To answer your questions

I am often asked by non-skydivers if you can move around in the sky. Here's a couple videos to answer your question. The possibilities are endless.

My 100th Jump!

For my 100th jump, 8 friends and I made a tracking dive from 18,000 feet. It all went fabulous except for one small mishap. If you watch closely you will see a collision, where Kevin's camera is knocked off his head and flies off, never to be seen again. We joke that somewhere in a field in Davis there are some awesome photos of this jump!

I threw in some footage of other jumps that day too.

Video by Jackson, Brett, Donny and Sue.

It was a good day

From left, Brett, me and Tui. Love the world up there.



And my first hula hoop jump - Brett on the left, Nick on the right, and YES I did make it through albeit "granny-speed" as Nick made sure to tell me.

A perfectly orchestrated equasion

One guy with muscle to the back + one guy with a banana cream pie in the front + three guys with four plates of cool whip from the side = one time-honored traditional happy 1000th jump for Brett Haughn!

Congrats - and I take responsibility for absolutely none of this!

fear of the big three...

As I near my 100th jump I am thinking about where I am now compared to where I was when I began. After my first skydive I thought that if I could learn to conquer the fear of skydiving that I would be able to do anything in life. Ninety-five jumps later I find that, although I have learned a lot, I am more the same than I am changed. Skydiving has taught me that I have the capacity to confront fear, even use it, and take control of my path. However, contrary to what I thought it would do, it has not erased my many other fears in life. The thought of jumping from an airplane seemed so incredibly frightening back then. It elicited a visceral gut response, an instinctual reflex to avoid... that look down, even an infant is afraid of falling. Now I realize that skydiving has not changed many of my fears. There are so many things that I am afraid of more than jumping out of an airplane. B.A.R. It is an acronym used to express the most common human psychological fears: Betrayal. Abandonment. Rejection. These things are far more difficult to master than the knee-jerk response to a fear such as falling. It turns out that facing death is less frightening than facing the big three. In fact, experiencing such a powerful experience as skydiving and embracing the respect that its dangers demand is a rather effective method of escaping, if only for 60 seconds, the fear of the big three.

But is the fear of B.A.R. really just psychological? Perhaps it is just as embedded with instinctual, irrational fear, the same place as fear of falling and spiders and snakes. It exists on the same level as the fear of death. And if you really think about it, to a child's mind, those three things are a matter of life and death. For a child the acts of betrayal, abandonment or rejection on behalf of a parent or caretaker can literally mean death. But it is one's experiences through time that truly defines one's fear. For me I am not afraid of "vermin" such as snakes, rats or spiders, for I have kept them as pets before. However, I am deathly afraid of cockroaches, because I once lived in a place which was infested with them and it made me afraid of the sickness they might give me. As for falling, I've fallen in love with that. It's associated now with great pleasure and satisfaction. Our fears are not solid, but malleable, changeable, and have different meaning over time.

So now I am back to the fear of B.A.R. -- of which I admit that skydiving has not cured. But somehow there is something comforting about that. I guess that just makes me human... just like every other skydiver and just like everyone on the ground who swears they will NEVER jump. I suppose that flying in the sky does not actually make me a superhero. And I'm okay with that. Being a superhero would be far too lonely.

It's Not About the Adrenaline

It's about the silence. That peace, that stillness that exists in that moment when all senses are focused sharply in the present, where one is deeply aware of the truth of presence, of sensation. It is joy. It is fresh air. It is the quiet that breaks through the chattering, a still small smile on my lips.

Goodbye Wes, you will be missed.

On Easter Sunday of this year I lost a friend to skydiving.

Wes Harberts, died at age 33, while skydiving at Skydive Tahoe, a business he opened just last summer. The exact cause of the accident is unknown. He died immediately after impact under a fully opened, spinning main canopy.

I met Wes at Burning Man 2006. He helped me put on a parachute for the first time, so that I could photograph skydivers jumping over Black Rock City for an article we were doing for the Sacramento Bee. I remember that he was annoyed at me for taking so many notes and chatting with people when I should have been listening to his safety instructions. He set me strait on that one. That was Wes's way. He'd tell you exactly what was up.

Not long after, I fell in love with one of his best friends, Jackson, and thereafter our lives were all entwined. I never really got to know Wes on a deep personal level. And, regretfully, I never made a jump with him. But I experienced his trademark generosity when he let me have full access to his home when I was on assignment, shooting the Angora Fire in South Lake Tahoe. I shared a long bear hug with him under his not-to-be missed huge fuzzy jacket at Burning Man 2007. I've witnessed his passion and spirit, his tenacity and hard-working nature... And I've held two of his best friends, Tim and Jackson, in my arms as they cried over his leaving too soon.

There is no one on this earth who can replace Wes. He was a mover and shaker. He knew how to make things happen. He enjoyed taking people on their first skydives as tandem passengers and loved to see their reaction afterwards. He was bright fireworks. Wes did much in his 33 years, and friends can take comfort in knowing that he truly lived life to the fullest. Still, his death came tragically too soon.

Fly free Wes. You will be missed.