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As It Turns Out, Skydiving is Rather Addictive

• August 2007
• Uncategorized

Skydiving started kind of impulsively for me, about six weeks ago. Then I decided I wanted to get skills in order to learn to base jump somewhat safely. At this point, after eighty skydives, and over a month spent in Boulder and at the Mile Hi Drop Zone, I’m hooked.

It’s funny, what really pulled me into skydiving once and for all was the people.

Many of my favorite people, including my brother Virgil, are jumpers. Spending time with these crazy, happy people–in the hanger, packing parachutes, going up in the airplane–is about as good as it gets.
A lot of the people jumping at this dropzone are the best in the world, and they are generous with their knowledge. One really cool thing about jumping is that everyone REALLY wants everyone else to have a good jump. When you go out that airplane door, we all know that something could go wrong, and those last seconds could be the last ones, period. I can really feel the intensity of the good wishes towards each person as they head towards the door, even from people in the plane who don’t even know each other…..

I usually show up at the Drop Zone first thing in the morning, and sign up to get on a plane load by 9 am. We all ride on a trailer out to the runway, and pile into the plane. It takes about ten minutes for the pilot to fly up to 12,500 feet, and then everyone jumps out….about fifty seconds of freefall, a few minutes flying under the canopy and landing, and then it’s back to the hanger.

Everyone spreads their parachutes out on the floor and starts packing as quickly as possible (some people hire packers, $6 per pack job).

The faster you can pack and be ready, the more you can jump in a day. At first, I would miss loads by an irksome five minutes, because I couldn’t pack fast enough. Now I can pack in about ten minutes, and usually make the next plane ride.

It’s amazing to me, how much there is to know in skydiving. Packing parachutes and attending to gear, how to freefall, how to track fly through the air, how to fly a canopy, how to land…..it’s endless. Only now, after 80 jumps, do I even feel like I’m STARTING to get a clue. A very small clue.

Last week my brother came out again, and started teaching me how to sit fly, a more advanced way to freefall where you are in a sitting position in the air. There was a lot of flailing 🙂 And a little bit of sitting.

The thing is, all I really want to do is track, where you are flying through the air like a bird, as far and fast as you can……it’s kind of a running joke at the drop zone, that if anyone wants to jump with me, they have to do a tracking jump. Only because Virgil came all the way out from California, did I finally break down and try some sit flying with him for a few jumps, which was definitely challenging and fun. But I just LOVE tracking!! Flying straight through the sky, fast, is an unbelievable feeling.

But as with climbing, I understand it’s best to try to get competent at everything. There’s just so much to learn…..