Baring BASE TR

[D-dog]

A few months ago, I offered to post trip reports for some upcoming BASE trips to the North Cascades after many folks were really helpful in providing leads on new backcountry jumps. Well, here goes. I suspect that this TR would normally end up in a separate forum, but since it is more humorous than useful as a TR per se, I've posted it here. Hope that's kosher.

 

Our objective on this trip was Baring. While it has been jumped twice before, our Portland crew has been weathered out on two attempts last year and is still in the hunt for this one. One member of our crew, freshly-returned from Switzerland, has his eye on "out-tracking" (i.e. using body position in freefall to generate horizontal movement away from the cliff) a ledge system about 900 feet down Baring, and thus potentially capturing 2500-3000 feet of freefall. This amount of freefall (probably 20+ seconds) would be rivalled only by jumps in the Valley in the continental U.S.

 

Weather reports for last weekend looked good, so we drove up on Sunday and stayed in Gold Bar for the night. Monday morning early (well, 11:30 or so which is plenty early for us), we met up with our Seattle buddies at the Baring parking lot. Not surprisingly, 2 of 3 Portland jumpers weren't packed and were thus hazed mercilessly as we scrambled to throw together our canopies for the jump.

 

While we were packing, a friendly forest ranger stopped by to give us tickets due to missing NW Forest Passes. Screw that - when we stop subsidizing logging on our National Forests, then I'll gladly pay to use them.

 

Packed, caffeinated, motivated (well, mostly), and rarin' to go, we set off up the trail. The "trail" quickly devolves into a 1/2 mile, 2,000 foot scramble up a steep hillside. After much grumbling and wheezing, our intrepid crew made the ridgeline and set out for the couple mile hike to Baring proper. The trail here truly is beautiful, and the overall setting is majestic. We told old BASE stories, swapped childhood memories, and generally had fun on the mostly-level trail for a few hours.

 

By mid-afternoon, we charged up 1,000 more feet of off-trail hillside and emerged on the rockslide leading up the backside of Baring proper. What a view! After a snack and rest in the sun, we picked our way up about 700 feet of loose rocks (and past a few really tempting boulder problems), and rested for a bit at the saddle between Baring's twin peaks. Still a bit of snow up there, but nothing to impede progress.

 

An hour more of traversing, and we were just behind the known exit point for Baring. Here, we stopped to gear up for the jump. Personally, my greatest fear in BASE is tumbling off an object before I put my rig on - it happened to a German jumper in Switzerland last winter. He slipped and fell off a 1700 foot cliff with his parachute still in his backpack, on his back. That would really, really, REALLY suck - 17 seconds of freefall. Anyway, I am a big nag about rigging up early so we all got prepped a ways back from the exit point proper.

 

By now, a few wispy clouds were moving through the valleys and we were hoping for a visually exciting mix of light clouds on the cliff face proper. A few comments about "how much it would suck to be clouded in now" were heard, with much laughter following. Safety gear was donned, rigs double-checked, video cameras loaded, and the obligatory group pre-jump photos taken.

 

We then downclimbed the scary, mossy section to the exit point proper. Moss scrambling = scary! I would NOT want to scope out this exit point without a rope, as it slopes off at just enough angle to ensure a good tumble before freefall. At about this time, the clouds are thickeing up a bit more - it is 5:30 exactly.

 

By the time we get to exit and get our lineup organized, the landing area is being obscured by a band of low-lying clouds coming in from the WSW at 20+ mph. Not optimal winds for jumping, but with a good track that's not an insurmountable problem. However, clouds at opening height (about 1000 feet down) ARE a big problem. One of the world's best jumpers, Thor Alex, was killed in Norway in 1999 when he jumped into a cloud layer, lost orientation, and flew his canopy into the cliff face.

 

Our nervous laughter about "how much it would suck to be clouded out now" is not laughter anymore. The cloud band appears to be thickening - only 20 minutes ago it was all but clear. We sit down and ruminate; I think on the fact that this will be my first jump since my friend Dr. Nik died jumping in Switzerland a few weeks ago. Not having jumped in nearly a month, I'm feeling more trepidation than usual at exit.

 

After 20 minutes of waiting, the clouds are only worse. While it is tempting to jump and hope for the best, we're all very leery of cliff strike and decide to back off. I know each of us thinks of rolling the dice and jumping anyway; however, having just returned from the funeral for a fellow jumper, none of us is willing to put our mates in a potentially sad position of dealing with another fatality and we make the safe choice.

 

We gear down as the clouds continue to thicken. I scramble over to a rock outcrop, and watch the cloud band as it forms at the base of Baring. Apparently, the moisture content of the air is high enough that the winds striking Baring are self-generating these clouds out of nowhere. They then slide up the ridge of Baring and right into me at 25+ mph, completely silent. Standing there, feeling the clouds split around my body as they continue up and over Baring, I am overwhelmed. It is one of the most magical things I've ever seen, or experienced. The fact that these same clouds will thwart our jump is not to be forgotten, however.

 

By now, it is nearly 7pm and we know we can't make the hike out before nightfall. While I propose we bivy on the summit ridge, wait for clearing, and jump by moonlight, several of my mates have real-world obligations on Tuesday and must get back down. We start the scramble back down, out of water and mostly out of food.

 

We make good time until we hit the final 2000-foot, 1/2 mile, off-trail section back to the cars. By then, it is almost 9pm and what light is in the sky from the nearly-full moon is barely penetrating the forest cover. Our light sources consist of 1 (one) cheap lighter, and the flash from a 35 mm camera. I used to always bring a flashlight on jumps, but I got stuck 90 feet up in a tree over the winter, and left my flashlight hooked to a limb up there and never replaced it. So much for the ten essentials.

 

The "hike" down this section involves mostly sliding from tree to tree in near-total blackness, checking for cliff bands by taking flash-photos with the camera. When the flash dies, we are left with using the lighter to check our progress down the steep hillside. A few near-misses involving steep drop-offs see us about 2-3 of the way down (according to GPS altitude readings). It is about 10:30.

 

For the rest of the way, the brush is so thick that downwards progress is basically a wrestling match with vine maple and devil's claw. Most of the time, we close our eyes to prevent damage from loose branches - it is too dark to see, anyway. Near the bottom, we merge with a small stream and basically slide down the stream on our butts for several hundred feet. At long last, we reach the trail and then the cars. Our ground crew has long since left, but they did leave behind some drinks and a nice note. Dehydrated from 6 hours on the trail without water, we guzzle the drinks and head out.

 

A 2am breakfast at Denny's in Monroe, and we are on the road back to Portland. One rest stop on the way, and 7:30 sees us rolling into town to cloudy skies and a full workday ahead of us.

 

Ah, they joys of BASE. This weekend, weather permitting, we'll be back up at Baring for Round 4. Might even get to make a jump this time!

 

Peace,

 

D-d0g