MOAB - SPECIAL NOTICE

[guest]

To all my BASE brothers and sisters coming to Moab. I am posting this special notice to make some polite requests of you all and to offer my help to those of you wanting to jump some cool, new sites. I would like to ask those of you who decide to go exploring on your own to please confine your travels to established roads and trails. The desert ecosystem is an extremely fragile one and takes years to heal from vehicle tracks and foot travel. Please do not take this great privilege of legal BASE jumping in the Moab area lightly. The land managers like the BLM and The National Park Service, as well as several environmental groups are watching our actions very carefully. Please realize that our "privilege" to BASE jump here can be taken away at any time. This is our opportunity to show everyone that we are responsible for our actions and that we care about the land we are using. I can clearly see the potential for us to develop a better relationship with The National Park Service by demonstrating to them that we can BASE jump safely and responsibly with minimum impact to our valuable resources. I know that we have been down the hard road with our sport. The general public thinks we're totally crazy. The NPS doesn't want to deal with us. The news media uses us as cannon fodder to sell sensational and mostly negative stories. But we must put our anger aside and prove to everyone that we are simply ""sportsmen pursuing our sport". Please confine your walking in new areas to dry washes and slickrock as much as possible. Do not drive a vehicle off established roads. Do not leave any litter. Pick up any litter you see, even if it's not yours. Learn to think like an Aborigine; love the land, as if it was your mother.

Enjoy the Tombstone Challenge. Many people are coming early and/or staying after the competition to enjoy the other jumping sites in the Moab area. I invite anyone new to the area or those who have been here before to call me for information and free guidance to the many new sites we have developed in the last few months. My phone number is 435-259-6067. You can also e-mail me at redfern@lasal.net. I will be doing training with the Grand County Search and Rescue Team on Saturday 2-19 until early afternoon. Saturday evening I will take anyone who wants to go out for a camp out near the exit point of the newest and greatest jump I have found here so far. Matt Moore and I are preparing a very special surprise for everyone at this site for Sunday morning. For the rest of the week I will take anyone who is qualified to this site and to the area we call "CANDYLAND". I implore you all not to encourage lowtimers to jump here under any circumstances. This is not the place to learn to BASE jump. Wind can be a serious factor here and should be treated with great respect. You will have off-heading openings and you will need to be able to deal with them FOR SURE.

The Grand County Search and Rescue Team will be on alert in the event that they are needed. The Sheriff's phone number is 259-8115. Or if you forget, call 911 and request the Grand County Search and Rescue Team. Many of the areas we now jump are extremely remote and the best plan is to not get hurt or hung on the wall. I will have ropes and some basic rescue gear in my vehicle in case I can be of help to anyone without the need to call out the team, but they are there if you really need them and they are really good people.

And the last request I have is for everyone to please not jump in The National Parks while you are here for the competition. I believe that the National Park Service wants to strike up a positive dialogue with us and I believe that we may someday be allowed to jump in the parks if we can develop a better relationship with them. Let's give them a chance to issue some permits. I do encourage BASE jumpers to go to the National Park Service offices and request permits for jumping specific sites within the parks. This will be their opportunity to reach some reasonable compromises with us and perhaps we can do some jumps in the parks with permits. They certainly have the authority to issue permits for BASE jumping if they want to. I look forward to meeting and jumping with you all. Please be careful and do not get hurt.

Sincerely,

Earl Redfern


THIS PART OF THE SPECIAL NOTICE BY MATT MOORE

One important consideration for visiting BASE jumpers out here is the environment. Many people feel that the desert is a barren wasteland where we can drive and walk wherever we feel to get to an exit point and that the landscape cannot be harmed. I'm finding out more and more that the desert out here is very fragile. Concern for the environment should be of utmost
importance to us if we wish to earn respect from the NPS and the BLM. Both of these agencies out here are dealing with a huge increase in hikers, jeepers, mountain bikers and so forth and these agencies are very intolerant of land users who damage the desert. Since we are a relatively
new land user group here in Moab it would really benefit us to show these agencies that we can respect the desert better than most other visitors.

There is a type of natural ground cover here called cryptobiotic soil (just call it "crypto" like the locals do) which looks like hardened clumps of black sand. It is actually a weave of sticky cyanobacteria filaments (AKA blue-green algae), moss, lichen, fungi and so on. This stuff helps to hold the sand down during wind storms and it also provides vital nutrients to surrounding plants and trees. If we walk or drive on this crypto it will destroy the delicate filaments and will take many years for it to grow back. Until it grows back, an unsightly footprint or tire track will remain which may entice others to walk on or drive through the stuff creating a vicious cycle of impacts which will never fully recover. Let's put a stop to it now! PLEASE, DO NOT WALK OR DRIVE ON CRYPTOBIOTIC SOIL. Walk on bare rock or in the dry washes as much as you possibly can while accessing exit points. The NPS, BLM and the community of Moab will respect us for our environmental concern. Hell, after a while they may even start to like us.

Don't forget, if anyone needs Search and Rescue assistance you can call the Grand County Sheriff's Office at 435-259-8115 or just dial 911. BASE jumping is legal outside the national parks here, so don't hesitate to call if you need help. Please do not call them prior to your jump as is the case in Twin Falls. Only call them if you need help.

Sincerely,

Matt Moore

[guest]

Earl and Matt have created a foundation ethical document everybody going to Moab should read.

If you've read it, print it out and make some copies to take with you to Moab


People not experienced enough to jump. COme anyway. Learn procedures, learn everything, then when you makie jumps at easier sites, you have the pattern down


which should be hardcopied and handed to ev

[guest]

I don't know what button I hit, but it SENT!

So let's try this again.

Earl and Matt have created a foundation ethical document everybody going to Moab should read.

If you've read it, print it out and make some copies to take with you to Moab becaue a lot of the people going may not have email or read the board.

It is very important everyone knows and follows the guidelines listed in this document. It sets out a code of behavior akin to the canons of journalism or law or medicine.

This sort of thing was lacking in 1980 when the short-lived permit system was in effect. The USPA and jumpers themselves all thought of El Capitan as a new ride at the local amusement park. PArachutist magazine had an article entittled "El Capitan OPpens For Skydiving" and then said what you needed to jump El Capitan was USPA membership, a D-license hard helmet square main in your skydiving rig.

No mention of how to act in the wilderness.

And so it deeply offended NPS people and others in the Valley when the skydiuvers showed up with their boogie attitudes -- and boogie manners --

It seems as if there will be a bunch of BASE jumpers in Moab all at the same time and, unlike previous years, many of them will not be under the control or jurisdiction of the IPBC.

So take some hard copies of these "Moab Canons" with you to make sure we're all on the same page out there.

I'd only add one thing to the fine document Earl and Matt have created:

1. While Earl is right that Moab is not a site for beginners to jump, but it is absolutely a place where beginners can LEARN.

If you're not experienced enough to jump, go anyway. Watch what people do right -- and what they do wrong. Learn procedures, learn everything, then you'll be better prepared when you make jumps at easier sites.

And if you aren't ready to jump, bring your mountain bike or climbing gear, because Moab's been a Mecca for those things far longer than it's been a place for jumping.


Have a good time everybody.

Robin Heid
BASE 44

[guest]

Thanks for the hard work you've put in, Earl, and above all, thanks for sharing the First on "Earl's Pearl" last month...Have a good challenge w/e brudda.
Chris P.

[guest]

Earl and Matt...

Thanks for the great BASE Board post. I only wish that mountain bikers would have had a similar forum back in the mid-80's when they discovered Moab. Perhaps there would be fewer bicycle tracks through the cryptos...and perhaps a special government agency would not have been necessary to deal with their adverse impacts in the Slickrock area.

To those visiting Moab, I echo Earl and Matt's urging that you leave little trace of your having been here. Limit your travel to dry washes (where the next good rain will eliminate any trace of your presence) and to slickrock. Those dry washes might only be a foot or two wide...bordered by the ever delicate cryptos...but they often connect patches of slickrock. It might mean having to take a more circuitous route to your destination, but just look at it as being similar to the old game you may have played as a kid where you tried not to step on the cracks in a sidewalk.

I'll be out at the competition watching you all enjoy your sport. I may even be hanging from a nearby wall...trolling for photos. Say cheese.

Cheers,

Frank

[bps]

Here I sit with a smile from ear-to-ear.

Jumpers are beginning to come together and realize that BASE jumping is a priviledge. If we treat the land with respect and continue to show the world that we can enjoy our sport without adversely affecting the land and its precious resources, more and more legal sites will open up.

Earl & Matt - thank you for taking such a proactive role in promoting BASE jumping's image in the Moab area. Earl has shown a fine example by volunteering to train with the Grand County Search and Rescue. First of all, it will increase his skills and his ability to initiate a self-rescue if and when the need arises. Secondly, when a jumper volunteers his or her time to local rescue units, trail-builders, trash clean-up crews, etc it not only helps these fine volunteer organizations, it establishes acceptance for our sport.

And thank you Grand County Search and Rescue! Folks, these are the people that risk their life to save yours when you are in dire trouble. I urge jumpers to educate themselves in the art of self-rescue. Trust me, doing this will help you the most. And if and when outside help is needed - it's nice to know that it is there. Thanks GCSAR!

Like many of you, I'm leaving soon and will be Moab-bound. I'll see many of you there and for those who don't go, I'll see ya on the board when I return!

C-ya,

Bryan
the sbase boys