Cut-away

The last few weekends I’ve been going to a different drop zone called Skydive Phoenix which is a little closer than Skydive Arizona and tiny in comparison with a very chill vibe devoid of the “sky-god” mentality that some veteran jumpers have at Skydive Arizona. They run about one plane an hour, a Cessna Grand Caravan that holds 15, borrowed for the winter from Skydive Voltige in Quebec with French writing all over it. It was Angela’s 600th jump which we celebrated by jumping another blow-up dolphin. Last time for Angela’s 500th she jumped a dolphin solo and had a fun wild spinning ride hanging from it. This time we decided to try to stabilize it with a couple people holding it while she rode it. Right out the door it popped and deflated, but Angela had thought it was hilarious and a fitting 600th.

I recently bought another canopy (an Aerodyne “Pilot”) from Matt, Angela’s boyfriend. It’s the same size as my current canopy but opens a little more “on heading” (straight) and flies with a shallower glide angle. This allows me to fly a little farther if needed. So far I’ve put about 10 jumps on it and like it, even though it’s a little more tame than my other canopy, a Performance Designs “Sabre2″.

Last Saturday I met Matt and Angela there again for some jumps. On the first jump all goes well: we get into formation, we break off, and I pull. The canopy opens fine and I look down for other canopies at about 3300 feet. When I look up at my canopy to check it (which is normal procedure), I see something weird with the lines on the right side. Shit, that doesn’t look good. I unstow the brakes and try to clear the problem by pulling on the right brake several times. It doesn’t clear the problem. Oh God, this is the real thing, this isn’t going away, it’s a real malfunction. I realize I have to cut this away and pray that my reserve works. I don’t want to do this but I have to.

I let go of the brake lines and the canopy starts spinning from the malfunction. I try pulling on the cut-away handle but it doesn’t budge. I regroup and grab with both hands. It comes free. I then pull the reserve deployment handle. In a few seconds I’m under a bright white canopy. It worked. I watch my main canopy float away as I head towards the landing area. Another relatively new jumper, CJ, follows my canopy but later gets reprimanded by an instructor due to his only having 43 jumps and inadvisablely landing out in the desert due to chasing my canopy. I’ve managed to hold on to my reserve and cut-away handles. They are about $80 each. The canopy flies sluggishly compared to my main and doesn’t turn readily. I believe it’s part of the design. But I make it easily to the landing area near Matt and Angela and the canopy flares and lands great.

I’m happy to be on the ground, emotionally worse for wear. Angela runs up and says she’s f-ing proud of me. My mind is elsewhere but she helps me re-stow my brakes which use velcro that can damage the reserve parachute lines. The reserve is 10 years old but has never been used according the previous owner. It looks spanking new.



The shuttle takes us back to the packing area, and by that time someone has graciously recovered my main and “free bag” which is attached to the spring-loaded reserve pilot chute that pulls out the reserve. I’m a bit tense but after some talk, all assure me I did the right thing. We watch my video and can clearly see the issue although no one is absolutely clear what it is. During the opening (slow motion) the right side appears to get sucked under some suspension lines. By the time it is fully open it looks like there is a tension knot involving a couple of my lines and the right side of the canopy. The jury is still out on what it actually was or if my packing had something to do with it.

After some time to digest this I’m able to relax a bit, but Matt and Angela point out it’s good to “get back on the horse.” Mentally I agree, but my innards are still tense. Nonetheless, they happen to have a friend Shaundra’s rig in their trunk and get a text approval for me to jump it. The rig is pretty tight on me, but Angela said it was flattering and made me look like huge. And so I get on another load with Matt, Angela, and CJ. On the plane ride up, I’m feeling some of the fear reminiscent of my very early jumps.

In freefall we plan to do a “hybrid” with CJ and me gripping arms in a belly formation while Angela swings underneath us and hangs. It goes off well, and when Angela hangs below us, I feel a marked increase in speed. She let’s go and falls below us. We break off and track away. I pull. Parachute opens. Parachute lands. I’m over the hump.

Swiss Miss – Part 2 (Euro5)

After the beautiful day at Skydive Switzerland, we drive back to Interlaken to find a place for the night. The weather is so nice we check out a couple campgrounds. The second one, Camping Hobby 3 (cubed), looks incredibly quaint, and we can’t resist. The proprietress, Heidi, is clearly of Swiss-German disposition. In the states at campgrounds you simply pay cash and get a spot, but she dutifully makes us fill out forms with passport numbers, birth dates, and the like. Then she outlines the rules: no driving in after 10 pm, no use of these particular toilets after 10 pm, don’t turn on these lights, don’t wear shoes in the shower area, etc., etc. She doesn’t simply recite rules someone else laid out, but speaks with authority and a detectable disdain as if anyone who violated them is clearly an idiot. I mention my observation to Nicole and she says there are some Swiss-Germans who want to move to the French part (near Geneva and Lausanne) because it is less “Swiss.”

Heidi told us that she almost closed down for the season the previous week but the great weather allowed her to stay open one more week. The campground is surrounded by the idyllic Swiss scenery: green grass, quaint homes, and milk cows donning bells. Heidi said the cows were brought back down from the hills in the last couple weeks. It’s so rustically cute, it’s as if I’m in a dream (note cowbells in the video).

 

Eiger and Mönch from our campsite

After Joe’s Friday workday at EPFL, he takes a two-hour train ride out to Interlaken to meet us. In a rare Swiss occurrence the train is 10 minutes late. No worries, Nicole and I get drinks at a street stand and sip them while waiting – drinking in public is okay in Europe. When Joe disembarks Nicole presents him with a kitschy Swiss beer. Slightly inebriated we walk around town. I marvel at all the Swiss army knives for sale at every store. We get some traditional Swiss grub at a place recommended by Heidi for its authentic food. I think I ordered a snitzel, but frankly the restaurants in Switzerland weren’t that memorable (except for the duck lunch at Joe’s university, but that was a French “canard”).

We awake to a crisp dewing morning, cowbells-a-ringing. We break camp, plop down on a blanket in the dewy grass, and have a picnic breakfast of tasty Italian grapes, sandwiches, bread, and cheese while we figure out what to do. We settle on trying a hike in the Lauterbrunnen Valley. In Lauterbrunnen we park at the train station that goes up to Jungfraujoch or “The Top of Europe”, a resort and viewing area way up in the saddle between Jungfrau and Mönch at 11,400 feet. We consider taking the train but it’s is over $100 and we’re not feeling it, so we stick to our original hiking plan. Quickly we find the typical yellow Swiss hiking signs to Mürren and Gimmelwald which sit atop the steep western valley wall. The hike is a steady ascent, my body relishing the exercise after being in pure tourist mode for many days. The hike is mostly in shady woods with occasional views of the valley and triad of Eiger/Mönch/Jungfrau.

Breakfast

Lautterbrunnen

Joe, Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau on the path

After a couple hours and 3000 feet of elevation gain we take a break and get a beer in Mürren. I spot a guy who’s fooling around with what looks like BASE jumping gear. We wait around inconspicuously while he gets ready and eventually heads down towards what I assume is a jumping point. I try to follow casually and eventually run into him talking to a couple other Italian BASE jumpers. I ask them if there is any where to see them jump and unfortunately there isn’t as shrubs and topsoil near the edge of the cliff make it precarious to even approach. I see the original guy head off along a path and decide not to follow him.

We continue our hike through the small town of Gimmelwald and to Stechelberg where there is a cable car down to the valley floor. It’s getting late so we decide to take it. We were expecting it to be 20 francs each, but it was only 6 francs! As we board, I hand the attendant my ticket that I just bought from her,  and in Swiss tradition she inspects it diligently for several seconds to make sure its not expired, used, or counterfeit. You never know what those foreigners would do to get a free ride.

Stechelberg cable car

Back on the glacier carved valley floor we make our way back to Lauterbrunnen. Unfortunately we’re too late to see the underground Trümmelbach Falls that was on Nicole’s list. We actually see some BASE jumpers flying their canopies in for landing, though we missed their jumps.

On the way out of town we stop to get a bite at a Thai place in Interlaken. It was a nice change of pace so much cheesy-meaty Swiss fare. I’m sad to leave the Alps. I have many reasons to come back: see the underground falls, take the $100 train to Jungfraujoch, and perhaps get Nicole to do a jump at Skydive Switzerland.

On Sunday, I bid farewell to my gracious hosts and tour guides Nicole and Joe and fly out of Geneva, my European holiday over.

Ogre, Monk, and Virgin (Euro4)

On Friday, Nicole and I drive two hours into the heart of Switzerland to the Swiss-German town of Interlaken, gateway to the Swiss Alps, where we hoped to hike, and home to Skydive Switzerland, where I hoped to jump. Interlaken is nestled between two large lakes, Thun and Brienz, each about 10 miles long and 500 ft deep on average,  that are fed from several sheer walled, glacier-carved valleys. The most famous of these is the Lauterbrunnen Valley with 72 waterfalls and access to the three most famous peaks in Switzerland: the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau — the ogre, monk, and virgin. (The pic above shows Eiger and Mönch.)  Each tops 13,000 feet with year round glaciers flowing below them. The Eiger is featured in the 1975 Clint Eastwood film “The Eiger Sanction.”

We find the small flugplaz (airfield) and Skydive Switzerland relatively easily at noon and there are only a couple people there as they run plane loads only for tandems who have yet to arrive. They check my log book and license and set me up with a rental rig. Unlike the low-tech country German drop zone I visited the previous weekend (a German guy their made it a point to show me a part of the plane that just came off–granted it was just internal), everything at Skydive Switzerland is brand new. The hanger, the plane, the rental gear. I wonder how they do it. Looking at their tandem price tells the story: 380 CHF (Swiss Francs) or $430!! The tandems at Skydive Arizona are $190. This is Switzerland: everything costs 2-3 times more than anywhere else. I can’t figure out how they afford it — do expensive watches and cheese pay for everything? Soon a bunch of Japanese kids arrive to do tandems and we’re in business. The weather turns out to be uncharacteristically warm, and Nicole reads in the sun while I do my thing. The plane ride up is the most spectacular I’ve ever experienced, flanked on both sides by steeps and cliffs (shown in video). 

Relaxing at Skydive Switzerland

Alps

More Alps and Interlaken (between the lakes)

I do two solo jumps from the shiny new plane. I’m the last out both times, following the last tandem and pulling by 9000 feet to enjoy about 10 minutes of flight. Surprisingly it’s not that cold. The view is so spectacularly beautiful that my mind can’t process it. The tandems reach the ground five minutes before me: I’m the only parachutist flying above the Alps. 

Nicole asks me if I want to do more, but I’m pretty satisfied — these jumps are my second most favorite yet, after the two at Burning Man. I settle my bill, 60 CHF per jump. It was a bargain.

Parapenting (Euro3)

Next day we head back to Annecy France for my scheduled paragliding flight and Nicole’s haircut. As we leave Lausanne, signs send us on a detour from the highway that takes us on a winding route through countless roundabouts, several towns, and over a ridge. I’m not sure we’re going to make my appointment at this rate. After 45 minutes we finally hit the main highway, and I’m able make good time with Nicole dozing off and on. Arriving in downtown Annecy I drop Nicole off for her haircut and shopping, and I head up the lakefront road to Talloires and the Ecole de Parapente, arriving exactly at the appointed time. My instructor isn’t there yet.

I’d been talking with a fiery, many-tattooed redhead about paragliding, swooping, and speed flying. She said that Annecy was the “cradle” of cross country paragliding, but she was more into fast flying. She tells me that my instructor, Alain, is one of the best paragliding pilots. Shortly Alain arrives. In broken french-accented English he introduces himself, but there isn’t much to say. Seven of us pile into a van headed up to the launch point. They tell me to sit up front between Alain and the redhead as an honored guest. She animatedly talks to the guys in the back in French while un-self-consciously leaning into me. I feel like an awkward schoolboy with the cool kids.

We go the launch point next to the ropes course rather than Col de la Forclaz where the paragliders were flying across the lake. I’m a little bummed, but they think the conditions are better here than at Col de la Forclaz. In about five minutes, Alain’s got the paraglider stretched out and attaches me to the rig. We each have a “chair” (or harness–mine in front) which is different from skydiving in which the harness consists of high tensile strength straps around the legs and chest to withstand the forces of the parachute opening. The paragliding harness is for comfort in the air during the much longer paragliding rides which could last hours.

At the right time, Alain instructs me to walk forward quickly and the parachute rises above us. He tells me to run and we’re off. It happens so easily and quickly that I can’t really process it. My only frame of reference is skydiving that requires 45 minutes to get in the air.

We fly along the ridge catching the thermal updrafts from the valley. The forward speed is gentle, about half of a skydiving canopy, maybe 10-15 mph. It’s incredibly peaceful and serene. We pass back and forth along the ridge occasionally gaining a few feet with the thermals to offset the natural gentle downward glide of the wing. We fly for about 10 minutes along the ridge and slowly make our way out way over the Talloires valley. I ask Alain if I can take the toggles, and I fly us around a bit. It’s a different feel from a skydiving canopy especially with twice the weight. Alain takes some pics of us as I steer us around. He then takes the toggles and takes us in to the grass field for a gentle landing.

Le fin.

Balloons Are Not Planes

I wanted to do a balloon jump last year, but I was still renting gear and it was against the pro shop’s policy to let anyone use their gear on a balloon jump. I guess some jumpers have damaged their gear by landing in pricker bushes or who-knows-what. So I missed the window as Gary “Burner” and his crew took off for Colorado to avoid the hot Arizona summer. Burner runs High But Dry Balloons in Arizona from October to May and Colorado the other half of the year. On the ride last year with my folks, he explained that the name of his business honors his getting sober so many years ago — in addition to the double entendre with the desert.

Burner returned to Arizona this last weekend, and I was able to book passage on his first flight of the season along with some jumping buddies. We arrange to meet at 7 am. As I arrive I see the balloon almost fully inflated and all the jumpers ready to go and realize that 7 am was the loading time — I’m late! So I quickly gear up, fill out the paperwork, and within minutes get in the basket with 11 other jumpers.

Soon we’re off on our silent ascent — save for the loud white-noise propane hot air burner and the prattle of us jumpers. The jump order comes up, and I volunteer to go first to commemorate my first. This leap is unlike jumping from a plane. There is no deafening wind, no urgency to get out the door for the next group, no ability to use the wind to control your exit. It’s jumping from a silent floating platform. The sense of falling is hundred times more palpable. It’s the closest I may ever come to jumping from a bridge or a cliff. As I let go backwards, I feel the sense of falling in my gut, maybe more intense than my first jump over a year ago. I let out an unconscious squeal. Since I’m a bit nervous, I don’t wait too long to pull, my altimeter recording 13 seconds of free fall. It was too quick. I want to do more.

Lausanne, Annecy, and Parapentes (Euro2)

My work-trip-turned-vacation continues with a flight to Geneva and a 45 minute train ride to Lausanne Switzerland, both of which front Lac Leman (Lake Geneva). At 50 miles long, Lac Leman was formed by a glacier and is still sourced by the Rhone Glacier in the Alps. The lake is also home to the town of Montreau which has hosted the Montreau Jazz Festival since 1967, and was home to Freddie Mercury (of Queen), Zelda Fitzgerald, Igor Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, and Shania Twain. Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water is about someone burning down the casino while they were recording an album:

We all came out to Montreux
On the Lake Geneva shoreline
To make records with a mobile
We didn’t have much time
Frank Zappa and the Mothers
Were at the best place around
But some stupid with a flare gun
Burned the place to the ground
Smoke on the water, a fire in the sky
Smoke on the water

A neighboring town of Vevey was the home of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Henri Nestlé (founder of Nestle), Victor Hugo, Charlie Chaplin, and Nikolai Gogol. On the south shore is the French town of Évian-les-Bains, the source of Evian mineral water.

My friends Nicole and Joe relocated to Lausanne since Joe secured a coveted postdoc position at EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) working on the Blue Brain Project, whose lofty goal is to computationally model the mammalian brain. A very well done introductory talk is here and how it can help understand and cure brain diseases (45 minutes in 3 parts, but very interesting):

I take the first day or two easy, settling into a Swiss rhythm. Nicole and I visit Joe at EPFL to see his office and the lab where they analyze actual cortical neurons. We get lunch on campus. I get duck and potatoes. What university serves duck for lunch? Then Nicole and I take a long walk along the waterfront and stop to play minigolf. Unlike many minigolf courses with kitschy decor and crazy obstacles, this one was about accuracy and efficiency. Nicole was convinced this was due to Swiss influence. The weather is idyllic. Next day we rollerblade along the lake from Vevey to Montreau where we pass Nestle headquarters, a statue of Freddie Mercury (of Queen), and a thousand year old castle.

Mini-golf by Lac Leman

Euro Sunbathers

Castle Château de Chillon

Rollerblade from Vevey to Montreau:

On Wednesday we rent a small stick-shift Fiat and drive 1.5 hours to Annecy France, a beautiful town set on another large lake (2nd largest in France) formed by glacier melt and surrounded by mountains. After some time in the charming shopping area we drive up to the hills looking for a forest rope course for Nicole and paragliding for me. We find a paragliding school (or ecole de “parapente” in French, literally para-slope) in the small town of Talloires hoping to schedule my first paragliding flight. Unfortunately they don’t have any slots so I schedule one the next day.

Annecy

We continue driving along the green sub-alpine valley and stop to pick up a French hitch-hiker eating a sandwhich. He asks if we are going up to Col de la Forclaz (Forclaz Pass), and we tell him we’re not sure. He says he needs to go there to pick up his car since he paraglided down. We oblige. Five minutes later we’re 2000 ft above the lake and drop our passenger off who tells us if we hike up this other small road we can see the paragliders launching. The 10 minute hike is beautiful and opens up to the parapente launching site.

Hike to Col de la Forclaz

Parapentes and Lac d'Annecy

After seeing all the paragliders launch and gracefully fly over the lake miles away, I’m definitely jazzed for my flight the next day. We head back down the mountain to find the ropes course. Signs are no help so we stop at the parapente school again and ask for directions. It’s just a five minute drive up another smaller foothill and ends up being another popular launching site overlooking Lake Annecy.

The ropes course was nestled in pine trees. We get a short safety orientation on using the carabiners and zipline roller things, and we’re both off to our first forest ropes course. It’s a maze of ladders, bridges and crossings of various wobbling instability. Each of the five sub-courses ends with a progressively longer zip line down to the ground. It’s a cute course, nothing scary, but this one swing into a net (see video) was pretty quick. Nicole’s rope-course appetite satiated, we drive back to Annecy for a French dinner. As happens on trips to strange places, we debated where to eat walking up and down the length of the shopping district, I not wanting to go to an obviously touristy place. After much debate, we sat down at one of the popular pizzeria/crepe/fondue places. I was going to order scallops, but with her newly honed French Nicole was able to determine from the waiter that it was scalloped chicken. Instead I went for “hangar steak” not having a clue what that was. Turned out to be large chunks of beef in a tasty sauce with a delicious salad. Nicole was right, the touristy-looking French places still serve really good food, which isn’t always the case in Europe.

Satiated, we drive back the hour and a half to Lausanne with hardly anyone on the road. There’s a funny short stretch of French tollway about five miles long that cost 6 Euro, many tunnels that drill through the hills between Switzerland and France, and the obligatory winding through the border crossing while the border guards take a look at you. We arrived home at about 10, and I’m excited to paraglide the next day.

Ropes course

One of the longer crossings

Parapentes next to the ropes course

Ropes course video:

Germany (Eurolog 1)

My company flies me out of the country for a week-long workshop in Germany to discuss matters of much importance–who am I to argue with an employer that is willing to send me to Germany as an expert? The last time the company flew me anywhere was five years ago as part of the Scottsdale-Walldorf exchange program. It was a cool trip, and I was looking forward to seeing green, efficient Germany again.

Heidelberg

We arrive in Frankfurt at noon after an overnight double-decker 747 flight from Denver. At the airport we stand in line to get our rental car on the company’s dime. Unlike typical low-budget rental company kiosks in the states, the “Sixt” rental company’s kiosk has modern Euro-design elements, curved walls and furniture, and strong orange walls and lighting effects. The three young female agents are dressed in rustic orange “dirndl” Oktoberfest dresses and don’t seem to be self-conscious in their outfits. One of my work buddies, Geoff, proudly exercises his German with the agent. My other buddy, Yetkin, and I are just happy to not have to worry about translation. We’re set up with a nice C-class Mercedes station wagon. Station wagons and hatchbacks are the SUV’s of Europe. You rarely see a full-sized SUV. On the autobahn, we speed down highway A5 alternately going 100 mph (160 kilometers per hour) in the no-speed-limit sections and 45 mph in the many construction zones on the way down to Heidelberg. We are passed by others going 120-130 mph.

Heidelberg Castle

With the GPS we find our hotel easily on the main drag down the length of Heidelberg. We check in but quickly get out of the hotel to stay awake as long as we can to reset our clocks. The Leonardo Hotel is a short walk to old town Heidelberg which consists of pedestrian streets lined with shops, German bar-restaurants and a few marks of America: two Starbucks, Pizza Hut, Subway, Hard Rock Cafe Heidelberg. But for the most part it’s the classic outdoor Euro-mall experience with tall buildings on either side. Eventually the street opens up to a plaza with a large church and a view of the castle up the hills surrounding the town. Geoff and I toured the castle five years ago, but Yetkin hasn’t seen it. We head up the steep cobbled road to the old fortress. The castle overlooks all of Heidelberg and the Neckar River which is bordered by forested hills on the opposite bank. The hills are speckled with large opulent-looking manors giving the whole area a rich renaissance feel.

View from castle of Heidelberg and the Neckar River

Each morning we head down to SAP headquarters in Walldorf. The campus is huge. SAP is the top software company in Germany though hardly any Americans have heard of it. The workshop organizers keep us to a tight schedule, but we’re able to get one hour for lunch, always at one of the cafeterias where the food is free as an SAP employee. The employees seem to love this lifestyle as it never occurs to them to get out from the office at lunch (as we do in Scottdale). I’ve heard good-to-rave reviews about the food but it’s fair to middling. The best lunch I had surprisingly was a snitzel (breaded pork patty), and the salad bar was pretty good. Each floor of each building has at least one nearbly coffee station that can serve you espresso or cappiccino from freshly ground beans with the press of a button. An after lunch coffee is standard. Overall the workshop was better than I expected as these things go. There were one to two hour blocks of time where I (and most attendees) had no clue what the point was. One British guy grandstanded for about three hours all in an attempt to fluff his feathers while communicating “pop off” to the workshop organizers. Corporations. What can you do?

One evening we sampled some authentic German food hear the big church in Heidelberg. Of course the centerpiece of any meal is fleisch (meat), mostly pork. Our German colleague ordered Saumagen (pig stomach), I a steak plus pork steak, and Geoff Schweinshaxe (pork knuckle). I’d never had pork knuckle (knee), but it was pretty tender. The beer all over Germany was great. As well as bread and pastries.

I was hoping to jump in Germany on Saturday after the workshop. I couldn’t convince my work colleagues to make the one hour drive to the drop zone as they were beat from the long work week. I had contacted Fallschirm Sport Club Neustadt/Weinstrasse (FSC-NW) via email and they said they would be open on the weekend. There was another club closer to the hotel, but multiple attempts to call them by my German work colleagues came up empty. Another nearby club said their plane was broken.

It turned out to be a beautiful morning. The car’s navigation system didn’t have the street that the jump club was on so I punched in the town hoping I’d be able to figure it out when I got there. When I arrived at the small town, I was able to get the nav to get me to the airport. Driving along a dirt road, I saw a wind sock that looked like it might be near the jump club. The place had a similar look and feel to the small dropzone in Virginia, though the airport was smaller with a grass runway and the pace was even more relaxed. I found one of the instructors Stefan and he got checked out my license, log book, and that I had the required 1.5 million Euro liability insurance I’d purchased previously for 20 Euro. With an aerial photo he oriented me showing the large grass landing area and places to avoid. Their plane is a Cessna 206 that can take 5-6 jumpers so it’s easy to exit over the airport proper on the jump run. He got me a rental rig similar to my current parachute. If I wanted to do more than one jump I’d have to pack it.

After about an hour wait, I geared up and boarded the small Cessna with one tandem jumper. There was a small crowd of Germans filming us—I assume the tandem jumper’s family—as we boarded and took off. Soon we were circling the area which like Virginia was checkered with farmland with large swaths of forest. The Rhine River was about 10 miles away and to the west were low mountains that looked unpopulated.

In the plane I’m fairly relaxed. Twenty minutes in and we’re on the jump run at 3500 meters. I’m second out after another solo jumper and before the tandem. Parachute opens fine and I’m relatively calm about landing unlike in Virginia which was my first drop zone with trees. I’m getting hungry and have a bottled Coke and pretzel and then put my efforts to packing the parachute. Like always I get the parachute in the bag with a bit of struggle and stuffing, by no means a neat pack job. I tell myself “I hope it opens.” Later one of the instructors asks me how packing went and I tell him “I got it in, the question is how will it come out.” He tells me those parachutes always open. I’m kind of reassured.

Germany Landscape

Next load takes quite a while to get on and meanwhile it’s turned into a gorgeous day with temperatures approaching 80. On board I’m scrunched behind the pilot with the extra 20 pounds of the rig pushing my tailbone down onto the hard floor. An instructor on board asks how I’m doing (before I realize how bad it will get) and over the engine noise I yell “like first class!” No way to get comfortable, but it’s all for the cause. The best part about exiting this time is the relief for my butt. This time I pull at about 8000 feet to take a canopy longer ride. I was a little worried about pulling high because the airport also serviced what looked like two or three gliders that share the airspace. There was no guarantee they would stay away from right over the DZ, so I kept a constant lookout for a silent sleek white albatross heading right for me. Luckily I never saw any.

With a lot of time under canopy I played a bit with a hard toggle (spiral) turn. The canopy rapidly started turning but then started to spin me upside down (shown in video) which scared the crap out of me since this has never happened on mine. I’ll ask Nik about it back in Arizona. Coming down after that scare I eventually did some spiral turns that only required me pulling down about halfway on the toggle. My landing was almost in the identical spot as the previous one and I notice that I land more accurately when I feel it out rather than going exclusively by my altimeter.

I go to Stefan to pay but they don’t take credit. I give him the 70 Euros in my wallet and ask him where the nearest cash machine is. A short drive to town and I have the remaining 13 Euros. Stefan comps me an orange Fanta and I get back on the road back to Heidelberg for our last night in Germany. Pleasant little country it is.

Video of jumps:

Burning Log: Settling In

A fun evening, and we arrive back to our makeshift home. The pint-sized RV has limited storage, and our stuff has exploded onto every square foot available. To clear the messy beds we reverse the explosion, a puzzle of packing and stacking to make enough room to finally stretch out. This re-shuffling becomes our nightly pre-sleep routine especially as our (Alya’s) costumes become more elaborate each night. In the middle of the night it reaches the low 40′s. The RV keeps most of the cold out but getting up to pee at night (in the convenient bathroom) reveals a refreshing chill inside the cabin. For some reason the propane heat doesn’t work, nor the hot water heater for showers. But the RV proves its value in the morning by keeping us cool as the sun rises across the desert. In previous years I’ve tent camped which brings you more at one with the playa, but the tent becomes an oven by 8:00 as the sun beats on its sides.

Morning brings awesome 70 degree temperatures. Alya makes moves to brew some instant coffee, but I tell her about the cafe at Centercamp where they serve coffee, espresso, cappuccino, hot and cold chai. After our morning visit to the porta-potties (more later) we hop on our bikes for the nice five minute ride. Alya is taken by the daytime look of Black Rock City so different from the night scene when we arrived as we ride down Hajj street to up 6:00 to Centercamp.

Centercamp is a gathering area for performances (music, spoken word, dancing), relaxing on couches, filling out the BM census form, and getting a much needed caffeinated beverage. It’s the only vending in Black Rock City provided besides ice. With her coffee and my cappuccino, we hunker down on some pillows and watch people do contact dance. I’ve seen it plenty of times in San Francisco, but this time we both seem to be enthralled with the movement and the way each partner keeps constant contact with the other while alternately supporting and being supported by the other, finding a dance and rhythm as a unit. We ask someone about it and it turns out there are classes every day at Heebeegeebee camp, the healing camp at Burning Man every year. The camp has shade areas and domes for massage, Reiki, yoga, partner-based classes, and spiritual classes. So we decide to go to a class during the week.

Artryx & Alya

After our refueling we ride out from the city proper onto the playa to check out the Man who is always right in the center of the huge two-mile wide playa. The theme this year is Rites of Passage, hence the circular city street names of Anniversary, Birthday, Coming Out, Divorce, Engagement, Funeral, Graduation, Hajj, Initiation, Journey, Kindergarten, and Liminal. The Man is 2000 ft from the first street closed to the playa called Esplanade. On the way we pass huge art pieces which look entirely different by day. Most of the art is interactive in some way—climbable, turnable, swingable etc. It’s what gives Burning Man the feel of a crazy adult play land. The day flies by as we let ourselves be drawn hither and thither around the playa.

Art on the Esplanade

Temple of Transition

Scorpion vs. Praying Mantis

Back at camp we setup camp proper. I fasten a large tarp over the RV door and out over our new veranda. I learned many burns ago that going without shade is asking for a bad time. Card table, camp chairs and some chaise lounges from my patio at home make it a home. I adorn the shade with solar lights for nighttime ambiance and hang a tapestry on one side for additional shade. As both Tim’s know, doing these little projects can feel rewarding, perhaps like prehistoric man setting up a new village in a new land.

Our Burning Sky camp, Alya with playa bike

I go to the Burning Sky manifest table as I’m excited to do my first jump. Alya and I sign our waivers and get manifested for a load. Alya has signed up to be a “firefly,” an observer on the jump plane. Soon we’re on a now call, and when the Sky Van (a van made to look like a Sky Van jump plane) arrives we board for the ride to the Black Rock City Airport. The airport is just outside the event perimeter and exists as temporary landing strip just for the event. I’m surprised to see 30 or so planes parked here, mostly fly-in burners. A pretty cool way to arrive and depart given the hours of traffic delay on the roads.

At the airport Alya is given a parachute rig of her own, a requirement for anyone on a jump plane. I make sure it’s on and adjusted correctly and go over the emergency procedures with her a few times: if the pilot says jump, jump and pull this handle here. It’s a bit disconcerting to think of my friend or any non-trained person having to jump out of an airplane, but it’s a necessary precaution. The bright red and yellow jump plane lands and pulls up. The previous load’s fireflies get out and Alya and her fellow fireflies board. Jumpers follow. I’m excited for the jump but also for Alya’s first ride in a jump plane.

The ride up gives views of the playa, surrounding mountains and Black Rock City. Alya’s excited and doesn’t seem fazed by the small plane and uncomfortable seating straddling the bench as we all do. Happy smiles exchanged on the way up. On the jump run I’m the last to leave the plane. I turn around and blow a kiss as I exit. After a few seconds I see the plane dive to the left. I don’t realize that Alya and the other fireflies are frightened by the dive.

I pull fairly high to get a ten minute canopy ride above the city. It’s freezing so I put my hands in my pocket for some of the ride. Since it’s my first jump at Burning Man, it’s suggested I land outside the city so I don’t have to deal with people and obstacles in the center playa. Landing goes without incident.

Video of plane ride and jump:

Video of plane dive:

Burning Log: Arrival

We arrive at dusk, and a hungry dust storm welcomes us to the ancient lake bed “playa.” Eight lanes of soon-to-be burners funnel into Burning Man, an annual sojourn for thousands. As we come to a stop in our lane, I estimate that we have perhaps a half hour wait to enter. I am wrong. One hour turns into two, and we are at the stow-away check point. The volunteer asks me to open an external storage panel on the RV to see if anyone has tucked themselves in there. She also checks the bathroom inside. We are cleared for the next station where we hand in our tickets. A half hour later we reach the greeters station where we are welcomed home.

I am Artryx and my cohort is Alya. These are our playa names. Mine comes from a shortened version of Archaeopteryx, the first bird. And Alya means sky or heaven in Arabic. Alya is a first time burner or “playa virgin,” so at the greeters station, she is asked to get out and make friends with the dusty playa by making a playa angel and ring the playa virgin bell. She does this with a combination of incertitude and aplomb. The playa is the canvas of Burning Man. Nothing exists here before the event and nothing after. By agreement with the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) it is a leave-no-trace event. In practical terms this means no more than one square foot of debris per acre, an amazing feat for an event with 50,000 participants.

We finally enter Burning Man in our well-traveled RV, heading to our home for the next five days, the Burning Sky camp consisting of skydivers and their friends. It is dark now, but we find it fairly quickly at the intersection of 5:00 and Hajj. The streets of “Black Rock City” (the city of Burning Man) are arranged in a circular grid, with numbered streets running out radially from the Man and named streets running in a circumference around the man. The numbered streets are denoted by time on a clock with 6:00 running south, 3:00 to the east, and 9:00 to the west. So we find our place at 5 o’clock and Hajj. We are home.

Black Rock City from above

Yet we do not sleep. The playa beckons, and we don our first colorful playa outfits, adorned with glow sticks and lights. Alya tries out her playa bike, fashioned by Artryx from a used mountain bike. It is spray-painted red with a furry pink seat and a purple furry butterfly attached to the front. EL-wire and other lights festively wrap the frame to give the bike a nice red glow in the dark. Alya manages to hop aboard and ride it well around camp in the pitch of night. We are ready to wander.

We head up 5:00 toward the open playa where hundreds of alighted art pieces and sculptures beckon us. We arrive at a flower tower. Alya heartily scales her first climbable art. I follow. The view from up top is quintessential Burning Man — glowing art in all directions, roaming radiant “mutant vehicles” (art cars), bikes and burners for as far as the eye can see. It’s been five years since I’ve been here yet it is warm, familiar, and visually and mentally astounding all at the same time. We wander the night for a few hours sampling a mere hors d’oeuvres of what is possible to see. I don’t know what the week holds for us, but it is a fantastic start.

Alya in the art (and playa dust caught in the flash)

Anniversary

It’s been a year since my first jump, a thrilling if disconcerting ride that opened my eyes to something entirely different. My first jump log is reproduced in it’s entirety here…

A work buddy and I decide to go skydiving…I’ll skip the part about signing/initializing about 40 waiver statements.

The plane that the 20 of us jumpers pile into looks like an old workhorse. There’s no hatch, just a 6 ft wide by 4 ft high doorway that’s open to the elements. The pilot cranks the throttle and we are soon climbing about about 1500 ft per minute. After ten minutes the plane flattens out and the pilot notifies everyone we are at jump altitude of 13,000 feet via a green light at the back of the plane near the doorway.

All the experienced skydivers begin to line up at the door and jump in groups or individually at about 5 second intervals. You can feel the plane lurch as large groups exit the plane. Soon the two other tandem beginners like me have jumped and I’m the last one to go. I have somehow managed not to be terrified to this point even getting ready to jump with an instructor on my back. As walk get up to the edge of the door I’m looking down at the desert 13,000 feet straight below and inside I’m going holy f*ck there is nothing to stop this fall straight into space. The air is only about 50 degrees so somewhat cool up here.

And so we jump and there’s this sense of utter helplessness and hope that it all works out. Then within a few seconds the air is rushing smack into my body and face and this is somehow more disconcerting than the initial jump but at least the sense of weightlessness is gone since the wind is supporting us. So I’m looking straight down at the ground that is strangely so far away in a way that you can’t really process it, and the wind is so fast and violent. We fall one mile in 30 seconds during which the instructor makes us do a few spins left and right and sticks a thumbs up in front of me to see if I think it’s okay, and I thumbs up back, but I’m not really sure about it. Then he shows me the altimeter on his wrist and it shows 6500 ft, already halfway down. As we are falling I notice the air temp increase from 50 to maybe 75 and it’s wild that you can feel the temperature gradient change in the matter of a minute.

Then I feel this gut wrenching sense of acceleration again, but he’s pulled the parachute and the rushing of air stops and its utterly silent as we swing into a sitting position. It takes my brain a few seconds to process this and that it’s all okay. Now I’m looking out and seeing the distant mountains and even the layer of humidity above the ground. Not to be boring my instructor says let’s try some turns, so he pulls on the right cord and we proceed to swing right but he holds it and we go faster and faster and start diving in the turn, falling as the parachute is pointing down. Then he swings it the other way and I’m not sure that I’m enjoying the experience but it’s what I’m here for. So he asks if I want to do it and I say sure so we do a few more, and I’m getting dizzy but trying to be a man about it. Soon we are about 1000 ft from the ground and I can see the earlier jumpers landing on what looks like a small grass area. So we do a few more swooping turns to line up for landing and we seem to be coming down really fast. He tells me to lift my feet as we are about 20 ft above the ground and we come in about 20 mph and slide to a stop. Total trip time 5 minutes.

So it’s done and I’m on the ground, and I feel elated and somehow like it went way too fast. My friend echos the sentiment, and we are smiling and speechless. And I feel like I need to go up again since it went so fast. We get our certificate and commemorative t-shirt, and that’s it.

As we’re driving back to Phoenix, I tell my friend “now what do I do with my day?” and my friend says “yeah the high point of our day happened too early.”

So I dedicate this compilation video to my skydive buddies, Angela, Matt, Kyle, Mark, and Yigal. Thanks to them I don’t have to jump alone. It’s been a cool ride… [use fullscreen for best viewing]