Friday Freakout – Super Sketchy Zipline BASE Jump
An evening pause: By the title I suppose this should scheduled for Friday but why wait. Note too that I couldn’t watch it all the way through. I know too much about how to do this right, and this idiot does nothing right at all.
But for those adrenal freaks out there, the video will give you a kick.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Oh, by the way the cable you’re hanging off of is really two cables crudely spliced together…
Wonder if the Russian/Soviet gov’t put it up on purpose to weed out the nutcases!
(More seriously I wonder if the cable is a Cold War relic meant to snag enemy planes)
I love the “technique” of sliding his hand in front of the clip where fingers easily slide under at speed for crude amputation.
“Steempy, you are an Ediot!”
The kid literally pisses himself. (Easily seen at 2:01) Their little misadventure was not well planned.
Skunk Bucket: One thing I know about carabiners. They are not designed as rappel devices on metal cables. I could easily have seen that biner worn enough on this short journey for it to break at the wear point.
Yow-za.
I’m just a psych-major, but even I know that Physics, plays a huge role in all this. (“what, could possibly go wrong…”)
Chris– holy-cow!
This, is more my speed:
Bootleg Canyon Zipline Tour / Las Vegas
(2016)
https://youtu.be/76HTraHfGGw
2:00
( “1.6 miles of line”)
Yes, they are insane risk takers — the sort of wild boys that push it to the edge and beyond.
I’ve had several friends which were that way; I outlived them.
Perhaps it’s just part of the DNA makeup that pushes some folks, always, to the next horizon.
Nature is similarly and relentlessly expansive.
Future winners of a Darwin Award after they weed themselves out the human gene pool!
Oh man, the part where the biner ate his glove and then the following zipping down the line was enough to make me queasy.
I do like how you can hear the fear in his breathing when he gets to that splice!
Thanks Robert that was better than coffee for my morning wake up.
I need to re-watch this, some of the editing is problematic, and for a zipcord this long to be abused like that…. I smell some fakery here… As Bob said, a slide that long could probs cut thru a carabena before he got half way! Metal is an excellent tool for cutting thru metal!
Plus he’s russian and lands in a potato field… Which made me giggle!!
And finally the landing… I’ve done parachute jumps… You don’t come in that fast at that angle and just stop…. Your gonna roll…. I call shinanigans! … Entertainment none the less!
Something I would have done in my youth. I did crazier things. “Been there, done that” . I have no patience so I would have cut away rather than waiting the half hour for the biener to cool down enough to touch. I’d just retrieve it on the next go around or use it for bragging rights.
Bob, you need to watch it to the end.
Hey Boot ….
Empty bladder before you step to the door.