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Flying High in Brento

• December 2007
• Uncategorized

I was trying to describe the feeling to a friend, of stepping off the edge of Monte Brento. The word that comes to mind is “delicious.”

That seems like kind of a funny description, but somehow it’s exactly how I feel when I take a few steps, and push forward, dropping into the air. After a few seconds, I feel the air catch me, and I fly with my body forward from the cliff, watching the ground get closer, deciding when to throw my pilot chute and open my canopy to stop me from terminal speed…..

It was amazing, being a part of the jumping crew last weekend, pooling together to take a van to the top of Brento, and then hiking together through the woods, talking and laughing.

After watching people make awesome group jumps, and then being at the top alone, I realized how different it feels to be together with others on the top of this cliff. Both ways are wonderful. Somehow it feels safer or easier to jump off the edge with your friends around you, but in the end, you are alone in the air and it’s up to you to save your life.

After the weekend ended, most of the jumpers left. Brendan Cork made a three-way jump with Dean and me, my first multi-way BASE jump. It was the first time Dean had seen me in the air, flying a wingsuit beside me as I tracked, Brendan shooting some photos from his camera helmet off to our right. What an amazing feeling, to count, “3-2-1 See ya!!” and leap off the cliff together with your friends, feeling them flying beside you in the air…..

Now all the jumpers are gone, and Dean and I are taking turns ferrying each other up the road to the drop off point. I never would have thought I’d have the confidence to hike alone for an hour to the top of a 4000 foot cliff, and jump off the edge. But it is a very special experience.

We have gotten a nice routine of one jump each day, and then climbing a few pitches in the sun at Massone. Yesterday we bumped into my friend Mauro, a local mountain guide whom I met last May when I came to Arco. He offered to give us a quick tour of some of the other crags.

There’s a lifetime of climbing at these cliffs, most of them within five minutes of each other, and they are just endless.

Tomorrow is our last day in Italy. It will be hard to leave! I am hoping to make my first wingsuit BASE jump tomorrow…..