#fogflight

       written by: Sketchy Andy Lewis This is a clip that I have held onto for a little while because of the backstory of the clip. I was fairly upset over the death of my friend during this jump. Daniel had died just a few days before and the events just afterward were equally as emotionally traumatic.  

           Through everything I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that a couple days before I had taken a picture with Daniel on a disposable camera. It was stashed at the landing area of the jump we were trying to open for experienced jumpers coming to Moab for Turkey Boogie 2013.

           Daniel came to me in late 2013 and told me had found this area with his girlfriend Kiersa. By the time i was back from my Europe Trip and Burning Man he had already asked a few people what they thought about the jump.   He said that both people seemed interested but very reserved about the jump– even having hiked rigs out and walked away. I was thrilled and couldn’t wait to see what he had found. 

          We drove just about 45 minutes from our house into the mountains, parked, and hiked 10 minutes down hill to a light colored rock wash.  We joked about it looking like the yellow brick road, and the name stuck.  We popped out of the wash and came to a beautiful cliff looking out over a massive canyon, “The Gorge!” Daniel presented to me.  

          We were running around like crazy! Stoked and energized by the area we started going nuts with our laser range finder. We were scoping the heights of potential exits all over, measuring distances, trying to look at the only real potential landing area– which seemed pretty much to be a boulder field.  There were two small spots that looked like sand, and after about 45 minutes we decided we were going to jump… and attempt to land in that sand; or hit trees and boulders as a consequence of missing.  We really didn’t want to get injured considering we had no cell phone reception, and more than a 3 miles long hike out.   

        Daniel and I got our parachutes on, went over our plan, taught his girlfriend how to do open my parachute for me, and jumped.   Daniel went first and I followed right after.  We hooted and hollered and flew our parachutes in a stall (no speed) trying to sink as deep into the canyon as we could. Slowly the walls were hundreds of feet above us and we were about to see the landing area for the first time.

       We came around the corner and knew it was going to be spicy… We saw boulders, just boulders… Somewhat shocked and stacked on top of each other we started to yell landing plans to each other.  Daniel was going right, and I was going left.  Heart beat soaring, we both brilliantly landed in the only two small patches of sand there were.  Stomped landings–perfect. We howled our “wooooooooolalalalallalaal!” war cry to Kiersa that we were good, and celebrated each other for the new jump, our landings, and laughed at how stoked we were.

       We knew it would take us only about 30 minutes to hike the 3+ miles to our pick up and we questioned the idea if we should move rocks for 30 minutes before we left the landing area– Kiersa wouldn’t be able to pick us up for an hour anyway.  We looked at each other and our eyes got wide– we had just created a tradition.  We moved a ridiculous amount of rocks in just 30 minutes, and the landing area was visibly less unattractive.  Still horrible, but better!   

        Over the course of the next few months we enlisted the help of Kiersa, Hayley, Scott, Adam, Jimmy, and multiple other drivers/jumpers to come to the Gorge and move rocks… I mean BASE jump!  Every time we jumped The Gorge we would see or open a new exit but always would move rocks for 30 minutes to an hour afterwards, sometimes with upwards of 4 people! After the first opening jump, Daniel and I almost never again managed to  land in the sand– even as the landing area got bigger and bigger.  Daniel always seemed to be very keen to drape his canopy into a tree, literally, every jump.  

        After more than 10 trips to The Gorge, we figured easily more than 50,000 lbs of boulders had been moved and the landing area was becoming slick.  "It’s still a black diamond landing area" Was a quote I remember Jamie Crawford saying followed by, “but you also have to mention flying 90 seconds through a rock canyon first… " 

        On our last jump into The Gorge together Daniel and I had come up with the icing on the cake.   We were going plant a registry at the landing area of the gorge.  It was a water proof container with a journal for logging your jump and the date, a few pens so they wouldn’t run out, and a disposable camera so you could take a picture with you and your friends stoked in the landing area.  The next picture on the camera was his memorial jump.   

        He died at 4:20pm the first night of the Boogie 2013 and needless to say I was crushed.  The Gorge was something we had been working for for months. Wanting to see the look on peoples faces when we walked them down the yellow brick road and they saw The Gorge for the first time.   We had opened the best new exits, dissected the flight pattern, cleared most of the landing area, marked and dialed the hike out, and I didn’t even want to BASE jump anymore.   

        I sat and moped and questioned life, I didn’t want to even go outside, but I couldn’t stop thinking about that camera.   The fact that our picture was on it.  The fact that someone may find it and I would lose that last pic of Dan and I.  That’s when I thought about hiking in… "I’ve never hiked in,” and then I immediately thought, “and I never will.”  I was immediately filled with stoke and started to rally the most experienced jumpers I knew to take them to The Gorge.   

         We got up early, had roughly 12 people on the load, and walked down the yellow brick road, past it and continued up the trail to “Top Notch,” the best jump and newest jump Daniel and I opened at The Gorge.  We were unlucky though… We arrived to the exit to get a brilliant view of the jump ending fog roll though and obscure the entire line we were supposed to be flying.

        I sat at the exit and mapped the entire jump out for all the new-comers. I showed them where to jump, how to jump, told them opening height to expect, flight patterns, land marks, flight style, all the key insight on how to make a safe landing.  After my speech, I made sure everyone knew those facts and could feasibly make the jump safely. I got ready turned around and said…  "having said all that I think its a terrible idea for anyone of you to jump this exit in these conditions for the first time. But, its your call!“, smiling.  

         I turned on my camera, jumped and flew into the fog, knowing where everything was, sure that I could fly it safely. During this video I yell ” It’s good to go,“ letting the others know that the fog wasn’t thick enough to be ultra dangerous, just kind of dangerous… Jordan Kilgore and Kevin Morroun (who actually had jumped it once before) followed me into The Gorge that day.  Since then I have never jumped The Gorge again, nor G-Spot… the place that Daniel died.