Episode #47 - Marshall Miller
Marshall Miller
Laurent Frat: [00:00:00] Hello, friends. You're listening to Exit Point, a podcast about the advancement of bass jumping and an exploration of its culture. I'm Laurent Frat, producer and cohost. If you'd like to support this independent production, you can visit our buy me a coffee link in the description and give us a review wherever you listen to podcasts. In this episode, I Sit down with Marshall Miller.
Laurent Frat: Marshall's inspired jumpers and the public alike with his videos from back in the day and all the fun projects he's been a part of since, including his appearance in line of sight. Shout out to the kaboo boys for what I think is 1 of the best wingsuit base jumping videos ever made. Marshall's got a lot to share about being 1 of the guys who helped pave the way for being a pro BASE jumper as 1 of GoPro's first sponsored athletes and being an influential figure in his community. We dive into his brush with the law in Zion National Park and the absurdity of American laws around BASE jumping. [00:01:00] We also talk about the importance Patience in high risk sports, the challenges of group mentality, and some of the lessons he's learned from walking down.
Laurent Frat: It's Been a while since I've seen Marshall, so it was fun to get caught up and hear about some of his recent projects, including Jump Limitless Flight, the VR wingsuit experience. And as a new dad, I wanted to hear about how he's balanced adventure and family life. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so let's get into it with Marshall Miller. Why don't we start with 1 of the first jumps that I saw or the jump videos that I saw you in, because I was super inspired. It was the church office building in downtown Salt Lake City.
Marshall Miller: Yes.
Laurent Frat: So much style, So much, revelry. tell me a little bit about what was going on and how
Marshall Miller: the whole story behind it. Yeah. Funny enough, that was the days when we were, like, super motivated.
Marshall Miller: We [00:02:00] were doing, 2 to 300 jumps a year, and they were all little Slider off type of stuff. And here in Salt Lake City, the crown jewel in the in town, the tallest tower is the LDS church office building. Conveniently, it's 420 feet tall, and there's a city ordinance that no building will ever be allowed to be built taller than it. And Yeah. Naturally, the base jumpers wanna jump off of that.
Marshall Miller: Yeah. Quick story. Me and Hartman Rector, good friend, still jump with them a lot. Jumped with them this week. We were getting into this stuff together and, yeah, we just did a scouting mission 2 weeks prior and took the tour and checked it out.
Marshall Miller: And the hours are such that, you can't really sneak into the building, so you've gotta go on the tour, so to speak. And At 1 point during the tour, they go from the east observation deck to the west observation deck. And in that transition, there's a group of, 30 to 40 people, typically. Me and [00:03:00] Hartman had our rigs on underneath the we had some hoodies or something like that, maybe some sport coats looking sharp. But, yeah, we dipped into the bathrooms, took our coats off, and, came walking out.
Marshall Miller: And there was a sweet old lady. She was, like, 80 something years old and I was like, hi, boys. the group is the other way. They're like, oh, sounds good. And went out there and we had scouted.
Marshall Miller: There was, like, Some pretty intense fences to climb up and over. They're overhanging, and we kinda found a weakness on the, east observation deck and Climbed up there and harbor went first, jumped off. I went second. Did a nice fat gator and landed at our getaway car right below us. And we thought It was a strike mission.
Marshall Miller: All good. But, yeah, we drove home and, at 5 0 5, pulled into my driveway. My sister, Suzette called, and she's you did you just didn't jump off the church office building, did you? And I was like, [00:04:00] how do you know? I haven't told anybody.
Marshall Miller: And she's turn on the news. And so sure enough. Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, it was The top story was alleged base jumpers at large, and there was a photo of me and Hartman from the actual elevator. Kinda I remember vividly, looking at all the corners, I wonder if there's a camera in here. And I, looked right at it and hey.
Marshall Miller: So they had a nice photo of me and a little less flattering, actually, but you can imagine, like, all the buds are, like, Blowing me up right away. you're busted. And, I was still, in my first couple years of base jumping, so I didn't know it was gonna happen, but, the officials of the church didn't think it was too entertaining, and They ended up catching up with us. a month later, they would come to my door every day and, [00:05:00] knock on the door. And I was like, kids, don't answer that door.
Marshall Miller: It's we're we're not talking to those people right now and thought I could avoid them. But, a month later, they went to my mom's house, And the detective knocked on my mom's door, and she's like my sweet mom called me, and she's hey. There's a nice detective here to talk to you. I was like, okay. Enough, enough running around.
Marshall Miller: So send her down. I'll talk to him, and they came down. They're like, So we know for sure it was you. 3 people have specifically turned you in, and, but we don't know who your friend is. I was like, I'm no rat.
Marshall Miller: I'm definitely not gonna turn him in. you're the detective. You should do your job. And yeah, obviously, I didn't turn Hartman in, but Hartman's grandfather at the time was a high ranking official within the church, and we were like, Hartman, just call your grandpa and get us out of this. And he's that's not how it works, dude.
Marshall Miller: yeah. Anyways, we got caught for that. [00:06:00] They tried to give us, a 3000 dollar ticket. It ended up No. It ended up being, like, a 300 dollar ticket at the end of the day, but all the hassle around that was, it's it sucks to get caught.
Marshall Miller: Yeah. But we were on the news, and it was just a it was a funny thing. in hindsight, Super funny. I'm super proud we did it. Obviously, we're not gonna do that building again, but, yeah, once we had the sentence, they kinda Told us what was gonna happen, and so I released the video of it.
Marshall Miller: And I put this hilarious, Pink Panther snooping around music to it. And, It was funny. I'd never actually seen the power of the Internet until that video went out and, had hundreds of thousands of views in the first couple days, and the news ended up sharing it. It's kinda funny. yeah, if that's the first video you saw of me, we're gonna be we're gonna be we're gonna be quick
Laurent Frat: friends.
Laurent Frat: Yeah. There was a lot of style to that video. There was a style to that gainer, and I just said, yeah, those guys, we need to be [00:07:00] friends.
Marshall Miller: Of course. Let's go.
Marshall Miller: That's right. You're,
Laurent Frat: a law abiding citizen, a respectable guy. I don't wanna dwell on breaking the law too much, but You did have another touch with the law not too long ago, and it's
Marshall Miller: pretty easy to see. Rough. Yeah.
Marshall Miller: I'm just kidding. I promise, folks. I am a law abiding citizen, family man.
Laurent Frat: Yeah. Upstanding citizen for sure.
Laurent Frat: And, Base jumping shouldn't be a crime, but, it is. And, it's a I think it's a pretty fascinating story. please tell us a little bit about Zion.
Marshall Miller: Okay. Starting off with 2 stories of me breaking the law.
Marshall Miller: This is good. Yeah. funny enough, these are actually 2 of my Most favorite jobs and I think something that really appealed to me with base jumping is remember that feeling you get when you, Toilet paper your [00:08:00] neighbor's house or your doorbell ditched someone or you'd you do, mischievous things as a kid. Maybe you're not a liar by it. Law abiding.
Marshall Miller: I like that stuff. it's just it's fun. It's kinda harmless fun. Yeah. You're not hurting anybody, but it's kinda fun that someone's gonna Come catch you at Nabi Inn.
Marshall Miller: I don't know. Maybe the cops and robbers. I watched too many of those shows going up, but, Yeah. Zion National Park, man, that's 1 of the coolest places on the planet. It really is.
Marshall Miller: It's, Yosemite and Zion are, I think the 2 coolest national parks, at least, in the states. And, yeah, we've been jumping down there for a long time, 10, 15 years, and My first terminal walls were down there, so we jumped there quite a bit. We've opened up a ton of stuff down there, But there's 1 kind of crown jewel called the great white throne, and, nobody had ever jumped off it. My dad actually was 1 of the first guys to climb it back in the seventies, and so [00:09:00] it kinda had some value there where, I wanted to get back up there and keep the family stuff going. we went up there, a year prior, and I just went for a climb.
Marshall Miller: It's a thousand foot rock climb, 9 pitches of 5 easy, but you can see my dad's old bolts, like Oh, wow. Drilled into the sandstone and, slings on Trees, and it was really cool to go up there and check things out. yeah, we went back there right during COVID, actually. The park was closed, and We thought what a perfect time to jump when, there's no 1 in the park, no 1 to see us. We can walk in and walk out.
Marshall Miller: Sounds pretty good. So we didn't think anybody really be working there, but all of the park rangers were actually still working there with nothing to do. And so We took a shuttle ride into the top on the east rim and walked in. It was me and 2 buds. I'll probably not say their names to keep them.
Marshall Miller: the I haven't Let's [00:10:00] keep them out of Yeah. We'll keep them out of trouble too, but I have a 10 minute video on my Instagram page that, tells the story in perfect detail with animations, and outside TV did a real good job, telling the story. Anyway, I'll I'll back up. I'll come back to that. yeah, we got to the top and looked off the edge, and sure enough, there were Ranger trucks in every 1 of our LZ options.
Marshall Miller: And so quickly, those 2 boys decided not to jump. They were on a 1 year park suspension, and they were at, a month 11, I think, of that 12 month suspension. So they're like, We for sure can't get caught. And I was like, okay. I respect that.
Marshall Miller: What do you guys wanna do? And they're like, we're just gonna spend the night until those guys leave. And it was freezing up there, really, cold. And I was like, I'd rather wrap down in the dark. I'd much prefer to jump if they leave, but, Yeah.
Marshall Miller: We, set a time, like an 8 o'clock time frame when it was pretty much dark. [00:11:00] The cops all left, we thought. And, Yeah. I zipped up the suit and jumped off of that thing, and it was awesome. It was a, straightforward jump.
Marshall Miller: I flew out kinda by Angel's Landing area, Landed at a place called Big Bend, and, we had gone up the day prior and stashed some bikes, in 1 of those Culvers under the road. Landed right next to that, grabbed my stuff. I decided to leave my gear, my parachute stuff, excuse me, and wingsuit there up in the canyon I just ride out on I actually rode out on 1 of those, electric 1 wheels is what I was on. And as I was going down the canyon, it was dark, and I couldn't see anything Except for the 2 yellow lines in the middle of the road. And so as I was cruising down the road, I passed someone, 3, 4 feet away from me, and She's hey.
Marshall Miller: Stop. And quickly realized that was a ranger just out there, loan barking it by herself, waiting for me, Woah. Sure enough. It was game on from there.
Marshall Miller: And it was like the next 3 [00:12:00] or 4 hours of the most fun game of cat and mouse I've ever played. Like 2 rangers were coming up the road, full sirens and spotlights, just lighting up all the walls, and it felt really hectic. But, I was pretty nimble. I just buy myself, no rig, and I could hide behind trees. And I'd wait for the cars to, turn around and go down the canyon a bit.
Marshall Miller: And I just jumped on my wheel, and I'd put, black, gaffers tape on the lights. So I was stealth mode, and These guys, that there was a moment where I was making my way down the canyon, but there's a moment there was 4 different cop cars looking for me, and They always had their headlights on and their flashlights out, and so it was super easy to know where they were at. But yeah. Anyways, I got out of the canyon. They didn't catch me, and I didn't know what to do.
Marshall Miller: My friends are still on top, so obviously, I had to go get them, and, we didn't have cell phone reception from where they were at. And so [00:13:00] we had a plan. I was just gonna go up there in the morning, and I was gonna pick them up at, noon the next day. They were gonna rappel down. It was the rough plan if they didn't jump.
Marshall Miller: And so I went down that night and got, a 500 dollar a night hotel room where I didn't think they'd suspect anybody be at. And I hid my car Far behind a dumpster in this, maintenance shop, and I felt really good. I went to bed with a huge smile on my face. But that morning at, 4 AM, I hear this knock on my door, and I was like, I know who this is. So I looked out at people, and sure enough, there was 4 people standing there.
Marshall Miller: And I didn't answer the door for, 10 minutes because I just knew how that conversation was gonna go, but they just kept banging on the door. I was like, During COVID, I was, like, the only person in that entire hotel, and so they weren't going away. So I opened the door. I was like, hey, guys. What's up?
Marshall Miller: And They kinda had some, holes in their story. hey. We saw you and 2 of your friends jump off of that thing. And I was like, only 1 of us I [00:14:00] didn't say this, obviously, but I was like, I could tell that Their story wasn't buttoned up. And so yeah.
Marshall Miller: Long story. So you wanted a good job. My butt. You did a good job
Laurent Frat: of not snitching on yourself, basically.
Marshall Miller: Yeah.
Marshall Miller: once again, detectives are professionals, and we should let them do their work. And They're asking me what I did and what I didn't do. And, again, my kinda reply was, you're the professional here. Why don't you tell me what I did? And, they don't wanna really hear that.
Marshall Miller: They want you to just tell you tell them everything that you've done and make their jobs easy. But I found I've I found that this is the best way to do it. I've been caught in the Grand Canyon before and, You know, talked our way out of it just because the the park ranger didn't really have enough on us or it was kinda bluffing, hey. I have photos, and I'm like, let's see them. Turns out they don't really have anything.
Marshall Miller: So I don't think the Rangers are out there really trying to bust us. A lot of people, especially in our generation, [00:15:00] Kinda recognize this as people are doing this every day, all day, and base jumping and wingsuiting's, kinda common these days. And so I don't think people are out there really trying to bust you, but some rangers kinda have a they wanna get that tick mark in their belt that I've caught some base jumpers, and Hopefully, those guys can kinda simmer down as we progress forward.
Laurent Frat: Wow. So You're sitting there, fall asleep with a big grin on your face within a king-size bed, thinking you got away with it and then Knock, knock,
knock.
Marshall Miller: Busted. Busted. It wasn't even busted. It was just like, We know what you did, but they're like, we're gonna come they're like, can we search your room and search your car? And I was like, no.
Marshall Miller: Not tonight. Maybe some other time. And They're like, we're gonna go get a search, a search permit. And I was like, it's 4 in the morning. I doubt you're gonna do that.
Marshall Miller: So sure enough, they went somewhere and got a permit, an [00:16:00] hour later and came back. And, they searched my car, my room. And inside my car, I had, paragliders and Speed wings and other parachutes, and they're like, here it is. We got you. I was like, those are all packed.
Marshall Miller: Those aren't even the I was trying to explain to them that, that's what I do as human flight stuff, and they're like, finally, we caught you. yeah, to back up a little bit. I drove up the next morning, got my 2 buds. They were kinda haggard. It must have been a super cold, long night up there for them, but we were driving back down to go get their car and Kinda finish up the trip.
Marshall Miller: And on the way down, 2 rangers were waiting at the tunnel for us and pulled us over. And As they walked up to my car, they recognized my 2 buds in the back seat, and they're like, oh, you guys are back. So we all went to the ranger station, and, Yeah. I confessed everything. I said, gigs up.
Marshall Miller: I did it. These guys didn't. So let's talk about how we're gonna move forward from here. But, yeah, part of the sentence is, I got 3 Tickets on this thing that were kinda silly. [00:17:00] 1 was base jumping.
Marshall Miller: They had a video. they had busted 1 of my other friends in the Grand Canyon and Because GoPro, and it's a funny story. This is Pat Walker, actually. And they took Pat Walker's camera, And he and I had been jumping other exit points there in Zion. And so they're like, hey.
Marshall Miller: We recognize your same suit, your helmet, Everything in this other video, we want you to make guilt to that 1 too. And, of course, I tried to, backpedal on that 1. oh, I lend my suit out all the time and, people borrow my helmet and yada, and they're like, no, dude. We can recognize your voice and everything. And so I admitted to 2 accounts of base jumping.
Marshall Miller: I got a ticket for raptor nesting. 1 month during the year, they closed some of these areas for raptor nesting. Didn't even know that was a thing. I knew that was during climbing seasons, but they got me for that. And then they gave me a ticket for skateboarding in the park, which is funny, but they gave it to me.
Marshall Miller: Yeah. Petty. [00:18:00] Exactly. So
Laurent Frat: Hey, man. That's honorable though to take it, for your for the team, I appreciate
Marshall Miller: that. right thing to do, But, yeah, unfortunately, I probably can't jump in Zion National Park anymore as much as I want to. It's It feels like my backyard. It's, a couple hours away, and it's the most beautiful place on the planet.
Marshall Miller: I really love that place. Just wanna share. It. I know. I know.
Laurent Frat: So you teamed up with outside, and they, I haven't seen this animation you're talking about. So you teamed up with Outside and they put together this whole, little feature about your
Marshall Miller: adventure. They did. Yeah. it's a funny story.
Marshall Miller: I was doing these, weekly episodes with outside TV and telling stories or different adventures, and This was like the last episode, so to speak. And part of my sentence was I had to do a public apology on my Instagram page, which I thought was really silly, But the officials and the court through the court system was like, we want you to use that [00:19:00] video on your Instagram page and say that you're sorry for doing it. And I was like, okay. You want me to post my video? That's crazy if that's what you want.
Marshall Miller: I guess I'm happy to. I have to you know, at this point, I'm already busted. And yeah, I posted that video, but Outside TV produced this thing, and it was really good. But right before we were meant to publish it, Outside TV got acquired by a bigger company, and they're like, Hey. Take our name off of this.
Marshall Miller: We can't be associated with this type of stuff. And so I was like, I respect that. So we trimmed the video just a little bit and Still posted it. It's on my Instagram page. It's a really funny 10 minute video.
Marshall Miller: If you wanna check it out. I'll check it out and I'll
Laurent Frat: link it in the description. That's a that's pretty wild, man. What I mean, talk about petty. They want you to apologize.
Laurent Frat: What's even the reasoning behind that? How does a law enforcement official, judge, or anything even like, how does that even cross their mind? What is this? It just
Marshall Miller: seems so I think this yeah. the, people base job, obviously, [00:20:00] in national parks all the time, every day, all day around the world.
Marshall Miller: And, I think Zion National Park specifically just wants us as a community to know that they don't appreciate when we come and base jump in Zion. And I get it. People gotta get out of bed and track you down and chase you, and I don't think every park ranger wants to be doing that. So Some look the other way, and thanks for doing that.
Marshall Miller: We're not trying to wipe it wipe out. We're being super, less impactful than most adventure sports in national parks. rock climbing, we're drilling bolts and putting protection in cracks and, stuff like that. We're base jumping where We leave no trace. We jump off the top, land a parachute in the field, and walk away.
Marshall Miller: yeah, they kinda wanna set that precedence that We don't appreciate base jumping. But 1 day, we'll see what happens. Yeah. Maybe
Laurent Frat: we shouldn't linger too hard on, something we can't control at the moment. But, yeah, I hope, the United States will [00:21:00] embrace a little bit of logic behind that.
Marshall Miller: We've got to. We've got to. Through this process, Lo, real quick, through this process, it's actually funny. I'm pretty well educated on The proper steps of how to do this. And there's a lot of things that you can kinda lobby towards, but the best thing would be If, a senator's son got into base jumping and I was like, hey, dad.
Marshall Miller: Turns out it's illegal to jump in these beautiful national parks. And for someone like that to Look into it and, just like they did in 78 and 79 in Yosemite, they offered backcountry permits, and you could go jump El Cap and half don't. And that only lasted for, 30 days, but could you imagine, some of these crown jewels we have in national parks Simply apply for a permit, and you and your buddy can go jump off of them.
Laurent Frat: Sounds amazing. It sounds amazing.
Laurent Frat: Sounds totally doable. Yeah. All of those things. So we have to find a senator's son [00:22:00] or daughter that wants to base jump.
Marshall Miller: That's kinda that's the quickest way to do it.
Marshall Miller: I Understand.
Laurent Frat: Interesting. Did anybody else or resource come forward that Had this conversation with you about the legality of it. And do you have some sort of optimism around
Marshall Miller: Yeah. I'm very optimistic.
Marshall Miller: Actually, there's a there's actually a lot of case law from Decades of jumping. this goes back to the seventies in Yosemite where people would jump and get caught and, people would kinda contest the legality of this stuff. We've kinda always been thrown under that umbrella of aerial delivery, which was a completely different law. I think this law came about in the thirties, and it was initially meant for, people working in the park to, throw their tools off the Top of these ridge of the exit points of the cliffs, I should say. And rather than, walk down a hundred pound bag, they just put a small parachute on [00:23:00] them and throw them down to the valley floor.
Marshall Miller: Obviously, those have no control, and they're gonna land where they land. And as the parks became more populated and More visited. Clearly, that's a bad idea to throw a hundred pound bag of tools off the top with no controllability. So
Laurent Frat: It's interesting because, as more as this becomes more mainstream and it's just like you said that there's people jumping every day, all day, year round weather dependent.
Laurent Frat: Seems like we can work something out here. and there's gonna be places that are a little bit more sensitive than others. I understand, Chimney is sad as it is. You can't have parachutes opening over, downtown.
Laurent Frat: you need to have people opening up over trees, unpopulated areas, And there are just there are some combinations of cliffs and landscape topography that just is not gonna work, sustainably. But then there's so many other places [00:24:00] where it can help stimulate an economy. It can Showcase, some of the most amazing feats of human experience possible and The resources that go into combating it is just doesn't make
Marshall Miller: any sense. Yeah. It seems like a waste of time, but, yeah, 1 day.
Marshall Miller: I have a dream. I, I really do, man.
Laurent Frat: What a legacy to leave behind too. If you were, Responsible for, lifting this kind of nonsense.
Marshall Miller: Can you imagine? Yeah. There's a lot of people kinda making that push that have Had their own run ins with the law and, smarter guys that have money for attorneys, they really start to look into this stuff. And, I don't want it to be us against them at all. together, we can find some sort of happy reunion that Makes sense for both parties, and we can do it in a respectable,
Laurent Frat: respectable [00:25:00] way.
Laurent Frat: I can't go into it to with too much detail, But I know that all cases in Yosemite are currently pending and that, nobody's getting tried. It's just basically put on the back burner, because of 1 of the defense For 1 of the people who jumped, press set forward, and I think we're just all waiting to see what happens.
Marshall Miller: Someone mentioned this on a base jump the other day. I don't know much of the details, but I have heard something similar to that. I don't wanna
Laurent Frat: talk too much about it.
Laurent Frat: I think it was Talked in confidence, but I'm hoping that person is gonna come on the podcast and give us a full lowdown on it, soon because I would love to hear the story in full.
Marshall Miller: Me too. Right
Laurent Frat: on. man, what have you been up to lately? You, You're jumping all those beautiful Wasatch jumps with your wingsuit, and, I wanna hear all about it.
Laurent Frat: But I also wanna hear your thoughts [00:26:00] because I feel like you've been quite patient around it. Like you guys, you have some spectacular jumps. They're all fairly technical, but, Have you been patient, or is it just me being, naive? No. No.
Laurent Frat: Tell me
Marshall Miller: about it. Yeah. Very patient. Yeah. here in Utah well, specifically in the Wasatch Mountain range, We have, 10 to 15 awesome jumps, like 3000 to 5000 footers that are really cool.
Marshall Miller: Only problem with all these are they're all super techie. techie meaning like a super short start. I went through a phase a few years ago where I made my I made a decision that if I couldn't jump if I couldn't base jump something in my freak comfortably, I just wasn't gonna do that type of jump. unfortunately, we see so many people wiping out on this progressive end of wingsuit base jumping. And, I got a lot to live for.
Marshall Miller: I'm not trying to wipe out base jumping by any means. I'd kinda [00:27:00] feel like a loser if I did. And yeah, I remember the boys that roughly 5 years ago, they were opening wingsuit bass shops literally here in my backyard. Hartman, Rector, Pat, Richard Webb, obviously, Will Mitchell. these guys are out there getting it.
Marshall Miller: Bunch of studs. But, yeah, total studs. I like, love these dudes to death. I was always so jealous. I was like, oh, man.
Marshall Miller: This is literally, 20 minutes from my house, and I can see it out of my front door here. And, As I looked at the numbers, I just wasn't comfortable with some of them. And especially, in a freak at the time, just didn't really make sense. And, I have Corvids now and had auras in the past different, specific base jumping suits to give you a bit more margin. But I got back from a Europe trip and was feeling just really dialed and spent a couple weeks over there.
Marshall Miller: And I was like, let's take a look at some of these let's just [00:28:00] call them 10 very repeatable base jumps here in the Wasatch. Which ones are better than others? And As we looked at all the numbers, there was a few of them that made more sense than others, and, I was just motivated. It was actually last fall that I got really motivated to jump All of the base jumps here in the backyard and, Hartman Rector was I love this dude to death. He's 1 of my best friends.
Marshall Miller: a lot of people have gone in chasing him off a wingsuit base jumps, though. And I'm cognizant of that, and I'm aware that, watch out who you hang out with, so to speak. And Hartman's a total stud. He's always been, like a brother to me, and he's hey. Here's your numbers from your last 20 to 50 jumps.
Marshall Miller: Every single 1 of those jumps would have cleared this Crux on whatever jump we were looking at. And so from an analytical standpoint, I really love Hartman's style. he'll look at it, and I've been on plenty of base jumps where he's been gearing up, ready to jump. And [00:29:00] visually to me, it just looks like too spicy of a jump. we did, a 9 hour approach in the Tetons 1 time, and I wanted to jump so bad you have no idea.
Marshall Miller: I didn't wanna walk down that thing and down climate and repel. And he put a suit on and sent it. And, as I was talking to him in the landing zone, he just has a eloquent way of, Make your own decision. And, as you turn right over that crux, I had 20 meters of range on it. Typically, when I have 20 meters of range on a crux, it's you know, let's call it 50 down and a hundred out sorry.
Marshall Miller: 50 out and a hundred down, I kinda know What my margins on a crux like that would be, and I know what Hartman's margins are or something like that. And so I decided not to jump on that 1 and plenty others, but, Wow. he's very confident, inspiring to kinda show you what's possible and what's close.
Laurent Frat: I was gonna ask you about If you had walked down [00:30:00] from any jumps and, you went ahead and set it without asking, I'm curious if we could talk about that in a little bit more detail, the mindset of walking down and because I know I've been there. It's difficult, and, I think there's a lot of value there.
Laurent Frat: so please don't listen. True. Yeah. Tell us a little in detail, what was going on. 9 hour reproach is, that's Quite a consequential lockdown.
Marshall Miller: it's yeah. That was that's just 1 of many. I think the hardest decision we make in base jumping is the decision to walk down. Sometimes it's clear. You get up to the exit point as Gusting to 30, and you just you know, it just doesn't make sense.
Marshall Miller: But, on a lot of these wingsuit based jumps, it's typically a much longer approach than slider off stuff. And You get up there and you realize you can be back at your car in 3 minutes, and you really wanna jump. that's kinda why you walked all the way to the top of this mountain to begin with is to Kinda enjoy your dessert on the way down. [00:31:00] And, yeah, I made a decision early on in base jumping where I jumped in subpar conditions and it put me in a lot of trouble. It was at notch peak and I, there was, I was, it was 20 knots over the back and I jumped off of the west side of Notch and just felt the wind, push my shoulders so head low, Almost where I was, like, scorpion position as I was going towards that ledge that's down there.
Marshall Miller: And back in the days of little suits, Yeah. You just don't have much margin to begin with. And I had an incident out there where I panic pitched and hit the wall and Broke some things and had to get helicoptered off of that, which is it's embarrassing in hindsight, but, dang, you learn your lesson real quick. that was probably 10 years ago, but you learn a lesson real quick of This is not the type of environment I wanna be spending the night on a edge of a cliff in. This is I can make better decisions. And Yeah. When you get to an exit point lately, the conditions obviously, [00:32:00] the conditions are always super important. suits are 1 thing, But really, in my mind, conditions are so much. I think we're all pretty keen on what our numbers are now and what the suits are typically fly at. but conditions can affect those numbers, in my opinion, by 20, 30 percent. it's 1 thing to jump into a 20 knot headwind that's blowing up the wall really lifty in thermic as opposed to jumping like a high altitude north facing exit point that You're just not gonna get that much value in the conditions. You actually just have to, get air speed to start flying away from things.
Laurent Frat: Yeah.
Laurent Frat: Even in the favorable conditions, I jumped to North Face not that long ago, towards the beginning of the summer, and I feel like that was the la It was the first time that I felt free fall in quite a while. Because usually Yeah. Yeah. Wingsuiting.
Laurent Frat: usually, you step off, push off, and I'm always jumping in really [00:33:00] favorable conditions in the sun, and it's like you don't ever even feel the free fall.
Marshall Miller: And, totally. Yeah. You start flying.
Marshall Miller: You're like, here we go. And,
Laurent Frat: yeah, this 1, this 1 was like, oh, yeah. You can fall a base jumping sometimes. it was all good. It was, I was ready for it, but, and the cliff is huge, but, it was it just reminded me about how Important conditions are
Marshall Miller: Totally.
Marshall Miller: Totally. Quartering
Laurent Frat: tailwind It's hard to walk out. Is like the worst for
Marshall Miller: me. Yeah. I know.
Marshall Miller: Especially high altitude and north facing, you do get that sensation of, man, I'm falling a long ways here. The suit should have been flying, way back there. Yeah. Here I am still kinda, making trying to get it to power up. yeah, walking off of base jobs, that's something that I take note of.
Marshall Miller: Let's I think every jumper really needs to be more aware of, hey. It's okay to walk off of things. The mountain's not going anywhere. You can come back next weekend in better conditions and Have a great jump. It's way less stressful.[00:34:00]
Laurent Frat: 9 so 9 hours of hiking down? obviously, it's like up goes a little bit slower than down, but
Marshall Miller: Jesus. It was still a lot. Yeah. It was a lot.
Marshall Miller: In the Tetons too, and it's climby and scrambly and loose rocks. it was fun. Luckily, I had a butt up there that was gonna carry our ropes down anyways that Oh, okay. So you weren't alone too. that's Partnered up with him and cruise down together.
Marshall Miller: Nice.
Laurent Frat: I'm thinking, there's been a few times where I've ground launched my parachute, pull it out of the container, bring the slider down, tie it off, and then, ground launch my, my canopy. But in the Tetons, I don't think there's much ground launching locations there. Is there?
Marshall Miller: That was pretty yeah.
Marshall Miller: It was kinda cliffy and rock faces up there, but, Yeah. Respect. I actually love that move. if the conditions are favorable where you can, pull the canopy out and float your way down. I've actually never done that.
Marshall Miller: I've paragliding a lot and speed flew a lot, but I've never unpacked a wingsuit [00:35:00] slider up base rig and said, I'm gonna I'm gonna do it like this. It's pretty good. I
Laurent Frat: think I've only done it really twice, but, yeah, saved my ass for sure. I was, I was I think it was, like, 1 of my first seasons in France. I hadn't moved there yet, and I was so in over my head.
Laurent Frat: And I met up with Matt Curtis, Rock, and this other guy, Micah. not the Micah from, that we know and love, but, French Micah is also a great dude, but and we were hoping to go open this exit. And, we got there after a long hike. I think we spent 4 or 5 hours hiking around, looking for Exit Point, and this is before lasers were commonplace. And throwing some rocks, it's 5 5 5 5,
Marshall Miller: tossing as hard as you can.
Marshall Miller: 5.
Laurent Frat: And we all agreed right away that this was an, [00:36:00] a jump for us. And thank God, that they didn't jump because I might have thought it was a good idea for me too. And, I just I didn't know what I was doing back then.
Laurent Frat: And, where we walk to go down, and, it was pretty rocky. And but then there were as soon as we got to this little tiny peach Piece of grass, like a patch of grass on the side of the hill there. we're way up there, 2700 meters or something. So quite up there. I don't know what that is in feet.
Laurent Frat: Mhmm. Matt g pulls out his parachute and says, hey, guys. I gotta go to work. he was always working on something.
Laurent Frat: Right? Lays it out, Has this perfect, headwind, pulls it up over his head and flies away, and I was just like, I had never paragonized. I had never speed
Marshall Miller: flown.
Laurent Frat: And rock, man. Big thanks to rock because The other dude, Micah, launched successfully, flew away as well, also has paragliding experience.[00:37:00]
Laurent Frat: Rock was, like, up there, Held the center cell, told me what to do, walked me through it, helped me launch, and I was just like, man. It was probably better than a bass jump because I just had never Thought you even conceived that this was a possibility.
Marshall Miller: And Totally. Yeah, man. Is great.
Laurent Frat: Rock will be a friend forever just for that moment, if nothing else.
Marshall Miller: Hey. For sure. Right on. I can't imagine how spicy that'd be.
Marshall Miller: never done that before and forward launching a base canopy isn't exactly easy. There's a few things you gotta know what to do and how Do it. Oh, that's horrified.
Laurent Frat: That's horrified. It's probably more scary than base jumping, in my Wixu at that point.
Marshall Miller: Yeah. Probably. Yeah. Back to what you're saying. it's tough when you get up to an exit point and I don't know.
Marshall Miller: Say you're in a group of 4 4 people. If 1 person's stoked to send it, dang. The other 3 are probably gonna follow suit. That is that takes way more wherewithal to Know your limits in a situation like that where we're all jumping the same suit, same gear.[00:38:00]
Marshall Miller: if 1 guy can do it, So can I is a easy mentality to default towards? So yeah. It's much easier when everybody kinda says, alright. This isn't for us today or the conditions are wrong or whatever, but, yeah, I try to be mindful of that too. Sometimes when you're on exit points with less experienced bait jumpers, Don't set a bad example for them even though that's what you're coming to do.
Marshall Miller: It's something to be mindful of.
Laurent Frat: Yeah. I agree with that. It's like a Team sport in that regard. if you're gonna go out with some people that don't have the sort of skill set that you do, Then should probably be prepared to walk down if nobody's you know, if even 1 person mentions that they're not feeling comfortable, Make it easy
Marshall Miller: for them.
Marshall Miller: Yeah. That's a tough 1. You know, it's such a the energy on an exit point is so contagious. I found that, say you and your buds get to an exit point. And if even 1 person mentions, I'm not feeling it or, anything [00:39:00] negative like that, There's a side of me that doesn't wanna hear that because, maybe I am feeling it.
Marshall Miller: Maybe, the other people are feeling it. It's a tough thing to hear, and it's a tough thing to say. But, Yeah. It is a team sport, but there's a lot of people that solo jump a lot just because they wanna be in their own headspace and deal with their own emotions and feelings, and I respect that too.
Laurent Frat: Yeah. I think it was Steph that said that she likes solo jumping because Groups can be loud. Loud because she can't hear the wind and loud because it interrupts her own thoughts.
Marshall Miller: Sure.
Laurent Frat: Sure.
Laurent Frat: And, that's true. I like my solo jumps, but I also like to do it with friends and yeah. It's like it's funny because I was at an exit point once, And, it was an opening, and everybody arrived there, and you could just tell feel the tension and, feel the doubt. And, there was so much back and [00:40:00] forth and talk, and I just sat back and watched, it unfold. And, as soon as the first person jumped, it was instant courage.
Laurent Frat: There was 1 person that sort of stuck to their idea that this wasn't for them, but, yeah, the courage that ensued was contagious.
Marshall Miller: Nice. Nice. Yeah. True.
Marshall Miller: True. You see your friends do it successfully. You're like, I knew it wasn't that bad. Yeah. I knew it wasn't that bad.
Marshall Miller: We had a similar site situation. We were at Sassa Longo, the death star in Italy a couple months ago, and we got there and the conditions were ideal. And you look into this thing, and it's full on. It's spicy looking, but the numbers are actually huge, and it's a pretty straightforward jump. But a couple of the guys got there, and they're like, Heck no.
Marshall Miller: I don't want anything to do with this. And I was like, yeah. Right on. I get it. But a couple of the guys were like, We've only got 2 days here, and I really wanna jump this.
Marshall Miller: When I was here last year and didn't jump it, [00:41:00] and, yeah, people started Teeing off of this thing, and everybody made it look good. And we were talking to people after they landed, and it was just fine. But, Yeah. That group mentality can sway things quite a bit. Speaking
Laurent Frat: of, the Dolomites, I looked, I watched, or rewatched, Line of Sight recently and was amazed to see that it has 1000000 views.
Laurent Frat: that's amazing for a base jumping video. so right? Good on Kavu. Good on you guys. You did a really good job of sharing the joys of jumping.
Laurent Frat: Can you talk a little bit about this project and what
Marshall Miller: went into it? Yeah. Of course. It's, in my opinion, light of sight is it's just such a good documentary of wingsuit base jumping and Agreed. What we're doing up there and, how we're feeling in different exit points and kind of the vibe around everything.
Marshall Miller: Yeah. This [00:42:00] was a trip. I It might have been 2 years ago, something like that we were going to the Dolomites. we've been going there for the, the last 5 or 6 years every summer, and It's 1 of my favorite places to jump, and we have this cool heli boogie set up over there. We have a helicopter for 3 days, and we've kinda created this tour around it Where we go to Lake Garda and warm up at Brento and have a bunch of really fun jumps around the lake there.
Marshall Miller: Then we go to Sasseportoy and to the helicopter, and then we, finish in, Colfosco or some of those more spicy pizza ledge type of jumps and the Death Star. it's an awesome, trip. But this trip is funny enough, it was actually my twentieth anniversary, with my wife. And I was like, she was coming with me the whole time, and It was supposed to be a fun anniversary trip, which was like, hey. We're gonna send a filmer photog with you guys and see what you think.
Marshall Miller: I was like, perfect. the guy that came with us is a total stud, and he'd be a good dude to have in the mix. But He is a [00:43:00] great film or photographer, Brady nickel Nicholson. And, he edited that video, produced it, And just did such a great job. he kinda interview us at the right times and get our thoughts and feelings on things.
Marshall Miller: And, yeah, that was, that's 1 of my favorite videos. I get people like, What's 1 of your favorite videos to watch? I always refer them to that 1. it's long, but it's documentary style, but really tells a good story. It
Laurent Frat: does tell a really good story, and you guys are all real honest on it.
Laurent Frat: And, it's nice to hear a little bit of depth behind, the imagery, because there's no shortage of, wingsuit porn out there. but, some real depth of about What's going on behind it is, something I can appreciate. Talk can you talk a little bit about Kavu? Because you've been partnered with them for a long time now, and, Yeah. there's some really good guys, so
Marshall Miller: fuck me a little bit more.
Marshall Miller: I love these guys. Of course. These guys, the Kabu Boys, they have a special place in their heart for [00:44:00] human flight. Barry Barr's dad was 1 of the first guys that brought hang gliding to the states Back in the seventies, they lived in Sun Valley, and his dad would go up to Baldy and fly his hang glider down on Skis and there's some really good images of his dad, on those old delta looking delta style wings, kinda hang gliding down speed fly style. Yeah.
Marshall Miller: We got associated with these guys, 15 years ago, I think it was, and met him right when we met GoPro. This all kinda came together at the same time. We you know, GoPro came out with these little cameras that we could now put on our you know, anywhere on your body, really, but It was so little and easy to jump with. It just revolutionized what was possible. And, as we built a relationship with GoPro back then, Kabu is Was, was friends of Human Flight, and we, kinda partner with them.
Marshall Miller: And that's been a relationship that we've had for years and Entirely [00:45:00] grateful for these guys. I can't think of all the life experiences that I've had and some of the best trips of my life that They've literally paid for and just said, go over to the coolest place and, have a coffee day more or less. And They epitomize the, wake up and be awesome is just that's their motto. That's what they want you to do every day. wake up and how can I Make today the best day of my life?
Marshall Miller: And so that's what they support. That's what they promote. And, of course, all of us wanna do that. We wanna wake up and think, How can I make today awesome? And that's having a KAVU day.
Laurent Frat: Yeah. That's amazing. Maybe you could just tell people what KAVU means.
Marshall Miller: CalBIU is an acronym. It stands for it's an aviation term.
Marshall Miller: It's an acronym that says that's that means clear above visibility unlimited. And that is like a mindset or an outlook of if you wake up and if you're an aviator, you look out and clear above visibility unlimited means There's not a trouble in the world. Clear [00:46:00] skies from here, smooth sailing, whatever you wanna call that. just today's gonna be awesome, and there's no troubles in the way, and We're on path for a great
Laurent Frat: 1. Yeah.
Laurent Frat: And they seem to have filled a team of dudes that's Live that ethos and, something I really appreciate. What a cool company. Mhmm. I saw I was going up, the GUI the other day, and This girl came up to us and was, like, asking all these questions, and, she was wearing a Kavu fanny pack, and I was like, ah, right on. She's oh, yeah.
Laurent Frat: I saw
Marshall Miller: that. I was yeah. I love it. They're starting to be a worldwide brand now. And, It's the I love that you have that story.
Marshall Miller: you see him on top of the agreement with me, and I was just in Hawaii, North shore a little bit ago. And In the shop, there was a bunch of Kabu stuff, and you see it everywhere. They're kinda they are everywhere. And my 17 year old daughter It's fully trending with the teenagers right now. She's always give me more [00:47:00] of that Kabu gear.
Marshall Miller: Oh, nice.
Laurent Frat: Cool. So they're like Yeah. They're making moves. Coming back in style with the youngins.
Laurent Frat: For sure.
Marshall Miller: They're making moves. Yeah. It's funny
Laurent Frat: because I did a really, I produced a small, info documentary kind of thing for BBC, and, it was shared, by 1 of our Japanese members, broadcasters, and, it's funny because they NHK, that is. And Barry And his Japanese partner that, 1 of the retailers over there was, like, showed it to him, and then they hit me up, and they're like, oh, look.
Laurent Frat: we saw this on, there was somebody who was wearing a Kavu sticker and there was wing suiting, and I was like, yes. This is so cool.
Marshall Miller: I love it. Yeah. Support these guys.
Marshall Miller: They, they really, like they support our game. They support human flight. They support people out there trying to have a wonderful day and Live their best life. Everything they stand for is awesome.
Laurent Frat: you've [00:48:00] been someone that I see who's Been successful as a professional athlete, in, these human flight sports, and I think it's not easy.
Laurent Frat: And there's not a whole lot of people out there that have done a good job with it. And, I think There's this misconception that, hey. They're gonna I wanted them to give me something, but really being an athlete and having a partnership with a company like that is really about is providing some value. can you talk a little bit about This for maybe people listening that are interested in being pro and wanna partner with some Interesting companies and how to approach them, and what's the sort of value that you can provide?
Marshall Miller: Yeah.
Marshall Miller: Of course. I appreciate you bringing that up. I actually get this question a lot. I've had handfuls of messages like this all the time, hey. How do I get started to be sponsored?
Marshall Miller: And a lot of [00:49:00] jumpers out there, They're good at it. They wanna make it run and kinda get paid to base jump and paid to be rad. And, you have to look at it from a business standpoint. You have to look at it from a value position of, it needs to be a win relationship. Just because you're the raddest dude on the planet, Not a lot of companies are just gonna send you all the money you've ever dreamt of to be rad.
Marshall Miller: there's so much more that comes with that. Your personality, your, your name, image, and likeness is what people really need to be on board with. And so if you're out there spreading good vibes and you're doing cool stuff, and you're just a good person. That's your it's you're gonna be much more inclined to work with a work out a partnership with a company Then if you're out there just doing rad things. And so it's a funny question.
Marshall Miller: I get this question so often that I stop telling people, yeah. my reply to this question used to be [00:50:00] pick out your favorite 10 companies And send them a message that just says, hey. My name is Joe Blow, and I'm 1 of the coolest dudes on the planet. you gotta toot your own horn for sure and tell them how great far and all the moves you're making, and see if there's a position that you can, step you know, bring value. I hate to say, but oftentimes, your social media presence is 1 of your biggest bargaining chips.
Marshall Miller: if you have a million followers that you can share Information about companies who you're affiliated with, that really, helps. If you have a thousand followers, you have a little bit less of an audience, less of a reach. But if you do have some viral videos out there that, in the future, you hope to create more of. Again, that's another bargaining chip. Anyways, I used to tell people this all the time.
Marshall Miller: yeah, pick out your Top favorite companies. Send them a message. Really be smart about how you could create a win type of relationship with them And approach [00:51:00] it like a business. approach it like how you wanna be a consultant or sorry. You wanna be a contractor for this company.
Marshall Miller: You wanna be affiliated with them that way. And the more I kept doing that, hey. I'm the first to recognize it's super hard to get paid from a company. It's 1 thing to send a company A message and say, I love your brand. I love everything you guys are doing.
Marshall Miller: That company will easily send you gear and anything else, their soft cost items. but to actually turn that into monetary value to get paid where they send you a check every month or every year, That's an entirely different pursuit. and it's so hard that some of these guys that are asking these type of questions, I took a step back, and now my approach to that question is, why don't you just get really good at something and create your own value and Keep doing these type of sports for the love of it and, sponsor yourself in essence. get a good job, get a good [00:52:00] career, get something that's Put together on your end where it's really cool and sponsor yourself. And, let's just say if a hundred people ask me that question, The reality of people actually becoming sponsored and getting paid to do the things that we do, it might be 1 of those people out of a hundred that are qualified and have the skills and have the, all the right attributes and characteristics of someone that a big company with a lot of money that would wanna be Aligned with.
Marshall Miller: yeah, that goes back and forth a lot. I you know, as much as I wanna say, yeah, everybody keep doing rad stuff and Keep pumping out content and videos, and you'll you're guaranteed to get noticed and sponsored. it's a long The road of not a lot of money to arrive at that spot. If you think about it, some of the only companies that have human flight teams or, are actually paying human flight athletes Is very small.
Marshall Miller: let's just say if there's a thousand of us wingsuiters out there, the [00:53:00] companies that wanna sponsor and be aligned with Wing suit base jumpers specifically, there's, 10 of those slots out of a thousand jumpers. So Be that really awesome 1 percent, Yeah.
Laurent Frat: It's not an easy road. Yeah.
Laurent Frat: What about the
Marshall Miller: you know? Sorry. Go ahead. Yeah. I was gonna say, a lot of the things that we found in the past, Malcolm Gladwell wrote this book called Outliers, and it's really good, but it also puts things into perspective as far as being at the right place at the right time.
Marshall Miller: And so he talks about Bill Gates and how, he got his start and, computers and the Internet were just barely coming out when he was Motivated to make moves in that industry. Same thing in the weeks of base jumping and human flight. it was the days of Social media was just becoming a thing. The power of the Internet, like GoPro cameras, YouTube, this was all very Fresh and very new. So there just wasn't [00:54:00] a lot of content out there at the time.
Marshall Miller: And so it was a little bit of a shoeing because we were some of the more active jumpers, And we were kinda handy with social media. We were handy with these different outlets of producing content. It was a it was an easy value position to present to companies that, Hey. We've got these resources. We've got sponsors like GoPro backing us.
Marshall Miller: to get sponsors at that time felt It felt pretty easy. So yeah. With on the cusp of all that stuff coming out, it was just a good time to, go make a jump, film it, in a different angle that nobody ever seen before, and people are gonna be super interested in checking that out. Whereas these days, we've got 3 60 cameras that you can get every shot you've ever dreamed of, and, we've all seen those type of shots before. We love them, but We're all using the same camera now and kinda getting the same shots.
Laurent Frat: With, the overabundance of the shot, where do you think Or maybe where do [00:55:00] you focus, your content creation? Do you have a do you have a message that you're trying to send, or is there The kind of vibe that you put out with your material?
Marshall Miller: That's a good question. I think when I go film jumps, I know a lot of us like to think that we're the most hardcore dudes on the planet because we zip into a wingsuit and jump off a cliff. But in actuality, it's pretty straightforward.
Marshall Miller: It's like a it's like a paraglider flying off the side of a hill. It's like a speed flyer running down a grassy slope. We all kinda exit the top of the mountain, land at the at the bottom with a smile on our faces, and really we're out there Mostly to enjoy nature and to enjoy the outdoors and the mountains. And oftentimes, we're there with our friends, and I get way more out of Walking up a mountain for a few hours and descending however you will with whatever short of wingsuit or parachute or speedwing you've got And being in the LZ with my buds, and those high fives and those smiles are the [00:56:00] most genuine that I found. Yeah.
Marshall Miller: Wing suit bass jumping is pretty rad, But, there's a lot more than this than just that. I used to watch these videos of the Norwegians and Watching, Tom Erik and Espin and Yoke and some of those early boys, when they would land in the LZ, They were like little schoolgirls just going off and jumping around and high fiving each other and hugging, and I longed for that. I was like, woah. These are the dudes I wanna be hanging out with because they just did something so rad, and their energy is so, elevated that I gotta check this out. So I was very inspired early on to wingsuit base jump just watching the Norwegian boys get after it on the regular.
Marshall Miller: And they're still doing it. Look at Tom Eric. He's he literally jumps every day. He goes for huge hikes. Follow this guy on Strava.
Marshall Miller: He's a total stud. he's an animal. And he's still, That same giddy little girl on the exit and, you love to jump with this [00:57:00] dude because he's so much fun to hang out with. Yeah.
Laurent Frat: And I made a jump with Espen not that long ago, and, we were, like, in the clouds.
Laurent Frat: Wasn't sure we were gonna be able to jump. And, yeah, we were So stoked when we landed, high fives and hugging and everything like that. yeah, the energy is still there with those guys
Marshall Miller: for sure. I love that so much, man. that's really why we do I look at these sports.
Marshall Miller: It's like it's a great descent tool. It's really fun to go for a physical hike and get to the top of the mountain and fly down however you wish. And when you get down to the bottom, you know, you just did something really cool. You bettered yourself and, that's always a better scene than when you started. So let's do more of that, and let's do it for a long time.
Laurent Frat: Before we leave the professional topic, there's a lot of people that have been finding success through public speaking, and I know you've done some. Maybe you could share a little bit about the way that you your presentations go, what you talk about, and, your whole thought behind
Marshall Miller: it. [00:58:00] Yeah. You bet. Public speaking initially kinda came to me.
Marshall Miller: Hey. Look. I turned 40 something not long ago, and I'm in my years of understanding that I need to be responsible to better myself for the years to come, and, now is the time to do that. And so I saw a lot of, professional athletes.
Marshall Miller: They were making this shift from, from what they were doing previously to public speaking, and we've got some great stories. We've got good messages to share. But there is something that has always drawn me towards things like this, and it's just like wingsuit base jumping. If I'm Watching a video and never have done a wingsuit base jump, that looks so scary. I'm inspired by that.
Marshall Miller: I wanna check it out. I wanna investigate what actually goes into it. And I'm super I'm scared of a wingsuit based shop, especially before you do it. And I have these same feelings towards public speaking. imagine staying up in front of 10000 people and, [00:59:00] putting your best foot forward and telling all these guys how to live their life and how to, how to be their best selves.
Marshall Miller: That sounds really intimidating to my to me. And so I was quite inspired by that to, like I'm a big fan of overcoming your fears and, making moves and facing your fears and getting comfortable with, scaring yourself you're scaring yourself often is good for us. And so I looked into public speaking, kinda made some moves towards that with the help of Cedric and a lot of really other key people that have been very influential to me, and They've made successful careers themselves in public speaking. Yeah. And I've done quite a few speeches around the nation, and I like it.
Marshall Miller: I'm I have a really good message that I share with people, and the message more or less is Based on facing your fears and connecting with your core, finding out what drives you in life and kind of those core principles that, we call them pillars that make you who you are. the things that really are truth to [01:00:00] you and, building on those things towards a better future. And Those are some of my messages that we talk a lot about. Another 1 of my messages is saying yes. think of the times that Someone calls you up and they're like, hey.
Marshall Miller: Do you wanna go do this adventure? you might himhaw about actually saying yes to that or doing it, but Every time you say yes, think in hindsight, think of those times that maybe you said yes and you necessarily didn't want to. You're always more stoked that you did say yes because that's how we build memories. And it's a lot of these memories. When we're a hundred years old, we're gonna look back on our lives To be so thankful that we said yes to adventures and said yes to experiences like that.
Marshall Miller: yeah, the public speaking thing is really fun. it's something that I really enjoy to do. I view that career now as something I'm probably not going to pursue as far as that's not my next moneymaker, so to speak, but it's something I really love to share [01:01:00] my message with anywhere from Small youth groups to business conventions and everywhere in between.
Laurent Frat: Yeah. I think, that even if it isn't your career or Your full time gig, just having a little bit of experience sharing in a professional setting, some of the benefits that jumping has brought to you.
Laurent Frat: I think it's beneficial and just having this conversation. Just have how many times Have you met a new person and they find out you're a bass jumper? It's just you can either Have a real genuine conversation and share something special with this person, or you can be like, yeah. Yeah.
Laurent Frat: Yeah. Yeah. I'm a jumper. Blah blah blah. It can go in 1 of 2 ways. And I think that focusing intention on the benefits It's a real powerful thing.
Marshall Miller: It is. it's I love that saying of, how do you know who's [01:02:00] a bass jumper at the bar? Yeah.
Marshall Miller: He or she's gonna tell you is the answer to that. It's so true. We love to, talk about how rad we are and what our hobbies and pastimes are. And I don't know why base jumping just comes out so easily with a lot of us. But with that same breath, when someone finds out you're a jumper, It's pretty easy to have an engaging conversation where they just they genuinely have a lot of questions, and they wanna know so much about what we do.
Marshall Miller: but take that moment to make sure that's a positive type of a positive engagement With that person, it's a great opportunity to kinda shine some light on them, show you show other people that through facing your fears and adventures and stuff like this that, you know, you're gonna create these memories that really make, life fulfilling. So I'm a big fan of that. every time you meet someone, try to leave that A more positive situation. I used to have this goal that I want to love 10000000000 people. that's that would [01:03:00] be, in essence, every person on the face of the earth.
Marshall Miller: And if you could look at every 1 of those people and find a little bit of love for them, think of those road rage Situations or the moments where someone's annoying you, and hopefully, you can put that behind you and just find a little bit of love for those people. And as they talk to you, it's pretty easy to Connect with them and find out ways to make their life a little bit letter better and share some light with them.
Laurent Frat: Yeah. I For anybody that's listened to a few of these episodes, know that I like to ask questions more than I like to talk, and I usually like to turn it around where, not everybody needs to put the intensity on an 11. Right?
Laurent Frat: that just happens to be my shit. And, it can be public speaking. It can be going to talk to that pretty girl. It can be, asking your boss for a raise. And these are all, Hurdles that we encounter, where we have to do some box breathing, calm our nerves [01:04:00] down, Rely on our training and trust that we have the confidence it takes to do it.
Laurent Frat: I think that's the powerful message that I like to share with people.
Marshall Miller: For sure. Yeah. More people like that makes the place a better all Much better.
Laurent Frat: What about balancing family life?
Laurent Frat: Do you feel like it's been a challenge? Do you feel like It's been a positive aspect of your life and your family life because there's a lot of people that Message us after episodes where we have dads on, and we're like, oh, we really love this. I wanna tell more. So so please, elaborate a little bit about what it's been like, being a dad and your relationship to jumping and facing danger, knowing that you have to support a
Marshall Miller: family. Yeah.
Marshall Miller: For sure. I, just to start off, the first and most common question that my wife gets when, they meet her is how do you let your husband do this? [01:05:00] And I think you've got a different situation because your wife actually does this too, but it's, it's an interesting 1. right when I got married, I got into paragliding in my young twenties and, we were just kids and just Figured hey, babe.
Marshall Miller: I'm gonna go learn how to fly these things off the mountains. And she was like, okay. Whatever that means. be safe, And I, I actually have I wiped out paragliding, 3 months after I got into it.
Marshall Miller: The worst wreck I've ever been, and I, shattered my femur, my pelvis, 4 of my vertebrae. I broke both my arms. I couldn't run my wheelchair. It was actually, such a disaster. And so I just didn't know what I was doing in Paraguay.
Marshall Miller: That Just thought it was really fun to, pull on the toggles and, have a big swing set and, didn't understand everything that goes into that. The typical case of, intermediate syndrome just got me really good. And as I'm laying, in a hospital bed at my folks' house for 6 months, I had [01:06:00] a lot of time to reflect to be like, okay. Pump the brakes a little bit on some of this stuff and realize that your wife is literally here, taking care of you at every beck and call. You can't be doing this.
Marshall Miller: And yeah, I recognize that I'm the provider in the family, and my wife and I have 2 kids, a boy and a girl. but I was flying paragliders before they were born, and this is something that I've been doing forever. And so we're all kinda comfortable with what we do. And as people look in our at our relationships, I think an outsider who's, not into Flying or not into adventure sports, we'll look at your relationship and just be like, how do you do this stuff, and how are you comfortable with this, and how are you okay Having kids, shouldn't you be more responsible? and that question annoys me.
Marshall Miller: yeah. Trust me. I'm not trying to wipe out doing this stuff. I'm actually just trying to I'm trying to live the best life possible. And [01:07:00] Through my eyes, living the best life possible also means, being a little bit selfish and fulfilling a lot of my needs and desires.
Marshall Miller: And I think we all need to take care of number 1 first, and that's us. If you give your entire life to your spouse, that's way to be supportive and stuff, but make sure you're happy first. Make sure you're content and living a good life. That way you're just so much more full and have more to give, more to express, more to be there for other people. Yeah.
Marshall Miller: We did talk about, when people ask about how do you do this, how do you or, they'll ask your wife, like, how do you allow him to do this? I think the people or the partners can rep can recognize that they do this because they love it. And you should see these guys when they come back from a trip or a jump. They're stoked. They're super happy, and they're content.
Marshall Miller: And now they're much more present when we're together and, they kinda got [01:08:00] a fix.
Laurent Frat: So that's definitely true in my relationship. Ellen can see the meter, the fun meter. When I've been working too much and the fun meter is low, she's you gotta go for a jump or something. Go get out there.
Laurent Frat: Get out there. Because I'm a better person. I literally am a better person, and I'm a better dad. I'm a better employee.
Laurent Frat: Mhmm. Call you what? Call it what you will. it it makes me a better person.
Marshall Miller: Yeah.
Marshall Miller: It really does. There's something to be said about that, get out there and enjoy your life for sure. The more you enjoy your life, the more Light you have to share with others. and you're 1 you should be speaking about this more so than me. You have young kids and your wife's a jumper, and I'm sure you get this question all the time too.
Laurent Frat: Yeah. I do. I have a lot of confidence in my wife. she makes amazing decisions. she sticks to her ideals of what is safe and what isn't, and, she's unwavering.
Laurent Frat: the other [01:09:00] day she walked down because she had she left her phone on the car and She walked she left her bag, ran down to get the phone, came back to her bag. And, I think it was 45 minutes later, Just had, this uneasy feeling about making mistakes and was like, I'm gonna walk down.
Marshall Miller: Yeah. And I was like, wow. That's nice.
Marshall Miller: Had a girl. Yeah. For real.
Laurent Frat: And, maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like A lot of the times, the way that we practice a sport, meaning like going for an hour and a half to 2 hour to 3 hour hike, getting to a big exit point with a huge rock drop, zipping up our suits and Flying away, pulling high. There's a lot of room for things to go wrong, But I think it's a lot safer than the general public sees [01:10:00] it.
Marshall Miller: Most definitely.
Laurent Frat: Yeah. I'm not saying that it is safe. The safest option obviously is not to do it at all, but it's, I see it as sustainable.
Marshall Miller: Yeah.
Marshall Miller: I love it. I was in Switzerland a few weeks ago, and there's a couple in Switzerland. They're in their seventies, And they wings I don't know the names. I forgot. They wingsuit base jump together.
Marshall Miller: I don't know why I was so inspired by that. This is like a lifestyle sport that we can do for a really long time.
Laurent Frat: Yeah. if it takes a lot of personal awareness as And, staying true to what you think is right. your example of only doing jumps that, are, applicable in a freak is a good example of that. And I think that, Yeah. We all need to set our own standards. there's been plenty of times in the last 4 years when I started being a dad where The guys I jumped with before were going to a different exit point that didn't [01:11:00] fit what my, ideals or my risk tolerance.
Laurent Frat: And I'd love to say that I just confidently said no and walked away. But, man, it eats at you. It eats at you because you wanna run with the boys.
Marshall Miller: Yeah.
Marshall Miller: Let's go.
Laurent Frat: And It's hard. Wanna hit it hard. And, but, unfortunately, some of those guys are not here anymore.
Laurent Frat: And, it's it's really difficult or at least it's been difficult for me to say, now this is the sort of box that I'm staying in. This is what feels right for me. And sometimes I push those edges a little bit. I get a little dirty, get a little naughty.
Laurent Frat: Yeah. Yeah. But it's like when everything lines up, When I'm feeling great, I've slept well and, just had the perfect cup of coffee, took a dump before I left the house, feeling fit, and everything just lines up. And I'm not I don't have any, misconceptions of, I'm invincible or that this is like But, I also my dad died of a heart attack at a [01:12:00] early age, and I wanna live my best life. And I don't wanna, I don't wanna be lying on my deathbed with regrets, and so it's a balancing act.
Laurent Frat: And, I'm just hoping that, like Yuri, who I just recently Chatted with that when it just doesn't feel right, I just won't do
Marshall Miller: it. Keep it simple. How awesome is that? Yeah. Hopefully, we can all have that wherewithal to know that no jump is worth dying for.
Marshall Miller: wingsuit base jumping in general is a super dangerous thing to do. You're right. If you wanna keep it totally safe, don't do it. But I'm a true believer that if we have these parameters and know our limits, we can safely stay I lie for a long time doing this, and it's like tennis. It's like golf.
Marshall Miller: You can truly enjoy this your entire life.
Laurent Frat: Yeah. generally, you're a pretty positive person, you have this [01:13:00] General aura of stoke. every time we've hung out and done some cool stuff together, it's just man, smiles for miles. And, but I know you've been through some darker moments.
Laurent Frat: I know that you've lost some friends, and Maybe you could share a little bit about how you've dealt with some of the darker aspects of
Marshall Miller: the sport. Yeah. It yeah. That for sure happens. it's a conscious effort to be a happy dude.
Marshall Miller: I wake up in the mornings, and I intentionally say, today is gonna be a good day, and I think about how I can make it that way. but, yeah, we all go through our ups and downs. And Admittedly, I got into base jumping at a darker place in life. I was in my twenties, and I was just finished school, and I was making so much money in my twenties in real estate that I thought I was gonna retire and be done by the time I was 30. And I was [01:14:00] just, within 5 years away from doing that, I thought.
Marshall Miller: That was when the 2008, economy crashed, and I was caught holding a lot of liabilities at the time and realized real quick that my big dreams and plans I've been Working towards weren't gonna happen at all. Matter of fact, it's gonna be just the opposite, and I was gonna put myself in a humongous hole that I'd have to dig out of. And I got into base jumping back then. I don't really care. I do care.
Marshall Miller: I had a kid at the time. My oldest son was around, and, it was a dark time. I would go to a base jump. Luckily around here, there's slider off base jumps, and they're pretty straightforward.
Marshall Miller: You jump off the cliff and Hope you don't hit it. it's it was the biggest fear. And but as I got into BASE jumping, I kinda found this whole new zest for life and this energy and, this enthusiasm [01:15:00] to do this more, but, to live and, Stay alive and be able to do a lot of these air sports and other things that we like in life for a really, long time. And I'll even though I got into base jumping, it a darker time in my life. I really wanna give base jumping credit for Helping me find so much joy.
Marshall Miller: it's insane to me. The places that paragliding, base jumping, Speed flying has taken me around the world. Otherwise, I'd never have visited these unbelievably magical places. And so I owe so much to these Air Sports for opening my eyes and really helping, a lot of my outlook on life. But yeah.
Marshall Miller: as you base jump and as you fly and go through these years of this type of stuff, Inevitably, you're gonna know people or have very close friends that are gonna make a mistake or they're gonna be the most Cutting edge progressive dude in that time frame. [01:16:00] And, again, that's the danger. That's the danger zone is If you're the best, most progressive wingsuit base jumper on the planet, everybody knows or every no one's gonna be surprised When find the basement, so to speak, and it's a tough position to kinda tell your friends like, hey, dude. You're pushing it or you're, you're way too comfortable with doing a barrel roll down a pretty intense line or something like that. And so It's really hard.
Marshall Miller: I'm a cowboy too. I wanna run loose and let my hair down and go wild, but, we have some things to live for. it's 1 thing to be a young single dude and not a lot of cares in the world. It's a completely different thing to be, more responsible and, have people that rely on you and need you in their lives.
Marshall Miller: And so It's good for us to recognize that, there's a lot more reasons to stay around [01:17:00] than to go somewhere else. So got a few
Laurent Frat: extra passengers riding that wingsuit with
Marshall Miller: you. That's true. That's a great way to look at it. Keep it safe.
Marshall Miller: What,
Laurent Frat: Have you had some of these conversations? I'd be bound to have, but, some of these hard conversations with friends who are pushing too
Marshall Miller: hard. Yeah. I actually hate to be the guy that, pumps the brakes on people. I see a lot of people, at our age kinda get into coaching and then mentoring and doing base courses, and that's literally the last thing I wanna do.
Marshall Miller: I don't wanna, be someone's mentor. I'd rather be, like, your best friend and your support group and, your cheerleader. I wanna get to an exit point with you. And, I have a lot of young jumpers right now in their twenties that have been like, show me the ropes. Show me how to do this.
Marshall Miller: take me to a spot. Teach me how to do this. And, I'll refer them to Chuma or somebody if they're in Europe with Maori and, set them up with what I think who I think [01:18:00] is 1 of the best Base jumper instructors and kinda put them on this path and, I've got a really good outline for people just to be like, k. Take these steps. And When you're ready to do this, I'd love to join you for your first 1.
Marshall Miller: I'd love to join you when you're, proficient at this stuff. And I love that, but I don't wanna be the dude that's hey. Be careful. I know a lot of people.
Marshall Miller: the base jumping community, we have this weird thing where If you have 200 jumps and 1 of your friends or somebody you know gets into base jumping after you, You're somehow, the all knowing most powerful base jumper on the planet, and you're super critical of, That jumper that just got into it. And, admittedly, I was maybe a little guilty of this when I first got into it that new jumpers would get in. They do something sketchy. I'd be like, Those guys are gonna wipe out any day now, but, it's a shit position to say that about somebody who's just [01:19:00] getting into it. Maybe even 6 months after you, we should be way more supportive of those guys.
Marshall Miller: And, if they are doing something crazy, if they're doing 1 too many Flips off the bridge. Just be like, hey. That's pretty uncommon to do 7 backflips of the bridge. maybe do 5 is cool. But If you wanna go out, do it, but, talk to people that are really good at this and they've been around for a long time and, they'll tell you what's up as well.
Laurent Frat: Yeah. I wish I could say that I was haven't been guilty of that too, you know, especially living in sham and seeing all the people coming in and wiping out. Like you say, it's I got pretty critical. I think I found myself As that, judgy jumper, a little bit longer than I would have liked, my attitude has completely changed now.
Laurent Frat: I just I don't have enough energy to share with those people. it's just okay.
Marshall Miller: It happens, bro. Yeah. It happens.
Laurent Frat: but yeah. [01:20:00] Those conversations are, are pretty important, and they're pretty big moments in some people's lives. And I definitely have Just bobbled the shit out of it a couple of times. And, yeah, I think it's I think it's important to support those people, that are basically
Marshall Miller: our younger selves.
Marshall Miller: Yeah. Totally. You can imagine, if you and I were on an exit point in our Early days of base jumping, and someone came up to you and they're like, dude, how many skydives do you have? Or, like, How many times have you flown that suit? if someone said those things to me on the exit point, that's the last thing I wanna hear.
Marshall Miller: I want you to tell me, That suit looks so good on you. I can't believe, like, all the preparation you've done for this. you remember, the top 3 things. look out, focus on where you're going, Get a good push. tell me the positive things that I need to be remembered in my mind anyways.
Marshall Miller: don't question how many jumps I got or don't question, What I'm doing there in the first place, it's, [01:21:00] it's 1 thing if a jumper shows up at Brento. I was like, dude, I just got this sick new suit on eBay. maybe be like, hey. Let's talk about what your plan is here, bro. Like, how are you gonna do this?
Marshall Miller: Let's work it out here. That's 1 conversation. But I found that with most jumpers, I've been with a lot of people on their first wingsuit based shop, and I think all of us will remember that is probably the most intense, Focused, just full on jump we've ever done. And I actually love these moments. I know a lot of people shy away from moments like that, but I do wanna be there for these guys and support them and, be that voice of, positivity and, encouragement.
Marshall Miller: I like that.
Laurent Frat: I think you were there with Jesse for my third wingsuit bass jump. Is that right? Yeah.
Marshall Miller: In Cherog.
Marshall Miller: Oh, awesome. Oh, okay. I remember this trip well. I realized, I just assumed you're just another badass wingsuit bass job. I didn't realize it was the
Laurent Frat: third.
Laurent Frat: No. it was my Second season, but, [01:22:00] way too early in my progression. I all I had been doing with my life was being a medic and, flying wingsuits at Lodi.
Marshall Miller: Yeah. Yeah.
Marshall Miller: I thought I was a ninja.
Laurent Frat: Little did I know. but, yeah, you guys were there, and, it was, pretty incredible. excited.
Laurent Frat: I've been watching your videos and all of a sudden I was like, dude, the GoPro guys are here. No way. and, The yeah. you guys stoked me out. There's some high fives before I went off, and, it was just, pretty amazing experience. The funny thing is I don't know if you remember this, but I might be getting the numbers wrong as far as, the year it was, but I came back and then I bumped into you in Lehi.
Marshall Miller: In Utah. In Utah. Here at home.
Marshall Miller: And I was like, what the
Laurent Frat: hell? What? You're like, hey. What are you doing? I was like, oh, yeah.
Laurent Frat: I'm gonna go in to visit this girl, Ellen, And you're like, no way. Get out of
Marshall Miller: here. She's awesome. Yeah. I was so happy to see you.
Marshall Miller: I was like, the last time I saw you was in Norway. Now you're here in my little [01:23:00] hometown. Yeah. Filling
Laurent Frat: gas up, filling my little truck with
Marshall Miller: gas. I was Totally remember that.
Marshall Miller: Sequences. Hundred percent. Mhmm.
Laurent Frat: let's talk about, the latest project that you've been involved with because, speaking of Utah, I went recently to visit, the in laws, and, Ellen's dad was super fired up to go do this VR experience. And, to be honest, I had some this idea of what it was gonna be like, and I was like, whatever.
Laurent Frat: K. I'm gonna go and Make him happy and Check it out. Yeah. And, first off, it was really cool. There was, like, the whole building experience, the videos here, just the fact that notch is on this big video as you open up the doors.
Laurent Frat: And the thing that really stuck out to me was that there was this group of young kids [01:24:00] that came in. I don't know how old they were, but old enough to be on their own, and under this not under the supervision of their parents, but just barely. And they were all super fired up. wing suiting this, wing suiting that, wing suiting this, wing suiting that, wing suiting this. I was like, wow.
Laurent Frat: The point of entry for our sport has just been opened to, these young kids, and they get to, grow up basically knowing that this is a possibility that they can explore. So I was From that perspective, I was like, wow. This is awesome. Tell me a little bit about, Yeah. This VR experience and where you guys are at with that.
Marshall Miller: Yeah. Glad you brought this up. This is called jump by limitless flight, and, this concept came about, 5 years ago. I remember vividly. I got home from my trip, in Europe and came back, and you know how stoked we are to share our videos with our close ones.
Marshall Miller: And I was showing 1 of my good friends some videos over there, and, he had started a [01:25:00] virtual reality company prior to this, and he was partnered with Disney and MGM and Paramount, some big companies around here and Was just gonna sell this company and have a bunch of money. but he was like, there's way more creative side of this stuff that we can do. And his partners were Like, we're already paid, dude. We don't need to be creative anymore. So he had this desire to continue on the creative side, and he's I can build a wingsuit Experience so we can stand on the edge of a cliff and jump off and fly the suit down.
Marshall Miller: And so we partnered up. I have a small interest in the company that I'm proud of, but this is something we've been working on for a long time. We had a prototype for a long time, and now we have a facility here in Utah. We have a facility in New York that's under construction, and we're raising a bunch of money right now to open locations in Vegas, LA, Dubai, London, all over the place. we've got some big plans for this company.
Marshall Miller: But when I first heard about this, that we could make a virtual reality [01:26:00] wingsuit base jump experience. I think a lot of us hardcore jumpers are like, yeah. this is gonna Cheesy. I'm the only cool dude on the planet.
Marshall Miller: Nobody can jump in here and do something like this. And so I was a little skeptical, but the more time we put into it, this experience is actually so rad. You get to the you get to the place, you zip on a real squirrel suit.
Marshall Miller: It's, it's currently based on the funk, style suit right now, but you legit put the suit on. You walk into a bay, and there's, a pretty good sized ledge that you are meant to jump off of. And the beautiful thing about wingsuit bass jumping is, there's no tethers. There's no bungee cords. There's nothing, you can feel.
Marshall Miller: And so we really want to, Have you in the experience when you put the headset on, you can't feel any tethers or harnesses or safety systems on your back? And, you do 2 or 3 jumps in this experience. The first jumps, you're in a skydive plane, you're in a c 1 30 Hercules, and the tailgate just drops down [01:27:00] and Clouds and, mountains below you. There's a
Laurent Frat: fan. You there's, Yeah.
Laurent Frat: Yeah. There's wind in your face. You have to step up to the edge. My heart was beating. I was like, I started getting adrenaline
Marshall Miller: spike with it.
Marshall Miller: That's what I'm saying. Yeah. So the actual the exit in my mind is, 90 percent real. You have to walk forward in the simulator, which matches up perfectly with what in the headset. And all of a sudden you feel the edge with your toes And you know what to do.
Marshall Miller: You put your toes just over the edge a little bit and, get a good grip because that's where you're gonna be pushing from. And as part of the gear up process, the attendant in jump is Like, putting a harness on your back that you can't really feel the tethers on. And so you're on the edge and you're meant to jump. And as you jump out of the plane, you We you jump out of the plane, and then we've kinda set it up as Rebel Aces style where you fly through the flags and kinda figure out how the what, how the suit flies. And, hopefully, you get pretty good at it there, good [01:28:00] enough at least.
Marshall Miller: And then you land on top of a mountain, pack your parachute up real quick, and then jump off of the of, Of the mountain again. So you get 2 or 3 type of experiences like this and Don't forget that
Laurent Frat: detail. If there's somebody standing there at the exit point greeting
Marshall Miller: you, Who's the Yeah. Yeah. When you land from the skydive, you'll see virtual marshall kinda standing there on the base jump exit point greeting you with a smile.
Marshall Miller: And, what's really cool about this, we just went to Switzerland here, a month ago. And right now, we have Notch Peak, and we have 6 different exit points out there at Notch Peak that you can jump from. But, we want more locations and more, cool places to fly. So we just went and filmed the Eiger, Molk, and Jungfrau And all of the valley jumps. And Oh, wow.
Marshall Miller: We've we filmed all this. We had a we hired air glaciers and Gave him, a half a million bucks to fly this entire, photo real area for quite a while. And I can't wait. the all the imagery is being processed [01:29:00] right now, but here in, a month or 2, you'll be able to stand on top of the Eiger, in any 1 of those exit points, you can do the mushroom, the ecstasy board, the south side. You can do any 1 of these jumps and fly lines off the Eiger.
Marshall Miller: And so Just being on top of some of these places, I think, is so so dang cool. my dad's a big rock climber, total stud. He's always wanted to climb the north face of the Iger, And he just hasn't got around to it and hasn't done it. And I can't wait to take my dad to the top of the and just have him put the headset on and let him, Look around and, see what it's like up there and actually how much of a knife edge it is. And to have him look down at the Metellini hut It's just gonna blow his mind.
Marshall Miller: Otherwise, he probably wouldn't get up there. He's in the seventies now. And, yeah, it's really cool. Everybody can put a wingsuit on and get a little glimpse of what we're doing. Obviously, it's nowhere close to what we're doing, but the feeling of jumping out of a plane and jumping off of a cliff In a wingsuit is now something that you can share with your mom and [01:30:00] dad.
Marshall Miller: you can kinda share what we do and love with those people in our lives that are close to us, And they have a whole new appreciation and, understanding of what we do. It's funny when people go to the jump experience. First of all, 5 percent of the people just won't do it because it's so real. A lot of people are like, no. I'm not gonna jump off of this or out of this.
Marshall Miller: But the other people that do it, they get a really good sensation of The type of activities that we love, and it's really special, actually. I've taken my mom and dad there. I have a Down syndrome brother who's made a bass jump, and I think that's just the coolest thing in the world, dude. So That's awesome. Yeah.
Marshall Miller: We'll see what this turns into. Yeah.
Laurent Frat: just being able to, I'll put an experience behind all the stories. It just helps them to understand a little bit more, about what it is that we do. Even if it's not a hundred percent accurate, I It was cool.
Laurent Frat: I just noticed that, Ellen's sister, her friend, Ellen's dad, they just they came a few steps Closer to [01:31:00] understanding what it is that we do. they've all been super supportive, but it I think it was a real treat to be able to share that
Marshall Miller: with them. Yeah. I love this. Right on.
Marshall Miller: That's the goal. Just try to share with people what we're doing here, and there's a lot of us that would never, put a wingsuit on, jump off a cliff. And So if we can help people kinda face their fears and realize, hey. I can actually, do whatever I want by facing my fears. I'm a much better person and a more confident person.
Marshall Miller: there's a whole back end of the psychological effects of that My partner is really focusing on, and I'm such a fan of all those positive attributes and qualities that come out of this experience. that conversation's for a different time. You should have him on the show, actually, and he's got some beautiful insight on the things that we as jumpers Our accomplishing by facing our fears that is fascinating to me. He can speak to it much better than I can. Cool.
Laurent Frat: let's line it up. You bet. But, we're running out of time here. I [01:32:00] wanna hear before we go what Is in store for you in the future, and what keeps you coming back?
Marshall Miller: Coming back to Air Sports?
Marshall Miller: Coming back to
Laurent Frat: Air Sports, Zipping up that suit and all the fun stuff that we
Marshall Miller: do. Yeah, man. It's funny that, here we are in our forties and kinda making moves towards The better years ahead. I often ask myself, or other people ask me, you've already done these jumps a hundred times. What How do you stay motivated to keep going to for that same 1?
Marshall Miller: for me, there's a big fitness side of this. I love to walk up a mountain and Be out there in nature and, feeling closer with the oneness of everything, and I like that we have a simple descent tool that gets down. And so I'm not trying to be a hardcore wingsuit base jumper. It's never been my goal. Not trying to be the best speed flyer out there, but, I love that we have these bag of tricks That we can go enjoy the mountains and, get off the top of these things pretty easily.[01:33:00]
Marshall Miller: as far as what's next in air sport specifically, I'm super motivated right now. these Wasatch wingsuit based jumps, I've been doing a bunch of them and repeating a bunch of them, and It's so fun for me to go for a hike around here and jump down and land on the backyard without going on a huge trip somewhere for a specific base jump. I love getting out there right now and doing this type of stuff. I think the days of, sponsorship and chasing this type of stuff and chasing money through Air Sports is now in the rearview mirror, and I'm totally happy with that. There was a time in the height of all of, the sponsorship days where at the latter end of that, I would find myself waking up in the morning thinking, k.
Marshall Miller: I gotta go make I'm going to go make a base jump today. I get to was kinda like I would have to specifically have that thought. I get to go make a base jump So that I can post a video on Instagram and make the sponsors happy. And all of a sudden, I'd find myself [01:34:00] doing that, and that wasn't genuine. it I wasn't really going because yeah.
Marshall Miller: I wanted to go, and I appreciate the motivation to go, but, now it's quality over Quantity is probably a better way to look at it. if I can do 1 really awesome wingsuit base jump a week, that is of more value to me than, 10 slider off jumps around here. So it's kinda what I'm looking forward to. Right on, Marshall.
Laurent Frat: Always a pleasure,
Marshall Miller: bro.
Marshall Miller: Yeah. Great to see you,
Laurent Frat: dude. It's nice having you on the podcast and, great catching up with you
Marshall Miller: again. You too, bro. Look forward to hanging out sometime soon.
Laurent Frat: We hope you enjoyed this episode. If you have any thoughts about what you've just Heard, please don't hesitate to hit us up. A big shout out to Mark Stockwell, our sound mixer and coproducer. We love you, man. If you'd like to learn more about the podcast, Please visit exit point podcast dot com.
Laurent Frat: See you on the next
Marshall Miller:[01:35:00] 1.
