Berg wingsuit flying

I was solo on this hike and jump so no one to take any supplies or gear down for me. I had to hike up and jump with all my gear. Extra food, sleeping bag, hiking poles, range finder, gps, cell phone etc. The suit I fly has a large pocket in the tail wing for storing things when jumping.

It was not possible for me to leave anything at the landing because I did not walk past the landing on my way up. Other sites its possible to camp at the landing, hike up, jump, collect all the camping gear again and hike back out but that was not the case on this jump.

I actually planned to do the whole trip within two days by jumping on the Monday but due to the mist I had to sleep on top an extra night and jumped the Tuesday morning. I had the option of sleeping in the Injisithi Upper Cave which was just about over a kilometer from the exit point but the weather was so pleasant that I decided to sleep right at the exit point.

@rudiVE: Yes you are a brave soul and I would rather have base jumpers flying quietly over me than the noisy choppers that have ruined the tranquility of Mnweni. My only concern is safety and would this activity be supported by mountain rescue should the need arise? I saw an accident rate of 1:60 in the USA!

Safety is alsway a concern for everyone hiking in the Berg. I fill in the register log and pay the necessary fees just like any other hiker and climber who gets covered by the Mountain Rescue so I don't see any reason why mountain rescue should exclude the rescue of a BASE jumper?

I dont want to compare stats but considering South Africa only as far as I know more people died from falls during a hike or climb compared to the only one BASE fatality in the history of South African BASE jumping.

This is really a question for Ezemvelo to answer but I do not believe that base jumping or wing suit flying is a permitted activity in the berg in terms of the management policy. I know of at least one case where the park management has tried to catch base jumpers.

However I believe the general principal is they would execute the rescue and only afterwards Ezemvelo might follow up in terms of payment for the rescue. The same would be true for a person hiking without paying an entrance fee. In principle this is all very well but if someone has had an accident (and wingsuit flyers tend to have pretty spectacular and therefore traumatic ones) Ezemvelo may well think carefully about prosecuting or trying to recover money from someone who has been seriously injured. It could generate a lot of bad press which is not good for a tourism based business.

Even though hiking and climbing are permitted activities from time to time a mountain rescue always brings someone out of the woodwork to question why should the taxpayer be funding this “idiots” rescue. The same people never question using huge state resources used to rescue a sick foreign seaman off a passing ship!

Regarding stats they need to be normalised against the frequency of activity to mean anything ie fatalities per total km hiked as against fatalities per base jumps done in the same time frame. I am not a statistician but I guess the number of participants in each sport also needs to factored in to account for competence. If I took up base jumping I suspect I might mess up the good stats quite quickly but this would be a once off!

I still don't see any reason why BASE jumping or Wingsuit BASE can not be a legal activity in the Berg. If the reason is purely because it's a dangerous activity then I disagree. Falling from climbing is equally fatal compared to BASE jumping in my perspective so why would climbing be a legal activity and BASE jumping not?

We understand that there are endangered bird spices like the Bearded Vulture which needs to be protected which I fully support but unlike a paraglider which can stay up in the air for hours, BASE canopies decent roughly at a glide ratio of 5:1. BASE canopies are not designed to glide and get lift like a paraglider…it's designed to bring you back down safely thus we don't spend a lot of time under canopy, even less so during the wingsuit flight. What I'm trying to say is, you can't consider BASE jumping as an illegal activity in the Berg for the same reasons set out for paragliding. Because people know so little of BASE jumping I believe they have always considered it to fall under the same class as paragliding and for the same reasons made the conclusion that it can not be legalised in the Berg. We spend so little time in the air and fly away from the big walls that I can't see how we could be a danger for the protected bird life spices. In the same way breeding areas are being avoided by climbers we can also avoid exiting close to these areas.

The SA BASE community is so small and there are even less Wingsuit BASE-jumpers. Wingsuit BASE I doubt will ever become a large activity in the Berg because most jumpers will simply avoid jumping in the Berg due to lack of quick and easy access unlike Norway, Switzerland and Italy to name a few places where BASE jumping has become very large due to the massive cliffs and easy access via road or cable car. I doubt the Red Wall will ever be jumped again…for me it was one to tick off the list and now it's time to plan my next adventure.

In my personal opinion. A lot of wingsuit BASE jumpers are dieing because they push their limits/luck way too much leaving no room for error. If you look at the stunts Uli Emanuel and Alexander Polli, two of our most experienced wingsuit pilots who recently died, were pulling off its no surprise to me they went in. Sadly yes....August was a terrible month for the BASE community.

Mponjwane Peak into Sunshine 'Wormhole Valley"
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