#48 - Avery Badenhop, Dennis McGlynn, and Harry Parker: Team Ill Vision

Welcome to Exit Point, a podcast about the advancement of BASE jumping and the exploration of its culture. I'm Matt Blank, producer and cohost. If you'd like to support this independent production, please visit our buy me a coffee link in the description and leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

Good morning, Matt. I'm super happy to be here. Thank you very much for inviting me to be on this podcast. I came along with a couple people. I got my buddy Dennis McGlynn here. How you doing? Thanks. And I also got Harry Parker.

Great to be here, Matt. So we've got a room full of legends and, uh, what's going on around us right now. Where are we and, uh, what's going down? We're

currently back in Moab for the Turkey Boogie 2023. And, uh, you know, we got groups of people and we got a whole gang here to celebrate Thanksgiving and, uh, jump off rocks.

Nice, nice. Let's get into some, uh, history. For the moment. There's a lot of people in town is like nearly what 350 400 BASE jumpers here easy

easy They're

everywhere. Okay. Let me ask you this when you started jumping in Moab. How many people

around? Well, it was mostly just like us three and maybe three other people And what,

uh, take us back to what year that was.

Uh, the first time I jumped in Moab was at Tombstone and it was 1995.

95. So nearly 30 years ago, nearly 30 years ago. I'd say that there's a large segment of our, uh, community that. Is younger than that way,

younger, a lot of them.

And I understand that your daughter just started jumping. I saw her packing up a parachute just earlier. Yeah,

she did. She, you know, the apple didn't fall far from the tree with my child and she's taken up the sport. It's pretty awesome.

Well, let's take it back even further and, uh, back to, uh, Where did you first jump, take us through your progression and what year it

was? Okay, well, you know, I started skydiving in 1981, uh, when I was living in Hawaii and then by the Early nineties, I was living in California. I took up skydiving again in California and it was during the early nineties when people started showing up with BASE jumping videos, showing us this new thing that people were doing. It was like, Oh my goodness, BASE jump. You guys are out of your mind.

Well, uh, I'm imagining BASE jumping videos back then like reel to reel cameras on people's heads. What was the deal there? Oh, that

was back in the days of the brick. And actually Dennis is the person who took me on my first BASE jump and it's, it's interesting to see how teaching BASE jumping has come a long way. 'cause Dennis did a great job, but it was like so rudimentary and basic. Right, Dennis? Okay. Oh yeah.

It was a little different than it is today. There was no courses to go sign up, sign up for kinda, the mentorship was all about.

Well, then, uh, here's what I want to hear. I want to hear that story of your first jump from both of your perspectives, because I got to say it's, it's always different from the person doing it than the person teaching it.

Okay. So I was, uh, I was skydiving in Petaluma in 1993 and the DZO needed some help. And so he called some people from Lodi and, uh, bill sent, uh, Dennis. Steve Jester, Rick Payne, and Frank Everhart over to Petaluma to come out and be Tandem Masters and video guys. And so when, when they showed up, not Frank, he was just a skydiver, but Steve, And Dennis and Rick, they were showing me and my buddy Seth, these videos of BASE jumping. And it was like, it was old school stuff.

Damn!

Huh Dennis?

Yeah, it was December 12th, I think. It was. Yeah, it was, uh, like, we took a lot of people out to the Auburn Bridge, we had a nice place to go take people for their first jump. Told them to keep their head high, they'll be fine. Count to three, they'd count to one usually, uh. They just had to have a little bit of canopy control. It was a long landing area. Not as long as it is today, but it's a long landing here. It's like landing on an aircraft carrier. It was a great landing.

Well, let me ask you this. Uh, is it scary at all watching somebody? Do a delay the first jump, like, are you nervous at all that they might mess something up or, uh, back in the day, were you pretty confident that Avery was going to nail this? Pretty

confident he was going to nail it. But yeah, it's always scary watching anybody make their first BASE jump. You just never know what's going to happen, really. Yeah.

Avery, was it, uh, scary? Take us through your, like, uh, experience of this.

Um, every BASE jump is really scary. But that's what it's all about. That's what we do. And I was so ignorant of really what was going on. You know, it was just like, it was, it was perfect because I was just having fun. I'm all, Oh, this is obviously going to be fun. I learned how to pack this parachute. This guy told me exactly what to do. We're all good. Here we are. And then as soon as I landed. Well, as soon as Dennis landed, I told him, Hey, I need to order one of those rigs. You build.

Yeah. What kind of rig were you jumping? What was the canopy? What was the container? What was the rig

that I was using was a vision built by gravity sports, which is Dennis McGlynn. And back then, one of the hottest canopies of the day was a Raven three. And so I was jumping to Raven three,

Raven three, talk us through that. What's, uh, what kind of technology was put into that?

Well, a Raven at that point was basically a reserve canopy, so it was a more docile seven cell canopy, and so it was like just really desirable in the BASE community because, you know, the first canopies that the, the canopies that I had to use until I got my own built canopies, we were jumping Furies and Pegasus and cruise lights, and they were like so called hot canopies at the time.

is. I still jump a raven for. In the BASEball world? Yeah, that's my number one can of beans. Ha ha I'd put

it anywhere. We could pick those things up for a hundred and a hundred and fifty bucks. Brand new. And the reason that you could use them is because Raven was built for both main and reserve and it had an attachment point to attach the, the bridle to. So it was a

chew in. How about the Lion Sets? Like, how did those things hold up? I, you know, I see these videos from bridge day back when and like people blowing out line sets left and right. Well, that's how

you knew he needed a new

one. We figured out where they blew out. We learned, you know, We blew them up. I blew several canopies up. Fix it. Go back. Go back at it.

Uh, one year And I think it was in Five. No, it was, it was in 1994. There was a crew team called the shooting stars and they were out in Davis. And I found out from one of the girls on the team that the team was getting a whole new set of canopies and they were going to sell their five old clapped out crew canopies. And they were furious. And I said, I will take all five of them. And we went out to Lake Powell and blew up three of

them. Okay. I've got.

Well, I'd rather owe it than, you know, be, you know, I'd rather be in debt for it than to actually show up with the cash. Okay.

That was a little more positive thinking, I think, than that.

Okay. So it wasn't quite that like these systems could fail at any time. You had some solid

confidence in them. I had a lot of confidence in them. They were working. They were our skydiving canopies at the time. You know, that's what we jumped as hot skydiving canopy. They were good. They just weren't made for the slider down type opening shocks that we were getting. And we learned, um, like a lot of the canopies were the B, B, B line attachment points. That's where they were blowing up. We beefed them up and preserves were already beefed up there. So we learned where they blew up.

to remember too, back in the, back, you know, in the nineties and before it was all skydiving gear. You know, I was jumping a warp three with a 26 flat Lopo reserve. Like, you know, what, where you're, where you're witnessing is moving and taking the skydiving stuff and configuring it to make it work for BASE and eventually having BASE specific gear. So it was a transition.

I see. Okay. So Avery, take us through your progression. Did you jump these canopies in the sky world, or did you show up at the bridge and get handed something that was specifically, Uh, it's supposed to be jumped

there only. Oh, well, so in the skydiving that I had done leading up to me getting into BASE jumping, it was all on just skydiving gear. And I, I, uh, you know, I'm in, in 1992, I was jumping a thing called a rascal. And like the next year I got a saber. So skydiving was one thing. BASE jumping was really like this whole new thing. And so I had to like.

Okay. Well, let me ask you this at the time, what was it like to get in, uh, to the sport? Like into the community, what was it like to, uh, try and convince somebody to take you out on a first jump and then make equipment for you? What was, uh, the reputations of, of BASE jumpers, uh, you know, at the time,

it was so much different than it is today. The commute, the community of BASE jumpers was really small and everybody pretty much. Knew everybody. And so, you know, I was so fortunate that I just got introduced to Dennis McGlynn because he was one of the guys that was innovating the gear and he was looking people, you know, looking for people who were willing to pay him to make them gear that they were going to jump. They were going to entrust their life to him.

to what Marty was talking about. There is a little bit of truth to that. You know, when, when I first. Came across BASE jumping. It was something, there's no way I don't want to do that. That sounds absolutely ridiculous, but that is the seed that gets you like, wow, what is that? You know, and then you do meet somebody back in the day. You couldn't bring a BASE rig or a onto a drop zone. I mean, you were shunned and you would get in trouble for. For even showing it.

Well, on that note of, uh, you know, the ethics and the mentorship, um, Uh, what was it that Avery did to convince you that he was part of the crew? That he was ready to do this thing? You know, how did somebody get in with you?

Well, you just kind of answered the question. He was, he was one of those guys who were ready to get into the thing. He wanted it. He could see it in his eye that he wanted to do it. I was pretty open about, you know, sharing the knowledge with people that wanted to do it. I don't know. He had, he had the enthusiasm. He was, he was there a hundred percent. We went on to do the bridge day stuff and we had a little clan going for a while. It was a lot of fun.

Was there anyone at that time, uh, that like walked up to you and you could tell that they just weren't with it? Or, uh, did mostly people come up to you that were already dedicated?

Yeah. If you've sought me out, you wanted to do it. I could tell they wanted to do it. People didn't just come up and back then it was, uh, either you do want to do it or you don't want to do it. The skydivers would say all that energy, time and effort for two seconds. I just don't get it. And you said, that's right. You don't get it. We don't need to deal with it. So you could tell you could just look somebody now and, you know, They wanted to do it. There was no, you either knew or you didn't.

I've heard back in the day that, uh, the seriousness of the consequences, uh, basically, We're written on the wall. And so if somebody was talking about it on the drop zone, then you already knew that they had, uh, accepted some of this like ridiculously dangerous, uh, stuff versus today, you know, there's a lot of, uh, talk about it being safe, you know, a lot of talk about it being fun, you know,

yeah, it was definitely different, but it had, it had come to a point to where you didn't have, you didn't have to risk your life in a certain way. It wasn't just a roll of the dice. There was some. There was some stuff that gave you good odds, you know, good chances to do it. I was a firm believer in that. But when I first started, my first BASE rig was a vector with a bag on it. It was a heavy parachute, you know, inside of a bag. And luckily I'd bought a big parachute, big pilot chute.

So, uh, tell me, Avery, What made all this worth it for you? You know, obviously, uh, there was a way to do this, uh, sustainably back in the day, but still a lot of risk involved. Uh, and I would argue much more than today. What was that motivation for you?

Well, It was just because of the initial experience of what it was like to the peacefulness and just, just the whole, everything that went into my first BASE jump going into it, I was, I wasn't super enthusiastic, but I knew I really wanted to do it and I didn't really know which direction it was go. But. As any BASE jumper knows, as soon as you have that experience, you understand what that experience is.

Okay. Yeah. I, I also, uh, have trouble sometimes expressing what it's like to BASE jump to people that haven't done it. You know, oftentimes I'm like, well, to really get the idea, you gotta go do it. And I don't recommend that, but I'm going to fail at describing it without you actually

experiencing it. Absolutely. You, and you understand you can't. Really describe to somebody who hasn't made a BASE jump what it is that makes a BASE jump so Fulfilling and all the people who have made the BASE jump know and then of course some of them Have found out and don't do it anymore and then for the rest of us. It's like no, we're doing it

Well, you have any words for people who are BASE curious

don't do it.

It can become a therapy, you know It's uh, but if they haven't done it, what's my Advice for them? Man, I don't know. Learn about it. If you really want to do it, I can't say don't do it because it's, uh, I do it. I love it. Still doing it. Been doing it a long time. And it's a therapy. I mean, it's a good charge of positive, positive life when you jump. I've taught a lot of people to jump. Taken a lot of people over the years.

we're still hanging in there. And, uh, let me ask you just to get some, uh, background. Your first jump was in what year? Um,

1987.

And Harry?

BASE jumping? Yeah. It was like a 80, 88, 89.

Okay, we're going to get to longevity at the end of this, but let's keep going through the history and Avery, fill us in on what happened from your first jump, you know, through the next couple of decades. Give us some plot points of where the sport went, where you went in it.

Okay, so when I, when I first started BASE jumping, really, There was a lot of people who were still reinventing the wheel, so to speak, to get the gear to be specific for BASE, you know, there was still, you know, there was still the buzz about Mark Hewitt and how he had come up with the line mod. You know, uh, a lot of this stuff was still early, you know, when I think the BASE fatality list was like at number 27 or something.

So I'd like to talk through some of the relationship development. I have a, uh, your jumping partners. What was it like to get to know each other and what kind of conversations did you guys have as you were learning this thing basically on your own?

Well, fortunately we already knew each other cause we hung out at the drop zone. We were skydivers and we took up the BASE jumping, but you know, our lives then began to get more involved by really, you know, meeting these people and we're going to their houses and meeting their families and you know, like that. It's kind of a brotherhood.

me ask you this, was there anyone at the time that was just like doing this completely outside the community? Or did most people or all people eventually rub shoulders with you guys to get into the

practice? No, there's certainly two different kinds of BASE jumpers. Really back then, because like I say, we didn't even know Jeff was a BASE jumper and there were a lot of BASE jumpers who went BASE jumping and they didn't talk about it, you didn't know them. And then there was a whole bunch of the others, you know, that always did get together. Like, basically, anybody who went to Bridge Day.

so how did the the community and the practice transition from almost all underground?

Okay. So this is what this is really what really happened as far as a timeline when I met Dennis In 1993, he was already going to bridge day and he had already been doing that for several years and just by his nature, he had integrated himself into somewhat of the structure of how things were going to bridge day. Um, I went to my first bridge day with Dennis in 1993. in 1994. And then that was the first time I had seen an event of BASE jumping.

I want to hear about that. What is the difference between somebody that BASE jumps and a BASE jumper? Well,

the guys that show up every year at bridge day with their skydiving rig, they make a BASE jump. Then there's guys like me who I need six different rigs. So I am prepared for whatever comes tomorrow. And I'm BASE jumping all the time. Every 30 years later, I'm still. BASE jumping my ass off.

So some people do the thing. Some people live the thing. Exactly.

I would almost

say that it's a balance between like. Your ego and humility, the ability to be in community, doing something, having enough ego and the drive to do it, to even begin with, but enough humility to be in community, to do it together. And, you know, that was our greatest strengths is using the groups of people to, for all the learning and all the advancement and all the innovation. We weren't going to have to do it by ourselves.

Can I pick at that for a second? Because that's an interesting concept you bring up. Uh, oftentimes in our culture today, ego is brought up completely in a negative connotation or with a negative connotation. Uh, but from my perspective, you have to have at least some sense of yourself to understand whether you can or cannot do what you're about to try. And so like a certain amount of ego is necessary. I like, what's your opinion here? Where's the balance?

I think, who would we be as humans without ego? You, we would all be the same. Ego is kind of really what separates us and makes us different. And it's part of the process of your own spiritual evolution on this planet. The ability to cage it, tame it. Or learn to live with it is, you know, your spiritual development.

So, came down to it. There was no lying at the exit point. Yeah, I like that. I like that. Find out who people are when it's time to jump. You can find out who they are. They can talk at it. Talk it up all they want, but when it's time to jump, the truth comes out who they are. Yeah,

I like

that. That works.

that note, what pushes the practice into performance art is like, is it on the whole always performance art or do you need to do something? Do you need to do it in a certain way for it to be part of that category?

Well, you know, it kind of ties into where we were getting into this history thing. So in, in my, in my introduction to bridge day and to Dennis and Harry and to what Dennis is. Dennis was trying to accomplish that bridge day and then the three of us kind of collaborated in 1985 over that whole year. We started to talk about how can we get out of the bushes, hiding in the middle of the night, jumping nothing but black. And how can we make this come into the daylight?

became more performative, more

performant. I'd like to speak to that as well. You know, I think, I think through, um, the perspective and the lens of just simple evolution. You know, when we were running from the cops and hiding in the bushes, as Avery said, um, you know, we really started to toy with the idea, what if we could get them to pay us to do this? Right.

art. Dennis, how do you feel about the evolution and tell us a little bit if you can about the formation of bridge day and uh, now that Avery's mentioned it.

That's a, that's a lot of stuff right there.

Well, let's, let's start with, uh, the evolution, right? We started at, um, teaching Avery and, uh, you getting into the game in the 1980s, which, wow. Uh, you know, I, I, oftentimes I look at myself and I'm like, man, you're old, you know, especially for BASE jumping terms. Like I feel like, you know, ancient, um, just, you know, the room shrinks so much. You You know, like of the people that have been jumping more than 10 years, it's not many, you know, more than 20 years.

evolution to me, I came along in a way became part of a wave that, um, adopted and accepted slider down BASEd jumping as, as the norm, as the safe Avenue. So when I started jumping, it was still. Team Banish was still running bridge day and she suggested and promoted jumping your skydiving rig because there was altitude to cut away. So you should be jumping your skydiving rig. We, we learned about slider down BASE and started understanding the mechanics of it. So we, that's what we did.

odd. Yeah. To give you another statistic that I looked up recently, um, in, uh, the years, 2014, 15, 16, 18, and 19. All those years. There were more deaths per year than the entire 1980s.

Yeah, well, there's a lot to be said for that. There's a lot more people doing it. Definitely. The wingsuiters are definitely the ones that are on the majority of those numbers. Yep. And, uh, there just weren't many BASE jumpers back then. And, um, for the guys that continued to do it, understood slider down BASE. That's what really opened it up, I believe. And then we found some cliffs that were legal. You know, there was, there were no legal BASE jumps.

Four hours into the back country and like a three or four hour drive to the, to the

trailhead. They were legal. We could jump them without, we had landowner's permission.

Well, now we are kind of getting back into bring, bring 300 worth of burial money with you.

We knew and accepted, accepted those risks. Yeah, it was

part of it. It was a transition out of that

darkness, really. Didn't know cell phones existed because they didn't.

Was there a certain amount of peace that came with accepting one's demise?

I didn't accept my demise. I didn't think I was going to die. I was young and immortal, you know, like a lot of us are when we're young. Just people, people thought I was really crazy. I was a lot more crazy than I was. I wasn't crazy. I was, uh, I was more methodical about my safety than a lot of people gave me credit for. Well,

let's talk about that for a second. How did you make it to a hundred jumps without a broken bone? Where most everybody else failed at that. Did you have secrets to the success?

Focus. You asked me about evolution in the sport. Evolution. Mark Hewitt had come up with the line, line mod. That was, that was like Changed everything. Changed everything. That was like putting a reserve on a BASE rig. You know, you could jump one parachute now with the line. My, that was your reserve. Nothing else was going to happen unless you catastrophically didn't hook your stuff up. Right. And I mean, you could have step throughs. You could have all kinds of stuff going on.

true. It happened a lot. Like if it

could happen, it pretty much happened to me in a way, but I learned from each one of those and got more perspective on, uh, on how short your steering lines are, you know, where your steering lines, where your brake settings. All that has a lot to do with it. So I felt that I had the knowledge, had the ammunition to go out and be safe. Yeah, you need

context to like Dennis was incredibly charismatic. He's incredibly generous. It's funny when you know, Avery brings up to, you know, you pay Dennis for a rig and I'm like, when did people pay Dennis for a rig? And so he. At the time he was living in Truckee, uh, in Tahoe, and it was, it was, and he had a shop. So we were constantly, and, and this is, you know, an interesting concept, like we would go to Auburn and our jobs, we weren't just hooting it up. We're out there.

experiment,

science, none of us wanted to die. And we really, we, you know, to like Dennis and Avery's point, like it was all about living, you know, in that moment.

end. Well, let's talk about doing it together and maybe Avery can pick up the pieces for us on cliff camp.

It'll be

okay. Okay. So after I had been BASE jumping for, uh, that first nine months, Seth, Ed, and I were all, we were discovering San Francisco and the Bay area. And then, uh, Dennis said, Oh, I'm organizing this thing out in, uh, Lake Powell. It's called cliff camp and it's like, we're going to get all our stuff and all our boats and a whole stack of gear.

son.

Um, Yeah. Jeff Gladys was there. Jeff Gladys as a

kid. How old was he?

15? 16? Yeah, he was young. Just a baby. Super young. Um, remember that guy Hunter was there and he Tim Kronk. Did you say that? And it's interesting cause some of those people like after Cliff Camp, 90, 94, they didn't BASE jump anymore. That was enough. That was enough. Yeah. It was

a, it was a baptism. You know, that was, that was an experiment.

Well, tell us about the experiment. What was the deal?

Uh, the eventual deal was that we witnessed, well, I witnessed my first BASE fatality at cliff camp that year. And it was like, it started kind of a, it actually, it was a traumatic experience for all of us. It really, it really scattered us, but also it also made, you know, The, it made the three of us and a couple other guys a little bit more of a cohesive group. Cause now we were like, we were this gang of busted outlaws and we had to go to court and answer for it.

he went, he, I think he got broken up at, uh, Lake Powell on a slider up, jump and broke himself. Isn't that how they got caught?

Uh, Dennis, do

you remember that? Like that was, uh, it was one of the first real big issues BASEd jumping and it was at Lake Powell.

Yeah. There were three groups that got busted right around that time. And it was, uh, Willox's group and, uh, Kirk's group, I believe from, uh, he was from Chicago, there were three groups, there were 42 people involved altogether, but the three groups, and then we were fighting, we were in three different courts. Two different districts, and, uh, And they had, uh, Joe Sumner, the special criminal investigator who was actually out there spending taxpayers money. Who

we ended up having to face.

What were they trying to get you on?

Aerial delivery. Illegal aerial delivery. Aerial delivery without a permit.

Was that the first time that that law had been tried

to, uh, Oh, no, that's what's been keeping you out of Yosemite

this whole time. Right, but was that the first, uh, case that Our,

our, the case was, I think, When Dennis had to go to court, we all had to go to court. I mean, we were taking, we were, we were putting aerial delivery on

trial. Yeah. We wanted to set precedence because it was, while it was, um, it was, uh, it made sense for Yosemite because the aerial delivery law was for not. Being able to be, uh, resupplied by, as a squatter in the backcountry, not as jumping into a park, but they, they could get away with that in Yosemite, but Lake Powell was a designated landing, uh, pursuant to special regulations that stated that the whole entire surface of Lake Powell was a designated landing area.

They just said no. And I'll tell you what, uh, what an experiment and an experience for all three of us to be dragged through the federal court system and risk freedom. For what we believed in was our basic, you know, access, you know, we were like, Dennis always says we're going to take over the world. You know, we were, there was a lot of altruistic motivation.

baptism. So I gotta ask, uh, what actually happened on that incident, and, if you will, uh, what lessons were learned from it? Oof.

Our, our, our good friend, Paul Thompson, he jumped off, and his rig was, um, looked over and overseen by somebody else, and basically, his steering lines were too long. So he jumped off, had a perfect on heading opening. Reached up, undid his, undid his, uh, brakes. His canopy, the tail shot up cause it didn't have, it didn't pressurize properly.

Yeah, we were, everyone was in shock, like.

Why did he do that? Oof. So that, you know, that, there was like a nuclear bomb going off. We didn't expect that to happen. He had just given his helmet to, to Jeff, the kid that was on the load, who was walking towards the cliff. Him and Jeff were jumping a cliff off to the left. We were all on another cliff, because we already jumped that one in the morning. And, uh, Jeff dropped his helmet and kicked it, and it was about to go over the edge, so he ran to get it.

if I understand correctly, he went with the turn to try and increase air speed to try and get some, uh, pressurization in the canopy,

the pressure canopy just started pressurizing, you know, it was, it, the tail was just all wishy washy, you know, and it was trying to pressurize if he'd have just done nothing. If he did, if he would not touch anything, he would have flown straight out into the water, but he undid his brakes. Canopy started slowly turning left as it was pressurizing.

Well, what was that like? And, uh, also I want to reiterate, uh, the question, what were the lessons

learned? Uh, what were the lessons learned? Well, gear, we dissected what happened. So, uh, gear awareness, you know, have your gear adjusted for you. You know, everybody's a little different weight and stuff, different size canopies. And back then we were still jumping retired skydiving canopies for the most part. So, you know, get it, do your tests, jumps on it, get it ready.

No, we knew better. To go back on your point though, what was learned is, you know, one was it, it really brought in the safety and the gear and everything to not let that happen again. But we had never really planned for any of that to happen and now we had to face it. So, you know, then it was about. Safety, rescue, and all the things that you don't think about until you have the emergency happen. I know that happens out here, right?

different things. Avery, I want to touch back on, uh, what it was like to experience this. You know, a lot of people, You know, don't see somebody go in for years, sometimes never. Uh, and you were very early on in your career. You see not only somebody, but somebody that you knew and knew well. Uh, what was it like dealing with that?

Well, You know, when I got into it, we already knew there was a list and we already knew the risk and we didn't expect to see it right there. But for me and my little crew, it's like, it was definitely an eye opener. Like, Oh, people really do die. And sometimes right in your face.

More just get

better at it? Well, like, you know, like Dennis has brought up, learn about the mistakes that were made and why did that happen and why is it so important? And then like it set a new habit for me, like Dennis said, you get a new canopy, test it out, go, you know, put it in a skydive, figure out where your shit belongs.

Well, let me ask you this then, what do y'all think of the new standard, which is first BASE jump, never flown the canopy ever? No adjustments made at all. Uh, and once you come out here, some people only a theoretical understanding of their emergency procedures. Somebody has told them what to do, but they've never tried it. That's pretty incredible

is what it is.

It's super, it's surprising in some ways that, well, the thing is that the gear has come a long way. And so at least the gear is much more reliable. Now, pilot training is something altogether different. And, and I just not to interrupt, but I just want to say, so Dennis, how much time do you do for that leg pal take

three months, 90 days, five years, supervised probation.

For, uh, what was the infraction? Going for the court case. Yeah. What did

they enter? Aiding and abetting in an aerial delivery resulting in a death.

Yeah. They dropped the resulting in a death part because that was, they were going to try to put me in jail five years and.

Yeah. So you need to wrap your head around like we went, he basically went up against the federal government to change the aerial delivery cause so we could get Yosemite legal. I mean, you got to understand the roots of this. So

let me get this right though. Um, Somebody makes a bad decision on a fully open canopy that is 100%, you know, under their control and the government wanted to give you five years for that? Absolutely.

Just for, just for witnessing it. To a 750, 000 fine as well because, well, they called me Aiden in the betting because it wasn't, you know, illegal aerial delivery. So if they were going to charge me and fine me for that upper end, um, Sentence and punishment, I was allowed a jury trial. They had a jury selected and it was, uh, I went to trial. The judge decided, well, he was going to hear it as a bench trial.

for it. Yeah, man, I just can't imagine this. Like, the worst. Time in your life, you know, you've just seen a buddy go in you're trying to pick up the pieces emotionally and physically Oh,

this was years and years later. I mean this thing went on for that was 94 I didn't go to jail till 99 on it.

Oh, yeah and but you know back to what Avery's point and when you asked Avery that cliff camp was a catalyzing moment for all three of us and Avery is one of those guys who's just so strong headed. He knows what he wants to do. He's going to go out and do it no matter what. Right. And it, it, it really kind of forged him. And I think all of us at a very young time in our own evolution of the sport to where. We began to each hold each other tighter, right?

in those times. Well, let's talk about that for a second. How did your small crew become a team?

That, that happened with the evolution of The Dennis and Harry and I forming a management team, if you will, and then we took over bridge day and then we decided, well, if we're going to do bridge day, we're going to do these other events and we're going to start having a BASE company competition and at competitions. They have teams and we knew, like we had a little crew in Sonoma County. We knew of little crews down in SoCal.

So, uh, tell us about the team name and tell us about where the team went once it was formed.

Oh, the team name is a funny little story. Um, because that happened in 1990. Four. No, no. It happened after bridging in 1994. So early 1995, uh, Seth and Ed and Dave and I had gone into San Francisco and we had snuck up the fire escape of the Hilton and we BASE jumped and we landed in the streets down the thing. And at the time my family wasn't too thrilled about this new sport I had taken up cause I had a four year old daughter.

Okay. Sick. So mom calling you ruffians and, uh, you've got the vision for it. Uh, what was the future vision? of the team. Once you formed it, where did you want to go with it? Did you make it to MTV?

You know, actually, in some of the projects that we worked on, we did get on MTV. We did get on some of the other programs. What happened was then in 1997 was the first organized, team oriented, BASE jumping competition. Right here in Moab, we went out to tombstone and did a thing called the tombstone challenge. And we had, uh, we had team ill vision. We had Dennis's team, team extreme. We had these guys that came from the east coast team impact. We had the guys from Ohio tongue and groove.

Well, let me ask you this, you know, uh, I heard you name a bunch of teams and I gotta be honest with you. I've never heard of a single one of them other than ill vision, which they're all

dead. Well, okay.

Oh man, Harry. Are they, is that, is that for real? No, no, but I,

you know, like the picture that you saw that I posted the other night. I mean, there's a lot of people in there that are gone and we see it all the time, so.

Oh man, okay. Um, but back to the question at hand. Uh, I heard about ill vision before I was a BASE jumper when I was still in skydiving hell when I was a rock climber It's it's in the ether, you know, it's it's in popular culture So I guess my question is what made that team great. How did it survive?

Avery like like, you know when we I'd like to take that a step back a little bit, you know a lot of this formulating Of, of the whole team concept was how to, you know, it's all part of the whole competition thing is all about the legitimizing the sport because it was like, well, how are you going to make it a sport? What does sports do? They compete. Well, how are we going to compete? Cause I used to talk about it. People go, why are you going to compete in BASE jumping? That's stupid.

Well, I want to know about, uh, Avery saying yes and saying no. Uh, was it, uh, certain qualities that you were looking for? And was it as important to say no to people as it was to say yes? That's a good question.

That is, well, you know, fortunately in, in, because the, our local BASE community was so small. You know, at the time there was a time when literally every BASE jumper knew all the BASE jumpers and then as it got more popular, a lot of them, like, say there was some guys that you just didn't see around anymore. They didn't want you to know. But I think people were getting more into the thing of they want to be seen. And so our group, it was easy for us to form a team.

the height of the team. How many people were on it?

Well, when we were just BASE jumpers in the nineties, it was a four man team. And so often most of the teams would have like five people because it's pretty likely between now and the next time we get together, somebody is getting hurt, maybe even dying and it can't go. So, but, so then the people that were on the team kind of changed over the years, depending upon lack of interest, you know, Jeff Stout, he was an underground jumper.

were involved. Yeah. Talk to me about that. Because when I got into the game, I was looking at sponsored ill vision wingsuits going like, Whoa, that's

Avery, man. He took, he took, you know, let me, I really want to jump in here. I would go ahead and do that. But like, I think, you know, a takeaway for me is I, I got older is that if you, if you know your, why. And you have a clear vision that's shareable and someone can align with you have a lot of power and the ability behind our vision of building a team and why we wanted to do it because we wanted to bring BASE into the light was very easy for people. A lot of people to see.

interrupt. No, that's great. And let's, let's talk about that. You know, how did that team survive for so many years?

Well, you know, okay. Back in the, back in the late nineties, after we had started doing the BASE jumping competitions, like my team, um, We were the first people to, like, have the matching jumpsuits. Then I said, oh, we need matching rigs. So we all had matching rigs. Then we started, like, getting logoed canopies, putting T Mill Vision sewn on the top of our canopies. They were fucking expensive, but it was just something that had to be done.

standard that like no one could do.

What was the first sponsor? Nobody could do that. Me.

Yeah.

Yeah. Care to tell us about

how? I, I actually sponsored a lot of BASE jumping activities for many, many years because it was really hard to find real sponsors because we were just so sketchy. You know, when we first started talking about doing BASE events out in the desert, we couldn't, we thought, Oh, for sure. MTV Fox sports, extreme channel, ESPN, they're all going to want to see this and they all ran the other way. So we couldn't get anybody to really to help us.

A lucrative business. Uh, that sounds a bit cagey. Uh, a little of this, a little

of that. Yeah. Yeah. We

talking like

consulting, I think consulting, consulting work, like consulting

banks out of their cash with masks on, or what are we talking about here? Well, much

more legitimate. Excuse me. It turns out, even though people will tell you it can't happen, money grows on trees and I figured out a way to grow these little trees and turn it into a business, selling little trees. And I made, I made a lot of money. We all know how that turned out, but you know, for me, uh, what could I do?

Okay. So, uh, selling trees to finance the team. I love it. Uh, it's, uh, definitely wild. Let's get a bit about what it was like to live life on the other side of the law. What was the, um, what was the lifestyle?

Well, you know, I was, I was raised by hippies and, and hippies do like pretty much what they want to do. And the pot culture was something that I grew up in. And even though it's always been illegal, just like it's always been, very popular. And I was just one of those people who liked pot. And in, in the later years of my life, I started to just be somebody who grew really good pot. And so it was a way for me to offset expenses of life without having to dig ditches.

Was there, uh, any paranoia around, you know, skirting the law as a lifestyle? Did you have to be looking over your shoulder, uh, or were you dialed in enough that, uh, you had relaxed into the, Uh, to the scene, well,

pre 1997, I was what you would call, you have to a street dealer because that's just what it was in 1997. I happened to be partner in a truck that I drove with a guy who helped write proposition two 15 in California. And Fred told me at the time, he's all, you know what? You don't have to do the business the way you're doing anymore. There's legal avenues. And so I immediately got into in 1997 into the medical marijuana, uh, businesses that were going on in the bay area in California.

And uh, did this money fund not only the team, but also the travel that led to some of these events? Oh,

are you kidding me? We would have to split the cash up when we were traveling. So we all had under 10, 000 on it. Oh, there was bizarre.

There were times. When I'd like took a group of people, literally, and it's like, I had to give each one of them, like, because I couldn't take 50, 000 to Switzerland with me. I had to take like nine of my friends and give each of them 5,

000. So that you're under the legal limit for a transportation of So, uh, talk me through, uh, how that led to some of the international events. Well,

you know, uh, we, we were, we were doing, we were doing bridge day. We started, we started bridge day organizing in the, in 97, I think was our first actual year that we did it ourselves. And uh, Uh, and that's when also we started our other events around the country. We were doing the tombstone challenge here in Moab. We were doing the snake river BASE games off the twin falls bridge for a couple of years.

Patronus was 2000. KL was 2001.

Oh, okay. You're right. Yeah. Patronus was 2000. Right. And then it was over the millennium and then Yeah, it was over.

Did say that like it was the jump. The jump was at midnight before midnight to 2000.

Yeah, we did, uh, Dennis and I, and well, Dennis was like the real organizer of the thing for Robin. But he, like he, once again, he gathered together his little crew and, you know, on the first, on the first Patronus big way, there were three members of team ill vision on the load. We were like, we were. We were on it. We were in it. Um, then we did the chaos tower 2001 through 2005. Uh, we had given up, you know, bridge day got canceled in 2001 after nine 11.

on, back up KL tower, you know, started in 2001. Then we picked up the Alistar, which was what? 300 feet. Yeah. Alistar in Malaysia was part of became because we were trying to build a circuit. Then we got Borneo in 2002, uh, and then Jin Mao. Was 2003 and like, I just want to have this one thing on Jin Mao. That was, um, one of the gnarliest buildings covered in razor blades we ever jumped.

Yep. We did those in those years. Uh, what else did we do?

Little, then came Little Colorado, Arizona in 2008. And then after this whole debacle with the KL Tower and it started to like crumble and they couldn't find the people to do it. Then Avery organized T Mill Vision again and took, uh, organized KL Tower again in Malaysia in 2018. And then came La Palapa in Acapulco. So that bagged for a while there. Avery literally had B A S E events, right? So now we have that worldwide.

Yeah, we did, we did it, uh, prior to the plague and then we didn't go to Mexico during the plague years and then we picked it back up and went for a few more years in, in Acapulco. I was supposed to be going to Acapulco with the whole gang of monkeys next month, but that place just got A lot of people don't realize

Acapulco got hit by a category four, five hurricane and it is 100 percent destroyed. Destroyed. Uh, then Melanik, Melanik antenna. Yeah. Now he's got

a legal. Yeah. That's, that's when I got the, we didn't get the antenna into 2019. So up until then, I had events off bridges and earth and we had spans because we had like Idaho and West Virginia and in 2019, I finally was able to get an antenna, a legal antenna. So there are a lot of guys organizing BASE jumps out there and usually they have. Object specific, they're doing this and that. We're the only guys that do it from everything. Well, let

me, uh, let me back up a little bit and pick up some of these pieces. Okay. I got to KL in 2015, 14, 15, 16. Um, and this was after you had passed it off to Gary Cunningham. Um, and I want to know what happened. In those interim years. I mean, what I'm hearing from y'all is like you were traveling the world, financing, uh, all of these events and your travel, uh, on the other side of the law. But then there was a time that the community had to do without your leadership. And well, we pulled

back. Yeah. So, and there was some extenuating circumstances. Well, well, let's talk about these

extenuating circumstances and, and what I really wanna know, call that next subject, . I, I want to know, you know, what happened to these events and what happened to the team during the years where you're not out and about leading it?

Well, uh, in essence, the team got put on hold just like I did. So, you know, when I, when I went to federal prison, the, there was no, the keystone had been lost. Unfortunately, the captain of the ship was otherwise occupied, so it kind of dissipated and dismantled and, and people didn't do my, I mean, Time stood still for me, so I don't know what everybody was doing live.

you this. How many years did you do? Only

five.

What was it like coming out to a culture that had legalized the thing that you were in prison for?

Oh, it was, it was really ridiculous. I was literally the last guy to get thrown in jail for selling pot. I was literally like the last one, even when I was incarcerated, like most of the people in law enforcement that I encountered, they're all, you're in for what? Why are you in for that? Isn't that legal? You know? I don't know.

Yeah, but it's more like 10 years because you have the, you have three or four years on the front end of, uh, um, going to court, then you have the five served, and then you have the, like, the three to four when you come out, like, what am I going to do now?

Put it this way. From when I picked up my court case until I was all ready to be free again, I didn't get to make a BASE jump for seven years. That's how I judge it. It's like, yeah, as soon as When I picked up my legal troubles, I didn't have time to BASE jump. But when I got out of prison, man, the first thing I wanted to do was my probation officer to give me permission to go somewhere and do something. And I went right back to BASE jumping. It's all I thought about the whole time.

There are a lot of people in our culture and our communities that burn the candle at both ends. And live more life in several years than most people in an entire lifetime. Now, looking back on your career, you got to do a lot more, uh, because you were living on the other side of the law than most anyone would. And my question is, was it worth it?

Well, you know, uh, I really lost, I lost a lot by the experience that I went through, uh, with my relationships with people, you know, when, when a guy goes to prison, his whole family goes to prison. So it affected my daughter, it affected my wife, um, in some ways, actually the federal government might've saved my life because, you know, when I was in prison.

Well, let's transition then to this You've got right here in this room just on the three of you a collective 100 years plus of BASE jumping experience. Yes, we do. How did you guys survive? What was the secret to the longevity?

Um, you know, a lot of it, a lot of it is luck and it's not like all three of us haven't been busted up BASE jumping. I mean, we've been busted and broken and bruised and pretty near almost got killed several times in our, in our progression of our sport. It takes, you know, a certain knack. I, I was very fortunate in all of my stuff to do with parachute skydiving, BASE jumping, just a natural knack for how these things operate and what to do and how to act quickly.

Dennis, you have to, you have to say something to this because it's a real question. Like, it's

What's the, what's the secret to longevity?

Yeah, like how, you know, why did we, you know, a lot of people, we've lost a lot of people in the sport and we have survived many, many years. Why do you think that, how did we survive all the stuff

that we did? There's a small portion of luck involved for sure. No matter how good you are, how good you pack, how much you know, how good, how much aptitude you have for it, there's still some luck involved. You get dealt a bad hand and you can't deal with it, so every, every, every incident that happened, learn from it. You know, I always dissected what happened to somebody here and there the best I could for myself. Excuse me. And uh, glory and demise is but a fraction of an instance. Right?

So, I'd like to, I'd like to talk to that

point too. Yeah, and what I'm picking up is that the secret to your longevity was not making the same mistake twice.

Yeah, exactly. That's wonderful. Yeah,

well, you know, again, you know, I, I think back of how we formed as a group and some of the things that we went through, like Cliff Camp and how we started out as, um, you know, innovators or people that we studied it. And we did it together. And so we were constantly building skillsets and then taking those skillsets and then doing something else with them. So we're constantly building on not just like jump numbers, but what we're doing with it. So, like I said before, we get a canopy.

So a couple of points that I want to pull out of that, uh, the last one, you know, if you want to make a long range career, you got to have long range goals. If your only goal is to do that next jump, then there's nothing really motivating you to do that. To jump into sustainable

way, dude, having a vision, having a mission that's shareable and alignable others is incredibly powerful. And I think that's what carried us through the good times

and the bad times. The other thing that I really love about what you just said is creating a space that's nonjudgmental where you can ask your homies something that would be. Possibly embarrassing to not know at the time that you're jumping, you know, and, and certainly there's a lot of that stuff, uh, for me, like, you know, I'm, I'm seven, eight years off the job in a lot of the disciplines. And now I have a reputation of somebody that does know something in the sport.

career at the same time. It takes people that can accept that from people and not be judgmental.

Yeah. And Dennis really set the standard for that. And I think Avery little, little picked it up in his team environment. You know, that's how we lived.

And in that regard, that that space has to be there, like Harry said, to be able to ask the questions and also to be able to accept the criticisms, because there are people on the BASE fatality list who maybe were mentioned by somebody, what about this? And what about that? And their attitude was, fuck you, I know what I'm doing dead point. Dead. And also, you know what? I'm gonna do this. And it's like, you know, that really doesn't sound like a very good idea. Have you thought that through?

immune to a glitch. No matter how good you are, it comes right down to that.

Do y'all have any secrets to reaching your own crew when you start to start to see them making mistakes that they're not, uh, you know, quite aware of or admitting to when they're resistant to somebody's feedback as their strategies for getting them to get back on the right path?

Absolutely. Absolutely. I do. I talked to like sometimes when I see my teammates or even not mostly my team, cause that's the crew that I look out for. But I will, if I see anybody at a BASE jump doing something, I will at least say something, check out their attitude. If they want to hear something about it and they don't, well, I've done all I can do, but like, I do have talks with my own people and people have had talks with me. Just my little cruise.

then you must take on a certain amount of accountability and responsibility for one another. Well,

yeah, it's self correcting. You're creating an atmosphere and an environment where it kind of self balances. I mean, think about it. We came out here in 97 to do a, An actual competition of a 350 foot cliff. We don't want anybody to die. And back then it was rare to have over a hundred BASE jumps. Some of those guys had 20, 30 BASE jumps. We can't have anybody get hurt on our watch. We're trying something new.

time. It sounds like the community and the culture has kind of gone the other direction in recent years where it's hyper independent, like, and case in point, check this out, look at Point Break 1. That crew is super tight. They're watching each other's backs. Okay. Point break to the movie opens or nearly opens with somebody dying. Right. And the crew just being like, that was his line, bro. And not even checking on him. Just like

off. Yeah. Well, that's flip that's kind of flipped. You know, I think, I think that it's easy to judge the new. The new community or the new thing that, and it's, you know, it's kind of all the same and different at the same time, but like, I, you know, I was telling these guys, I haven't found in my life, another group of guys I can hang out with and actually create together. And it's hard, I think, to find.

Avery. Any, uh, thoughts on, um, how to stay tight as a crew, you know, how to, uh, maintain your individuality while also, uh, taking responsibility for the group and its direction.

Well, because we have, you know, we have a tight crew, we have a team, we called ourselves a team and we all know that we are on a team. So we all look out for each other. We stay in touch. All the time, all year, no matter for BASE jumping or not, um, we try and keep all of our people as up jumpers, current jumping all the time being BASE jumpers so that when we go BASE jumping, they're like ready to go.

Well, let's move on for a bit and uh, I want to ask you about the time that you spent not jumping. In that time that you had that forced hiatus, uh, did you have any realizations about your jumping or jumping in general that helped you get into it in a different way? Or, uh, was it a continuation of the same trajectory that you had before you took the break? Make

it up for lost time, man.

Yeah, well, it was unfortunate that I didn't get to jump for a few years. Uh, but. You know, I kept in touch with a lot of my BASE jumping friends. And so I was able to live vicariously through what they were doing. You know, Harry Parker was in touch with me for my whole time with the emails. I was in touch the whole time with Jonathan Flores right up until the, you know, very last weeks before I got out of prison, um, I got my parachutist magazine, so at least I can look at pretty pictures.

I see. So even though you was a break from the physical activity, it was still a continuation of your own trajectory. I mean, you are still in your mind, BASE jumping and skydiving and doing all of these things. Oh,

absolutely. I didn't spend my time thinking, Oh, I, you know, when I get out, I guess I got to get a job and go be a regular human. And I was on there. I just can't wake. To get back and be myself,

uh, speaking of being yourself, I know that there are a couple of things that you've got, uh, that you've heard from a previous podcast that you want to bring up. Uh, so let's get into some of those personal things.

there was just, you know, some things that I had heard in podcasts about the subject and one of them was about, uh, people's jobs and what they did for a living and how, uh, BASE jumping interfered with their life. And that regard, and it just struck me because, you know, once, once I started BASE jumping, that's really what I was. And once I really, really got into it, that's how I identified myself.

is that what it is to be a BASE jumper to prioritize it above, uh, the other things that, uh, might define you?

Well, we, you asked earlier, you know, what is a BASE jumper and a non BASE jumper? A fucking BASE jumper is somebody who lives BASE. I live BASE. I wake up in the morning and I think about BASE jumping. I'm driving around. I'm never looking at the scenery. I'm looking up, you know, what's up there to be jumped off. It's like, it's just a different perspective about what or who you are or what you think defines you.

Is there something to be said for, uh, that mentality adding to longevity? Like, you know, it's, it's hard to see somebody being, um, on point that's not living the lifestyle. If you're only half a gangster, if you've only got one hat, like a foot in the door, um,

it's I don't think I'd be alive. If I, if I wasn't, you know, I hate to say it cause I think currency is a double edged sword, like man, if I, if I was doing it just on the weekends or, you know, seasonally, like it's, it's really hard to continue BASE drumming in this age when time goes by, you know, it's a whole different ball game without really having your brain in the game. A hundred percent. Avery's

uh, he's a little more methodical than most. He's a different kind of BASE jumper than most, even the BASE jumpers. He's, uh, he studies. He wants to know. He's methodical. He's organized. And, uh, he doesn't want to die. For sure. And what he wants, BASE jump. Hardcore still. So, he's different than most, most BASE jumpers.

Avery.

I am different than most space jumpers.

And, uh, what do you think about, um, uh, the idea that currency is a double edged sword and that the more you do it, certainly the better you get at it. But the more opportunity you give yourself to get fucked up.

Uh, absolutely. It is. Yeah. Right. To stay current means you need to jump a lot and the more you jump, the more you're exposed. And it's the eventual exposure to something dangerous. After a long period of time, which your odds are that maybe at some point you're going to have a mishap because of your exposure, but I think currency is the best way for your body to already already always remember what it is supposed to be doing packing all the time.

plus the gear. I

mean, the gear works. Yeah, but I mean, this is a hotly debated topic of whether, uh, casual and conservative BASE jumping is more sustainable than full immersion. And I've heard this argument from both sides and certainly the BFL is Littered with people who have proposed to do both. Like there are people that are full immersion jumpers on there. There are a lot of people also that are casual and conservative that ended up on the list.

to attitude, I believe. The attitude of the jumper that's jumping. Like, I was jumping, I was really current. Back then, what I was doing, I was out on the edge, doing some of the extreme stuff. Now, it's like, it doesn't even compare to what some of these guys are doing nowadays, but I got to where I was looking off of a 400 foot building and getting bored. So I backed off and went and did other things.

dangerous. So what is the, uh, the way, what is the Teflon for complacency? Because that's something that plagues the community as well.

I think Steph Davis, you know, she mentioned margins and that really struck, struck me. I think that wherever you are in the sport, if you have the awareness and like Dennis said, the attitude, you're going to, you're going to pick and choose what you jump, you know, with, with your longevity in mind, that's an attitude leaving margins of error or margins of safety for an, each individual might be a little bit different. Right? So it is a complicated web for sure.

influence on limitations and being conservative, knowing what your limits are, what you want to stick within. I know what my limits are pretty much for what I'm comfortable doing. And, and I'll do, do certain things. Like sometimes I say, that's what I've done it, but that's not what I do. I have certain types of jumps, do it and like close the chapter and go walk away. Uh, canopies are a lot different today, right? Than they were years ago.

I think. I guess I'm also curious on, uh, you know, backing off, um, how that adds to longevity. Because as you back off, you also get duller on your skill set. Personally, right, I was pushing really hard during the 2000 teens and operating at near a hundred percent, but super confident because I was doing it every day and I was fully immersed and now that I've backed off in order to feel the same amount of confidence, I've got to be operating at like 25%.

still great. But you get, give some of that, some of that fear and respect back into it.

Yeah. Yeah. So how much, uh, fear and respect, um, is necessary for a career that's 30 plus years. Obviously, if you don't fear anything at all, man, like you're not going to make it.

No fear turns into respect for sure. I think. You know, you got to have some, yesterday was first BASE jump. I think I've made maybe three or four BASE jumps in the last year, because I've been doing my rafting thing. So I'm up there on Tombstone yesterday looking around, seeing all these people that was just, it was mind blowing to me, because I hadn't been here in 25 years. To see the, see the scene yesterday was, uh, the parking lot was full.

one jump. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes that fear does turn into excitement. Right? Oh yeah.

And there's the commitment. I'm going to go now. I used to trick myself a lot. You know, I'm going to go and I'd go and stop not, you know, just out of random and sometimes he'd get a good little buzz going yesterday. I enjoyed it yesterday. It was a lot of fun.

Avery. What else is on your list?

Uh, there was a, there was a subject that came up on a recent, uh, podcast about the BASE fatality list and how it has evolved and what it is now and what it means to the BASE community. And then also some of the new modern attitudes about BASE jumping, dying. And the list, because when we were kids BASE jumping man, when somebody came up on the list, it was like that crushing. It was, it was always crushing.

So do you think us canonizing our dead leads to more people taking obscene

risks? Well, no, like I say, but it gives them the opportunity to achieve that status. Yes. Right.

I mean, we don't have a list of legends. We don't, we don't have a list of any other kind that is

like, that's, you know, why I'm so stoked to be here and so stoked to have your work because. But again, if you look at life through the lens of evolution itself, what you're witnessing is just a component of that evolution and will the culture make a correction or not? So I won't make somebody wrong for being on that list, but if you step back and look at it as crazy as it is like, well, then what are we not doing or being with or accepting Or being together, how, what do you do differently?

Totally. I, I, I hope that I'm giving people an opportunity to gain notoriety through, uh, amazing. Works in the sport rather than like most of the time you get notoriety either from dying or doing something so sketchy that everybody's talking about it, right?

Well, and also, you know, as a, as a collective consciousness is our expectation. Uh, what the next BASE fatality is going to be, does that somehow grow the list, right? Because there are people like they wake up in the morning, they check their social media and everything.

do you guys think about, uh, sensationalizing the morbid nature of the, the

practice? Well then, then don't do it. Like what you're doing here is, um, documenting people while they're still alive. Right? If you give people a goal, they'll go for it. So if you, you know, when you look at ethics and you look at people that you admire, why do you admire them? Why do you admire the pros in the sport of skydiving, right? Why do you admire them? Because what they're doing and who they're being in the world, we are human beings. Who you're being matters.

Well, let's talk about that for a second. Um, what are some of the things in the modern BASE jumping culture that y'all are stoked on? What are some of the things that you'd love to highlight that, uh, you've seen, uh, pop up in the last few years about that? I'll just give you some highlights. You know, we're here

goes without question, the gear watching the evolution of gear, where it's come, where it's come from, where it's at now. I mean, when I started parachuting, I was skydiving, I was running, jumping around parachutes. That's what we had. I mean, to see where it's come through skydiving and then BASE jumping, it's, uh, that's impressive. And, um, The ability to jump with friends in the open in the daylight, that's, that's great. That's what I always dreamed of. It should have been that way.

um, Avery, yeah. What's, what's gotten you stoked in the last couple of years?

Um, well, I mean, over the, over the whole time, really what really changed And really was advancing BASE jumping was the whole gear thing is like just making better gear. I completely agree with Dennis about, uh, the whole, we're not sneaking around the bushes at night doing dangerous shit now, at least one and, and in a hurry. You know, because we're here, we got to get the fuck out of here as quick as possible.

Though I'm not sure that that's actually led to. Uh, more people jumping sustainably. Uh, and here's the opposite opinion while they do receive excellent instruction in the beginning, right? Like there are a great number of people who have dedicated their lives to just creating BASE jumping curriculum and be there to teach those new people. After that, there are so many people now flooding into the community that there aren't enough mentors to bring them the rest of the way.

Oh, I know. You're 100

percent right. Mo Valetto had a term he used to say, we're arming the soldiers of destruction. I remember that.

Mo Valetto. Oh my God. So much to talk about. Giving

these people gear and.

In answer to that question, dude, like to give you context, like back in 1994, when Dennis had this brilliant idea to start the CJAA, you know, we, we had to force the current manufacturers, uh, Todd Shubotham at TNT Rigging, Anne Helliwell, Martin Tilly, um, Adam Filippino, we had to force them to like agree on some standards of protocol, right? Remember, everything's secret, right? We produced like, it was under 20 pages of the, a BASE jumping protocols. No one had ever done it before.

question. No question that there is, uh, more available information now and, uh, coursework is. More readily accessible than it's ever been. I guess my question is, uh, how do we deal with the massive influx of people?

Well, my question is, how did you, how did you not like, didn't you guys learn something from Jimmy

Poucher? Well, I got, I, I'm going to say the same thing. I got lucky. I grew up, you know, I came up BASE jumping at Paris when, uh, when apex was right across the street before I even walked into AFF level one. I was in their office leaders and innovators, man. Right. And so I got to get to know them through my entire AFF progression. I was never. In, uh, I was never in need of a mentor.

luxury. Yeah. But like, like he created, I look at Jimmy Pouchard and you know, the gang, all, all of those guys and you guys, they created this deep, deep sense of community here and it provided a homecoming every year for Thanksgiving and created that community. And my question is, well, you know, that, The answer to your question is there, but it's so, so independent that who's going to lead those charges.

possible. I mean, maybe we just need to go back to creating more teams.

Could be. Well, I do notice that the younger generations of jumpers actually, when I, when I go to place like twin falls. And there's lots of people there. I see most people are with other people. And I see also a lot of the younger people are like, maybe they're newer jumpers and they're much more willing to be friends and talk and create comraderies and create units and create their gangs and find out, Oh, you know, we're from the same area. We should start doing stuff together.

stuff. I guess here's, here's the issue, uh, rather than like looking at the community as like groups and loners, I don't think that there are a lot of loners. I mean, there are certainly a lot of individuals that go out and they really want to like, um, progress. As a soloist, uh, but even in the groups, there is still a huge gap in the information exchange, you know, from the generation of jumpers that innovated to the generation of jumpers.

drastically. Okay. I'm going to challenge you then, Matt. I'm going to challenge you. Like, when we travel overseas, you know, Avery and I went, you know, spent, did my 55th, he took me to Switzerland for my 55th birthday. And we were in Lauterbrunnen and we just happened to go into the coffee shop and we got to hang out with the Swiss BASEd association. Remember that? Yep. And these were the leaders.

on it. Yeah. And That is something that I definitely question. Like, why is there such a resistance to associate?

It's insanity, dude. It's insanity. And it's always been like that. It's like I said, same shit, different

day. Because from my perspective, all three of you have had amazing careers BASEd on doing a large part to your associations, your associations as a team, your associations as event coordinators and organizers, um, as, uh, Industry, uh, leaders and innovators like, you know, you had no problem with it. Well, I wanted

to associate, we were bushwhacking there in the, in the beginning though, we were, there weren't any standards really. It was, we have to kind of make some stuff up as we went.

Okay. I was just, dude, you got like, thank you very much. And at the same time, like, you know, sitting here and having this opportunity, I cannot, we did not do it all alone. Right?

wanted to expose the sport too, though We were gonna go a lot of guys didn't they wanted to keep it clandestine keep it underground because they knew it was gonna They felt it It was going to ruin the sport, you know, as soon as it got exposed and it was going to be over and there was we it Was a battle between that with a lot of the guys. Oh my god. It's in

paragliding right now. It's sick. It's stupid

Yeah, when we first did events here in in Moab There was a certain contingent of the BASE jumping community who like really weren't stoked that we were doing it now There was a predominantly There was the predominant group was all stoked for it because there were people that were itching to do the same thing that we want to do, which was once again, get out of the bushes in the dark of night, sneaking around on shit.

And you're never going to be able to withhold, you're never going to be able to really withhold information and growth like that. And you're never going to be able to do it if you try to put a cap on it. And you're never going to be able to pull the cap on people's passions.

Well, let me, uh, let me start to wrap this up with a question that we've asked a lot of guests. And that is, if you look back over your career, is there anything that you would have done differently?

Well, actually, I would have done more stuff that I didn't do. Yeah. I do tell. Well, I mean, just opportunities that I had basically in BASE jumping when I was maybe overly cautious or, you know, just, just places I could have gone and should have done is like, I don't know, should I have made different career choices? Eh, I don't know. I'm pretty happy. You know, I had some bad years, but whatever. And I've been hurt BASE jumping and I've been to the hospital. And so.

I withheld, should've gone bigger. We should have, we should have gone bigger. We should have, we should have pushed in, you know, kept pushing, but you know, after a while, I think we had a good 10 year run, you know, you get tired and you know, a lot of just the stuff that you deal every day and BASE jumping and relationships gets tiring and disappointing sometimes. But, uh, yeah, if I look back, it would have been go bigger, push harder. You know, you only got one life and it goes by quick.

I wouldn't change. I would not have changed much. I had a, had a great ride. It was a lot of fun. Got to do pretty much everything I wanted to do. Like I said, when it finally hit me that I was jumping off of low, low stuff, low buildings, and it wasn't, I wasn't getting the buzz out of it anymore. It's time to go do something else. But yeah, I had a lot of fun, a lot of ride. Turned a lot of people onto the sport.

Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity to be on here and, you know, thank you for all you do. And, you know, a big shout out to all the people who supported us and hated us and, you know, put up with us. Like it, it, uh, It's huge. I mean, there's so many people to mention. I do before, before you close, I do want to mention Tom Sanders because Tom Sanders and aerial focus along with David major documented everything we did for like 10 years. Tom supported everything.

your goals. Absolutely. Um, and while we're understanding the history, uh, I've got another closing question for you. Uh, BASE jumping gives a lot. It certainly takes away a lot as well. And if you look back over your careers in BASE, what was the biggest sacrifice that you had to make and what was the biggest gift that the practice gave you?

That's the. Yeah, that's interesting. You know, there's a, there's a little funny story about, uh, that I have about, uh, the whole BASE thing. So when, when, uh, Alexandria, my daughter was really young, uh, my, her mom left me and so I was a single dad. And then I, uh, I just started skydiving again and I just started, I just started BASE jumping in 93 and I, I had this girlfriend. I lived with her for like. Three years, I think, in Santa Rosa.

Okay. So had to sacrifice some relationships of people that were putting you at odds with who you really were. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, what about, uh, on the other side, GIFs? GIFs? Yeah, what was one of the biggest GIFs that the sport's given you, or the practice?

Just because it has helped me become who I am. In what way? I am BASE Jumper, I am Parachutist, I am Risk Taker, I am Adventure, I am Danger, I am Party, I am I don't know. Team. I am camaraderie. I'm all, I'm travel, I am new places, I have new exit points. So it is just like, I can't imagine myself being anything other than a BASE jumper. And

so it allowed you to manifest destiny.

Oh, absolutely. It's like, just, you know, and like I say, fortunately for me and all the parachuting things that I've ever done in my life, uh, it's come to me naturally. It's never been a chore. For me, you know, I didn't have to learn how to skydive the first time they threw him out of an airplane. I'm all, Oh, I'm skydiving. This is how you do it. You know, as soon as I made my first BASE number, I'm all, Oh, I know how to do that. I can do that. We're doing it.

Gentlemen, sacrifices and gifts, sacrifices

and gifts, my ridiculous passion for the sport. Ended up costing me several years of, uh, fighting the federal government. It consumed me for years and years. Changed me, too, by the time it was over. It was disappointing, because we were right. The argument was right. We were right. And, uh, to find out that the government was not going to let it happen, they just said no all the way to the appellate courts. And then they just said no. Even though they agreed with us. And they put me in jail.

So glad you made it out here Dennis So glad like my my biggest my biggest loss probably my body. I beat myself up pretty bad overtime You know, didn't sink maybe as much time as I should have into a business, you know, I'd say almost minor stuff, but the gifts, like it wouldn't change any of it, what I got to experience with these guys and a lot of the BASE jumpers that are around, you know, in the environment that we share in life and death.

Well, Avery, I want to end on you. And, uh, I want to ask you, now that we've got a large part of the community listening to this, is there anything that you'd like to express to everybody? You got the mic. Is there something that you feel is important for the people around you and the people around them to know?

Well, you know, uh, These new generations of BASE jumpers and they're all, you know, it's funny cause I jump with kids. It's so funny for me to go out BASE jumping and I get hooked up with a little group of kids. We're out there jumping, find out they're all like 20 something. I go, Oh fuck, I've been jumping longer than you have even been a conception. And so the only thing is that, yeah, just, you know, try and maintain some of the old.

Well, Avery, first of all, uh, thank you for coming on the show and, uh, thank you for bringing Dennis and Harry with you. Um, it's been a pleasure. To talk to all three of you about the history of BASE jumping and where it's come from, where you guys started and, uh, where you see it going from here. So again, uh, huge thanks. And, uh, I'm looking forward to the next generation.

Thanks, Matt. Really appreciate it. Yeah. Just as a, it's, it's amazing that we have lived this long. Like you say, there's a hundred years of BASE jumping, right? And it's like for me and Dennis and Harry to still be in it, in the game, doing it together as much as we can, and to just have an association and also that there's the desire for you and anybody else who's interested in some perspectives from some old dinosaurs who are still in it, you know?

All you kids out there keep crushing it.

We hope you enjoyed this episode. If you have any thoughts about what you've just heard, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. Big shout out to Mark Stockwell, our sound engineer and co producer. We love you. And we couldn't do this without you. If you'd like to learn more about the podcast, visit our website, exitpointpodcast. com. And if you're jumping out there. Remember, that fame is simply being recognizable, infamy is to be storied, and legendary is something else entirely.