Eugene Weekly : Feature : 6.2.11

Summer Guide 2011:

Take it to the River Inner tubes, cold water and hot daysû

Jump How does starting off your summer freefalling from 10,000 feet sound?

Five ways to not get bike-jacked this summer

Cool off with your brain off VI: Son of Sequelitis

Enter the Realmû Live your legend this summer at Faerieworldsû

South Eugene Farmers Marketû

Summer Guide Events Calendar

 

Jump

Courtesy Eugene Skydivers

Urban Moore, 62, owner and instructor at Eugene Skydivers, has logged more than 9,000 jumps. øStill here, havent died once,” he says. The Eugene Skydivers school in Creswell is not more than a 30-minute drive away from town. How does starting off your summer freefalling from 10,000 feet sound?

Youll need to call in advance; no walk-ins. After a 20-minute ground course at the school ‹ where you are taught how to move about inside the plane, the correct way to hook up and exit, the appropriate freefall position and how to land ‹ you will take off on your skydiving adventure.

Once you grow the courage to jump (tandem of course, as is the rule if you are jumping for the first time), youll enjoy roughly 35 seconds of complete freefall. Your tandem partner pulls the main parachute at 5,000 feet, and you drift through Oregon skies. There is always a reserve chute, in case the main chute fails to open. Eugene Skydivers not only boast electronically-timed back-up chutes, but they are known to pack their parachutes in a way that allows them to open slowly ‹ maximizing your drop time on the way down.û

If youve never jumped before, Moore says there isnt anything else you can do on earth that matches it. He also says that contrary to popular belief, you dont get a sensation of falling such as one experiences on a rollercoaster. øOnce you get out of the airplane, it feels like you are just floating,” Moore says.

You may want to plan your jump a bit later in the season though. øWe cant jump through clouds,” Moore says with regret. Shortly after the 4th of July, when (hopefully) the weather is a sure bet in Oregon, would be the optimum time to take a dive. ‹ Dante ZuÀiga-West