Crazy McConkey

[13]

That is fucking sweet!

[Buzzworthy]

I once wanted to BASE jump, but after watching, in person, literally hundreds of jumps at the Gorge Games and Bridge Day, I decided it wasn't for me. It's a risk that I personally don't think I need to take.

Since I went to WVU, we went to Bridge Day every year. That is simply a huge bridge and sketchy landings a lot. How many people break ankles and whatnot there, I saw many over the years.

Now being on the Twin Bridge is a different story. It looks TOO low to BASE off of. But it does have a very user friendly area to walk and then climb and jump, if you wanted.

Seeing Shane do it off Twin was cool, seeing unknown people to me at that time in college was cool too at the New River Gorge those years, 92-97.


I personally would like to skydive someday. SOMEDAY.


Cool of Shane to talk about the jump. He still is nuts in my book, but I love watching him do new things. Nuts is not necessarily a bad thing though.





Pinner, what do you know about borrowing and launching a shuttle? "Road" trip sounds fun.

[Pinner]

Can't be any harder than jumpstarting a backhoe, and I've done that a couple times.

[sftc]

You misconstrue my quote about thinking Baffen would be safe for a first timer. I am not saying that is where they HAVE to jump the first time. I am saying that would seem DOABLE for a first timer, and hella fun. And I was only trying to give pube a general description of how I thought it was done with the pretense that I have never done it.

Steezus,
No blood, no foul. I hear what you are saying and I'm sorry if I rubbed you the wrong way.
With the pilot chutes, some people jump with them in their hands and toss them and some people pull the rip cord. To me it seems to be a factor of the jumper's confidence and skill, combined with the hight of the jump. If they are going off something big and free falling for a few seconds or doing flips they usually use the rip cord. People with only a few jumps will hold it their hand so they don't have to reach around and grab the rip cord, they just let the pilot chute go out of their hand.
Either way it's a crazy freakin' sport and I'll just continue to watch with my jaw dropped.

[Steezus Christ]

So how do they pull the reserve chute during a short bridge jump when things go wrong???

So I wonder how easy it is to find someone who would be willing to mentor someone from BASE Retard 101 to BASE Crazy Fuck 180?

[trainnvain]

I'm not into the whole base thingy, but that made me want to watch CKY2K again.

[maskinut]

If you aren't doing what you love you aren't living anyway.

Vibes to the family as those are the ones who will feel this the most.

Hello Freaks, my ears were burning so I figured I'd check to see what was going on over here. Looks like I achieved the desired effect with that little video. If you guys think it was stupid you should have heard what my wife said! Geez! You'd think she was used to this kind of idiocy by now.
Yea was gonna call it Sandbagging as a little shout out to those Tahoe bungee jumpers who were doing that back in the early 90s (Brad Holmes) I Also thought about calling it free solo basing as it is similar to what some rock climbers like to do, but I figured freebasing sounded not only accurate but nice and stupid too.
Here's a little explanation for why I did that:
In base jumping or skydiving one can do a jump called a Mr. Bill. This is when one guy holds on to the other guy through deployment. Usually it is done high enough to then let go and deploy your own parachute. At Twin Falls just for fun we started landing the Mr. Bill together in the water without one guy letting go. After doing this a whole bunch of times for a couple years we realized that we had a very bomber grip system and absolutely never even came close to slipping off. Throwing up an unpacked parachute reduces opening shock a lot too. The type of unpacked jump that Eric "Rubbs" Roner (yes the same guy ski basing in the TGR films. Solid base jumper) threw for me is called a T.A.R.D. (Totally Awesome Rapid Deployment) Since it is so easy to hold on to someone who is throwing a tard I decided to try it wearing a hidden rock climbing harness with a 3 foot long back up line attached to his leg straps instead of a parachute. If I fell I would have dropped 3 feet before the backup caught me. When that was no problem and still felt exactly the same I went for it without any safety. That was the video you saw. I have only done it once. Most people say is is just plain stupid and I can't really say that I disagree, but it sure is good for a few laughs! However, ya know when you work your way up to something like a gnarly line or a big cliff and you have seen the all the possible scenarios from every angle and then you just simply know for sure that you can do it. You don't really know why or maybe you can't totally explain it but you absolutely know that you can do it cleanly. That's how I felt going into this jump. It wasn't totally reckless. I worked up to it and thought it through in massive detail. Free solo climbing is really dangerous of course but those guys know what they are doing and stay within their safety margin. I felt I was doing the same.
Yes JT Holmes' first base jump was before he had any skydive experience. This is rare and not recommended. He has since become skilled at both.
If any of you are interested in any other funny and ridiculous base footage I highly recommend checking out
http://www.jimmyhalliday.com/
and order his video called Radix. There's lots of idiocy in there. Very much worth every penny.
Don't get dead.
Shane

[TyWebb]

Some thread...Cliff's post sums it up. Knew what he was doing every step of the way and knew what could happen. Props for living life the way few others have.

[maskinut]

Well described. Familiarity is the one danger that is harder to see.

Quoting Cliff-
"ya know when you work your way up to something like a gnarly line or a big cliff and you have seen the all the possible scenarios from every angle and then you just simply know for sure that you can do it. You don't really know why or maybe you can't totally explain it but you absolutely know that you can do it cleanly."

[DictatorShooter]

Also tough re-reading Cliff's 15th post here this morning - http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...72#post1022172

[JimmyCarter]

It definately cannot be considered a tradgedy when shane dies in the next few years....he is doing to many crazy things...

ill put my money on early rotation chute pulled and nearly tangled (like in yearbook) or this silly tandem stuff....you know he is gonna try tandem on skis....eventually with letting go about 70 feet up and trying late fronts and stupid shit...


oh well...fucking sick way to go out

It still sucks though

[uglymoney]

Bump. Gone for 10 years and change? This was a different place. Good read.

[MitchPee]

What a cool thread to reflect on.

After a decade of playing around with parachutes/gravity in a variety of ways, this thread really provoked a lot of thought and reflection. Perspective is an interesting thing and I can remember a time when my younger self would align and justify with the same confidence what has been stated in this thread.

Having experienced the full spectrum of death from close romantic relationships to complete strangers, I can’t feel any blame towards parachute sports. For a sport that has given me so much, vilification doesn’t feel right. Looking back on this topic, it spurs memories of people with a similar outlook as Shane. People who are alive and injured, dead, alive and well, or MIA.

The conversation about risk in all sports has been growing exponentially, especially as the pool of participants in “extreme sports” grows just as exponential. More and more people feel the personal impact of losing someone they know. To watch a soul like Shane be told he couldn’t do something seems like a travesty. Our paths are all so different, and to quell human spirit, on a level I can understand for the yearn of freedom, seems counter productive to progress. However, with time grows a skepticism of the rashness of decisions that lead to a reckless death and suffering that is not yours to bear but the ones you leave behind.

From a personal standpoint, the life lessons and positive growth jumping off cliffs has provided has been a humbling experience. One in which has figuratively sat me down in the presence of my own insignificance and opened a desire to see what lies beyond. Like anything, there’s diminishing returns. It’s easy to armchair quarterback and say all of these things could be achieved without participating in a dangerous situation, but to that I would say it depends on the individual. We all have different reasons for doing things and gain different amounts from different experiences. Hopefully, we can all use Shane’s life as a beautiful thing to have observed, but also to be fair in the criticism it deserved.