In reply to Steve’s off-topic convo…..I have to fess-up, my buddy and I jumped El Cap in October 1988. We both had 500-600 skydive each but had no previous base jumping experience. After the jump we nick named ourselves the “El Cap bozo load” as we slept up on the top of El Cap, froze our butts off, and then overslept when we did finally get some sleep! Consequently, we were rushed to get off the rock before it got too light and couldn’t find the proper exit point, duh. I went off first and immediately went into a front flip…NOT recommended on your first cliff dive ha ha. It probably took me a good 1000’ to stabilize face-to-earth so I could start tracking away from the cliff face. I opened way lower than I wanted and barely made it under canopy to the meadow, landing right by the north exit road, brushing the trees with my feet!! I then had to leg-it across the meadow to cross the river to stash my chute etc. under the riverbank. Of course, my buddy had a flawless jump and landed right next to me on the opposite side of the meadow by the Merced river. The final crux was seeing a ranger car inbound with lights flashing coming after us. Luckily for us, there was a VW Van parked about 100 yds away with some climbers hanging out drinking coffee who witnessed the whole debacle. We casually sauntered over and started talking to them right as the ranger slowed down, drove past with a very pissed look on his face and finally gunned it away into the distance, phew!!!
El Cap, and to a lesser extent, Half Dome are siren calls for skydivers from all over the world. We just HAVE to come over to the US and jump it at least once!! Who would not want to jump such a beautiful 3000’ cliff face in such a gorgeous setting? Remember, this was before Youtube, Instagram and Facebook etc! In the 80’s there were only some old skydiving videos showing guys and gals jumping El Cap when it was initially legal…that’s what got me hooked from about 5000 miles away! Of course, as always, the few spoil it for the many…some idiots started taking skate boards and pogo sticks off there and ruined it for everyone when the NPS issued a blanket ban on base jumping in NP’s nationwide.
I have to say, it was THE most thrilling experience of my life and I’ve been lucky enough to log almost 7000 skydives, climbed Mt. Rainier twice, have multiple summits of the CA 14’ers (incl. Whitney a number of times), run and mountain biked many endurance events, kayaked 450 miles of the Yukon river and raised two kids in the meantime! May the adventures continue…….
