Piz Badile was the only unknown in my North BASE Project. I was sure over the next two days the time and effort would pay off and we would get our new exit point, but after the fifth hour of searching the summit ridge I begun to doubt. I had climbed the North face 2 years ago. A few people had searched the mountain for a wingsuit exit but weren’t content with what they found. The mountain still remained unjumped.
I returned with Ryan to summit from the South
side and find these exit points to BASE jump sans wingsuit. This would increase our likelihood of opening an exit on the mountain as we would be able to jump with a much shorter vertical drop then needed with a wingsuit.
Although Ryan has very little experience in the mountains I wanted him on this trip. His BASE jumping experience would be invaluable to us as we spent an hour sat on an exit point calculating whether it would be possible or not.
We started from the car park at 5.30am. With each step I could tell the scale of the undertaking was beginning to sink in for Ryan. The sun rose as we past the forested section of the path. Lighting up the golden grass and glacial streams as we filled our water bottles. Ryan was nervous about the climb but it started simple and with experience he gained momentum and with momentum he became conditioned to the exposure. We summited in good time, already Ryan felt a huge accomplishment and I was hoping for another one soon.
Spending the night in the summit hut, 6 slithers of a bed, we chose wisely to get the maximum room and warmth. It was slowly sinking in that me might not be able to jump off this mountain. Tomorrow might be another full day of abseiling and hiking back to the car.
After searching for hours on the Summit ridge our mindset had to change. We were not going to find the obvious and easy exit we wanted. Instead we would have to move our limitations of risk. It was hard to figure out in this scenario where we drew the line, how big we wanted our margin for error. We had to set apart our eagerness to get down quickly and effortlessly and my ambition to open an exit. Instead look at this jump purely from a technical point of view. The sole question came to us. “Would we do this jump on any other day, in any other location, without these factors influencing us.”
The skills and lessons learnt from previous jumps gave us shared knowledge on a demanding jump like this one. After an hour of deliberating, bouncing ideas, numbers and experience off each other, we decided to jump. The cloud was rolling up the valley. Forming around granite towers and dissipating over the glacier. We stood ready and eager, our decision now made. We just had to wait for a break in the clouds.
Ryan jumped first, if anything went wrong or I was left on the ridge unable to jump, my mountaineering knowledge would be more useful. Ryan launched from the granite pedestal. I was holding onto his bridal to open his parachute, a technique used to jump low objects. The wall wasn’t vertical at all, but with a decent push we would have 34m of height to open and start flying the canopy. The updraft hit the canopy, inflating it’s cells. I took a final check at my static line setup and leapt off after Ryan. The walls to either side intimidating; the floor coming up closer than expected.
As soon as the canopy was open and flying away from the cliff, it was an instant relief. The margin for error felt big enough, all the calculations had paid off. I was happy to say it wasn’t to close for comfort. A jump that I would do again, if it wasn’t for the huge amount of effort that went into it. It will probably never be jumped again, a one off, a tick in the box, to open the first exit on the Badile.
I turned around the corner to see the clouds building up in front of me. Ryan’s blue canopy disappearing into them. Soon I was engulfed by the clouds, a disorientating and apprehensive few seconds. I knew the rock pillars were far away on either side of me and I was far above the ground, but flying blind was a intimidating experience. I aimed for the fields just below the waterfalls. The only area for miles around not dotted by boulders. A perfect place to land and refill our water bottles just like the previous morning.
Ryan and I where ecstatic, we looked back at the summit of Piz Badile only to see it was completely engulfed by clouds. The mountain only gave us a small window to jump, and we were fortunate to take it.