On Thursday I will be turning 50 so I went to Vegas with my husband to celebrate. We had a great week with lots of cool experiences, culminating in me suiting up and jumping off the 108th floor of the casino tower. Hey, you only die once, right?
I bought the deluxe package, which included wearing a camera on my wrist to record the trip. The whole experience takes about an hour but the jump itself is 20 seconds long, at speeds of over 40 mph. Straight down.
We did lots of other stuff, too. We went to the Shark Reef, spent a day at the Valley of Fire and Hoover Dam, ziplined over the Linq, and rode almost everything in the Adventuredome at Circus Circus. But the one thing that will be haunting my dreams for a long time is standing on a platform 855 feet (261 m) above the Strip, hanging on for dear life and finally taking that big step.
I did the Stratosphere jump last June. It was the most fun I had in Vegas.
The two minutes getting hooked up was worse than the jump. That diving board just doesn’t seem like it should hold up. I was amazed at how quickly I jumped/stepped when the guy said “go.” It felt like I lingered for 15-20 seconds, but on the video it was nearly instantaneous.
We were watching the monitor in the storefront downstairs while getting dressed. Two people wimped out in the 10 minutes we were there. I thought it was a blast. And I have a photo of the certificate so I can jump half price next time I visit Vegas.
I so much want to do that. I Pitted myself a few years ago because I suffered some strange phobia on a sky walk in Auckland. They also had a similar jump. I know for a fact that I’d’ve enjoyed the jump.
Y’know, I don’t think I would have any problem with a parachute jump, but I don’t know if I could bring myself to do a bungee. I guess I trust the laws of aerodynamics more than those of elasticity.
The Stratosphere jump is not a bungee: it’s a steel cable on a descender, a large reel of cable that controls the speed of the jumper, the same kind of tech Hollywood uses for stunt falls. Here’s a video.
And another point I forgot to mention: there are fixed guide wires on either side of the jumper, and a bracket on the jump rig above the jumper that keeps him/her between them, so he/she doesn’t swing or sway, but drops in a straight line.
I lived in Vegas for five years, and often took visitors to the bar on the 103rd level, where you could see the jumpers go by if you kept your eyes peeled. It happened very quickly, obviously. But you could predict a jumper was about to go by when you saw the guide wires start to swing a little. That meant they were hooking someone up in preparation for a jump.
I’ll link the one from my wrist cam once I have it online. There’s a video from the landing pad on Facebook but I can’t it to save to my tablet. I’ll try using the laptop tomorrow. (There’s swearing on the wrist video.)
It’s not something that would appeal to me, but I applaud you for doing it. I seem to recall that we had another Doper who did it, and posted the wrist-cam video. After seeing that; yeah, not for me, at my age.
Ziplining down the Fremont Street Experience, on the other hand, might be more my style. Thinking about that for my next visit to Las Vegas.
I hadn’t heard about it before I was there, but when I was outside the Stratosphere and saw it happening I knew I had to do it. It was hands-down the scariest thing I’ve ever done.
