BASE 37: Memoir of a BASE Jumping Pioneer

By JD Walker

In the early 1980s, before BASE jumping had a name, before there were rules, gear, or anyone who knew what they were doing, JD Walker jumped off a skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles disguised as a construction worker. He was twenty years old. What followed was a decade of first jumps, near-fatal accidents, midnight tower climbs, canyon walls no human had ever touched, arrests on all four BASE objects, and friendships forged at the edge of what was survivable. Base 37 is his firsthand account of those extraordinary years — a story told by one of the sport's true pioneers, BASE #37, Arizona BASE #1, and self-proclaimed BASE Arrested #1.Walker takes readers from the irrigation ditches of rural Arizona where he nearly drowned as a child, through the drop zones of the 1970s, all the way to the first-ever parachute jump from the Grand Canyon — a two-helicopter, Navajo-permitted, meticulously planned operation that fulfilled a decade-long dream. Along the way, he introduces the unforgettable cast of characters who built BASE jumping from nothing: Carl Boenish, the visionary cinematographer who became the sport's father and its first great loss; Phil Smith and Phil Mayfield, BASE #1 and #2; Jon Bowlin, the tireless rock-climber-turned-jumper who became Walker's closest friend and ultimately died beside him in a tangled parachute 1,700 feet above the Little Colorado River; and "Deadman" Steve Morrell, the Air Force pilot whose impossible luck kept him alive through shattered ankles, a Pan Am 103 near-miss, and more near-fatal jumps than anyone cared to count.But Base 37 is more than an extreme sports memoir. It is a love story — to the sport, to the brotherhood of early jumpers, and most of all, to Shelley, the wife who endured arrests, hospital stays, body casts, and the terrible silence of a coma, and never once stopped being the anchor. Walker writes with unflinching honesty about his Mother's Day 1993 accident, the long road back from near-death, the slow drift toward depression and blindness in later life, and the moment a five-year-old granddaughter unknowingly saved his life. He also writes about the music he made to honor the dead, the gear he built that others still use, and the jump he finally made at sixty-three years old, off a bridge in Idaho, in the parachute of his lost friend Carl.This is the history of a sport told from the inside, by the man who helped build it — honest about the stupidity, reverent about the beauty, and clear-eyed about the cost. Base 37 is for anyone who has ever stood on an edge, real or metaphorical, and chosen to jump.