September 11, 2009

Bungy Jump in Nepal!


Bungy Nepal at the Last Resort may be the most spectacular jump on the planet. At 160 meters high in a tropical gorge with the Bhote Kosi, one of the world's wildest rivers, raging below, Bungy Nepal is Nepal's Ultimate Rush and one of the longest free-falls in the world. The jump site was designed by one of New Zealand's leading Bungy consultants and has been staffed and operated by some of the most experienced Western Jump Masters in the business, working to exacting international standards to guarantee your safety. Bungy Nepal takes place on a 166 meter wide steel suspension bridge. Swiss designed specially for bungy jumping with a 4x safety factor, the bridge has a loading factor of 250 kg per running meter.

This means that the bridge will hold 250 x 166 = 41500 kg or 41.5 tonnes. And those are Swiss measurements! Over 6000 meters of steel wire was used to build the bridge that joins two sides of a beautiful valley. Before the construction the local villagers had to walk five hours to cross the river gorge.

Hintory of Bungy
In the 1950s David Attenborough and a BBC film crew had brought back footage of the "land divers" of Pentecost Island in Vanuatu, young men who jumped from tall wooden platforms with vines tied to their ankles as a test of courage. This film inspired Chris Baker of Bristol, England to use elastic rope in a kind of urban vine jumping. The first modern bungy jump was made on 1 April 1979 from the 250ft Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, and was made by four members of the Dangerous Sports Club. The jumpers, led by David Kirke, were arrested shortly after, but continued with jumps in the US from the Golden Gate and Royal Gorge bridges, spreading the concept worldwide. By 1982 they were jumping from mobile cranes and hot air balloons, and putting on commercial displays.
The first operator of a commercial bungee jumping concern was New Zealander, A J Hackett, who made his first jump from Auckland's Greenhithe Bridge in 1986. During the following years Hackett performed a number of jumps from bridges and other structures (including the Eiffel Tower), building public interest in the sport.

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