TRIED & TRUE : This Tale of a Flying Leap Is Not Just a Lot of Hot Air

I was standing on a precarious wooden ledge more than 200 feet above the ground when a guy named Alan started encouraging me to jump.

Looking down from a hot-air balloon that was floating higher than a 20-story building, I pondered the wisdom of his counsel and found it lacking, big time. My pulse started jackhammering away. Still, as I surveyed the three thick pink-and-white tethers that would soon turn me into a 170-pound yo-yo, I reminded myself that this trip had been my idea.

It was before dawn on a recent weekend when I drove out to the fog-shrouded jump site by Lake Perris and met the team from a small bungee-jumping company based in Riverside. Before long, 15 other would-be jumpers walked across the damp open field to sign in, many followed by head-shaking friends and potential beneficiaries. About two-thirds of the group were men, and almost everyone was in their 20s.

While watching the bungee company guys set up, I got a sense of deja vu I couldn’t shake. Something about leaping from a hot-air balloon attached to a rubber band on steroids seemed familiar. Then I realized the contraption was very much like something Wile E. Coyote would dream up to catch the Roadrunner.

A dark vision entered my mind: I jump from the balloon only to discover that, Wile E. Coyote-like, I’m inexplicably tethered to an anvil. Suspended motionless for a moment in the air, I frown, sniffle, wave bye-bye and then hurtle to the canyon floor to disappear in the obligatory “poof” of dust. (Later, before jumping, I did check the equipment roughly a gajillion times, suspicious of finding any hardware purchased from the ubiquitous cartoon monopoly, the Acme Co.)

One after another, novice jumpers floated into the misty blue sky in the big red balloon, along with pilot Alan Trull, 24. Once the elevator reached the top floor, they stood at the end of a small wooden plank and awaited Trull’s countdown: “Three . . . two . . . one . . . bungee!”

Then they leaped into the air and plunged toward the earth, emitting exhilarated, terrified screams that invariably terminated in a loud “Uhhh!” as the cord stretched to its maximum limit and then jerked them back upward. After another bounce or three, Trull would lower the balloon slowly to the ground while helpers caught the jumper dangling underneath.

“Don’t try this at home,” Rick Weibel advised, half-seriously. Weibel, 24, was co-owner of this bungee company (which has since closed). He said that each of the cords used to stop a jumper’s fall can stretch to twice its original length and carry 1,400 pounds. They attach to two sturdy metal rings that hook into a waist and chest harness.

Most people prefer going feet first, which offers a more gentle ride. But for those who go head first, the ankle straps provide added safety and also piece of mind. Furthermore, at least two people double-check the setup and equipment, in accordance with guidelines formulated by the North American Bungee Jumping Assn.

When my turn came, I piled into the balloon and had the cords strapped like vices around my ankles. The straps hurt a little, but that only made me feel more secure--at least I wouldn’t slip out. As we rose into the air, I made idle chitchat about whether any of their jumpers had ever been killed or horribly mangled. Trull answered, “Not yet,” and smiled.

As the balloon rose above the low fog into sunlit skies, I saw that 200 feet looks a lot different from air than it does from the ground. It also gave me more than ample time to reflect on the fact that people have been killed doing this and that there was always the chance that I could wind up being in a newspaper bungee jumping story much different than the one I planned to write.

At top altitude, I stood on the platform and took a deep breath in a futile attempt to slow my staccato heartbeat. I grimly noted that the nearest restroom was about a million miles and 200 feet away. Nervous and trying hard to shake the feeling that I was about to die, I waited for the end of the countdown and then dove into the air, yelling as I jumped: “I don’t want to do this!”

With my eyes locked open, I fell faster and faster into the mist, and a surge of desperate excitement tore through me. Despite the fact that every neuron in my brain was on overload, or perhaps because of it, nothing resembling a single coherent thought registered as I fell. This was an intense-emotions-only ride, and thinking was the last thing on my mind.

The strange thing is, the scariest part was getting the courage to jump. Once I started falling, it was like a cross between a high dive and a roller coaster, fast and fun and utterly thrilling. The wind rushed by my face as I fell through the hazy cloud below. The ground rushed up to meet me but then slowed as the cords grew taut.

Very suddenly, with a vigorous jerk, I hurtled back up into the sky. What I yelled at that moment cannot be printed in a family newspaper. However, my exclamation approximated the one most commonly heard on those “black box” flight recorders in the instant before a collision.

I yelled more out of surprise rather than from the minor discomfort of being cracked like a human whip. But I also cried out in naked glee that I was no longer about to smack into an Earth-sized object at warp factor seven. Then, after a few baby bounces, I settled under the balloon, hanging upside down like a bat lashed by his feet to a giant pendulum. Trull lowered the balloon until someone caught me and guided me to the ground, at which time I said, and I quote here: “Woooooooooh!”

Afterward, the others critiqued my performance and offered their own war stories as the last two guys did their jumps. Then everyone scattered, and I walked to my car, smiling.

On the way home I drove carefully because, hey, those freeways can be dangerous.

The company that Jon Nalick writes about above, Jumpin’ Joe Bungee of Moreno Valley, has since gone out of business. However, would-be bungee jumpers can descend from a hot air balloon at the same site mentioned in this story through arrangements made with Newport Beach Bungee, 4706 Neptune, Suite B, Newport Beach. Open daily, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Cost is $100 for two jumps from a balloon (the company also does bridge jumps in Asuza, at $80 for three jumps). (714) 631-4740.