Learning to Fly

by Steph Davis

  At the exit point, Monte Brento, Italy

  I watched a few other jumpers launch off the smooth limestone edge, leaping out over some thin branches that poked up from below. Everyone had a different pre-jump style, with gear checks, hand slaps, fist bumps, or countdowns. Some shouted an exit count and rushed toward the edge aggressively; others were more still, visibly turning their focus inward as they pushed into the air. It became almost normal to see a solid, life-size shape push off the edge of the mountain and disappear, reappearing way down below as a small rectangle of floating nylon over the long expanse of forest. Everything was so big, from the lake glimmering out in the distance to the pale ridges and walls of Brento stretching out to each side. The meadow seemed miles away as the tiny canopies settled down into it.

  I thought about counting, about the difference between counting too fast and counting too slow, about how it’s hard to know if the seconds you count are the same as the seconds on a watch. Time had never been solid for me, and I’d never needed it to be. Now it mattered, a lot. I wanted to count real seconds—one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three—as close as possible to clock time. I checked my leg straps and chest strap again, reached back to touch my pilot chute for the millionth time, and looked around to make sure no one else was about to jump. Dean was standing back, waiting for me to feel ready. The last jump I’d done, off Castleton, had shown me without a doubt that no one would be with me on a jump. In that way, it was just like a free solo. Though other people might be there, talking and laughing in a group, as soon as I left the edge I was the only one who could save my life. That understanding put me into the place I knew so well, the place of unshakable calm where the only thing I needed to control was myself, the place where I felt good. I was the only person I needed to trust. I was all I needed. There was nothing else to know. It was simple, pure.

  I stood at the edge with all the unknowns stretching out in front of me, waiting for me to cross the gate. When I left the solid rock, there was no way to return. I worried abstractly about fumbling the nylon pilot chute at pull time, then worried about my fingers being too numb to feel it. It was a tough decision on the gloves. They might save me from numb fingers, but they might also keep me from feeling the pilot or even make my hand slip off the fabric. Reluctantly, I pulled them off and stuffed them in a cargo pocket. My right hand had to stay warm enough just for ten seconds until I got the pilot chute out, then both hands could go numb all they wanted once they were in the big steering toggle loops. I looked out at the sky to the horizon, took a deep breath, then took the two steps forward to the edge and pushed out as hard as I could, throwing my arms up above my head as my legs drove straight out. My body dropped into the air, and my brain dutifully began to count: “One thousand one, one thousand two”—arms swept back to my sides—“one thousand three, one thousand four, one thousand five …” Then I felt the air start to hold me as I sliced forward, tracking out from the clean limestone all around. I kept counting, though the height I was seeing took shape from the slab below, the trees out in front. Visually, it all made sense somehow, just as people had said it would.

  I watched the rock as I flew down it. There was so much time. I felt no urgency as I reached one thousand ten, grabbed the pilot chute with my right hand, and yanked it out into the air. The canopy fluttered open above me, the lines holding me at shoulders and hips like a marionette as it glided forward. The trees stretched out below in a dark green carpet. I tried to guess how high I was above them now that things were moving slower and was bothered that I had no idea. My hands were fully numb. The trees grew bigger as I approached the meadow, big enough, finally, to have some perspective for my eyes. I made a few turns above them to shed some altitude and then flew straight into the open grass, taking a few quick steps forward as my parachute came to a stop and dropped down before me. I dropped the toggles, leaned forward, and pressed my hands between my thighs, gritting my teeth as my fingers returned from numb to painful sensation. I hadn’t felt that pain in a while, what ice climbers call “the screaming barfies.” I should have worn the gloves. Or, at least, the left one.

  Rubbing my aching hands together, I turned and looked back at the wall, seemingly miles away now. I’d just launched off a mountain, flown through the air, and floated to the earth. How could it even be possible that a person could do such a thing? How could I do such a thing? I smiled wildly, exhilaration rising up in my chest. A dark shape appeared in the sky, like the silhouette of a jet fighter. My husband, looking like a dark angel in his wingsuit, was straight overhead, growing closer and larger until his canopy burst out. I watched him touch down in the meadow, emotions tangling inside me. I didn’t know what I thought about anything, except jumping off this wall. It felt better than I’d imagined it would. It felt better than anything. Delicious didn’t even begin to describe how good it felt. I picked up my parachute lines and coiled them neatly in a daisy chain up to the canopy.

  Monte Brento from the landing area

  For the next few days, I rode in the van and walked up through the forest to the exit point with small groups of jumpers from different countries. Dean and I had drifted into our normal pattern of following our own paces and motivations, and as a result we often didn’t even go up to the top of the cliff at the same time. I found myself jumping with people I’d talked with on the hike. I liked seeing the European jumpers gear up at the top, and the different rigs and equipment they had. The most intriguing to me were the wingsuit fliers. Oddly enough, I felt a little strange reaching terminal speed in my regular clothing, though I’d done it so many times in my first months of skydiving. I’d quickly become accustomed to the good feeling of the extra, full-body layer of a wingsuit, and without it I felt exposed. Tracking also made me fall through the air much faster, which was a little disconcerting. Seeing the Slovenian and French jumpers shuffling around with their long leg wings and arm wings made me yearn to be wearing my wingsuit. Watching them lance forward into the air and then slice out over the trees as tiny, speeding dots was breathtaking. I had packed my small gray Birdman Classic wingsuit, unable to resist bringing it, though I didn’t envision using it. Wingsuit base jumping is considered an advanced form of the sport, and it would be completely frowned upon to skip straight to it on the first trip to a high cliff, a bit like doing your first cliff jump in Moab.

  Robi sending off a new wingsuit jumper

  One of the Slovenian jumpers, wearing a large black-and-orange wingsuit with a matching base container, was clearly the leader of the group. He had a boyish twinkle in his eye and joked with his friends as they geared up, shifting back and forth from Slovenian to English with a strong Slavic accent. When he left the cliff, it was obvious that he’d done it hundreds or probably thousands of times, diving into flight as naturally as a falcon. Robert, known to his friends as Robi or Robibird, had been flying for decades, devoting his life to mastering human flight and to perfecting the suit he used to fly through the air. His company, Phoenix Fly, designed and built wingsuits to custom measure, and they were the tool of choice for base jumpers. All the best jumpers in the world seemed to be using the Phoenix Fly Vampire, the biggest, fastest suit on the market. I had ordered a Vampire almost as soon as I had got comfortable flying my small Birdman Classic and had just started to skydive with the new suit. Robi remembered sewing my gray-blue-and-purple wingsuit, a smaller size than average, and asked me how I liked it and why I wasn’t jumping it here. I explained that I was a brand-new base jumper but I was obsessed with wingsuit flying and was skydiving it as much as I could. I wanted to base jump my wingsuit more than anything, but this was my first trip to a terminal cliff.

  Though Robi was a legend in the base jumping world, he was extremely approachable, with the charming Eastern European manner of natural directness. I watched him instruct some new wingsuit fliers on their exit and watched them push into flight. I knew exactly what it felt like to be flying through the air, rushing forward with full wings. I also knew t
hat Brento was a perfect place to learn to fly a wingsuit from a cliff, thanks to its extreme height and steepness, and it might be a long time before I could get back there. And I knew I’d been charging full speed ahead into a world that requires experience and time to live in safely. I hadn’t heeded Jimmy and Marta’s warnings, and I’d gotten hurt almost immediately. I was lucky that it hadn’t been worse, and I didn’t want to make that mistake again. Base jumping was so tricky for a climber turned jumper. Most things were so physically easy, but you could get seriously hurt in the space of a second. It was not like climbing, where you could and should always push yourself more, where if you don’t have enough skill, you may not even get high enough to fall. In base, it seemed that I should work to hold myself back whenever I gained confidence. What confused things even more was the contradictory need of always having to push through doubt when I did something new, which was basically on every jump during the learning phase. I didn’t know what was reasonable for me, and there didn’t seem to be any consistent agreement among experienced jumpers, at least none that made sense to me. It occurred to me that Robi, who was perhaps the best wingsuit pilot in the world and had instructed countless new wingsuit jumpers, was a pretty good judge of whether someone might be ready to fly from a cliff. He’d seen me jump several times in the last few days. I knew enough about him to know that he would give me an honest, possibly brutally honest, answer if I asked him about jumping my wingsuit here, and to know also that I should listen to whatever he said. Based on the extremely protective, and generally discouraging, advice I’d received from most jumpers so far, I was sure he would tell me bluntly to forget about it. But I had to ask.

  After I landed, I found Robi at the Zebrata bar and asked him what he thought about my jumping my old wingsuit here. I told him I’d been skydiving for six months, base jumping for two months, and flying a wingsuit for four. I had made several tracking jumps from Brento. I’d done about sixty skydives in my small wingsuit before switching to the Vampire.

  Robi listened seriously, then offered a pragmatic and unadorned assessment. Though overall I was new, he said, I was extremely current because I’d jumped almost every day for the last six months. I had good general ability. Currency and proficiency were in my favor, and since I’d been jumping the Vampire, I would feel even more comfortable going back to the small suit. Therefore, he didn’t see anything wrong with my taking the Classic off Brento, if I felt ready.

  I was astonished to have someone tell me that it was okay for me to do what I wanted, with an analysis that was purely logical. It made me hesitate more than if Robi had been bluntly dismissive. I knew I was literally jumping into everything at a madly accelerated pace, and I understood why those with more experience wanted to slow me down for my own sake. But what Robi had said seemed completely reasonable, uncolored by the uniquely American urge to save people from themselves—a trait that had always grated on me.

  I thought about my wingsuit constantly for the next few days, folded safely inside my gear bag while I jumped without it.

  —

  December 23 was our second-to-last day in Brento. It was dramatically cheaper to fly home on Christmas, and calendar dates had never meant much to either of us. I’d made two good tracking jumps that day, exiting now with my arms back instead of flung out overhead, the way they are when wearing a wingsuit. I had also intentionally landed in the smaller, gravel cliffside landing area, the “out” to use if you couldn’t clear the forest.

  At the end of the day, I sat in the grass next to the Zebrata bar, packing my parachute and thinking about my jumps. Then I opened my gear bag and took out the small gray wingsuit. I laid it out and started to thread the yellow cables through the small loops, attaching it to my base container.

  Dean looked over from his pack job, watching me rig the wingsuit.

  “I’m thinking about jumping my suit tomorrow,” I said without fanfare.

  I could tell he was mulling over how to say what he wanted to say, wondering how to make me decide not to jump it without telling me not to. We both abhorred being told not to do things, and he knew all too well that our being told not to do something nearly always resulted in our going straight off and doing it.

  He thought for a little while and then brightened. “I think you should ask Robi what he thinks.” He knew I would do whatever Robi advised me to and naturally assumed that would be to keep doing tracking jumps until I had more experience.

  “Well, I did,” I answered, “and he told me to go for it.”

  My cell phone, a cheap UK model that I’d bought for the trip, buzzed with a new text message. Curious, I leaned over to check it. It was from Robi, who had left for home with his crew.

  If u feel confi with exit and height perception and pull go for it Steph. It is not difficult. Just be fresh and focus on exit, start of flight and pull time. U have good number of jumps w classic and good overall base performance and it will be ok :-). No worries. U can handle it.

  I was deeply touched by the encouragement, and even more so that he’d taken the time to send it. The tick list was reasonable and gave me a sequence to concentrate on. It was exactly the way my brain worked, and it made sense. I felt my confidence grow.

  I finished attaching my suit, and Dean suddenly said, “I forgot you’d done those helicopter jumps in Ogden with your wingsuit last fall. You’re probably more ready than I was when I did my first wingsuit base jump. But just think carefully. You really are going too fast, and we know that’s wrong in base.”

  I didn’t sleep well that night, turning things over in my mind. A big part of me warned not to trust my own decisions because of my track record so far.

  The last day of the trip, December 24, dawned sunny and calm, a perfect jumping day. I could easily make two jumps. I read Robi’s text message again a few times and folded my rig into the stash bag, with the wingsuit attached.

  We walked up to the top of Brento in the crisp morning air, the big group now gone home to their various countries, and I pulled out my rig. Putting it on felt good. I’d missed being in the gownlike wingsuit, feeling the swish of leg wing as I walked.

  I used the short piece of rope tied to a tree to cross the sloping limestone on the top, less sure-footed now with leather booties covering my shoe rubber. I shuffled carefully to the edge and scooted down to a small point that jutted out from the top of the mountain, with nothing but clean air below it. Vertigo and nerves made me feel off balance, and I clutched the limestone behind me to steady myself. Standing at the very edge of the solid rock, I felt nervous, but somehow more at ease in my familiar wingsuit than I’d been without it. I took several deep breaths, looked up at the horizon, and pushed into the air. Almost immediately, I tipped head down, just as I had on my first helicopter wingsuit jump, diving straight down the wall for hundreds of feet, with the pale-gray-and-beige limestone rushing in front of me. On that heli jump, I remembered, I’d just stayed calm and stable, and I’d pulled out of the dive into forward flight. I waited for long seconds and forced myself to hold still in what I knew was flight position, watching the slabby ledges coming up toward me, and then suddenly I shot forward, away from the wall, out above the long, forested expanse. I flew for a little while but didn’t want to push my luck, so I opened my parachute high above the trees and landed in the gravelly clearing near the wall. I landed safely, thrilled but a little shaken.

  I looked straight up at Brento, the lower wall so close here that I could walk over and touch it. Life has a lot of firsts, and in the sport of jumping you can do a new thing many times a day. At drop zones, you learn not to come into the hangar saying it was your first anything, because then you have to buy beer for everyone. The experienced jumpers know to keep their firsts to themselves. As I grow older, some things that would have been exciting become less special than those kinds of moments used to be, like the disbelieving ecstasy of the first time riding a bike without training wheels. Maybe firsts lose some of their shine, or maybe they need to be
more profoundly significant to catch your attention as more of life gets lived. Some firsts in my life I was happy to get out of the way, and others weren’t that important to me, though I had the feeling they should be. Other firsts remain unforgettable, moments when the fabric of life shifted slightly and things would never again be the same. The first day I grabbed holds on rock and stepped up off the ground, my life changed forever. And when I felt the air lift my wings, and I shot forward over the trees, something unlocked. Nothing would ever again be the same.

  Still reeling with the emotions of a life-changing moment, my mind continued on to the analytical mode. I’d flown off the cliff, nothing bad had happened, and I decided to count it a success. But I wasn’t sure about making another jump. I was bothered by my bad exit and wished I’d done a better job. Right now, though, I felt drained and wiped out, my adrenal glands depleted.

  I walked out to the Zebrata and packed my rig and sat at the bar with a small cup of espresso. I thought back on all the first things I’d done in jumping, especially the first cliff jump off the Tombstone. I was feeling worn out, and it would take at least another espresso to get me up the hill again. Pushing through usually turned out to be the right thing to do in climbing and the wrong thing to do in base jumping, as far as I could tell. But I had a strong instinct that I should do a second jump in the wingsuit, so I wouldn’t be left with the mind and muscle memory of exiting incorrectly. I wanted to fix it.