -> injury or worse

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You're very wrong actually, but with your head so far up your own arse you can't see it. I really don't give a hoot if you're sympathies lie with Osama Bin Laden my friend. You assume I need to get you on side to be validated. I really don't.

A posed a very straight forward question. What constitutes a glory hound and why do some people take the shit whilst others get a pat on the back.

And i have to say, you have a very wwwwwarped view if you think my reply is embittered and Nick's posts are not. And if my response is barbed with sarcasm, that's no more than I feel necessary.

More and more Nick's posts reflect such antagonism, poison and barely concealed contempt for some imaginary group of modern day jumpers he perceives to be the antithesis of what BASE is supposed to be about.

Anyone who questions this notion is then dismissed as being too inexperienced or too new to the sport to be worthy of consideration.

Your misplaced sympathy and unquesioning reverence for someone who does indeed carry out the very unenviable task of collating the Fatality list means you come out guns blazing at the first whiff of criticism.

The term 'shoot the messenger' springs to mind.

If you think I am alone in my growing repugnance and contempt for this barrage of prejudiced abuse coming from Nick, then you are so wrong it's just not funny.

And unlike Nick, I am not for a second turning this into an old school, new school battle. I have received many many many words of support from people who have held a BASE number a lot longer than he has. People who realise that the seeds of inevitable change were sown from the onset.

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