As I mentioned even though I’ve made over 13,000 skydives I’ve yet to make a BASE jump. It’s not that I’m scared, I’M NOT SCARED OF ANYTHING! I just don’t have access to anything to anything I consider high enough to jump off of. For non-skydivers that statement might seem wrong. “Kerry, I think you mean anything low enough to jump from.” No dear reader I do not, and I’ll thank you not to question me in the future. I know what I’m talking about. Skydivers know that the higher you are the safer you are because it’s the ground, or cliff, that kills you so STAY AWAY! A jump site that’s really high allows the jumper to fly away from the cliff and open his parachute safely without the risk of an off heading opening flying him back into the cliff with predictable results. No need to talk about the guys who try and see how low they can open, that’s just Darwin at work. If you look at the statistics BASE jumping is an extremely dangerous sport, but if you take out the jumpers who jump from low objects it’s not as bad, still dangerous but not crazy stupid dangerous. When a non-skydiver looks over the edge of the 800 foot New River Gorge, a popular BASE site, they say “Oh my God, look how high it is!” A skydiver say’s “Oh my God, look how low it is!”
All I’m really looking for is the rush of jumping off of a cliff, not the sight of the ground coming up to smite me. That’s why when I finally make a BASE jump it’s going to be from something so high that it’s almost like a skydive. Someplace like this.
Mt. Thor on Baffin Island.
Someday.
Look how Italians are doing it, maybe will serve as inspiration!