Mastering Human Flight: Part 2
The path to jumping off a mountain in a wingsuit
This is the second half of Braden Dean’s story — accomplished BASE jumper, skydiver, snowboarder, and genuinely rad human being — he takes us along for his first ever wingsuit flight off a mountain in Italy. Our knees got to jittering just reading about it, so buckle up and jump in…
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After 2 hours of driving, 2 flights, 4 hours spent in airport lounges and 16 hours on a plane Suz Graham and I finally landed at Charles De Gaul airport in Paris where we played a quick game of Tetris packing our gear into a European sized rental car.
We were exhausted. Running on an incredible amount of stoke, fueled largely by ambition during the planning stages of our trip, we still had a 6-hour drive ahead of us to make it to Chamonix.
Due to an unreliable GPS we named Gabby, it took us about 2 hours just to get outside of Paris and onto the open road. We didn’t make it far before we realized that sleeping and driving are a very inefficient way to multitask, and pulled into a rest stop for a “fifteen-minute power nap”. Three hours later we were finally heading for the mountains.
We pulled into Chamonix well after dark and, thanks to Gabby, got a full tour of the surrounding region before we finally checked into our hotel.
Chamonix is beautiful; the mountains rise straight up from the valley 2800 meters. Access to the high alpine is unlike anywhere else in the world with trams and cable cars on almost every surrounding mountain.
We would have loved to spend a lot more time in Chamonix, but we were super eager to start jumping. The wingsuit flying in Chamonix is quite advanced, not suitable for a beginner pilot, so after a few croissants and cappuccinos we were on our way to Italy. We got back in the car and headed out of town where we drove through the Mont Blanc Tunnel.
The Mont Blanc tunnel is almost 12 km’s long, and passes under the Aguille du Midi 2480 meters below the surface which makes it the world’s deepest operational tunnel. Once you come out the other side you enter the Aosta valley in Italy. The drive is beautiful with castles and vineyards lining the road. Unfortunately I barely had a chance to look at them because I was white knuckling the steering wheel at 140 km/h in the slow lane while Italian drivers were passing me like Usain Bolt vs fat Jonah Hill.
We pulled into Dro, Italy which sits at the bottom of Monte Brento (where we planned on jumping) in the late afternoon. We got sorted with a place to stay and after checking out the landing areas and talking to some local jumpers about how the BASE shuttle worked in the morning, we headed out for some Italian pizza and wine.
Jumping starts early at Brento, by 11:00 am winds start to pick up in the valley, so if you want to get multiple jumps you need to start early. We woke up at 4:15 to catch the 4:45 shuttle. It takes about an hour to get to the top of the road, followed by a short 20-minute hike through the forest to get to the exit point.
I spent the first few days jumping my tracking suit in order to get comfortable doing terminal BASE exits again, as it had been a while. I was excited to get into my wingsuit, but also very nervous. I hooked my wingsuit up, put it on, and took it off half a dozen times over the first few days before I was confident enough to take it to the top. I wanted to be sure I was ready and committed before bringing it to the top because getting down after the shuttle has left isn’t easy.
On the third day I decided I was ready. I attached my wingsuit to my BASE rig, packed it into my stash bag and went to bed knowing that I would be waking up to do a jump at first light.
I spent most of the night lying in bed with my eyes closed visualizing my exit over and over, unable to sleep. When my alarm went off it was still dark but I got out of bed super excited and ready to give it a go.
The drive up felt like it lasted twice as long as the one before. So did the hike. By the time we got to the exit my palms were sweating with anticipation and I took a few minutes by myself to regroup and focus before gearing up.
Climbing down the ropes to the edge in the wingsuit was terrifying. In tracking gear you have full range of movement as it is essentially just a jacket with a baggy pair of pants. In a wingsuit you are restricted. Climbing down to the edge of a thousand foot plus cliff in a straight jacket is a little bit unnerving to say the least. Again I took a moment to focus on my breathing and slow my heart rate.
I looked around at my surroundings, the sun was just rising over the mountains on the other side of the valley, the light was beautiful and the air was still. I was overcome by a sense of being connected with where I was and who I was with. Memories of all the preparation I had done to be here played through my head. I was ready.
I started to count down, 3, 2, 1, and pushed away from the side of the edge of the cliff. Time slowed down and I could hear nothing but silence for the first few moments as I began to feel my airspeed increase. After 3 or 4 seconds the wingsuit had inflated and I was flying!
My first wingsuit flight off Monte Brento lasted for slightly less than a minute before I deployed my parachute. I had traveled approximately 2 kilometers in that time. I looked back towards where I had started and was overcome with emotion; pride over what I had accomplished, pure joy for experiencing human flight, and excitement about the world of possibilities that had just opened to me.
After some celebratory high fives with my friends, and a few moments to relive the journey I repacked my parachute and headed back to the top of the mountain to fly again. I was excited to log more air time and get comfortable to head north to the mountains in Switzerland.
Words and images — Braden Dean — If you enjoyed this one click the little heart down there
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