My Brother is Awesome
- May 2010
- Simple Living Climb Fly Dogs Travel
My brother Virgil is 2 years older than me, and he lives in Salt Lake with his adorable/badass wife Holly and 3 pretty rambunctious dogs (2 malinois and a doberman).
By night, Virgil is an ER doctor at the University Hospital in Salt Lake. And a lot of days too, actually, because he works a lot.
But due to not sleeping as much as some, the rest of the time, he is this crazy wingsuit pilot, speed flier, base jumper, paraglider, skier person! (hmm, this gives me an idea for a new superhero comic book) And he is so sweet and good that everyone he meets loves him! My brother is awesome.
He smashed his ankle pretty good a few years ago on a base jump, and has to get it fixed a little more in a week. So we decided to go on a quick trip together to base jump and camp out and have fun, before he’s in recovery mode again.
I will say that base jumping and even skydiving are kind of funny communities and very accustomed to injury. People get hurt so regularly, that at any given time you expect 30% of your friends to be recovering from what most people would consider a fairly serious injury….broken pelvises, femurs, ankles, collapsed lungs, fractured/compressed vertebrae, etc, in somewhat of a rotation, including yourself. To jumpers, as long as you will fully recover eventually from such injuries, it’s mostly par for the course, and you just wait patiently for your friends (or self) to heal soon so you can play with them again.
What is good about this is that it makes you very thankful and appreciative of things, and also not very prone to self pity. If you get hurt, and you know you will get better in some time, you realize that you have nothing to complain about and should in fact, be grateful. When Virgil smashed his ankle, he was by himself and had to give himself emergency treatment and rescue himself. Now he has a SPOT device.
We met out near the Dirty Devil wash, at the Myles of Earl jump. It’s a 600 foot cliff, with a slot canyon that you climb out of after you land.
We did that jump twice, and the bonus slot canyoneering, and then the sun and the outrageously biting gnats made us decide to leave and head over to Black Dragon Wash, another one of my favorite spots, only one hour from Moab, and on Virgil’s way home to Salt Lake.
Black Dragon is very good for dogs! And some of the nicest camping around.
Virgil brought one malinois, Taz, and I had my foster dog Slack.
We spent another night out there, and jumped the 300 foot cliff a few times.
At Black Dragon, it feels almost like a playground slide, because the approach is so quick, and the jump is so much fun, that as soon as you land, you want to pack your parachute and do it again! So we did 🙂
be wary of the SPOT device. I used one for a while through Yosemite and the Eastern Sierras and got very bad reception. The thing would take 30-40 minutes to send a check-in message.. not very reliable, in my opinion. There might be a better GPS device out there..
this one is very good:
plb
the spot seems to work if there is a clear view of sky. i usually turn mine on at an exit point, and push the “OK” button when I land. recently, I’ve received every OK message. what i really like about the spot is the optional $100,000 worth of helicopter insurance, for about $10/year.
truly, the best thing would be to buy the spot, merely for the heli insurance which you’re not going to get any other way (I’ve checked), and then carry the other PLB with you (since it works better in difficult areas) in case of an actual emergency. yes, you have to buy 2, but i think it’s the best way to go if you are often in remote areas and/or doing high risk things.
Nice story Steph.
Sometimes I wonder just whether it is worth busting our bodies up in pursuit of fun and adventure. I have my share of serious and basic injuries and operations and even though I am only in my thirties I feel the effects and makes me wonder how I will be in another 20 years… Probably like my dad who worked and played too hard and now struggles with things he loves to do. I guess I wish I got the same buzz from knitting or something sometimes 😉 I think so many bust themselves up due to ego and peer pressure from friends, society and media when it is not truly who they are. What makes the risk worth it for you? Or like others do you avoid thinking about it and wear the consequences later?
personally i am very hard on myself if i get hurt, because i see it as a result of having made a mistake while doing something high risk. although i don’t see it that way for others, i am always very critical of my own mistakes, especially when it matters a lot. though of course, this is the way to learn and improve.
the only way to gain experience is to do things, so we all have to struggle with the learning phase, and partly hope we are lucky as we gain skills and judgment. i guess this is just like life, for everyone who grows from a baby, having to learn to survive. one thing i really enjoy is learning how to push my limits in intelligent, conservative style. freedom is a complex thing, and not easily earned…
i decided early on that freedom, for me, means taking on risk in this style and living all the way, rather than locking myself in a bubble and trying to reduce all risk from my world. but i do work hard to be competent, intelligent and conservative, to preserve that freedom….hence, the spot device, heli insurance, and the parachute 😉
you can certainly climb, base jump, hike, ultrarun, ski, surf, paddle or do anything in a less conservative style, and plenty of people do, as you only have to watch the youtube extreme sports channel to observe, but that’s not for me. it seems like if you can make it through the baby/discovery years with some luck, then competence and good judgment will keep you generally pretty safe after that. you can’t continually do things in a yahoo style, without your luck running out. you can push the boundaries of what you think is possible, and you can do it carefully. to me, this is really living.
apologies for the not-so-great photos in this post! my Panasonic Lumix died, and I was forced to resort to my iphone 🙂
any suggestions for a super tiny, tough, and decent point and shoot camera?
Any of the Olympus tough models. I have used one for the last couple of years, it’s great. Nice not to have to worry about getting it wet or dropping it.
Thanks for the recommendation! That’s one of the 4 I’m looking at, and I’m pretty overwhelmed by decision right now 🙂
I got a new camera! 🙂
Another Lumix, after all.