Sunday, 19 April 2009

Base jumping The Chief

"The wind is starting to pick up, I'm jumping in three minutes whether your ready or not". Randy tells Matt as he abseils over the side of the chief.

I moved in with Kane and Jessie in mid December and since I heard Kane based jumped I have been looking fore ward to shooting him jumping of The Chief. The chance came early on Saturday morning. The plan was to meet at seven in the car park, hike up and to be on the ledge before the morning breeze comes off the Sound.

Kye was filming a video to enter in the Telus video showdown in Whistler. He had to film everything in 72 hours and all within 100km of Whistler with the idea of getting as much vertical as possible. The guys are all sky divers and were going to film themselves speed skiing. They asked Kane the only base jumper in the corridor if he wanted to jump and that's how it came about.

Kane had not jumped since last July and his shoot had been packed then which was playing on his mind were as Randy on the other hand had been jumping all winter and was on his game arriving down with three pre packed shoots.






Rositch Point








Randy joking about while doing his checks.








Matt abseiling over the edge to video.




Kye looking after his personal hygiene




The guys looking a bit more serious
















Randy went first doing a Gainer.
I don't ever remember looking through my lens and thinking I was looking at a video.
The most surreal experience I've ever had. One minute your joking with the lad next minute he is doing a back flip off a cliff.












Kane doing some visualisation





One last peek












It was a bit more intense when Kane went to jump because I had not just met him an hour ago in the car park and I knew if anything went wrong I would have to tell Jess.

The last thing I saw was Kane's pilot shoot and then I froze for a few seconds, which were some long seconds, before I heard the beautiful sound of the shoot opening and filling with air. Sweat as!








It was only after they jumped that I realized how tight the landing was, just a little gap between the power lines and the trees.





Randy had three packed shoots and went straight back up to jump again. He had found a new exit which gives alot longer free fall. We spotted him jumping and I had time to grab the camera and find him on the wall befor he pulled.