Base Jumpers: Take A Flying Leap!

Base Jumpers - Daredevils at the edge of insanity?

Imagine standing alone atop a small platform hanging off the side of El Capitan, the world-famous, 3,000-foot rock-climbing destination in Yosemite National Park, Calif. Now picture yourself backing up, taking a deep breath and throwing yourself over the edge, hurtling toward a 300-story fall. An insane proposition?

Yeah, probably, but you wouldn’t be the first person to contemplate it – you wouldn’t even be the first person to do it. This chunk of overhanging granite is a favorite exit point for BASE jumpers – the new-school skydivers who drop from fixed objects instead of aircraft. “El Cap” – the local nickname for Yosemite’s famed climbing rock – is the mother of BASE jumps; not because of its difficulty, but because it was the site of the first modern BASE jump and the starting point for a sport that has since launched itself across the globe.

BASE is an acronym for the four general types of structures from which these ultimate thrill-seekers throw themselves: Buildings, Antennas, Spans (bridges) and Earth (cliffs). Arguably the most extreme activity practiced in the world today, many BASE altitudes are ridiculously low (increasing the dangers), and the landing spots are often very small. Compare this to a typical skydive, which starts tens of thousands of feet up and ends with large drop zones on which to land.

Known by many as “The King of Extreme Skydiving,” 37-year old Johnny “Utah” Winkelkotter is a two-time world-champion BASE jumper, having won the World Cup in 2001 and the World Championships in 2004. The Salt Lake City native (whose father, perhaps uncoincidentally, was a Green Beret paratrooper) has completed more than 1,100 BASE jumps in 10 countries over the last 14 years. Winkelkotter’s nickname, “Utah,” is an homage to Keanu Reeves’ character, Johnny Utah, in the classic extreme-sports movie Point Break. Fittingly, he is also team captain of The Ex Presidents Demonstration BASE Team (in Point Break, Reeves’ Johnny Utah joins a team of skydiving bank robbers called the Ex Presidents).

Winkelkotter is the quintessential modern-day BASE jumper, enjoying the sport safely and legally while instructing others in the safety and methodology of jumping. He even proposed to his wife before they made a BASE jump together from Kjerag – a 3,000-foot cliff in Norway. And while Winkelkotter now calls Glen Ellyn, Ill., home, he frequently travels on the BASE circuit. “In terms of my interest in the sport,” Winkelkotter says, “I’ve always been fascinated with natural flight. I’m a trained pilot, and I’ve soared with the eagles while hang-gliding. But BASE jumping gets you the closest to natural flight. Imagine a bird standing on its perch, then jumping and flying its own body through the air, and then swooping down and landing right where it wants to. That is what BASE jumping is: Experiencing natural flight – flying like a bird.”

As Winkelkotter delivers this paean, he is instructing two skydivers on the techniques of BASE jumping in Twin Falls, Idaho. It’s an appropriate locale for such a high-octane learning session. As a point of reference when jumping, Winkelkotter tells his trainees to keep their eyes on Evel Knievel’s ramp, a relic of the daredevil’s death-defying motorcycle jump over Snake River Canyon.

Professional training and high-tech equipment are new phenomena in BASE jumping, but the concept has come a long way; now, it’s relatively common to have safety courses and instruction offered. But, as Winkelkotter points out, like the Wright Brothers and other trailblazers of American flight, the pathfinders of BASE jumping have been breaking new ground for years.

“The pioneers of flight [such as the Wright brothers] were even more insane,” he says. “They were basically launching themselves into the unknown, and some of them would plummet to the ground and die. Even still, the desire to fly is a really cool aspect of mankind. BASE jumpers aren’t trying to die, we’re not daredevils – we’re pilots.”

STARTING AT THE BASE
It’s the summer of 1966. Rumors are flying around Yosemite that two skydivers from Barstow, Calif. – Michael Pelky and Brian Schubert – successfully parachuted off of El Capitan. Even though they had suffered broken bones and injuries on the descent, Pelky and Schubert survived the plunge. The next jump in Yosemite came in 1973, when daredevil Rick Sylvester launched himself from El Cap on skis (now known as Ski BASEing) and parachuted to the valley below. (He repeated this feat in 1977 for the James Bond movie, The Spy Who Loved Me, this time off the 2,000-foot Asgard Peak on Baffin Island, Canada.) Then, in August 1978, freefall filmmaker Carl Boenish filmed skydiver Kent Lane and several others jumping with chutes from the edge of El Cap.

Boenish’s film inspired dozens of would-be daredevils to visit Yosemite. The National Park Service (NPS), unsure how to respond to this new activity, eventually banned it – the first in a string of BASE-bans in national parks.

Boenish, who died in 1984 during a jump in Norway, coined the term “BASE jump” in 1981 and began issuing sequential “BASE numbers” for anyone who made at least one jump in each of the four fixed-object categories. “BASE No. 1” was issued to a Texas jumper named Phil Smith. The numbers are now issued by the United States BASE Association (USBA), an organization run by Jean Boenish, Carl’s widow.

Today, there are thousands of participants worldwide, organized competitions, BASE courses and groups that exist solely to promote the ethics and safety of the sport. Cities like Twin Falls, where BASE jumping is legal and promoted as part of its tourist appeal, are making headway in educating the public. “We bring a lot of business to [Twin Falls],” Winkelkotter says. “The people here are really supportive. This is a selfpolicing sport. It’s a tight-knit community, and if someone is screwing up, we’ll step in and say, ‘Dude, this has gotta stop.’ We might trespass to make a jump, but it’s like a bird – it lands on a building and then flies away, and you never knew it was there. Take only pictures, leave only footprints – that’s the creed we live by.”

As with all high-risk sports (backcountry skiing, paragliding, rock climbing, skydiving, surfing, etc.), there will be injuries and fatalities. These are sports in which mistakes can kill you. But in the grand scheme of things, BASE jumping has become relatively safe with the innovations in gear and safety. The single-parachute system (as opposed to skydiving’s two-chute system) is a simpler and more reliable way to open the chute, leaving less room for malfunction. As Winkelkotter puts it, “All the bugs are worked out now.

“My first [BASE] jump in 1991 was a huge leap of faith,” he says. “Back in those days, we had nobody to tell us what to do. We just did it ourselves; that’s how people got into the sport. These days it’s much safer. If you want to get into BASE jumping, you need to get a mentor or instructor. Any other way isn’t respectable.”

And, regardless of what you think of their obsession, for reasons of sheer courage alone, respect is definitely something that BASE jumpers deserve. Geronimo!