Go Jump Off A Bridge (Whole BUNCH of imgs)

coldclimb

The Banff Mountain Film Festival came to Anchorage this weekend showing some really cool footage of some really really cool stuff, so Tracy and I planned on heading in to Anchorage for an evening of entertainment. Kelsey suggested we head in earlier and meet up with him and Shasta to do some rope jumping, so with little hesitation we took his idea and ran with it.

We rigged as the morning sun dropped into the bottom of the canyon and started warming up the frozen surface of Eklutna River. A light breeze made things frigid, so we kept moving.








Kelsey elected to take the first jump, and I elected to take pictures.




Shasta went for her first jump of the day as her friends Tara and Donald showed up.




Tracy drops into a one-arm hang to take the big swing on her first rope jump ever.




Tara stepped up to the challenge magnificently, impressive for a non-climber who's never tried this before.




I slowed things down and tried to pan, and I think it worked.




With a few quietly stoic remarks, Donald took his first jump as well.




Then we started having fun. Kelsey's second jump was a backflip!




Er..... Sort of......




Toes poised on the edge before Tara's second jump.




And she goes for it!




Kelsey does some maneuvering to set up for another jump.




Kelsey pulls another backflip as a shiny hummer runs over him.




Donald's second jump in the sun.




Upside down at the apex of the swing.




Tara demonstrates trajectory on her third jump. A stranger showed up to watch this one and made a few humorous comments from the bridge.




As we tired out a bit, we wrapped things up and chatted a bit while Kelsey and Tracy took down the rig.




Pulled off a few macros, even with the breeze shaking everything and hand-holding at 300mm.




And lastly, a sign of spring somewhere on tyhe horizon. I think i missed the focus, but I liked it anyway, so enjoy!




After watching the Banff films that evening, we were a bit less impressed with our own achievements, but it was a great day of jumping anyway. I'm still kicking myself for not thinking of pulling off some of the great exits the BASE jumpers in the films did. :huh Quite inspiring footage, for sure, but if you missed out on the Banff Mountain Films, I hope you get a little of that inspiring excitement from these shots of our little outing!

Cuong

Your adventurous spirits are impressive. You make it look fun even though most people my age would say you're all insane. Excellent photography and story telling.

Cuong

Toshido

Been years since I climbed anything more challenging then a ladder

Curious about the setup at the harness. I assume you are rapelling down after the jump, ascending after the jump would suck

Do you have pics of the rigging? Both on the bridge and at the harness.

Don't worry i am not dumb enough to try to rig it myself, besides my harnes is too old, I think I need a new one if I get back into climbing.

coldclimb

Thanks Cuong! And Toshido: We jumped onto a Petzl Grigri, which catches the fall automatically and allows you to rappel off the rest of the rope without having to untie a tensioned knot. We used a knot below the grigri as a backup, so it would jam up if the camming action of the grigri failed, but it was never loaded. As far as the anchor goes it was just a whole bunch of rope wrapped around a padded beam a bunch of times and tied end-to-end, then backed up with another beefy rope and clipped with two steel carabiners. The pics above are all I have, but we kept it as simple as possible, so no equalized bits or anything.

We're planning on doing a much bigger jump sometime this year, so I'm sure if it goes down, you'll see those pictures too! Thanks for the comments guys!

Toshido

I thought it looked like grigri, but never seen one used like that. Then again i have only climbed at an inside gym that used grigri's as belaying devices.

I also thought it was just a wrapped I-beam but was thinking you might have been more sophisticated.

Thanks for the explanations.

coldclimb

Toshido wrote:

I thought it looked like grigri, but never seen one used like that. Then again i have only climbed at an inside gym that used grigri's as belaying devices.

I also thought it was just a wrapped I-beam but was thinking you might have been more sophisticated.

Thanks for the explanations.

Yeah essentially the Grigri is acting just like it would in a climbing situation, it's just catching a fall from the falling end of the rope. And I like to keep my rigging as simple and bomber as possible. Gives you a little peace of mind as you're stepping into the air to know that there's only one or two things that could POSSIBLY go wrong in the setup, and that those things are over-built.