Wingsuit Dreams

Tales from the Mexican blanket...

Something that is on the event horizon for me is to fly a wingsuit. I haven't even learned to free fall yet but that is the fun of it, learning and more importantly, seeing it through to reality.

There are wingsuits that are available commercially and now it's pretty much all figured out. As a father and a husband, I don't have a problem with letting others figure it out, just so long as I get a taste of it and that's where I'm headed as I grow older and hopefully more wise...

Let me begin by saying that a long time ago I started following the exploits of Patrick De Gayardon and Bruno Gouvy and they had it right.
Patrick De Gayardon

Bruno Gouvy

As a surfer, I would emulate skateboard moves that I would do in pools. Graduating on to Wintersticking (snow surfing) I could catch more air and about that time is when I bought my first hang glider.

The French in Chamonix and Verbier had the mountains and snow at their disposal and they took their sports there. I would see Patrick and Bruno pop up in magazines like Powder, Surfer, Action Now and even in the National Enquirer. These guys were insane mixing snowboarding with parachuting, paragliding with surfing, hybrid sports, they seemed to understand something only a few could imagine early on.

Bruno and his weighted fairing would jump from the Pilatus so high and bullet straight down to the earth at tremedous speed, unreal. Patrick took skysurfing to the public with jumping a snowboard from a plane...

They invented so many sports that are just now emerging as true disciplines.

The wingsuit was just one of them.

"Sure there is a chance I might be killed. But in exchange, I have such a powerful sense of being alive." -- Bruno Gouvy

Patrick De Gayardon & Bruno Gouvy, rest in peace.

Below is something I wrote many years about dreaming of doing things...

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Dreaming is where the idea begins. This is the conception of realistic goals in the disciplines we use to describe our inner expression.

Each year in the late summer/early fall, I begin to dream of the oncoming snow surfing season. This being my twenty third season, I am no stranger to these dreams. I've purchased a new board on the advice of an old friend in the sport. The swallowtail has not yet arrived but already I have ridden this board in my dream forest of dry powder. Snow so light and deep, you look like you are on fire with a smoke trail long in the distance, fans high on each turn. And then I open my eyes and see this computer screen and my words and realize, "I will make this reality, but it began with a dream."

I have many people to thank for keeping my dream alive. The French have always inspired me with their creative ascent and decent. Jean Vuarnet and the Wedeln technique (outside trailing shoulder turns) when I began skiing. I studied the book of technique in the library of my high school. This technique actually played a small part in helping my skate boarding style. Layback turns have roots in Wedeln and on to the ocean, surfing backside and front side, this technique crosses over. Patrick De Gayardon and Bruno Gouvy, two friends and their dreams of exquisite rides. Both of these Frenchmen were accomplished snow surfers and I would see pictures of them even in the checkout line of the grocery store, on those rumor magazines, sky surfing or snowboarding the Matterhorn. I remember seeing a picture of Bruno with ice axes in both hands making turns on the Eiger on a swallowtail, a mountain steeped in climbing death and here Bruno was making his turns, living his life on board. Patrick fashioned a fairing with a small window to work out the visuals to become a human bullet. Diving from 30,000' reaching tremendous speed in order to "live life" I can assure you that many of his epoch journeys began with dreams.

On the North Shore of O'ahu I had realized the power of the wind while surfing the huge groundswells that were the result of the wind on a large body of water. I used to watch Gerry Lopez surf, he is epitomized as the master of the Ehukai Pipeline, turning in the seething barrel, making style of what others feared from before him. Ken Bradshaw dropping into a moving mountain of water, over the edge and beyond at Waimea Bay. Sitting there on the beach, thinking of my soaring flights on three thousand foot airwaves on the other side of the island, I began thinking of Rich Pfieffer and his aero-dynamic pod, soaring at 18,000' above the Owens Valley, racing against Larry Tudor from Draper, Utah. Yeah Utah, ohh the powder there is so pure, so deep and smooth. Lighter than air, deeper in some areas than you can imagine and there to meet this challenge, Dimitrije Milovitch honing his technique on the board he invented for this medium, the swallowtail snow surf board. My swallowtail being at home in Arizona, the fatigues I wore, taking a break from maneuvers in the infantry of the United States Army, dreaming got me through then, and it got me to where I have been and where I am at now. It is all a circle, and there is no end, just being.

I love dimentional sports, those that are driven by the forces in nature I find myself drawn to. In a bit of creative writing, I will attempt to describe this idea.

1.) The first dimention is the creative thought and nothing more.

It all starts here as an idea. It's hard to define this 1D but I would say that dreaming and planning are the best way for me to describe this dimension. Everyone must start with the planning, the invention, working out the logistics and we all have ideas of what we want to describe here. What you read here is 1D.

2.) The second is riding upon the surface. Jumps above are momentarily described by the following dimention, but it is only momentary.

This would be in my opinion, carving a alpine board with hard boots on the groomed piste. Here we can make our turns as hard or soft, but as quiet as the hiss of the snow will allow, only the wind disturbing the flow that we produce. The surface of the snow is inscribed with the signature of our creation. I love carving and with my old Peter Bauer and Jean Nerva alpine race board, my hard boots clicked in, I understand this. Downhill with my skateboard, arms tucked, leaning into the leading foot, setting up for the turns minding the aerodynamics learned from such enthusiasts as Rodger Hickey then, or John Gilmour now. These are boards, all of which I have grown to enjoy and love this 2D.

3.) Disciplines such as surfing the swell, the snow, and soaring the sky in a hang glider are all part of the continuous three dimension. The surface is often breached, the body moves with a loose association to the medium and the mind is affected upon in a special way by the purposeful control of gravity.

I trend toward these disciplines.

Soaring my hang glider up a huge column of rising air over the mountains. Up to the base of the cumulus cloud, scooting over to the side and on up the side of the cloud. Surfing the wave of deflected air looking down at the snow falling, melting into rain, drying into a virga. Seeing it snow in June, above the same mountains we surf in winter, while surfing a glider near cloud base. Dreaming of surfing the snow of winter in a swallowtail board while surfing high above those very mountains, this is 3D.

Snow surfing turns with a centered stance, your turns are more involved with the depth of the snow. The tail releasing pressure as well as acting independently on the changing snow density. Choosing a wide forested valley, banking each side with sweeping arcs, at times fully covered, immersion, turning into the medium with no pre-defined track. The board becomes somewhat of an elevator of a wing describing pitch in it's flight. Three constant dimensions in the snow.

These are my favored disciplines that I gravitate towards. The feelings are unique. Making a stairway to heaven (hiking up a slope) and descending my 3D dream, this is what I plan for every year, this being my twenty third year of dreaming and doing.

Have fun snow surfing this year.

adam

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Felix Baumgartner

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