Beer Head BASE jump

in #basejump8 years ago (edited)

2009, I had been 1 year into sky diving and had built up a good network of jumping friends.

On this weekend we were attending the annual Dunkeswell Twin Beech Boogie, which is a sky diving festival where the DZ gets in extra aircraft to jump from, throws a party and you have the chance to demo gear, everyone camps etc.

A mate of mine at the time was planning a BASE jump from Beer Head, in the village of Beer, Devon. Its only around a 15 - 20 minute drive from the DZ.

We set our alarms for 4:30am (pretty grim when you are sleeping in a tent). We picked up another BASE jumper who got wind that we were heading down to the cliff, he was experienced and welcomed.

Beer Head Sunrise 1.JPG

These jumps will be handheld, so the jumpers will freefall for around a second or so and then throw their pilot chute.

Coolio going handheld.jpg

It's a pretty unforgiving object, it was slippery around the exit point because of the morning dew, and it has loose stones around.

The face of the cliff is pretty rough with lots of sharp points protruding, which is why it gives me the eeebie jeebies.

Beer Head 9.JPG

The first jumps were done by 6:15am but then Nick (one of the jumpers) had a second rig and wanted to jump again.

Beer Head 3.JPG

Nick 2nd lob off Beer Head.JPG

Apologies for the poor quality photos but back in 2009 we didn't have smart phones, and the other ground crewer on the edge of the cliff taking video and stills with a decent camera managed to over write everything he had shot by mistake.

People have caught a cold on Beer Head before. I have heard of two instances through friends, of people getting an off-heading and ending up stuck and hanging off the cliff part the way down.

It's not an object I would rush to jump off in my personal opinion, but if I am in the area I will size it up and make a call then.

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