Scotty Bob Morgan, freshly emerged from the wilds of Eastern Utah, is caught on a hot mic ordering a coffee drink with whip cream.
Wait, check that—he orders his drink and then he specifically asks the barista to add the whip cream. “This interview’s over,” the 34-year-old says with a laugh.
But Morgan, who lives a nomadic lifestyle teaching Building, Antenna, Span, and Earth (BASE) jumping with his wife around the world, is allowed a few sweet excesses.
Formerly a Marine Corps Combat Cameraman and with two Iraq deployments under his belt (2007 and ’09), he has now spent more than a decade documenting his own harrowing jumps, some of which skim so close to the earth that even watching footage induces sweaty palms.
Morgan, who has been a KAVU athlete since 2013, says he’s thought of the paradox of documenting others’ lives versus becoming the subject of his own story in front of the lens.
“In BASE jumping, the name of the game is ‘Me’ all the time, Instagram culture and all that. This whole sport is narcissistic and self-pleasing at its very core,” he says. “But at the same time, we can help people understand that these risks that we’re taking are in and of themselves selfish, and if you take a little bit of self out of it and put yourself second, it may actually help in the long run.”
Teaching BASE jumping is fraught with challenges, both technically and ethically. The gear is complicated; the consequences for both yourself and your pupils can be deadly. Add to that Morgan and his wife’s specialization the deadly subset of wingsuit flight and the stakes couldn’t be higher: In 2016, a record 35 BASE jumpers, including one of Morgan’s close friends, died in jumping accidents. “There’s only so far you can go until you’re going to find a wall,” Morgan told Outside Magazine , adding that increased emphasis on education was the only thing that would help stem the tide of tragedy.
Many in Morgan’s orbit consider the moral dilemma:
Refuse to teach others and they may die due to beginner mistakes or, educate to help decrease the chances of an accident, which will grow the sport and increase the inevitability of an accident. In other words, shit happens, but now it comes with a personal connection.
In the end, he decided to “at least give people the best chances of hearing some of the mistakes that were made when I started.”
The Marine Corps, the smallest U.S. military service second only to the Coast Guard, already markets itself as a select branch among branches, and BASE jumpers are equally rare among outdoorsmen and -women. The Venn Diagram between the two tiny groups is understandably micro, but it still exists:
“You can throw a rock and hit three Marines,” Morgan told Coffee or Die in 2019, and the camaraderie among the Marine military vets is distinct and vibrant. “There's an extra connection with it,” he says. “I’ve been jumping for 12 years now, and I was only in the Marine Corps for five, but it stays with me to this day.”
It also has helped in hairy situations in the field: “Things that I learned at a very young age in the Marine Corps helped me greatly when shit hit the fan BASE jumping,” he says. “It allowed me to process that stuff better, and I’ve seen the same thing with other veteran BASE jumpers.”
The outdoors calls to men and women from all backgrounds and for all reasons, and the same is true of vets like Morgan. Despite his two deployments, he says his experiences in Iraq left no psychological scars. Other BASE jumping veterans, including close friends, were not as fortunate during their service, and together they discuss the pursuit of exhilaration and flirtation with injury and death in their shared passion. Some approach it “the wrong way,” he says, with a nihilism bordering on a death wish. Still, “I would like to think that jumping somehow helps us in the end,” he says.
The early U.S. climbers, which birthed BASE jumping and myriad other cottonmouth-inducing outdoor pursuits, were a counterculture. Some were former military members; others were antiwar hippies spacing out in National Parks. From that mixed foundation, Morgan and other veterans move, breath and fall from great heights. So when, at your nearest precipice, you watch the man or woman with the chute and wingsuit preparing for a jump, watch closely and you just may see the telltale signs of prior service.
Check for the week’s growth of whiskers on the men. Hearken to the steady stream of disgruntled bitching. Watch for sips from a cavity-inducing Starbucks order.
And finally, “You can always tell the guys that were in the service because they’re still wearing cammies,” Morgan says of the trademark camouflage utility trousers. “They’re great jumping pants.”
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