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Newsletter for Base Dreams August
2006 -
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16/9/06
Well
after a fat time in Europe it was off to the almighty walls of
Then
it was time to go to extreme week in Voss where the parties would get even
bigger and a lot of money would be spent. That was until I got a phone call
from Ditta from the Norwegian 4 way team ARCTERYX needing a cameraman for a
few days. So instead of spending money I made money and had a fat time as
well. I was freaking out in the days prior as the last time I did 4 way
camera was in 1999 with Wildman's intermediate team and now I have to step up
to an over 21 average team.
It
was all good though and I had nothing to worry about, as I kept them in frame
and nailed most of the exits. They even put me in the team for a jump and we
ripped it up, I was uncurrent but I can still fly hard when provoked. And as
usual we finished up with an all night party again as the sun never really
goes down up there. Thanks to all the team and especially Ditta for having
faith in me. We ended up doing 46 jumps in 3 1/2 days but although we tried
our hardest I still never got to see a moose. Thanks for trying Elin and
Christina though, it was fun.
It
was weird in Lysebotn this year without Coombesy as he was the life of the
place but there was another bad vibe in there as well and I think Wildman put
it best when he said, "If you can smell gas while your having a shower,
get out now." I think all of you who were there this summer know what I
mean. There were a large number of students doing their courses this year and
they all did a great job thanks to Elin and Doug - who also got engaged as
well, nice one guys. It really showed that the sport is growing quite fast
these days, not sure whether it is a good or bad thing but no one died this
year here which is always a good thing. I was
doing a variety of jumps and mostly in great weather, as I was a bit lazier
this year. What I was looking forward to was going up north to Romsdal for
the big walls and I wasn't disappointed. There was a whole gang of us up
there this year and the crew was awesome fun to hang out with. We did 15
jumps in 8 days as the weather was perfect pretty much the whole time. We
started with Karlskrotan, which is one of the nastiest hikes ever but was
well worth it and then it was off to Gridsetskolten, which is the small wall
up there because it is only 800+ meters.
This
jump is one of the most beautiful and technical around with an amazing view
of the fjords and a huge talis in where you are only 150ft off the tree tops
the whole way down and you cant really open your parachute until the last
moment if you commit to the whole thing. I was kicking koalas a few times on
that one. We also got to do quite a few jumps off the Troll wall which had
some good and bad come of it. It was sad to jump Labben as this was the exit
point where Coombesy went in on and I totally see how he may have with the
line he took. It was very inviting but very risky. We did a jump with some
flowers in memory of him and it was quite sad. continued top
right... |
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continued from below.. The
Troll wall was getting jumped a lot while we were there and eventually
something had to give, as it is illegal. The last words I said to Ian before
we jumped off it the last time was that if the cops were there
"remember, you just have to run faster than me" and I guess he did
because I got busted and taken away to the police station in the back of the divi
van like the hard core criminal that I am, while he got to hide in the forest
for an hour or so. I spent most of the evening in police station being
stubborn until they threatened to put me in jail for the night. I copped a
5000 aud fine and they took my gear. C#nts! The cops were really cool over
all though as they were only doing their job and as I said to them as they
apologised to me, "It's my job to run and it's your job to chase."
With every negative though there is always a positive and I actually ended up
getting busted on the 20th anniversary of the Troll wall being illegal. You
cant buy that sort of history I reckon and to top it off we went and did the
Troll spire 2 days later which is the holy grail of base jumping. Ha ha .
This jump was one of the biggest highlights of my base jumping career. It is
one of the most powerful and awesome places ever and it commands respect. I
could talk about it all day so I will move on. It
was sad to leave the north but I had to get back to Lysebotn to look after
the house again and earn some cash taking photos. Some cool crew rocked into
town from the United Mistakes of America headed by legendary Jimmy Halliday
and JT Holmes and it was game on. There was all sorts of fun going on
including free fly jumps 6 way totem pole jumps and a huge 16 way mystery
load in which every one had to do some sort of flips but not tell anyone what
they are doing. On the totem jump I had one of my closest calls yet in the
form of a potential canopy wrap which had me sliding across the top of a
canopy at 150 ft. Sorry Kyle, my fault buddy. Over
the last 3 years I had a goal to climb the face of Kjerag and jump off it and
this year it finally became a reality. I kept off the alcohol for the most
part and kept as fit as I could for the almighty task that lay ahead. With
the help of Tag and Elling, two legendary local boys who do that shit all the
time we planned to climb a route called the North Eastern Passage over two
days and then jump off. I was shitting out my south Weston back passage as I
had never done something that was 20 odd pitches long before (approx 950
meters high). I
started it in an interesting way with the canopy incident and then had to
start climbing straight away. We paced ourselves slow as to not pump out
which was my biggest fear and did 7 pitches the first day and got to see
everyone jump from a birds eye view. It was all time. Some of the wing suit
flyers buzzed us as well and we could see the whites of their eyes as they
past by us super close to the cliff. I was pretty tired by the end of the day
but super happy, as I was doing a lot better than I had expected. We
set up camp on a small ledge at about 1500ft and actually had a pretty good
nights sleep. Elling and Tag cleared some rocks out and made themselves a
nice little place for a small tent while I found my own body width of grass
and small ferns in which to lie on for the night. It was very pleasant as far
as sleeping on the side of a big fuck off cliff goes. We were all awoken the
next morning to the thundering sound of Karina and JT flying by us and it was
time to continue. There
was every type of climbing on this one and for me it was a constant challenge
of the body and the mind. I only had to aid climb for a few meters in a wet
patch of rock and had to rest on the rope only once. I was climbing better
than I had ever done before both physically and more so mentally and was
amazed at my performance. It was very hard controlling my fears so such a
long time but the trust I had in the lads and the constant humour kept me
going. After another hard days climbing we finally reached the top with the
lads making me lead the last pitch which was a bit scary but we had finally
made it and my dream was about to be realized. All we had to do was jump off
now. The only problem was it was howling easterly winds which made it too
dangerous to jump. I had
already made up my mind though and was quite content to get broken to finish
what I had begun. So off we went with a nice 3 way with no tracking gear, no
helmet or knee pads and climbing shoes in hideous conditions. This was the
easy bit for me. I had made it through the climb so I figured we could make
it through this and we did, the landings were super sketchy but we all walked
away unhurt. There were hugs all round as we were greeted by the
I did
a few more cool jumps and decided to go big for my last jump of the season
there. Doug and myself decided to try and out track exit point 4 1/2. It had
never been done before and as soon as I got into free fall I realized why. It
was quite a euphoric feeling knowing I was about to die in less than 10
seconds but the visuals were the best ever. I was too low to open my
parachute and just had to keep flying no matter what the out come was. It was
awesome but I won't be doing that again any time soon. And
that was the end of my
I
rushed to pack and get on the ferry as usual and got pretty drunk before
flying out to
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