Welcome to the new BASEClimb website! Glenn and I very excited about the entirely revamped look and functionality of the site.

In 2000, when the original BASEClimb site went up, our budget didn’t allow for professional design so I became web master, designer and writer but I always felt limited by my lack of time and skill.  Back then I was not only a beginning skydiver, climber and later BASEjumper, I was a novice with web software, and I felt it showed. I did get better at all those things and subsequently the site has had many incarnations, each better than the last, but still short of my aspirations.  Despite this we have many loyal visitors so this year I felt it was time to deliver them a better experience so I outsourced the website to experts. While our main goal for the site has always been our desire to share our experiences and knowledge and ultimately to inspire others to follow their own dreams, how we do that is important too.  I think Jon and his team at Bergen Blue have delivered a clean, visually pleasing, easy to navigate site. I’m happy with it and I hope you are too.

Other than our wonderful new look site Glenn and I have been focused on this year’s mantra ‘finish the book, finish the film’.

We often ask ourselves, why is it taking so long? With the book, it’s been about creating the best experience I can for my readers.  I wanted to transport them into the experience, make them a part of it, have them see and feel what I was seeing and feeling and understand the big questions - why and how?   Trying to achieve that has been an exciting challenge every bit as big as jumping off Mt Meru in India. I’m happy the result is the best I can do right now, which is all I ever ask of myself, do the best you can with what you have now.   I also had the benefit of an excellent editor, Brooke Clark, at The Five Mile Press, who saw things in the text that I could not and asked for more detail where it was warranted. So as of yesterday the manuscript for ‘No Ceiling’ is complete. The finished book is due out in August this year and will also benefit from the superb photographic skills of our friend, Kiwi adventure photographer Graeme Murray, who took the cover shot.

As for the documentary, Glenn is putting his heart and soul into making it as compelling as 52 minutes can be. He has the same aspirations as I did for the book, especially transporting the viewer into the experience and answering their most common question - why? Why would you jump off a 6672 metre mountain?  We think the book and the film, which is also due out in August will answer that question.

Apart from this and our speaking presentations,  2009 has been dominated by my eye injury. In January while filming for the documentary I tore the retina of my right eye. I had surgery to reattach it and after nursing it for 7 weeks it came off a second time, pulled off by contracting scar tissue from the first operation. Four weeks after the second surgery, swelling and scarring required yet another more extensive operation. One frustrating week of doing absolutely nothing later, I had a forth operation and I’m hoping this and the subsequent period of recovery will close a very difficult chapter, one that has taught me how precious health and wholeness are.

Sight is such a precious thing and I admit that until it was in jeopardy I had taken it mostly for granted.  Not anymore. I’m very grateful to Glenn for his tireless and patient support, to Dr. Alex Hunyor for not giving up on me and also to the staff at Dalcross Private Hospital eye unit especially Mary and the irrepressible Trevor Wilson (for making me laugh and not bruising me).

While all this has been going on I have been grounded. No flying my wingsuit. This has been really tough. No wingsuiting and not much running  is challenging my usual positive state of mind. Luckily I have my family, my dogs (who know something is not right and follow me everywhere I go) and my horses to cheer me up.

Sam De Brito goes climbing with Glenn

Glenn has kept busy and recently took  journalist, Sam De Brito, climbing for a segment on the Sydney Morning Herald website - ‘Death Defying Doctor Takes the Leap’.  Sam wrote in his blog some controversial remarks about parents and adventure which attracted a shrill response from the ‘once you’re a parent you should devote your life entirely to your kids’ devotees. Glenn and I no longer have small children, mine are adults and his are in their mid-teens. We also don’t have any children together so much of the outcry was misplaced. Still I found it fascinating that so many people have the time and the energy to so vehemently criticise people they don’t know and a situation they know nothing about. It seems most people have forgotten ‘Live and Let Live’, ‘People in Glass Houses’, ‘He who casts the first stone’ etc. By their rationale, once you are a parent you should wrap yourself in cotton wool and forget living your own life or following your own dreams - you exist only to look after your children.  They also seem to have forgotten that no matter how careful you are, you will still die sooner or later.  We think children benefit from having parents who are engaged in life and passionate about their own dreams. We also feel  its best to equip our children to be strong, independent and responsible, with or without us.

You can see the video piece here.

Blue skies

Heather

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 at 10:34 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.