Four international base-jumpers went to South Africa on a road trip to find high objects, climb them and jump off.

Our film crew followed Iiro Seppanen (Finland), Jeb Corliss (U.SA), Omer Mei-Dan (Israel), and Yuri Kuznetsov (U.S.S.R /U.S.A), on their quest.

The objective of the "african b.a.s.e" road tour was simple: to complete b.a.s.e in South Africa (i.e. to jump off at least one of all four of the objects that qualify an individual as a b.a.s.e jumper) and to conclude the trip with a gravity-defying wing suit-flight over the twin-tiered cliffs of the Milner Amphitheater.

-A wing suit is exactly what it implies, a one-piece suit with webs extending from the wrists to the waist and between the legs. This added area provides the jumper with more air resistance and, used competently, more glide or forward motion-

A hotel on the beachfront of Durban was the perfect first object to jump off. The 3 base jumpers booked into a room -the easiest way to get onto the roof of a hotel legally- waited for the wind to drop, and then jumped off the pool deck. The mission was under way!

As fortune might have it -and with a little help from local knowledge- they came across the perfect antenna nearby. A 100-meter, four stayed, statement of humming radio and microwaves. The electronic interference on the exit platform shut down four of the film crews digital cameras and the full consequences to the health of crew and jumpers is probably still to be established. The jump went well, though Jeb gave everyone a big scare when he took a strike on one of the steel stays after performing a double summersault in a two-way jump with Omer.

The Bloukrantz Bridge provided the perfect span or bridge exit for Jebs' aerial acrobatics, a spectacular canopy ride into the densely forested gorge, and landing in the pools of the Storms River below.

Then it was off to Milner Amphitheater. This is a place that can only be described as an Eden in the mountains, and it is a b.a.s.e jumper's paradise.\nThe exit point resembles a high diving board platform. It is out in space, overhanging the immense red walls of the mountains upper amphitheater.\nDirectly below it, some 550 meters, is a rock-strewn ledge of about 200 meters and below that again, the 300meter, overhanging, ochre cliff of the lower amphitheater.

A b.a.s.e jumper would normally track or gain some forward movement in his free fall from the top exit point, but, as experimentation has shown, never enough to clear the ledge separating these two cliffs.

The wing-suit challenge is to soar over the ledge and only deploy the life saving parachute once clear of the second cliff face and well down the valley...a feat that would demand soaring a previously unimaginable horizontal distance.

Four international base-jumpers went to South Africa on a road trip to find ...