Valery Rozov: First Cerro Torre BASE jump from just below top - second attempt next week
02:16 am CST Feb 29, 2008
(MountEverest.net) Base jumping is probably the most dangerous sport in the world, determined medical doctor and mountaineer Erik Monasterio at ExWeb last year. Specializing in Forensic Psychiatry the doc said that a comprehensive data base of base jumping fatalities reveals that 175 jumpers have died since the sport began (approximately 30 years ago).
"The surprising finding is that only 123 of those deaths were directly related to base jumping, the other deaths were related to other accidents, drug overdoses and suicides," said Monasterio.
The first BASE jump from Cerro Torre!
So where's ExWeb's favorite base jumper Valery Rozov now? Mountain.ru reports that Valery is neither hanging from a beam nor has vanished in Nirvana land. He is in Patagonia - ready to jump Cerro Torre - for the second time!
In 2004 Valery made a new route on Amin Brakk’s (5850m) west face in Pakistan, considered the most technically complex wall in the world - and then jumped down. In 2006, Rozov made the first BASE-jump from the Alps' Grandes Jorasses, following a climb on one of the face’s hardest routes: The Croz Spur.
February 24 last year the Russian X-gamer base jumped off the 1400-m face of Torres del Paine in Patagonia.
And this week a message arrived from the climbers that Valery had jumped Cerro on Monday, 9 am local time. The point of jump was located a bit below the "Compressor" route traverse. The flight lasted 1 minute and 20 seconds with an altitude difference of about 1450 meters.
Valery said he opened a bit higher than planned, was caught by a gust and flew and and down for 15 minutes in the last 200 meters before finally and fortunately hitting ground.
Due to bad weather and falling ice the team didn't reach the summit and will therefore make a second attempt during a forecasted weather window March 3-5, to see if conditions have improved and whether it would be possible to jump from the top.
"Otherwise, the previous point will become the only possible to make a jump on this route," they report.
Check in on Mountain.ru for the team's dispatches (links section).
Valery Rozov has won Russia’s, Europe’s and World’s championship in Parachuting. The climb and BASE jump was the latest stage in his Russian Extreme B.A.S.E. climbing Project. Previously, Valery also climbed and jumped from the Big Sail peak in Baffin Island (2002), and Mt. Nalumasortoq in Greenland (2003).
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