I don't know, Tom. I run hot and cold on legal sites . . .
There are many issues to be addressed, but the most important one is this; we are right now in the midst of a BASE fatality spike that coincides with the leap in BASE participation that began between 1999 and the year 2000. Why?
If it's a simple matter of more BASE jumps equals more deaths, we are doomed. Or, is it more a product of our own actions over the last 15 years? By this I mean the mainstream advertising by BASE gear manufactures the availability of BASE first jump courses, the BASE competitions, and the airing of BASE videos once held very close to the vest. (BTW, I'm guilty as anyone of all those things).
We are, in a way, sending the message to the uninitiated that BASE is an "everyman's" sport. Even as we know in our hearts it isn't and never will be. I'm trying to be careful here and weigh whether I'm an old fart lamenting past glory days, or someone capable of comparing then and now because I've been to both places in time.
Regardless of what caused the upsurge in BASE participation (and I think it had a lot to do with Madison Avenue getting kids to buy into the whole "extreme" thing) we are handing out BASE like candy to children when it used to be the kids had to search out the candy for themselves. Those not resourceful enough, not self reliant enough, or not wanting it bad enough, were excluded right off the bat.
In terms of progress and safety, I know our biggest leaps in those areas came long before the advent of their being so many legal sites. Bridge Day notwithstanding, tailgates, pin rigs, vents, and so forth were products of an earlier time. Since then we have become more spectacular with aerials, tards, and wing suits, but any safety advances are being cancelled out by people doing too much too fast. Of, course this could be one big growing pain that will pass in time, and I hope it is, but I also think we are paying a terrible price for access.
I think legal sites have their place. I like the way the Go Fast Games are run. This is not a come one, come all event. In a sense it's a reward for those experienced jumpers who've paid their dues. The flip side is a legal bridge were you pay your money, make your jumps, promise to get a mentor once back home, and then get turned loose. Are we fooling ourselves into a believing a "skydiving" type of training program is even applicable to BASE jumping? In skydiving, student status used to be so difficult it weeded out those who couldn't hack the program. This was considered a good thing but it ended when we allowed profit to trump safety. Are we going down that same road?
Then there is the chicken and egg thing. Do we jump so much in PotatoVille because its not so much allowed, but not disallowed? The current PotatoBridge was built around 1973. I remember someone showing me photos of it back in the late 1980s. When I asked that person if they jumped it, the response was no, as it was too exposed. There is no thought of whether it would be legal or not, it was more a matter the secret was not to be exposed. The big sea change in BASE is when we got away from that idea.
Of course, this all makes for interesting discourse, but it's academic in the sense we can never go back to what was. BASE has grown to the point where it has a life of its own. However, we'd be remiss if we don’t figure out a way to take what worked in the past and blend it into what's happening now.
BASE jumping is a priceless thing in my opinion. Now that the cat's totally out of the bag we need to make it harder to participate. Someone always says if we don’t teach they will go out and do it themselves. I find that wrong on many levels. After all you can’t automatically say that's a bad thing. It's the way an entire generation of BASE jumpers learned the sport. Second, I think the number of people willing to go it alone these days is smaller than in BASE's earlier days.
So I have a bold suggestion. (And before you crap your pants, remember this is us jawing over a couple of beers.) Let's stop training 3 or 4 students at a time for free or for a few hundred bucks. If you want to be a true BASE mentor take one person at a time, charge them five thousand dollars, and take them all the way to a BASE number. Get them to the point where you can let go with a clear conscious. Make that commitment to the sport or stop doing it because it's not working . . .
NickD
