Lysefjorden, Norway

            Although the sun is blinding, reflecting off the snow and the ice that clings to this rock wall, it has no warmth.  My mitten is perched precariously on my left knee as my rapidly stiffening fingers fiddle with the controls on the video camera.  If the mitten falls, I’m screwed.  Another bout of frostbite would be a very bad, indeed.  I’m not sure I could get my right hand to ever work again.

            Somehow, Outside Magazine found me in Africa, lazing away the afternoons beside the Indian Ocean, and slipped me a ticket to Norway.  And an assignment to cover mankind’s latest evolution:  learning to fly.  I’m not talking about sleek, sci-fi rocket ships or the cumbersome, fixed-wing monstrosities we’ve all come to know and love and depend upon.  Not at all.  This is flat out, spread-your-arms-and-jump, swoop-and-dive, act-like-a-superhero, flying.  It’s sweet.  It’s elegant.  Don’t believe me?  Take a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SftUYBXiVS4       

           That was filmed in the summer.  I’ve spent loads of time around rock stars, revolutionaries, rugby players, alpine climbers, and assorted other dirt-bag monsters on assorted continents.  But these base jumpers are something special.  The next step of course, would be to land – to flare up at the last second and let the wind catch in your suit enough to slow your fall – without pulling the chute.  That’s the holy grail.  And that’s what I’m hoping to film as I sit here shivering in the morning sun waiting for the first of the jumpers to ski off the cliff that towers above me.

            Fortunately, the pouch that contained my ticket to Norway also held match film from Westlake’s first home match.  And speaking of flying high…from what I can tell the Chaps pulled off the unthinkable and stunned a strong Dallas Jesuit team last Friday night.  Hugh kudos to you lads.  Dallas Jesuit has a long and proud rugby tradition.  But it looks like you’re now forging your own.  Godspeed.

            I can see that the first jumper has now cleared the cliff so I have to put the recorder away.  There’s nothing but air beneath him now.  Skis are gone, falling on the wind back into the wall.  He’s flying now, scraping his fingernails against the stone and ice, screaming by me at terminal velocity.

Charles Vermont