In the Arctic hinterland that is Baffin Island, Canada, the tiny town of Clyde River is considered the last outpost of humanity. For the 23 members of the 2010 Baffin BASE jumping expedition organized by Collin Scott of Littleton, it could be considered the last outpost of sanity.
It’s a characterization most of the BASE jumping community is accustomed to by now, even if it isn’t entirely accurate. But the notion of climbing mountains for the express purpose of jumping off them will always sound crazy to outsiders — crazier still when it’s done in the Arctic Circle in April.
“We’re looking at this as a way to really show BASE jumping in a different light. We’re trying to put a different face on it, to show people that it’s an actual sporting endeavor and this is a real expedition,” said Scott, 35, returning to Baffin for the second time since 2008. “Some of the hikes we’ll be doing might take 12 hours to reach jumps as high as 5,700 feet. There’s nothing comparable to that around here.”
Perched across the icy north Atlantic from Greenland, Clyde River is, for lack of a better term, the launch point for the four-week expedition beginning April 15. From there, the group will drag gear and rations another 70 miles farther into polar bear country via snow-mobiles and sleds across the northern ice to their base camp beneath the towering cliffs of Sam Ford Fjord. After that, the work begins on foot.
For Colorado BASE jumpers such as Scott and fellow expedition members Ted Davenport of Aspen and Jacob Fuerst of Boulder, the effort is worthwhile. In a nation that uniformly prohibits BASE jumps from natural launch points in national parks such as California’s Yosemite and Colorado’s Black Canyon, suitable terrain for flying without airplane assistance can be difficult to come by.
Locally, jumpers gravitate toward the Roan Plateau near Rifle or the sheer cliffs surrounding Moab, where vertical drop is measured in the hundreds of feet rather than thousands, forcing almost immediate pulls of the parachute in order for it to fully deploy. Davenport survived a close call that included a helicopter evacuation from a Rifle landing zone when his parachute deployed too close to the ground last summer.
Undaunted by the incident, Davenport — brother of renowned ski mountaineer Chris Davenport — coupled his extreme skiing skills with his passion for BASE jumping to open a “skiBASE” route off the cliffs of Glenwood Canyon this winter. While the launch of less than 400 feet is big by skiing measures, it offers precious little time for flying under a canopy.
Uncharted experience
Baffin, by comparison, is the virtual birthplace of BASE — an acronym for the Buildings, Antennas, Spans (or bridges) and Earth that jumpers typically launch from. The name of the sport itself wasn’t coined until some four years after the first Baffin BASE jump filmed in 1977 for the opening sequence of the James Bond film “The Spy Who Loved Me.”
In recent years, advancements in BASE jumping technology and technique such as using birdlike “wing suits,” air-inflated “tracking suits” and skis for either skiBASE launches or the new discipline of “speed flying” on and above less-sheer, snow-covered slopes have attracted an increasing number of annual pilgrimages.
According to Baffin BASE 2010 expedition members, however, many frontiers still remain.
“The biggest goal I have is just to experience one of the uncharted territories in the world. There are a lot of exits there that have never been jumped before,” said Davenport, 29, who earns his living as a professional freeskier and BASE jumper. “I’m going into this expedition just trying to learn as much as I can about skiing in a remote location and being in an arctic environment and jumping the biggest cliffs in the world, bigger than any others I’ve ever done. So for me, it’s not just a BASE jumping trip, but a BASE jumping, speed flying and big mountain skiing adventure.”
Power of portrayal
With the overnight temperature potentially dropping to 30 degrees below zero, it will certainly double as an education in exposure. But expedition leader Scott has handpicked a team he believes is up for the arctic adventure and has been gathering gear for the mission for weeks. Like Scott, several of the team members have visited the island before.
“Something BASE jumpers are incredibly good about is personal responsibility,” Scott said. “This is not a commercial operation, so people have to understand what they are getting into.”
Scott will focus first and foremost on a safe, fun adventure. But like Davenport, the six-year BASE jumper and career software salesman has a hit list of leaps he would like to help pioneer.
Just as rock climbers and mountaineers point to first ascents, or skiers and kayakers place a feather in their caps for first descents, Scott hopes the photos, video and interactive website he’s built to showcase the expedition () will help move his sport off the fringe a bit by portraying similar achievements.
“Think back to the early 1900s and some of the first mountaineering expeditions covered by National Geographic, how weird that must have seemed to people at the time. But it had a huge impact,” said Scott, adding that he overcame a debilitating fear of heights before becoming a BASE jumper. “With something like the wing suit, people look at BASE now and say it’s awe-inspiring. We really don’t fall, we fly.”
