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Thursday, July 31, 2008
JT Holmes Trip Report to Norway 2008
JT Holmes sent out this story to all his sponsors and it's a great read about his adventures.......
Trip Report Norway 08
I just returned from my 7 weeks in Norway. This is a trip report to share some of the highlights and to show some of the images and video clips from Norwegian.
Stryn is the summer ski mecca of Norway, plus it offers surfing nearby and amazing base-jumping. I was hosted by a local legend by the name of Even Flo. We had a really cool mission recon-ing a new wall called Bodalsfjellet. We contacted a local 60-something year old mountain guru for some beta about the place. He is a lifelong mountain guide and even the queen of Norway’s personal guide. He gave us some information and we were on our way with a map and a half a clue. One of the attached pictures cracks me up. Even is holding the map and pointing in one direction, while, Espen is searching the terrain for a route in a completely different direction with a very confused look on his face. The hike took us through beautiful terrain. We were surrounded by glaciers and crossed a big glacier plateau to reach the deep intimidating gorge, which was our wingsuit flight. The gorge is narrow and very long and you simply must fly it all the way out. The wall is not clean, it has ledges all over it, but in the spot that we cleaned off and established as the exit it is actually quite adequate.
It was the beginning of summer and I had spent most of late spring skiing rather than jumping and I just did not feel quite up for it. I watched Espen and Tom Erik take it down and then walked to the opposite side of the glacier with Even and Kristen Reagan where we ground launched our parachutes paraglider style and floated down to the valley below. This was a fun adventure in itself, and it saved us hours of walking. We had no idea how far we would glide or where we would be able to land. It all worked out and after a 3 minute parachute ride and 20 minutes of untangling Kristen Reagan’s parachute from the tree he landed in, we were on our way to celebrate a successful exploration with some beers and a hot tub at the top of a mountain. Three days later and after few terrain flights, I marched back up to the Bodalsfjellet with Espen, flew the canyon, had a great experience and vowed that when Shane showed up I would take him up there to fly it. In flying it I learned that the canyon is very deep, with the walls closing tighter and tighter towards the bottom, so the lower you are, the more intensely visual it is. As long as you don’t freak out due to the view of the canyon walls ripping past very nearby on both sides, and just continue to fly, you will make it out. Admittedly, during seconds 5 through 8 of the jump I about lost it. You see the canyon walls engulf you on all sides, even in the front, and think to yourself “holy shit! What have I done?!” Then you start to fly and the same walls that rose up in your peripheral vision start to appear to lower themselves down as you gain flight and altitude off of the canyon floor. The Bodalsfjellet is a high quality flight; 1600 vertical meters of epic flying terrain with a breathtaking 3-3.5 hour approach.
Next, we went to Voss for the Ekstremsportveko, or Extreme Sport Week. This is a gathering of all sports and it is a really great format. Everyday people go off into the mountains and do their thing. Skiing, Mountain biking, BMX, paragliding, Base jumping, skydiving, climbing, kayaking, skateboarding… in the evening you submit your personal video tapes and the Veko editing crew edits together the Daily Video. Everyone meets in a massive event tent around 9pm and watches the daily video on the massive screen, and then the live music takes the stage. It never gets dark in Norway in June and that adds to the atmosphere. One day of the week is dedicated to each sport and Veko provides a helicopter for filming or accessing the mountains and they send their camera crews as well. Lots of rad footage is captured and shared and it is one big party. Here is footage from the BASE day at Voss. I am seen a few times in my red wingsuit. I am the guy flying past the massive Norwegian flag with smoke on my foot. http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/klipp/383797
The Freeride skiing competition at Veko was cancelled due to lack of snow on the competition venue, but we were still hell bent on finding some good skiing. I met up with Fred Syverson and Kjetil Isaksen and we set our sights on a pretty cool mountain. The NRK news crew once again was keen to document it, and they sent a very fit filmer with us and told us that when we reached the top, we should radio in the helicopter to film it. We hiked initially in shoes for about 500 vertical meters and 4 or 5 km of approach. Then we stopped at the base of the snow, picked lines, booted up and hiked straight up the mountain another 600 meters or so. We reached the top during a lengthy alpenglow sunset and called in the heli. The snow was insane. Firm and carvey up top and like butter down low. It was perfect. I could not believe how good it felt to ski that one high-speed backcountry run. It was partly because we had earned it with the hike, partly because of the beautiful surroundings and sunset, but mostly because of the bitchin terrain and cool lines that we were able to ski really fast. Even if I had brought my skis and boots all the way to Norway just to ski that one run alone, it would have been totally worth it. NRK aired it on TV the following night and I thought it captured the moment pretty well. A shortened version is still online at: http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/klipp/383299
With Shane in town now, for just a couple of weeks we got right into a groove of long hikes and big mountain wingsuit flights. It was our norm to hike 900 to 1600 vertical meters every single day. We kept this up for stretch of about 14 days of stable weather. One day, on about the biggest hike of the trip, Shane got me with the oldest one in the book. Before the hike, when I was not looking, he stuffed a rock the size of a melon in my backpack. It was not until we stopped for lunch after hiking a full 1200 vertical meters when I finally found it. I knew my backpack felt heavier than usual and I had this uncomfortable lump pressing into my back, but I somehow dismissed it. That fucker! I never did get him back for that one.
Around the 7th of July it was time for us to get to Romsdalen for the World Base Race and between me, Cliff Ryder and Shane, my ski gear, Cliffs paraglider, all of our clothes and parachutes we were a junkshow. Fortuitously, we were able to rent an absolutely hideous jalopy from a friend of a friend and we were on our way. American style and that was certainly not a compliment. It ran, the doors locked securing our stuff and it got us to Romsdalen just in time for the race.
Nobody knew what to expect at the 1st annual World Base Race. It is head to head duals format. One jumper races another to the finish line. The finish line is a road at the bottom of the mountain where judges decide who crossed first. You can cross the finish line at any altitude. This was an awesome learning experience. Just the nature of being in a head to head competition made you learn to get your suit flying quickly and to go fast and hard all the way to the finish line. I went up against two strong flyers in my first couple competition heats and was not in the comp for long before getting eliminated in a very close race. The race was dominated by the Vampire wingsuit. I fly an S fly, which is smaller, more agile and easier to run with, land with and open your parachute with. I love my suit and it is a popular one. I was proud to be amongst the very fastest times that the comp saw out of S-fly flyers, and it was fun to give Livia Dickie a run for her money in her Vampire and then laugh off all the remarks I received for getting eliminated by a girl. We had a fan club of some very cute little local girls, and the weather was perfect. Shane managed to get 2nd place and go home with some bragging rights and some cash. Lucky for him he never got seated against me in a heat or he would have been D-U-N done! Here is a shot of me crossing the finish line at WBR: http://www.photoshelter.com/gallery-img-show?G_ID=G0000kM93VkqxBc0&V_ID=&P_ID=&start=91&pagtotal=100
After the race I stayed in the Romsdalen area, which has incredible mountains and a very active community of mountain enthusiasts. We jumped a lot of mountains, but Romsdalshorn became a new favorite. Romsdalshorn is one of the proudest rock formations in the area. It stands alone and tall a bit like half dome. The flight is 1500 meters and the approach is 1.5 to 2 hours of steep scrambling and rock climbing. It is just scary enough to keep you on your toes. It makes the journey fun instead of just a hike, it is refreshing to use your whole body for going up rather than just your legs, and Romsdalshorn is a committing session. If you go up there with a parachute instead of a rope, then there is only one way down.
I was able to leave town on a really high note. I opened a new site on a wall off of the Hornaksla. It was scary and fun and rewarding and I wrote a separate story/ account of that journey, and I may post it on www.portertahoe.com in the near future. It is a cool gesture to do research and spend time exploring and opening a new site. The effort is all just to provide a piece of beta as simple as “yea, that place is fun.” It gives something back to all your friends that have showed you all the cool spots for jumping around the playground that is Mother Earth. I flew home really stoked and in really good shape. Norway is a beautiful country with active people of all ages enjoying the mountains, even the news journalists seemed to think nothing of lugging a massive HD camera 1000 meters up a mountain. Here is another piece they did one day in Stryn: http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/klipp/383273
I want to give a special thanks for all my friends that showed me around Norway and to my sponsors for helping make the trip happen. Thank you all and thanks for looking at my trip report!
-jt Holmes
Trip Report Norway 08
I just returned from my 7 weeks in Norway. This is a trip report to share some of the highlights and to show some of the images and video clips from Norwegian.
Stryn is the summer ski mecca of Norway, plus it offers surfing nearby and amazing base-jumping. I was hosted by a local legend by the name of Even Flo. We had a really cool mission recon-ing a new wall called Bodalsfjellet. We contacted a local 60-something year old mountain guru for some beta about the place. He is a lifelong mountain guide and even the queen of Norway’s personal guide. He gave us some information and we were on our way with a map and a half a clue. One of the attached pictures cracks me up. Even is holding the map and pointing in one direction, while, Espen is searching the terrain for a route in a completely different direction with a very confused look on his face. The hike took us through beautiful terrain. We were surrounded by glaciers and crossed a big glacier plateau to reach the deep intimidating gorge, which was our wingsuit flight. The gorge is narrow and very long and you simply must fly it all the way out. The wall is not clean, it has ledges all over it, but in the spot that we cleaned off and established as the exit it is actually quite adequate.
It was the beginning of summer and I had spent most of late spring skiing rather than jumping and I just did not feel quite up for it. I watched Espen and Tom Erik take it down and then walked to the opposite side of the glacier with Even and Kristen Reagan where we ground launched our parachutes paraglider style and floated down to the valley below. This was a fun adventure in itself, and it saved us hours of walking. We had no idea how far we would glide or where we would be able to land. It all worked out and after a 3 minute parachute ride and 20 minutes of untangling Kristen Reagan’s parachute from the tree he landed in, we were on our way to celebrate a successful exploration with some beers and a hot tub at the top of a mountain. Three days later and after few terrain flights, I marched back up to the Bodalsfjellet with Espen, flew the canyon, had a great experience and vowed that when Shane showed up I would take him up there to fly it. In flying it I learned that the canyon is very deep, with the walls closing tighter and tighter towards the bottom, so the lower you are, the more intensely visual it is. As long as you don’t freak out due to the view of the canyon walls ripping past very nearby on both sides, and just continue to fly, you will make it out. Admittedly, during seconds 5 through 8 of the jump I about lost it. You see the canyon walls engulf you on all sides, even in the front, and think to yourself “holy shit! What have I done?!” Then you start to fly and the same walls that rose up in your peripheral vision start to appear to lower themselves down as you gain flight and altitude off of the canyon floor. The Bodalsfjellet is a high quality flight; 1600 vertical meters of epic flying terrain with a breathtaking 3-3.5 hour approach.
Next, we went to Voss for the Ekstremsportveko, or Extreme Sport Week. This is a gathering of all sports and it is a really great format. Everyday people go off into the mountains and do their thing. Skiing, Mountain biking, BMX, paragliding, Base jumping, skydiving, climbing, kayaking, skateboarding… in the evening you submit your personal video tapes and the Veko editing crew edits together the Daily Video. Everyone meets in a massive event tent around 9pm and watches the daily video on the massive screen, and then the live music takes the stage. It never gets dark in Norway in June and that adds to the atmosphere. One day of the week is dedicated to each sport and Veko provides a helicopter for filming or accessing the mountains and they send their camera crews as well. Lots of rad footage is captured and shared and it is one big party. Here is footage from the BASE day at Voss. I am seen a few times in my red wingsuit. I am the guy flying past the massive Norwegian flag with smoke on my foot. http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/klipp/383797
The Freeride skiing competition at Veko was cancelled due to lack of snow on the competition venue, but we were still hell bent on finding some good skiing. I met up with Fred Syverson and Kjetil Isaksen and we set our sights on a pretty cool mountain. The NRK news crew once again was keen to document it, and they sent a very fit filmer with us and told us that when we reached the top, we should radio in the helicopter to film it. We hiked initially in shoes for about 500 vertical meters and 4 or 5 km of approach. Then we stopped at the base of the snow, picked lines, booted up and hiked straight up the mountain another 600 meters or so. We reached the top during a lengthy alpenglow sunset and called in the heli. The snow was insane. Firm and carvey up top and like butter down low. It was perfect. I could not believe how good it felt to ski that one high-speed backcountry run. It was partly because we had earned it with the hike, partly because of the beautiful surroundings and sunset, but mostly because of the bitchin terrain and cool lines that we were able to ski really fast. Even if I had brought my skis and boots all the way to Norway just to ski that one run alone, it would have been totally worth it. NRK aired it on TV the following night and I thought it captured the moment pretty well. A shortened version is still online at: http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/klipp/383299
With Shane in town now, for just a couple of weeks we got right into a groove of long hikes and big mountain wingsuit flights. It was our norm to hike 900 to 1600 vertical meters every single day. We kept this up for stretch of about 14 days of stable weather. One day, on about the biggest hike of the trip, Shane got me with the oldest one in the book. Before the hike, when I was not looking, he stuffed a rock the size of a melon in my backpack. It was not until we stopped for lunch after hiking a full 1200 vertical meters when I finally found it. I knew my backpack felt heavier than usual and I had this uncomfortable lump pressing into my back, but I somehow dismissed it. That fucker! I never did get him back for that one.
Around the 7th of July it was time for us to get to Romsdalen for the World Base Race and between me, Cliff Ryder and Shane, my ski gear, Cliffs paraglider, all of our clothes and parachutes we were a junkshow. Fortuitously, we were able to rent an absolutely hideous jalopy from a friend of a friend and we were on our way. American style and that was certainly not a compliment. It ran, the doors locked securing our stuff and it got us to Romsdalen just in time for the race.
Nobody knew what to expect at the 1st annual World Base Race. It is head to head duals format. One jumper races another to the finish line. The finish line is a road at the bottom of the mountain where judges decide who crossed first. You can cross the finish line at any altitude. This was an awesome learning experience. Just the nature of being in a head to head competition made you learn to get your suit flying quickly and to go fast and hard all the way to the finish line. I went up against two strong flyers in my first couple competition heats and was not in the comp for long before getting eliminated in a very close race. The race was dominated by the Vampire wingsuit. I fly an S fly, which is smaller, more agile and easier to run with, land with and open your parachute with. I love my suit and it is a popular one. I was proud to be amongst the very fastest times that the comp saw out of S-fly flyers, and it was fun to give Livia Dickie a run for her money in her Vampire and then laugh off all the remarks I received for getting eliminated by a girl. We had a fan club of some very cute little local girls, and the weather was perfect. Shane managed to get 2nd place and go home with some bragging rights and some cash. Lucky for him he never got seated against me in a heat or he would have been D-U-N done! Here is a shot of me crossing the finish line at WBR: http://www.photoshelter.com/gallery-img-show?G_ID=G0000kM93VkqxBc0&V_ID=&P_ID=&start=91&pagtotal=100
After the race I stayed in the Romsdalen area, which has incredible mountains and a very active community of mountain enthusiasts. We jumped a lot of mountains, but Romsdalshorn became a new favorite. Romsdalshorn is one of the proudest rock formations in the area. It stands alone and tall a bit like half dome. The flight is 1500 meters and the approach is 1.5 to 2 hours of steep scrambling and rock climbing. It is just scary enough to keep you on your toes. It makes the journey fun instead of just a hike, it is refreshing to use your whole body for going up rather than just your legs, and Romsdalshorn is a committing session. If you go up there with a parachute instead of a rope, then there is only one way down.
I was able to leave town on a really high note. I opened a new site on a wall off of the Hornaksla. It was scary and fun and rewarding and I wrote a separate story/ account of that journey, and I may post it on www.portertahoe.com in the near future. It is a cool gesture to do research and spend time exploring and opening a new site. The effort is all just to provide a piece of beta as simple as “yea, that place is fun.” It gives something back to all your friends that have showed you all the cool spots for jumping around the playground that is Mother Earth. I flew home really stoked and in really good shape. Norway is a beautiful country with active people of all ages enjoying the mountains, even the news journalists seemed to think nothing of lugging a massive HD camera 1000 meters up a mountain. Here is another piece they did one day in Stryn: http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/klipp/383273
I want to give a special thanks for all my friends that showed me around Norway and to my sponsors for helping make the trip happen. Thank you all and thanks for looking at my trip report!
-jt Holmes
Labels: base Jmping, JT Holmes, Shane McKonkey, Veko, Wing suits
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