Looking back at the past several months has been a whirlwind of travel, adventure and diverse activity, yet none of that seems obvious to anyone other than myself and the friends that were there along the way. I realize I haven’t sat down to share my thoughts on life for public viewing since last November, so I attempt to pick up where I left off now… After the death of one of my best friends I needed some time to clear my mind and do some global travel before getting back to the things I really love doing. I needed a break from the desert of Moab to explore new sceneries and refresh the brain from tainted memories here. BASE jumping has been one of the most incredible adventures of my life, but it will always come with its extreme ups and downs of emotional oscillation. It physically and mentally forces me to live in the moment and allows me to appreciate life for its fleeting beauty and potential, but it also makes me lash out at the world when precious people pass in its wild and dangerous pursuit… In short, to clear my mind I spent all of last December living in a tent pitched inside an airplane hanger in Lodi, California. It was a great time spent skydiving everyday learning new flying skills and improving my canopy control with some really inspiring and talented people at my side.
The world of air sports never ceases to amaze me with the diverse and awesome crowd it attracts. These people are free from so many stupid “normal person” worries that they find more time to relax in the air and evolve into strangely talented individuals who play together amongst the clouds and at speeds upward to 180 mph. They all smile a lot and learn to tolerate the noise and smell of airplane engines in the morning so they can cram into small spaces to jump out of perfectly sound aircrafts from 13,000′ above the earths surface. Trust me, if you haven’t had the pleasure of falling with your friends in pure air I recommend you do so. It’s proven to cure your mind of all the petty mental obstacles we create for ourselves and is guaranteed to put you in the living moment. I loved every spent dollar at the drop zone and every raffle ticket sacrificed, which gave me 75 new intervals of fast paced fun and the freedom of flight with my friends. In general, skydiving may not be the solution to your financial debt problems or accumulating bills but I once heard it cured cancer for someone… It’s science, don’t question it!
Once the plane engines quieted and I speed off into the distance back towards Moab, Utah my mind had time adjust back to the desert momentarily. As soon as I got back home I shared a loving embrace with my beautiful girlfriend and promptly rode off into the sunset with her on yet another adventure down south toward Puerto Rico. We spent close to a month practicing traditional yoga, acro yoga, slacklining, climbing, surfing, exploring and dancing with many wonderful people at the Redefining Balanceretreat that my dear friend Adi Carter hosts every year. If you’re ever wondering how to spend your January or February months, and you have a week or more of freedom to indulge yourself (preferably as much time as possible) I highly recommend booking a cheap ticket down to this wonderful island paradise where you’re guaranteed to be immersed in an overwhelming amount of natural beauty and radical people all around. I kid you not, this little island hosts a huge abundance of natural waterfalls, jungles, beaches and island culture in all directions of its small land occupancy on this planet. Adi is also really great teacher, masseus and yoga master who will point you in any direction you’re looking to seek out better balance, beauty and relaxation to spice up your life. Seriously, just message her and she’ll steer you in a good direction I’m sure… So to put things simply, I spent many weeks improving my balancing skills, playing in the tropical blue waters of the ocean and sharing continuous smiles with amazing people. A trip that was also worth every penny spent and a momentary detriment to my bank account… After many layovers and several more commercial flights I once again landed back in my home desert playground of sand and stone in Moab, Utah.
With only two days of getting settled back in my own bed I began packing again for another trip, one that swept me off toward Arizona where I started a new chapter of adventure filming and producing for an upcoming web series called Exit Point. I’m now currently in the process of following and documenting the life of some of my talented female BASE jumping/wingsuit flying friends as they travel the globe and jump off of various objects into space. Collectively they’re an awesome bunch of people who come from different backgrounds and share a committed passion of exploring human flight. How this project came to be is a funny story, but the gist of it goes like this… I put forth an idea back in December to a filming friend about wanting to document a series following a group of multi-sport female athletes as they traveled the world seeking out adventures through rock climbing, highlining, and BASE jumping. From this seed sprouted the real opportunity to actually pursue such a dream. Now we have an assembled team of athletes, a filming/traveling budget and several sponsors who have allowed this idea to take off and I’ve been busy filming and editing footage ever since. This new series will debut at the end of this month on the Limitless Channel, alongside another film project I’m spearheading documenting the life of “Sketchy” Andy Lewis. Andy has been leading the movement and progression of both highlining and BASE jumping for more than 7 years now and I’ve had the awesome opportunity to be a part of the adventure for a good chunk of that time. As a group of talented friends and athletes here in Moab, calling ourselves the Moab Monkeys, we’ve also been traveling the globe establishing new highlines in exotic locations, jumping off of fixed objects with parachutes and documenting the experience along the way. Our shenanigans have caught the attention of many TV networks and have been turning heads from several interests groups for a while now, which has lead to this new experience of paid adventures and a creative new web series also premiering at the end of this month.
To launch this film project with Andy we decided to start off with a bang… Inspired by the incredible edit produced by Seb Montaz and the “Skyliners“, who made the first, but unsuccessful attempts, to walk the highest slackline between two moving hot air balloons several weeks ago in Spain, we were psyched to give this challenge a go. This project was an incredible feat to tackle and through their initial exploratory efforts we were able to repeat it with some rigging modifications to make the highline a little more manageable to walk. The whole story of how this all came to be, how in 24 hours 24 different professionals were assembled in Las Vegas to attempt this stunt is an incredible tale to tell. I won’t try to put it all in words here but detailed video edits will be published soon to give evidence of our adventure. In essence, we quickly assembled our own team of world-class wingsuit pilots, BASE jumpers, highliners, Las Vegas balloon pilots, aerial performers, riggers and cameramen to give this experience a shot and it was executed with perfection. Documented by the Fenom Creative production team, which I’m now a part of, the end result was an awesome success of epic gravity sport shenanigans with an aerial Cirque du Soleil show high above the ground. The whole adventure will be posted on-line as of the 25th of this month, so stay tuned for more links to see the whole story of how it evolved and came to realization. For the time being, Cody Tuttle and myself edited and released a short trailer showing a glimpse of what happened on that day of February 18th, 2014 high above the deserts of Las Vegas, Nevada. It can be seen at the top of this post or viewed by CLICK HERE. This is only the beginning of a big adventure that is taking on more momentum and creativity over time with both the Exit Point team and “Sketchy” Andy Lewis.
Aside from a million details left out here and there, that’s the run of things as they happened since November of last year. As mentioned, keep checking back as I continue sharing links to the upcoming videos and adventures of the Exit Point team of female bad asses and “Sketchy” Andy Lewis’s crazy antics across the globe. All these edits will be a part of Bite Size TV’s line up of adventure programming brought to you on the Limitless Channel, which you’ll soon be able to see by clicking on the link in this sentence. To everyone out there in the world, stay psyched and keep charging the skies and earth wherever you are. Much love to all!
Author: ~Brian Mosbaugh
Source: slacklinemedia.com
See also limitlesschannel.tv
