Crazy week in Switzerland, 20.-28.8.2011

Crazy week in Switzerland, 20.-28.8.2011

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I was thinking about going to the famous Mountain Gravity boogie for a couple of years, but I never had a chance to participate due to some competitions, flying, school or whatever reason, but this year it has finally changed! When my freefly students and great friends from Switzerland visited me at Cypres boogie in Prostejov, they started talking about going to this boogie and ask me to do some coaching over there. It didn't take too long (about 5minutes ;) and I just get online and bought the flight ticket to Zurich and the decision was done! I AM COMING!

 

Few weeks later, Thursday morning, Patrick and Ivonne pick me up at ZRH airport and first day we spend with little bit of sightseeing in Zurich, super nice weather, very clean city and I was especially impressed with the super clean water at the Lake Zurich. In the evening we are having nice barbecue with Michael and Rolf, friends I haven't seen for a long time since the last time we jumped in Spain together.
Day number two was supposed to be sightseeing in Bern, but we stopped on the way there on a little dz with Pilatus Porter, unfortunatelly they didn't jump on Friday ;( We continue to the capital city of Switzerland. Again very very nice day and afternoon we cool down jumping in to the river. On the way back we try to stop at Beromunster DZ, but we are already late for the sunset load, so no jumps today...

Now lets get back to the 3D part of the trip, Saturday morning we finally arrived at Ambri, little dropzone in the valley in between the mountains. We all register and fill in some necessary forms for participating the boogie, went through the safety briefing and we arrange our luxury accomodation - I set up military tent from Patrick and as soon as possible we go up in the sky for  3-way funjump, with my favourite dropping plane Beech 99! The airport elevation is 1000m, but we are still climbing to 4000m above the ground level. The weather is nice, I am curious how will fly my JVX66 at this elevation, but I find out very soon that it actually doesn't feel as such a big difference. After few slightly higher "safe" set ups I do my 270°turn almost from the same altitude as usually, it flies stable and nice and everything feels great. The beautiful view over the mountains is filling me up with energy and good mood as everybody who is jumping here. The boogie has a really nice mood and people just seem to be happy!

Next day we want to start swooping the mountains, but the wind is kind of strong, so the mountain is closed for non-crossbraced canopies. I am waiting to go to the mountains with my friends, as we get together the so called VIRGIN TICKETS and as they don’t fly crossbraced canopies it means we have to wait for a little bit in order to be devirginized all together ;)

That happens the next day, nice no wind conditions in the morning and we all go together with leader of our group Tim Porter. Tim shows me some pictures of the valley we should fly in and warns me that may be I will have to go in front of him with my little canopy and have to land first, so I really make sure I can recognize the landing area and our way to go in the mountains. I feel little bit nervous in the plane, it doesn’t look like we have a lot of emergency landing areas and I better try not to think what would I do in case I need to cutaway, as my baby JVX would be most definitely lost forever ;( 

I look out of the plane and it looks kind of crazy, mountains everywhere, I exit second right after Tim, pull, nice straight opening feels good and try to fly as slow as possible to stay with the group. All works fine, Tim is a perfect leader and I follow him, not as low and deep for the first one I am being more on a safe side and little conservative. The view is amazing! I am approaching the landing area next to the fuel station and I finally understand the recommendation written in big letters on the manifest trailer: DON’T GO FOR A BIGGER TURN, YOUR ARMS WILL BE TIRED… I was thinking: what??… But I see that it is really true and the warning was really helfull ;)

Next jump we cant do anything else than swoop the mountain again, we are able to go on our own after the first run, so I am leading my group this time. Lets make it challenging! ;) After few mountain swoops we are getting tired and also the wind picks up a little bit so it is time to do some vertical jumps.

Little bit of headdown coaching for Patrick and Rolf, jump pack, jump pack and the day is done. I feel so good!

Next day I wake up and the weather is perfect again, as always Patrick is already awake and starts screaming: FIRST LOAD, FIRST LOAD! After few jumps my friends are teling me it is too hot and they are getting tired from my drilling and that they will take me to a nice river and we will swim and have some fun on the 2D level. They are also talking about some jumping from the bridge, but I don’t take it seriously and start looking forward to see some nice new places in Switzerland. About an hour of drive we are there. They say that first we must go to their favourite bar and drink some wine, because othervise we couldn’t jump, ok ;)

Than it comes, I see the bridge we are going to jump! It is incredibly dangerous-looking crazy bridge. I was told that everybody jumps there, but I actually see down there hundreds of people sunbathing on the stones but nobody is jumping at all.

We start with the wine program and I start feeling really scared, I don’t know why I am not thinking if I should go or not, I just know that I will go, but I don’t know how am I going to do it as I have never jumped into water higher than one meter ever in my life. They are only making fun of me and my scared looking “bridge face” and keep saying it will be all good.

To make the long story short, about half hour later I am standing there on the 15m high bridge with Patric and some strange big black guy holding my hands and I start counting READY, SET, GO…and I JUMP! The lowest altitude I have ever jumped was feeling like the biggest adrenaline in my life! No main parachute, no reserve, just crazy! I am totally amazed by this crazy feeling and I must do it again. After 2 jumps I feel totally drugged with adrenaline and we drive back to the dropzone! I thank you again my bridge coaches for this perfect experience ;)

It seems like my stay in Switzerland is just every day getting better and better and next day is my freestyle day. Tim comes to me: "Hey freestyler, we must do a jump! Next load" ;)

I can't wait to do this, Tim is such a perfect flyer (15 000+ jumps)! I really expected a nice jump, but what we did was EVEN BETTER!

That was my best jump of the year, not only the freefall part of it was completely perfect, but also my landing and the final turn was so nice!

As everything nice also the Mountaing Gravity boogie passed quick, next couple of days of freeflying, swooping the mountain and sunbathing went by and all of a sudden I have to go back home and teach another First Solo Jump class in Prague straight next day... I have to admit LIFE IS GOOD!

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At the end of the story I would like to thank to everybody for nice jumps during the boogie, great dropzone organisation and a lot of fun. I hope to see you soon somewhere in the air guys, by than you are welcome to come and fly with me in Prague! ;)