With hindsight this moment is probably the most
scared I've been for years. I'm sitting on my bum on a remote, barren Alpine
mountaintop completely alone wearing my wingsuit and BASE rig. To encourage
self-reliance and adding somewhat to the feeling of isolation, for the first
time ever, I have told nobody I'm coming here. I don't know the temperature for
sure but there are small pockets of fresh snow on the stony ground all around
me including on the small (about 4 meters and roughly 40°) but fairly steep
shingle covered slope in front of me that finishes at my exit point (unfortunate
terminology that). A tiny irregular shaped granite overhang just barley big
enough to get both feet comfortably on. The vertical drop below it is around
800 meters, well over 2500ft. The mountaintop has patchy cloud drifting slowly
sideways across it and from time to time everywhere I look is completely
obscured in fog. I’m pretty sure the slight knocking of my knees and chattering
of teeth is down to the sub zero temperature but I can’t be certain.
This is all my friend Freddy’s fault. A few days
ago I was quite happily setting up my lovely new and crispy paraglider on a
nice smooth and safe grassy launch point in the French Alps when I spotted him
just a few yards away talking to some guy. It had been a year or so since I'd
seen him so naturally I moseyed over to say hi. I first met Freddy skydiving in
California and he is what I like to describe as one of life’s true prototypes,
never intended for mass production. A sky lining, rock climbing, skydiving,
BASE jumping Frenchie who plays a drum kit attached to his paraglider in flight
and dresses up as a clown whenever the fancy takes him. He also performs
backflips or juggles while riding a unicycle. For those who don’t know sky
lining involves climbing mountains to their most precipitous peaks, stretching
a slack line between two convenient points, preferably with a space below that
can be measured in hundreds of meters, and walking across its entire never
unsubstantial length for fun, sometimes with and sometimes without a safety leash.
To see the exploits of him and some of his friends Google “All Aboard Le Petit
Bus Rouge” for the trailers to the award winning feature length movie they
made. It honestly makes me look like Dora the Explorer.
To reach my exit point I decide to slide on my bum
down the slope, over the loose shingle and snow to the little shelf and then
pick a clear moment to jump. You must be mad...you must be mad I keep repeating
to myself as I slip gingerly along. The friends I was travelling with have gone
home so if it all goes wrong it will probably be weeks before someone comes
across my corpse in the forest at the bottom, but its taken me over an hour and
a half of hard slogging up the steep mountainside to get here and I'm buggered
if I'm walking back down now. Every little piece of rock that I feel it a
potentially solid hand or foot hold on the short distance down to the ledge,
despite the fact it must have been there for a million years comes away in my
hand or under my foot and goes tumbling over the edge. I change the mantra for
something more positive. No guts, no glory…no guts, no glory. A couple of
small, butt clenching slips aside I reach my ledge safely (?!), stand upright
and peer into the abyss below. Once again we’re talking Wille Coyote here. A
strange calmness comes over me as I feel the first real danger is past. Actually
from this point on it’s a piece of cake, said no one ever.
Anyhow all I wanted to say was hey man, long time
no see and the next thing I know he's telling me he’s about to meet a friend to
go and wingsuit the mountain behind us and before you can pop a crazy pill and say
“well your not fuckin’ going without me” I found myself panting and sweating
profusely, hiking up what can most eloquently be described as one steep bastard
slope.
Like I say,
all Freddy’s fault. So I've only been here once before, and because of the
naturally irregular shape of the rock face below its very important to make
sure you’re in exactly the right spot. As you can only fall vertically for the
first few seconds even in a wingsuit anything protruding too far unexpectedly
below will almost certainly be fatal. No guts no glory. I drop a couple of
rocks to check. They strike a long horizontal shelf a couple of hundred feet
below me after 3 or 4 seconds (another first) however it only protrudes a few
meters and I'm sure I can jump out further than it sticks. Or at least I did
last time.
So here I am
watching small cricket ball sized rocks turn into even smaller marble sized
rocks and dust as they pound into the shelf below, waiting for a gap in the
cloud big enough to be able to see my intended flight paths, of which there are
two possibilities, and all the while thinking about pushing hard away from the
ledge and wishing I could have a cuddle with my Mum. I am well aware that even
with my helmet on those little rocks are a great deal more solid than my head,
although some would say, considering the position I seem to have volunteered
for, not much.
The visibility waxes and wanes as I wait. I feel
behind me for the pilot chute stashed in the pocket on the bottom of the rig,
first to practice the grab and pull but also to reassure myself its still there
and hasn't decided I'm being stupid and walked back down the mountain without me.
I check for the umpteeth time the rig’s leg straps and the chest strap, the
latter appearing to be the only thing stopping my heart from pounding straight
through the front of my ribcage. My usually somewhat sleepy eyes are wide
enough to make even the most dedicated coke fiend proud. I also check for my
nuts, like men do, but they are nowhere to be found. I then remember they
decided to hike back down about 15 minutes ago when they got wind of what the
rest of my body was in for. If they had fingers I would have got the middle one
for sure as they left. The view from here is the kind that you may pick if it
was going to be the last thing you ever saw. I’m on the summit of one of the
highest ridges in the area. Between the clouds endless miles of snow capped
alpine mountain stretched out to the horizon with the imposing form of Europe’s
highest peak, Mount Blanc, dominating the scene. A contented/demented (delete
as appropriate) smile spreads across my face. It’s that time again.
Here’s a gap in the cloud. Nothing will be served
by waiting longer now. I stop sucking my thumb, put teddy away and hurl myself
over the edge. The descent will be pretty vertical until enough airspeed is
gained to pressurize the suit via the inlet vents and it begins to fly. Time
slows and in the first second I have fallen a short, slow and quiet 16 feet
when the Hulk like hand of gravity wraps its fingers around me in an
unbreakable grip and pulls me downward, accelerating with the force and wind of
a runaway train. The ground rush begins. There’s a tremendous thrill as the rock
face begins to rocket by, the speed and noise increasing exponentially.
The marble manufacturing ledge below is getting
closer and larger, somehow still in slow motion but not quite slow enough for
my liking. Obviously I clear it or I won’t be here to write this, and equally
obviously I don’t have time to measure the distance I clear it by but its close
enough for me to think about perhaps pushing a smidgeon harder next time. At
this point without sufficient airspeed to start gliding after only 2 or 3
seconds, although stable I’m still heading pretty much straight down towards
the forest of doom far below. My arms are spread wide stretching the suit for
all I'm worth, my toes are now pointed out when just a second or two later with
an audible change in the pitch of the wind noise the suit begins to level out
and the flight truly begins. By this time my speed will be approaching the
100mph mark, I feel like fuckin’ Superman and I don’t mean having gay sex with
a caped hero in spandex. (or do I?)
People often ask why take such a risk for what is
often less than a 60 second thrill but the truth is the buzz began before I
even started hiking up and will continue long after I have landed. You'd also be surprised at the amount of women I've started meeting on a quite regular basis since I started jumping...nurses mostly but still...Oh yes, and
BASE jumpers are all stupid.
There are two antennas around 50 feet tall on the very
cliff edge of the plateau, now about 700 meters below I have to fly above to
truly be on the safe side if I want to complete a full 1800m descent, and its
these I am fixated on while I try to build enough speed and glide ratio to
clear. The suit is now nicely pressurised and solid and I begin the delicate
task of trying to judge exactly where my glide angle will take me. A simple way
to decide, is that if what you are concentrating on is becoming lower in your
field of vision you will sail above it, if it is getting higher you will impact
before you reach it.
Slightly to
the right of the antennas for reasons best known to her and a few geologists Mother
Nature has carved a huge gash out of the mountainside leaving a deep gully. You
can commit to the gully if you feel you can't quite glide above the antennas as
the terrain here is considerably lower, but between the forest inside, the
power lines stretching across it, and the compete lack of any exit once you
have entered its not my favourite option at this time. Equally the terrain
inside the gully, although lower, is considerably less steep than the rest of
the adjacent rock face and you can find yourself rapidly running out of sky.
Far to many wingsuiters have run out of skill and met an untimely end flying
into cracks like these. I decide to concentrate on clearing the antennas, which
for now seem to be getting lower in my field of vision.
Rushing by now at well over 100mph directly below
me is the steep forested mountain slope, followed by a small village, the
plateau where the paraglider launch is and, if you can build sufficient speed
and glide by getting your body position just right to clear the plateau,
another 1000 meters to the valley floor. This last part requires skill,
practice, perhaps a bigger wingsuit than I have, and of course not
inconsiderable judgement and courage. Getting it wrong and waiting too late to
decide whether you are going to clear the plateau as it rises up to meet you will,
in the worst case prove fatal but mercifully quick. And as I mentioned earlier,
I've only been here once before, and I didn’t make it.
By the small village, the ground then begins to
level out and rise upward again on a shallow incline for a little over a
quarter mile, it then forms half a dozen hedge lined fields at the edge of
which are the antennas on the cliff edge. It is this roughly 100 meter rise in
the terrain almost imperceptible at my height and speed that is making judging
my exact trajectory somewhat problematic. First the antennas are falling
slightly in my field of vision (good), then around 30 seconds into the flight
they begin to rise slightly (bad). I make subtle adjustments in my body
position rolling my shoulders forward dipping my head and pointing my toes to
try to make more speed and therefore improve the glide but after another 15
seconds or so it becomes clear I am rapidly running out of sky, so I decide to get
ready deploy my one and only parachute.
Reserves are
not a luxury enjoyed by BASE jumpers, we leave those to the sissys in
skydiving. With the ground coming rapidly up to meet me and with probably
around 10 seconds to impact I begin to arch my whole body to scrub off some of
my airspeed and reach behind me to the base of my spine where the pilot chute
is located. At this point you are about to slow from around 120mph to 20 pretty
much instantaneously with a jolt hard enough to cause some discomfort, so any
speed you can loose in the couple of seconds preceding the deployment will
help. I pull and release the pilot chute. There is nothing now to do but wait
and keep stable as the bridle begins to stretch to its 9 foot length, the
closing pins are pulled from the container and the canopy deploys with a boom
that would make any artillery Sargeant Major smile. The sound echoes all round
the valley.
The force of the deployment throws me violently
from a chest down position to chest up, the canopy is on course but the lines twist
as my body spins 3 times. Now at about 250ft up I have around 30 seconds to
remove my tinted goggles so I can see any fine obstacles (wire fences etc.) better,
untwist so I can steer the canopy, unzip my arms so I can use the steering controls
and unzip my legs so I have something more efficient than a penguin to land on.
Oh, and I'm over the houses, about to land short of the large hedge lined
fields beyond, so there is also the little matter of picking a suitable landing
spot.
My options are between some small back gardens risking
smashing into the houses, and a little field on a steep rise mostly covered in large
bushes and with high voltage power lines running along its leading edge risking
getting fried. Its one saving grace is that I can see I just have the height to
clear the power lines (haven’t I? Think fast!).
Fortunately I am well practiced at getting rid of
line twists and am able to do so with a simple adjustment in my body position
while removing my goggles, and unzipping my arms and legs in less than 10
seconds. I decide the little field is the preferred option. It’s small but a lot bigger than the gardens. All
I have to do now in the remaining 20 seconds is line up a landing approach in
between the bushes and the power lines turning the canopy so I have a headwind
to reduce my ground speed and land. What could possibly go wrong? I can see the
poles supporting the power lines but not the lines themselves for the first few
seconds as I line up a landing approach. 10 seconds left. I make a sharp 90 degree
right turn as I approach the field at around 80 feet and a slower 180 degree
left turn as I clear the power lines and approach the steep slope just after.
At this height I start to notice just how gnarly the bushes are in the field,
completely covered in thorns but there is now nowhere else to go. There is just
height enough left to steer into the thinnest part of the bushes, get my feet
together then flare (slow) the canopy and brace for what could be quite an
impact with the steep angle the field rises up at to meet me. The landing turns
out to be surprisingly much softer than expected and the rush of touching terra firma unhurt once again is beyond description. Like being born maybe. I’m
beaming uncontrollably from ear to ear as I pack away my gear. No guts, no
glory. Wingsuiting cliffs is the absolute shit. That’s what I call a fun
day out in the countryside. Now for a nice cup of tea.
