If you feel compelled to embark upon a BASE journey, then The Great Book of BASE may serve as a crucial reference during your training and your BASE career. However, you can't learn to BASE jump from a book. Really, you can't. It would be ridiculous and completely stupid to try.
The path is not too long and not too complicated. It requires a bit of patience and a bit of training. First, you will need to learn how to skydive. People have skipped the skydiving step, but no one has ever claimed that it's a smart thing to do. Skydiving provides the foundation of canopy skills and freefall control that will be a part of every BASE jump that you make.
Skydiving can be expensive and inconvenient. You have to travel to a dropzone and pay for lessons. You'll then need to purchase skydiving equipment because you'll be doing more jumps than you'll want to do with rented equipment. And you'll have to pay for all of those jumps, of course...
But, the truth is that skydiving is a lot cheaper and easier than BASE jumping. If you think skydiving is expensive, wait until you want to travel thousands of miles to some of the world's best BASE sites. While it's easy to get 10 skydives in a day, you'll be lucky to get just 1 or 2 BASE jumps in a day, most of the time. So if the expense of skydiving is a turn off for you, then you're not ready to BASE jump, either.
BASE jumping requires a massive commitment in terms of time and energy and mental focus. Expect to dedicate your life to risking your life, and expect it to take up a huge amount of your time and energy.
The Steps:
1. Become an experienced and accomplished skydiver: This involves taking an AFF course from your local skydiving center (dropzone), and then making 150-250 skydives, or more.
2. Find a First Jump Course: The following BASE manufacturers offer excellent training:
www.asylumbase.com (USA & Europe); www.apexbase.com (USA); www.pressurized.at (Europe).
3. Find a Mentor: Once you have completed your First Jump Course, you still won't know enough to BASE jump safely on your own. It is very important to become a part of the BASE community and find people who will help you to begin your career safely. Expect to 'Groundcrew' for local BASE jumpers, which may entail helping them setup and execute BASE jumps, driving for them, or providing other logistical support.
4. Train consistently: BASE jumping makes a terrible part time sport. It is highly important to maintain a level of currency with skydiving and BASE jumping in order to jump safely.
5. Keep an open mind: You will learn something from every BASE jump and from every interaction with other BASE jumpers, if you allow yourself to learn. In BASE, knowledge is safety, and safety is life. Ignorance and complacency commonly result in death.
More details: base-book.com
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