Al Benno And Tedd's BASE MissionI flew into Stavanger damaged (Biskit and I took on a bottle of absinth for no good reason. Last memory was walking past Bik passed out on his back with his arms still wrapped round the bottle. My travel companion Dave was bad also, but for another whole set of alcohol related reasons. Alan was waiting in arrivals for us, stoking out on the post card rack full of huge cliffs. We got straight into the Thrutch mobile, Dave's late model Dodge Ram van all comfy full of
velvet seats and indirect lighting. A few hours later and we were in Lysebotn. I got straight on a load going up Kjerag and did a two way track in some light rain. I was trying out my new terminal tracking gear, a tight rain jacket and phoenix pants. I dove way deep not going anywhere for about 1000ft, then in the last 8 seconds I went all the way to the landing area at mach ten. Never done that before, so I was going a bit nuts. Alan gob stopped me with a cold Tuborg. We settled back in Dave's caravan and demolished a bottle of Quantro, then levelled a bottle of Jaegermeister just for effect.
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I was a bit shabby the next morning walking Alan up for his first jump in Norway, hadn't packed so I took my other rig, whacked my wingsuit on it and started stumbling up the hill. It was beautiful, full sunshine standing on exit 4. We were yarning with some hikers while I went through my gear checks and realised I was missing a pilot chute. The mind went through a few different scenarios of using my stash bag, tying my bridle into a bundle and just manually pulling my pins, getting static lined off with my slider up. All of them were ugly. Alan jumped, i started guiding tourists to Bolten rock and walked back down in some heavy rain eating some food I rolled the tourists for. Benny showed up soon after we arrived so we took off up the hill in sub optimal conditions for his first Norway jump. I had chucked a pilot chute on for this trip, just for something new. The weather was clear when we arrived but by the time we geared up it was beginning to cloud up around the edge. We nearly hurried a 5 way off but decided to just wait a bit. It socked out totally and we ended up hiding under a slight overhand in a torrential downpour.
After a while we got the shits with it and decided on a full evac jump. I had radio so I went first. 10 seconds on my head in cloud watching the rock, then came peeling out down the point over the water, pitched and had an explosive opening. Went for my toggles and I was missing one......and three other lines. I put it down alright in the landing area and called the other guys off, dealing with the worst throat chop I'd ever had. The whole boat ride back I was cursing my gear, saying it was shit. Only when we were looking at the broken lines inside, Benny asked if I normally went terminal with my tail gate in. Fucking numpty boy here did a 20 second slider down jump! Haaaa! I could have static lined it off Kjerag too, might have been a first.
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Benny, Alan and I took off up north soon after and got seriously misdirected by our tomtom. It had us going down peoples driveways, past the barn then out on to freeways, random. Our first morning in Romsdalen was the first day of good weather in 2 weeks. We took off up Karlsgrottan, a gnarly 3 hour steep hike from valley floor to 4300ft. We initiated another kiwi mate of mine, Marcus, to BASE. He did his first there, lucky boy! Benny got off in street gear, Alan was next and went mental, flying low and fast over anything he could get near.
Fully sick, the boy has some serious talent just rocking up sight un-seen and blazing it that hard. It turned out to be a pattern for every jump, he was going off big style, never seen anything like it. We were lucky enough to get Troll a few times, our second morning there we arrived at the edge of Labin just as the sun broke the horizon. We all got off bathed in a golden dawn, our shadows fleeing down the wall as we peeled out, fuckin emotional stuff. So good to share that with my good buddies.
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I was really lucky this year and got to jump Troll spire, the cherry on the cake. Martin Rossen, an uber cool Swedish cat took me up there with Prue (NZ) and Patrick from Sweden. We let Benny and Al cruise off to the original exit point further accross the wall so we wouldn't kick stuff down on them. It is really steep on the back side too, a gnarly collection of unballanced granite. Martin was first accross this really steep section of rotten snow, I went next and came un-stuck on my second step, slid 10 meters in half a second and fell down 2.5 meters into a crevasse at serious speed. Somehow I didn't break. I climbed out shaking and covered in snow melt. We did the rest of the perilous climb, fully exposed in some sections like the bridge, a 10 meter walk accross a half meter walkway with 5000ft of space on one side and an equally un-appealing fall on the otherside. We joke about the stash bag challenge, how much of your gear could you get out of your stashie if you fell with it on. Not funny really.
I did a two way off it with Prue, sick visuals banking at the dangerous ledge whistling past on my right as i dived past Prue into a scorching track. I got way out of the bowl and landed near the camp ground. Prue got on the radio and calmly announced she had broken her wrist and was way up in the rock fall zone. Action stations. She's a hard girl, got her out after an hour, in hospital 3 hours after the accident and she's cracking jokes the whole time.
Alan was really keen to do Bispen in his wingsuit and Benny didn't want to miss out on a jump. No one has done a slider down jump there in 20 years. Martin warned him it was very gay to do a slider down jump in Romsdalen but Benny was amping. Martin told me the story the pink latex handbag. It is passed from person to person who is deemed to have pulled unacceptably high on a jump. I slipped it into Benny's stash bag, and he found it half way up the hill. To be honest, it was a ballsy jump to do slider down, but he is now the man with the pink hand-bag.
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He bailed the next morning with bad guts, back to Scotland to go to work. Best thing when you're sick, get payed! Al and I went to Eikesdalen with Martin's crew, got hammered on VKB 96% vodka in an awesome drink called Kaarsk. Coffee and vodka, yeehaaa! We climbed Kathammer the next morning feeling shady as. 2 hour brutally steep hike through tick infested grass up to 4000ft above a beautiful lake.
We ran into Eric Fradet up there, a personal hero of mine. A few of us did a running screamer from way far back, running in circles and in different directions before sprinting off the diving board exit screaming in freefall. I had a real good jump, tracking out over the lake. Unfortunately Karl had a very hard opening and blew all the lines off his front right riser. Through a mixture of skill and luck he managed to put it down in the only clearing full of thick moss on the tallis. He was un-hurt but had to get a helicopter rescue. Kaarsk was called for in celebration. We tried to head back to Lysebotn then, but the Thrutch mobile blew a wheel bearing and we had to deal with a really fucked insurance company to sort things out. I ended up hiring a car and leaving Al with Martin's crew so i could go and tap this beautiful girl back down
south. Call me Tunnie Rua!
The mission continued back south, getting jumps in between bad weather. Alan still going mental, examining the grain structure of granite at close range and high speed. I had a really cool formation track with two other friends, all pitched out right next to each other over the landing area and gaggled the landing. Alan left the same day as me, so we got absolutely fucked up and ran naked through Lysebotn. I don't remember the rest........
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Note from Geezer Congrats to Tedd and Jackie on Tying the Knot..
Nice one Guys!!
After completing 170 jumps while on the course, he decided to go to Moshi Tanzania to do his 3 months and 30 jumps work experience. Hayden moved to Moshi in September 2007 and became a permanent employee of Skydive Mount Kilimanjaro as their camera man. Hayden's skydiving dream became his passion (he had found and was living his dream) Nothing would stop him from Skydiving as the following email he sent out to his family and friends shows.
Every now and then you catch yourself feeling a bit low on life and wallowing in your own troubles and woes. It's times like these when you need to be reminded (through awesome Initiatives such as Pete Maher's Jumpstart) just how good you actually have it.
