As promised, here is part 2.
To be fair, I hope this part interests you more than the set up.
Okay. As first time jumpers, we were both going in tandem with an experienced skydiver. Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures of this, but basically it involves wearing a harness that goes over the shoulders, around the legs, and around the waist. That harness clips on in several places to a similar harness (with parachute) that the experienced guy is wearing. After being suited up we crammed into a small plane with a seat for the pilot and barely enough spaces for the four of us.
Monica and I were warned that the plane would take about 30 minutes to get up to 10,000 feet. In the little plane, you could really feel the wind tossing it around.
The trip up provided a great view of the national park below us. Had the fear of an impending jump not been on my mind, it would have been a scenic trip. After about 25 minutes, I looked at the altimeter on my guy’s wrist and it read about 9,000 feet. We were close. Then all of the sudden, Monica’s guy opened the plane’s hatch and the cold air rushed in. She stuck her legs out and then she was gone.
I was up next. When the hatch pops open, it gets loud inside the plane. It’s already loud because the engine is literally a few yards away, but with the air blowing by its twice as loud. My skydiver and I creep toward the door. Finally, I get close enough to stick my legs out onto a little step, one foot at a time. I can feel the diver behind me doing the same. The experience stands out in my mind in a way that is hard to imagine. Of the total skydiving process, sitting in the door way strikes me the most. It is incredibly surreal. Having no control over the timing of the jump, I was powerless to reverse my course. The mix of adrenaline and fear is familiar to anyone who has done any sort of extreme sport or somewhat-dangerous sport (skiing/snowboarding included).
Then we were out and falling. The fall is completely different than what I imagined. The sense of freefall and stomach jumping wasn’t there. It was loud and cold, but the fall was a huge rush, so much adrenaline falling to the ground. The speed of the fall creates a sort of wind cushion underneath you that honestly feels unreal. Although you are falling, there is this resistance guiding you down to the ground.
After a little more than 30 seconds, he pulled the chute and we were calming sailing down. The chute going off was somewhat jarring, but most likely because I did not anticipate it. The ride down felt interesting because I did not have a sense of the ground rushing up toward me until about 100 feet off the ground. Until then everything is relatively so far away that it is difficult to distinguish from 5,000 and 2,500 feet off the ground (at least for me).
As we sailed down, I looked around for Monica below me, but did not see her. A few seconds of terror passed, then I looked up. Her chute was a little loftier and sailing down a bit slower. Finally, we made it down to the ground, landed safely, and he packed up the chute.
We had done it.
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