Going to Siberia where there are active volcanoes and grizzly bears seems a lot like taking your life into your own hands, and to some degree it is. However, I feel more like I am putting my life into the hands of others, which is essentially more true than my first statement. I’m sure that many people would not feel comfortable with either scenario – taking your life in your own hands or putting it the hands of others. But, I have grown to be comfortable with each scenario simultaneously.
I think, however, that taking any risk requires at least some calculation. That said, I spent the day at one of my favorite places, my home drop zone. The general public that stops by to watch us land our parachutes have looks of pure astonishment on many of their faces as we walk from the landing area and head to repack our canopies. They usually don’t say it, but we know they are thinking, “you look normal, but you are obviously crazy.” It is a look not unlike the look my students had on their faces when I told them about my expedition to remote Siberia this summer.
I know that the people at PolarTREC, CH2M Hill and ARCUS do quite a bit of planning and organizing before they send us out there into the wild. So, I wanted to share some of the planning and organizing that goes on in the “crazy” world of skydiving.
First, we check the weather. Too cloudy, too windy or any precipitation and we are on the ground. Second, we check our equipment. We have two parachutes, an altimeter to read how far we are above the ground, a helmet, a jumpsuit made specifically for what we are about to do and most of us have an automatic device that will open our reserve parachute for us in the event that we cannot do it ourselves. We also train and review procedures all the time. So much for equipment.
We decide whom we jump with and everyone on the plane looks out for the safety of everyone else on the plane. If we see someone’s gear has a problem, we tell them and if ours has an issue, they tell us. We check our parachute rigs every time we go to the drop zone and when a gear specialist is working with our gear, they check it for safety too. Finally, with equipment and safety at rest, we get to the fun stuff – jumping out of the plane!
I have included some pictures from today so that those of you who might think that skydivers just get on a plane and jump out of it without any regard for themselves have actually gone to a lot of trouble to do this – repeatedly. So here is some of the stuff that people don’t know about what skydivers do.
We plan what formations we will in the air before we ever leave the ground.
We figure out what we want to do on our skydive and then make a very specific plan.
We practice what we will do laying down on creepers.
We practice the plan on the ground using creepers, kind of like those scooters you ride in gym class.
We practice what we are going to do standing up. We call it a dirt dive.
We practice the plan standing up, in full gear, and next to a mock up of the plane door. We also plan and practice how we will leave the plane.
We leave the plane exactly how we planned it.
We hang on to the outside of the plane and each other and give a big READY, SET, GO!
We are going about 120 mph as we build formations and fly with each other.
This is called a caterpillar.
We move from one formation to another by flying ourselves.
This formation is called a Meeker.
Every formation is planned and goes in a specific order. You can't talk up there, you are going 120 mph and the wind is very loudn
This is an open accordion.
We land in a big open field and head back to the airplane hangar to repack our parachutes.
Once we all fly away from each other, we land back at the drop zone. This happens most of the time. At least we always plan to take off and land in the same zip code. Sometimes other stuff happens, but that's just part of the excitement.
Repacking our parachutes is a lot of work, but it's definitely worth it.
We make our way back to the hangar and packing area to stuff our parachute, in a very precise manner, back into our rig. It's a lot of nylon and a very little bag. Basically, what I'm saying is - parachutes want to open.
So those of you out there who are thinking that some people are crazy, well you're right, some of them are. However, you probably won't find them at my drop zone, or on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. At least I hope not.
Well, there’s a glimpse of what happens before we climb out of and hang on to the outside of a moving airplane and let go into the big blue sky. Hopefully, it helps you appreciate that we really aren’t crazy – or maybe not.
I want to take a moment to thank the person who helped make this journal entry possible, Dixie Marich. He is a videographer of skydivers. To put it plainly, he is the guy who not only hangs on to the outside of the plane, but falls with us and has the skill necessary to keep his eye on what we are doing, his own altitude and parachute and still capture it all on video and film. Pretty crazy, wouldn’t you agree?
Skydive Videographer Dixie Marich