School of B.A.S.E.
Hi Steph
First I want to thank you for writing that wonderful book, it is really something special, very inspiring, dealing with questions I was dealing with in my life, as a person, and as a woman. I can’t wait for that next one.
All my life I thought I was anti-sportive type, I hated group (popular)sports, and unfortunately where I was born couldn’t get in touch with any extreme sports…so it took a while, I’m now 28……..but, I have loved heights from when I can remember myself 🙂
As a little, every time when I was standing at high and looking down, at a window of a building or an edge of a cliff , I was feeling the best I could feel, that vast space in front of me was like embracing me, calling… but not in my wildest dreams could I imagine then that one day will that jump be possible to do!
It’s all I think about constantly… I do not see it as an ambition or wishing to do something cool or brave or all that nonsense…don’t see it also as „I could try“ thing, but I find it to be the most beautiful, freeing, “awaken“, life-full thing one can possibly do. Something like pure happiness , a complete connection with you and nature. Often I vision myself actually flying, falling…
I’m aware of the risk task, and hearing constantly of unfortunate mistakes, made even by those who were really good. So, I would like to ask you for an advice, which way would you advice me to proceed.
I’m an acrobatic paragliding pilot, so air environment and critical situations are a familiar for me, but I ‘m not sure how much that could help. I also have heard some, claiming that not having any parachuting experience could be even positive thing, as for to start directly for base and practice free fall indoor (“body flight”). Honestly I don’t believe that logic, anyway thought I could ask someone competent for opinion on that, that is you 🙂
As I could understand until now, the proper way would be to start a parachute course, and jump as often as I can to gain experience, than after few hundred jumps (I think 200 jumps done recently is what is required as minimum ), that would be 1-2 years skydiving, I could start thinking of a base course.
I climb too, not very hard stuff, level 6b, but enjoying every single moment on the rock :)) Cracks and high boulders are my favorite 🙂 I fell in love with climbing year and a half ago, so now when I see a beautiful high rock face I don’t know what would I want more,to climb it, or to fly from it.. as for climbing, it seems to me it takes more training from now on to be able to reach next level of difficulty.
I would be the happiest person on earth if I could do all three, all day long, every day…acro, climbing and jumping….but I’m not going to bother you with -how to organize my life – questions 🙂 I’d be more than grateful if you could only give me an advice how to proceed for realizing my dream for jumping. Any suggestions for a school in Europe or maybe visiting the States,are welcomed.
Thanks, wish you all the sunny days and blue skies!
Big hug,
Emilia
Dear Emilia,
Thanks for writing! You have a great approach to everything you are doing, and it was really nice to read your letter 🙂
You’re right about the standard advice for those who want to start jumping. But you are an exception to the norm, because of your acro paragliding experience. You already have a lot of knowledge of wind, canopy performance and flight, and canopy control is the main thing needed in base jumping. You definitely have a lot of parachute experience already, though not from the typical first step to base jumping which is skydiving: it’s true that you could benefit from just a little time in the wind tunnel, and after that you will have no problem with anything in skydiving.
I know some people who went directly to base jumping because they were acro pilots and felt that their canopy skills were enough to start safely base jumping at a bridge. Personally, I like to follow the more systematic approach, and I think you’re right that it’s good to get skydiving experience no matter what before starting to base jump. Almost as important as piloting skill, it’s important to get comfortable with free fall, and skydiving is the best way to do that. The more skydives you can do the better, there’s no denying that for anyone–the very best way to start base jumping would be to have done 1000 skydives first, which is impossible to ask of anyone who wants to start base jumping nowadays. Still, it would be the best way. But like I said, your paragliding experience really changes things as far as adhering to the more standard progression of starting with a certain number of skydives and then to base, etc.
It sounds like you have a great approach and you do your research with things. As you know, you are really lucky to live in Europe as there are no legality issues with any flying sports and you have tall, awesome cliffs coming out your ears 🙂 I think you should start by taking a skydiving course. Along the way, you will be talking to more people, and getting a more clear idea of what your next step should be. You may want to follow the standard 1-200 skydive recommendation before starting base. There’s really no reason not to, and it’s just a fact that the more you skydive, the better jumper you become and it directly translates to base. But like I said, you seem very careful in your thought process, so with you I would not be worried about the possibility of trying to take shortcuts or doing things carelessly, which is sometimes a problem for jumpers. In your case, I would say trust your instincts, and if it seems like the right time to take the next step, I think it is.
BLiNC is a good resource for a lot of base questions, and this is their post about first jump courses, and a general post about getting into base jumping. I highly recommend getting a copy of The Great Book of B.A.S.E.
This season, Mario and I started a service in Moab called Moab Base Adventures. We are offering a full range of base services, from guiding of experienced jumpers to first cliff camps (which you may be interested in at some point) to tower jumps to tandem base jumps. So there are lots of options out there to keep learning.
See you in the air somewhere…
🙂 Steph
