Campanile Basso: first ever Base Jump by Maurizio di Palma - the video

Pulling the wing up in just a few metres gives me a feeling of freedom, and this is why I’ve trained a lot, launching from many different exit points. In August I ask Maurizio if he wants to climb Campanile Basso and jump off it with a wingsuit. Even if he knows it will be difficult, technical and perhaps not even possible, he accepts.

On Tuesday 8 September we walk up to Rifugio Pedrotti, grab a bite to eat and immediately set off for a reccie. At the base of the tower we check out all the parameters necessary for a base jump, parameters that are extremely , so much so that Maurizio tells me "so far, absolutely nothing is certain." As to my speed flight, that’s even more uncertain. The weather isn’t great, we’re wrapped in low clouds. We return to the mountain hut, anxious to set off at dawn.

Alarm clock at 5.15am, breakfast and off we go, at 6.30am we start up the normal route, completely immersed in fog. Nevertheless we’re on high spirits and 3 hours later we climb the last pitch, still in the fog… there’s tension in the air, we don’t know whether the objective, that will write a new chapter in Campanile Basso’s history books, will work out. We reach the top at 10 am, through the clouds blue holes appear here and there and then, all of a sudden, Val Brenta is free!!

Maurizio begins to prepare himself, the jump that awaits him is serious, 48m below the exit there’s a 4m ledge. I for my part know that a speed flight is impossible today, the wind speed of 2 knots is simply too little. So I concentrare on helping Maurizio as the moment he’ll jump get’s closer and closer. At 11:30 Maurizio is set! He’s ready, doing all the checks, I’m just two metres away and can hardly stand it. I quickly utter "Have a safe jump Maury" and he begins the countdown: "three, two, one, base jump"

There’s no need to tell you what I felt as I watched him jump of the Campanile par excellence of the Dolomites.

Luca Tamburini