When I met Suzanne Graham, her feet were planted firmly on the ground, which is exactly where she doesn’t want them.
She would prefer to be falling from a distance of 2,000 feet or shorter at a rate of about 128 mph with a hard slab of ground eight seconds away.
“It’s not as dangerous as people make it out to be,” she assures me.
She wants to live. That’s where the parachute comes in.
Graham, a health education major at the U, just returned from Kuala Lumpur Tower International BASE Jump event that helped Malaysia celebrate its Independence Day. In three days, she jumped about 22 times from the 1,382-foot KL Tower.
“I shook the prime minister’s hand,” Graham said. “They put you on little rickshaws and parade you around the city. It’s hilarious! They love you. Every time I’d land, I’d get mobbed by people, signing kids’ autographs, taking pictures with families. It was crazy!”
Her start to BASE jumping8212;which stands for the four stationary objects one can jump from: building, antenna, span, Earth8212;was a natural evolution.
“When I was little, I was always jumping off roofs,” Graham said. “I started big mountain skiing. So I like to ski off cliffs a lot. And I’d always see ski basing, and I loved that. I was always so interested in that. I just kinda always wanted to do it.”
The 21-year-old started to hang around a group of jumpers, soaking in as much as she could from watching and listening.
“One day, one of them gave me the opportunity to Para jump in Idaho at the Perrine Bridge…in Twin Falls,” Graham said. “It’s actually the only bridge that’s legal to jump off of year round. My friend was like, “Do you want to try it?'”
The Salt Lake City native said people should have about 200 sky dives under their belt before they start BASE jumping.
“I’d never sky dived before, but this is the bridge8212;there’s a huge field around you, a huge river underneath that barely moves8212;you can always just go in the water if you can’t land,” Graham said. “Nothing to hit. Just wide-open space. It’s pretty user friendly. We’ve sent friends off of there, who know nothing about it. It’s hilarious! With all the intention of them actually getting into BASE jumping and I think this is what my friends did (to me). They were like, “Oh she’s interested. Let’s throw her off!'”
Graham remembers her legs shaking her first time. Whether the parachute would open or not was her primary concern.
“I’m wearing a backpack, and I’m about to jump off a 500-foot bridge,” Graham said. “It’s crazy because your mind doesn’t want to let you. I heard once that the point where your body is 40 feet from falling, your mind and your body automatically is like, “It’s not a good idea. You’re gonna die.’ Sometimes I’m like, “Whoa! What am I doing?’ It’s weird because you get really used to it.”
The safety issue is a big one, of course. Graham always double-checks her gear and then visually inspects her BASE mates while they inspect her. There are also the conditions to worry about.
If it’s too windy, you don’t want to be jumping. BASE jumpers have to consider many variables8212;the landing area, what direction the wind is blowing, the direction one wants to jump, surrounding features. Novices should make sure it’s clear.
“It’s kinda general rule,” Graham said. “If you can’t spit off it and watch your spit all the way to the ground, you need to look at it some more. Make sure you’re not freaked out or anything and send it.”
When asked, “Why do you want to climb Mount Everest?” the mountaineer George Mallory responded, “Because it’s there.”
As a man-made skyline begins to dominate the natural one, more people are looking for something more urban to test themselves against. Parkour (a kind of urban acrobatics) and free soloing buildings along with BASE jumping will be part of that movement.
The sport of BASE jumping began with Carl Boenish in the 1970s when the first jumps were made from El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, which is now illegal. He also coined the BASE acronym.
When someone completes a jump from all four fixed objects, he or she can receive a BASE number.
“I got BASE 1234,” Graham said. “It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just kinda fun.”
It is a sport that is anarchical. The closest thing to a regulatory committee is the gear companies.
“It’s hard to buy gear,” Graham said. “Anyone can’t just go buy a BASE jumping rig. You go to a gear manufacturer, and they have to know someone who’s willing to mentor you, and they have to get to know you. If they sell gear to anyone, if someone has an accident…people automatically look at the gear. It’s really bad for them if someone makes a mistake using their gear. Even though you know 99.9 percent of the time it’s never the gear’s fault8212;it’s the person’s fault.”
To successfully BASE jump from most objects, a small amount of law breaking has to be done. That’s where police lookouts come into play. BASE jumpers’ accomplishments remain mostly private except for maybe a handful of astonished pedestrians wondering whether it’s a bird or a plane that’s crashing toward them.
The sport is spreading among friends. For many events you need a reputation or a voucher from someone with a good record of competence. The opportunity to jump without the strings of a bureaucracy or the scorecards of a committee is a huge draw for many and adds to the freedom of flying.
“I don’t know why I love it so much,” Graham said. “It’s really addicting. I mean, you get to fly. I think that’s it. In the fact that you get to fly. Isn’t that what every human’s dream is? To fly? It’s mine.”