The truth about BASE jumping - 1 year, 135 BASE jumps later
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- Опубликовано: 12 мар 2023
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My first year of BASE jumping in review, the biggest takeaways for me, and some topics I hope may be useful to others.
See what I'm getting into right now: / devonmclaughlin
The Gear I'm Currently Using:
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WARNING: BASE jumping is extremely dangerous. All actions in this video were performed by trained professionals or under the supervision of trained professionals. Any attempt to recreate or reenact without the proper training WILL KILL YOU.
References
Skydiving Material
Dropzones near you - www.dropzone.com/dropzones/
United States Parachute Association - uspa.org/
DropZone - www.dropzone.com/
BASE Material
BASE Fatality List: bfl.baseaddict.com/list
Apex BASE Education - apexbase.com/the-blog/
Apex BASE Instructional Videos - / apexbasetodd
Snake River Instructional Videos - / snakeriverbase
Watch Thy Bridle: www.watchthybridle.com/
I-D BASE with Sean Chuma - • BASE Jump Tutorials wi...
DropZone (BASE) - www.dropzone.com/forums/forum...
BASEjumper - www.basejumper.org/
Great Book of BASE - base-book.com/
BASE Courses
Snake River - www.snakeriverbase.com/
The Bob's BASE Academy: bobsbase.com/courses/base-jum...
I-D BASE with Sean Chuma - www.seanchuma.com/base-instru...
Miles D's BASE Camp - www.milesdaisher.com/courses-...
BASE Gear
Apex BASE - apexbase.com/
Squirrel - squirrel.ws/ 
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The part that always gets me is listening to your gut. You hear about these fatalities at locations like Kjerag and you wonder how someone experienced could make a fatal mistake there. The mental part of it all is all I can attribute to that. If you don't feel good about the conditions or you get that feeling like something isn't right, then simply don't jump. Excellent video as always!
It’s wild man, I’m with you. It almost seems at times like that ‘gut feeling’ is our innate subconscious pattern recognition making (or trying to make) sense of the world around us. It’s almost as if we can primarily feel something is ‘off’ or ‘straying from familiar’ before we can consciously put words to what it is. After listening to a number of Exit Point podcasts it seems a very consistent theme that a number of novel changes to routine, while often negligible on their own, ultimately contribute to the unfortunate outcomes.
Appreciate your time and input man!
There is a saying that there are old BASE jumpers and there are old BASE jumpers, but there are no old bold BASE jumpers. in 2023 I had eaten, slept and lived BASE for several years on top of 800+ skydives 500+ of which were Wingsuit jumps. Combining all that with a family and a high-pressure overseas job, after 179 BASE jumps, 2 dead jump partners, several dead BASE friends, a broken tib/fib and shattered heel, which I recovered from and jumped another 40+ objects I decided to retire from BASE.
The "it won't happen to me" thinking in the world of psychology is called comparative optimism and after being there when very experienced peeps have gone in, having to ID my jump partners dead body in Llauterbrunen (whom we had previously had that difficult chat with about pushing it too hard) with my other buddy and then that buddy dying a year or so later made me start to second guess my choices. The moment I decided to retire, was when I had just flown several thousand miles to the Greek island of Zakynthos to jump shipwreck beach which I had wanted to do for a while. I was kitted up, super stoked and stood on the edge ready to jump, and in a split second I decided to retire there and then on the spot, took my kit off and never BASE jumped again. I just didn't want to do it anymore.
It takes balls (big balls) to jump a single canopy system, but I think it takes even bigger balls to walk away from it. In BASE you can do everything 100% right and still die. Like you said, It's a community, a family and at that moment I just walked away from it all.
Do I miss it, hell yes, would I go back hell no...
Stay safe @DevonMcLaughlin
I very much respect your decision and reflection towards this sport. It seems not enough voices, from those who’ve had a tremendous journey through the sport, and chosen to walk away on their own accord, are heard among the chatter.
Thank you for taking the time to share, I thinks it’s very powerful and useful to many.
My pleasure@@DevMcLaughlin - I enjoyed every minute of my BASE journey (well maybe not the bad bits) and wouldn’t change it for the 🌍
You're awesome dude. That first part really connected with me. I'm a Firefighter from UT, and this reminded me a lot of what it's like at work. I've had instructors scream at me and hit me in the back of the head for a mistake I had made. I'd later find out that that instructor had lost friends in fires for similar mistakes in tactics. I think that a willingness to be so open on a platform really does translate to less accidents and deaths.
You guys probably hear it more than most, I have nothing but respect for you who’ve spent much of your lives in fire. It seems the harsh abrasive exterior many of us see in those who know better, is often the restraint and fortitude they’ve been able to preserve after what they’ve seen and been through. Truly a living testament to how bad things can shape us. Appreciate your words dude. Stay safe out there.
Im so fascinated by people who do this. I do not have the personality where anything close would be possible, but im similar in a human level to understand why it would be an exciting and fun sport. Life is meant to be lived as we see fit and appropriate. Im grateful to be able to watch the videos of peoples jumps. Its like watching someone walk on the moon. I will never do it. But its fascinating.
Appreciate you stopping by and watching all the same. There’s always more similarities between us, different walks of life or not, than there are differences, and we’re always able to find those anytime we need, even when we forget.
I started skydiving just to base jump. After 500 skydives and 30 base jumps I stopped. Soon after my first base jumps I realized how dangerous it is and I started thinking whether I enjoy it enough for it to be worth it to die or at least injure myself a lot. For me it was not worth it, maybe if I jumped from big walls it would be different. My main realization was that I know that at some point I will make a mistake and here mistakes usually mean death. Before my 30th jump I already knew 2 guys who died and saw people in Twin Falls that I was pretty certain will die pretty soon judging by what they had been doing. I think the only place closer to death is probably war LOL
I love that man. You got what you wanted out of the sport, were true to yourself and moved on to what truly mattered to you. If anything it probably isn’t out of pocket to suggest you thought you were going to get one thing out of BASE and it ended up giving you something entirely different.
Great work man! Very clear and concise information. Also like the dry humor clips thrown in the mix 🤘🏼
Love hearing that, glad you enjoyed dude🤟🏼
Great video dev well done!
Thanks buddy, means a lot.
Great video and points made. Thanks!
Thanks dude, appreciate the feedback.
Stress leads to sensory overload. That's where you lose your body awareness or even get that blackout type jump where you don't know much until the canopy opens. The mental side can't be overstated, and I'm glad it made your list.
I completely agree. It seems to also distort our perception of time, with the all too common “I thought I counted 3 but the video shows I pitched at 1.5”
What is most interesting to me is that there seems to be a constant war or equilibrium sought toward between a quantifiable amount of healthy stress (without degrading performance), and confidence (without leading to complacency).
Hey bud you still good, it's been 5 months since your last update.
Just watched all your video's.
Really inspiring stuff and the raw uncut base videos.
The thought of base jumping has been on my mind for a while now, even though i only have 51 skydives. I can't break the thought of one day taking the course in Norway.
Anyway hope your still good ans thanks alot for the great content 🪂
Happy you enjoy all the videos man. I’m still very much here, plan to get back into the swing of things very soon. Still been jumping, probably more now than ever, just haven’t been publishing long form just yet. Had a few unexpected life things slow me down, and a few new creative projects I’ve had to shift more attention to. I’m focusing to get back to regular publishing within the next month, just need to have the right things set in place to push out content I want to be better than before. I’ll see ya soon🤟🏼
Hell ya bro🤘🏼🤘🏼
awesome video
Thanks duuude🤟🏼
Your exits are looking super solid for a first year jumper. Relaxed arch with a solid delay = better heading performance. I'm still trying not to kick my legs in freefall lol.
Really appreciate you saying that man, I’ve really worked on it, and always strive to be better on all levels. I get it, it’s like trying to untrain an innate subconscious survival instinct. I have a couple of buddies who have hundreds of jumps and still often opt for aerials over going flat and scary; which seems to keep the kind busy.
I have watched all 9 min,it was vary interesting.
Happy to hear that, thanks for watching.
you should jump with tucker gott
Where do you want to jump next? Yosemite would be awesome; too bad it isn't legal.
Iceland, Brazil and Europe are top on the list, more or less in that order. Many National Parks are obviously all very attractive options in the US, but like you said, the legality makes the work that goes into accomplishing most unnoticed less attractive options for me currently. But they’re no doubt on the list.
Do you have bigger picture of your thumbnail? IT looks great and i would like to use it for wallpaper!
Thanks man! I do, I’ll try to find it and drop a Dropbox link for download in the next couple days.
@@DevMcLaughlin did you find it? 🫶🏻
Got a few variations for you buddy: www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/9bn9defwirib3x3zramh3/h?rlkey=zs2f24w6ady78egf4v4vsmvgn&dl=0
@@DevMcLaughlin you are a legend! Thank you!!
Bridge day 2023?
Oh, you better believe it’s on the list.
I know it's controversial but I've had some complete noobs tell me not to do something, because they think they have a better understanding. I'd say tell people that maybe they r endangering themselves IF you are an expert.
It seems a balance of both acknowledging the Dunning-Krueger effect while believing you can truly learn something from everyone if you look deep enough.
When playing with gravity it has a tendency to leave your failures, whether it is external or internal with some screws and implants. Got a few my self.. Happy rehab, hope you dont get any long lasting after effects of your injuries. Another well formulated video. Stay safe mate.
Appreciate it as always buddy🤟🏼