My Notes on Ski BASE

The idea of this is to make some points about doing a ski BASE, as with many BASE jumping practices there are many ways to do it. All with the pros and cons. I will mention these different methods, and mention the way I do it and why. At the end of the day it all comes down to risk assessment and what makes more sense to you.

Preparing for your first ski BASE:

Practice small jumps and drops. Focusing on staying stable in the air, landing symmetrical and getting comfortable with airtime. This will help stop any “winding down the window” arm movements you might have.

I would highly recommend going handheld for your first ski BASE, if you are unstable, backseat/ or to forward on the exit it’s easy to deploy. Going backseat is very common and being stowed in this position isn’t the best.

Be a competent handheld BASE jumper, take into consideration routing, snag hazards, wind direction etc.

Equipment

Some people have considered taking off the breaks from their skis, it’s an extra snag hazard if something goes wrong.

Ski poles, often you can find exits that you don’t need poles to reach at all, but there are many options for collapsible poles. I like to stow mine on each calve, with a bungee, underneath my ski pants to avoid any snag hazards.

I bump up my din settings or lock my touring skis. Some of my ski BASE are remote and I would not want to lose a ski as I would be stuck in the back-country.

Locking your skis enough that on a hard opening they don’t fly off with the force. But also if you clip a rock on exit they don’t come off. The opposing argument to this is; would it be better for you ski to come off if you clipped a rock? In that case you would want normal din settings?

Hard openings or pulling in bad body position could see you skis getting close to your lines, for this reason I’ve heard people blunting the edges of their skis. This could also be a consideration for lower din settings.

Lessons learnt

Jumping off camber. The two times I have had big off headings in ski BASE the exits were both angled left to right, not rear to front like a run in slope. This has meant my skis have been different levels on exit, possibly resulting in my hips and shoulder being asymmetrical. This can be avoided by potentially cutting into the slope for an exit, or compensating your body position, or jumping a more suitable exit.

It’s important to find the axis of the run in. Sometimes on the exit I will make an arrow or put a leaf or something, and pick a point on the horizon so I know exactly which angle I want to leave the cliff. This is to give myself the biggest margin left or right if I have an off heading. On a regular jump I can do this while standing on the exit while I’m about to jump, but when your run in starts 50m+ away from the cliff this can be hard to do.

Building the run in, uncover/cover any rocks so you know exactly where they are and can avoid, or cover them enough that they definitely will not catch your skis.

If you are building a full on ramp on the exit it’s probably best to practice building kickers/ramps off piste before having a go on a ski BASE. A small kick on an exit could give you bad body position if you hit it with speed. Which is why I more than often choose to build a flat ramp that just sends me straight out instead of up.

Other notes

Body position when I’m taking longer delays is almost like a ski jumper. Curved body slightly leaning forward. On the exit keep a nice neutral stance, bent legs absorbing any bumps in the run in.

Speed off the exit. If you leave the exit at 30mph this has already compensated for freefall distance on a regular jump. Which potentially means you could opt for slider up if taking a shorter delay then a regular BASE jump where you would use a slider.