Archive for the ‘Rappelling’ Category

Rappelling the New River Gorge Bridge

Monday, November 28th, 2011

As far as high adventure goes, leaping off the New River Gorge with a parachute attached to one’s back (aka BASE jumping) is about as extreme as it gets. Over 400 individuals take the plunge each Bridge Day.

But there’s another whole group of thrill seekers that use Bridge Day as a platform (no pun intended) to have their fun too. Rappelling on Bridge Day attracts almost as many participants as BASE jumping.  You may have seen these rappellers raising and lowering flags on Bridge Day.

Here’s the skinny on the rappelling on Bridge Day.

History of Rappelling on Bridge Day

Teams of Rappellers on Bridge Day

Bridge Day rappelling has been organized the same way for 20 years. Benjy Simpson has been the rappel coordinator since 1992 and has seen this part of the festival grow in popularity over the years.

In Benjy’s initial year of coordinating the event, there were 10 teams with 95 total rappellers. The event was opened to anyone who had rappelling experience and was a part of a team with the appropriate gear to participate.

Due to limited space the number of teams has remained capped at 25, but the number of people on each team has steadily risen. Most teams now have between 12 and 16 members.  A blind draw of the eligible teams determines rope positions, as the first position gets the longest rappel and ends up closest to the river.

2011 By The Numbers

Bridge Day 2011 had a total of 23 teams with 311 rappellers. They completed 860 rappels. Only 2009, when there were 25 teams that performed a total of 895 rappels, was larger.

Other Facts

According to registration records, almost a third of the rappel participants each year are first-time Bridge Day rappellers.  The youngest ever participant was 14 and the oldest was 81. These folks have come from approximately 35 different states and 6 different countries.

Benjy relies on a team of volunteers to assist him in putting this event together. Close to 60 people assist in everything, from being part of a safety team to taking registrations and making sure all participants are informed and taken care of while they rappel. Safety is a main priority,  and there has only been one injury in 20 years (in 2002).

The rappel team keeps 2 ropes available just for people who desire to ascend back up from the bottom. These participants must also have their own approved gear; the average ascent takes around 45 minutes. Teams are welcome to ascend their own ropes, but due to time constraints most people use the designated ropes instead.

This feat isn’t for everyone, and the numbers prove it. There were 74 ascents in 2008, 48 in 2010 and 30 on Bridge Day 2011.

Do you want to go ‘on rope’ next Bridge Day?

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31st Annual Bridge Day is a Wrap

Wednesday, October 20th, 2010

It was an adrenaline and funnel-cake filled day for the 363 jumpers and more than 100,000+ (very conservative estimate) spectators who lined the New River Gorge Bridge on Saturday.

Bridge Day Subaru

Bridge Day Presented by Subaru

Temperatures brought a morning chill to the parachutists lining up as early as 6am, but that didn’t stop them from making more than 1,030 jumps by day’s end. The “Easter Pigs” once again joined the group of 363 jumpers as they launched occasional half-gainer into the morning fog that made spectators ooh and ahh.

Others tested their nerves a bit differently with rappelling 876 feet to the river below or taking to the highline to zip from the bridge. And for the first time more spots were available to take in the action below the bridge for a completely different perspective. And what a perspective that was. The Hometown Subaru shuttles were a hit, watch for them again next year.

The “Pick Up Guys“, our river and rescue experts, had a busy day with helping some 102 free-fallers out of the water but overall the day was full of standing ovations as many started off their jumps with craziness but ended perfectly with landings squarely on the Landing Zone.

On the bridge, spectators picked up WV made items, learned more about WV Tourism, got free stuff from Subaru (the festival’s main sponsor) and gorged on fajitas to funnel cakes. (No pun intended. Well…maybe a little.)

If you missed Bridge Day or missed bringing your camera, check out all the images from your fellow bridge goers on Flickr. And stay tuned. We’re already dreaming up ideas for Bridge Day 2011…

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Ever Wonder What Happens Under the Bridge?

Saturday, October 16th, 2010

Ever live in an apartment where you can hear the folks which live down below? You can often hear them, but you have no idea what they are doing down there. Same thing happens right here on the Bridge.

Benjy Simpson

Benjy Simpson

Most associate Bridge Day with the vendors, the views and of course the jumpers.

However, there is an entire army of rappellers under the Bridge, doing some very exciting things.

Thursday
For Benjy Simpson, entering his 19th year as Bridge Day Rappel co-coordinator, the preparation for Bridge Day begins on Thursday. Known, respectfully as the “Troll Beneath the Bridge”, Benjy organizes and manages nearly all aspects of the “under the bridge” portion of Bridge Day. It’s quite the responsibility and there is no one better for the job.

Carefully he and his team (holla’ XTR!) rig ropes and braces using knowledge, surgical precision and a variety of knots and attachments.

They prepare the locations for the teams to skillfully slide down rope more than 800 feet.

Friday

On Rope

On Rope

Continued rigging and preparation of Bridge Day highline. Checking, double checking and checking again.
It’s an amazing site to watch this aspect of preparation and watching the team maneuver across beams and perched precariously some 850′ above the river below is enough to make you dizzy. Really dizzy.

Saturday
It’s time to play. Safe. The legions of rappellers, comprising the teams selected via lottery, scurry below the deck of the bridge to prepare for the day. Most try to make as many trips as possible. It is a unique opportunity.

On Saturday at 8:30 am, before the Bridge is open to the general public, a series of flags is raised by a team ascending one of the lines. An United States Flag, a West Virginia flag and a National Park Service Flag all are raised to celebrate the start of the day. At 3 pm, they are lowered signifying the conclusion of another Bridge Day.

While all the action above and on the Bridge is fun and exciting, there is also plenty going on below.

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BASE Jumping, Highlining, Zipping…What the heck is the difference?

Tuesday, September 28th, 2010

Bridge Day for the adventure-goer is all about adrenaline. But if you’re new to the festival or just like to the last time you got your heart beating was on the teacups – all the opportunities at Bridge Day may be confusing.

So here’s the 411 on all the heart-pumping stuff we have going on:

BASE Jumping
This is the coup de gras of adventure sports. The biggest rush you can get. And BASE jumpers take their love for flying high to the New River Gorge one time a year on Bridge Day.

BASE stands for Building, Antenna, Span, and Earth. BASE jumpers leap from any and all of these four fixed objects with parachutes designed specifically for rapid deployment. It’s known around the world as the most extreme of extreme sports.

Bridge Day Flags

Bridge Day Flags

To be a BASE jumper, it takes parachuting experience, and of course guts. You can’t just walk up and decide to parachute off a bridge. This takes some advance coordination. You can however watch until your heart is content.

Highlining
Being on the Bridge Day highline may conjure images of ladies swinging from a circus high wire. Well, this is nothing like that. Highlining on Bridge Day is ziplining – from the Bridge down some 700 feet. And it’s fun.

Bungee Jumping
Try again. We’re like way freaking high in the air and have steel beams all around us. We’re all for adventure, but are you crazy?

Rappelling
Fixed ropes under the bridge’s catwalk provide an opportunity for teams of rappellers to descend (and ascend) throughout the day. Teams for rappelling are selected by a lottery system each June, but watching is open to everyone.

Skydiving
Tri-State Skydivers, owned by Bridge Day BASE jumper Larry LeMaster (you have surely seen Larry jump in with the giant American Flag!), is bringing skydiving for experienced and inexperienced jumpers to Bridge Day (October 12-18) at the New River Gorge Airport (3 miles Northeast of the New River Gorge Bridge). They’ll have a Cessna 182 and tandem skydives will be available for those wanting to make their first skydive (no experience required). Prices are $250 for tandems (reservations require a $50 deposit). If you contact Larry early, tandems are only $210. Video of your jump is also available. You can also contact Larry Lemaster at (740)894-JUMP(5867) with your questions. There will also be tandem jumping at Fayette Airport (NOT parachuting from the Bridge) on the South Side of the New River Gorge provided by West Virginia Skydivers.

Do you have your license to chill or a need for speed? No matter, Bridge Day will offer you a bit of both in just 18 days.

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A Marriage Consumation

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

On Bridge Day morning in 2007, she walked out onto the catwalk completely unsuspecting that her future husband would be standing there waiting for her with a ring in his hand. TiNy Manke got on his knees, in one of their favorite places, surrounded by some of their closest friends, and asked NikKy to marry him. That is by far one of the most romantic proposals I have ever witnessed.

Tiny and Nikky - Bridge Day

Tiny and Nikky - Bridge Day

The following September, they were married during the huge caving event down in TAG (Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia) Country, and it had all the glamour and beauty one could imagine with flowing gowns, flowers and beautiful tuxes.

But, according to the newly weds, the marriage wasn’t consummated until they had rapped down and climbed back up the 700+ feet of rope during Bridge Day, 2008. Talk about your ultimate marriage ceremony.

And as for Bridge Day, 2009, the couple will be taking their usual places at each of the V-Bats rappelling stations, now a happily married couple still doing one of their favorite things, in one of their favorite places with some of their favorite people in the world.

Special Guest Post By:

Wendy Williams, 2009

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The Cat’s Meow – The Catwalk

Thursday, October 15th, 2009
The Author Wendy Williams

The Author Wendy Williams

I thought I was the cat’s meow until I walked on the catwalk and found out what the cat was meowing about.

It’s pretty cool to walk across the bridge while it’s shut down to motorized vehicles, but it’s even more cool to walk on that catwalk 800 feet above the river under the bridge.

If you get a chance to do the highline…do it. And even better, if you get a chance to be on a rappel team…do it. If it sounds exciting to ride a gradually, sloping rope about 700 feet to the ground on the highline, think about riding one about the same distance but straight down. Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about.

Special Guest Post By:

Wendy Williams, 2009

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The One-Eyed, One-Armed Rappeller

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009
phil-lilly-bd08

Phil Lilly a Bridge Day Inspiration

In 2007, Phil Lilly lost an eye, a hand and a few other body parts in a freak explosion while he was preparing chemicals for a fireworks display. It was a tragic accident that nearly took the life of him and his girlfriend.

Phil has been rappelling long ropes for some years now, and he was determined that a little thing like an eye and an arm missing would not hold him back. He worked hard during that year to fight his way back both mentally and physically. He had a goal. He was going to rappel the bridge in 2008. He practiced with his friends  at Extreme Rappels (XTR), and figured out ways to handle the long and complicated rappelling rack without fingers on one hand. He devised a system that would allow him to slow his pace or speed it up without having to move rack bars down with his fingers. Naturally, he also had to learn to balance and maneuver with only one eye.

At the XTR training session at Whitesides Mountain in the North Carolina Highlands a month before Bridge Day, he made the 600+ drop on rope, first tethered to another rappeller on the team, and eventually alone. With the exception of minor glitches, things looked pretty good, so he was set for the big day in October. Phil says he could never have made it that far without the help and moral support of all his XTR friends and teammates.

Bridge Day, 2008, arrived and Phil was put to the test. With nerves exploding and mind concentrating on the routines he had committed to muscle memory, surrounded by the team he knew he could count on, he clipped his safety to the 750-foot long rope, racked up his bars, released the safety and began to slide down the rope just as smoothly as could be imagined. He did it. He met his goal to rappel Bridge Day one year after the accident. How that is possible, I’ll never know.

I’ve told him before and I’ll say it again, he’s my hero.

Special Guest Post By:

Wendy Williams, 2009

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25 Teams Will Rappel On Bridge Day™

Saturday, June 20th, 2009

Benjy Simpson, the Bridge Day™ Rappel Coordinator, has announced that 25 teams have been selected to rappel off the New River Gorge Bridge on Bridge Day™. Bridge Day™ is Saturday, October 17.

Simpson says that, “Over three hundred rappellers will participate in rappelling off the New River Gorge Bridge this year. They will come from eighteen states, and there are two teams from Canada.”

This will be the 30th Bridge Day™ to commemorate the October 1977 completion of the New River Gorge Bridge. Bridge Day is West Virginia’s largest one day festival and is one of the Top 100 festivals in North America and Top 20 in the southeastern United States.

The New River Gorge Bridge is the 2nd longest single arch bridge in the world. It is the 2nd highest bridge in the United States. The New River Gorge Bridge is 876’ above the New River, the 2nd oldest river in the world.

Please visit www.bridgedayrappel.com for more information about the Bridge Day™ Rappel.

Benjy Simpson, Bridge Day™ Rappel Coordinator
Passages To Adventure
Post Office Box 71
Fayetteville, West Virginia 25840
304 574-1037
www.passagestoadventure.com
www.bridgedayrappel.com
Email benjy@passagestoadventure.com

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10 Alternate Names For Bridge Day

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

What’s Bridge Day?  The short answer is it’s the largest festival in West Virginia.

But it’s more than that, really.  Just saying “the largest festival…” leaves out the whole community feel of it.  The tradition.  The adrenaline.

Maybe if there were some more names for it, it would help describe everything that goes down…

  • “Y’all Are Crazy” Day- The big draw, of course, is BASE jumping off the New River Gorge Bridge.  If you don’t know, BASE is parachuting from a fixed object- in this case, a bridge.  A spectacle.
  • “I Can’t Eat Any More… Well, Okay” Day If there’s one thing you’ll find everywhere at Bridge Day, it’s food.  From the Pancake Breakfast in the morning to the Chili Cookoff that night, (and all day long, too) there’s plenty of grub.
  • “This Place Is Awesome” Day When you see the big crowd, and the jumpers, and the rafters and kayakers below, and the fall colors, all from this engineering marvel of a bridge, this is exactly what you’ll think.  Promise.
  • “I Do Need Some Art” Day We’re lucky to have some of the most talented artisans in the state come and set up shop.  Almost anywhere you go on Bridge day, there’s great art for browsing and for sale.
  • “We Need To Stay Another Day” Day There is no way to do everything you’d like to do in the New River Gorge in a day.  Rock climbing, mountain biking, horseback riding, fishing, ATVs, paintball, rafting, kayaking, and on and on.  Sorry about that.
  • “I Should Get A Motorcycle” Day It probably helps that Weest Virginia has more CRPC  (Curvy Roads Per Capita) than any other state.  Whatever it is, Bridge Day draws tons of bikes.
  • “I’ve Got To Show My Friends This” Day This year -the 30th anniversary- Bridge Day is full connected, online, and mobile. Text bd30 to 77007 to find out everything, and tag the stuff you share with #bridgeday or #bd30.
  • “I Could Get Used To This” Day The New River Gorge is the world’s greatest backyard, basically.  People move to this part of the Mountain State to turn life into serious play.
  • “Fat Guy With A Funnel Cake” Day Self-explanitory.
  • “We’re Definitely Doing This Again Next Year” Day If we renamed the festival after the phrase most often overhead at Bridge Day, this would be it.

It’s a lot of things.  More than anything, it’s fun.  And who are we to try to define fun, anyway?  We’ll just stick with Bridge Day.

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