The on-again-off-again Felix Baumgartner space jump is on again, according to statements from Red Bull and various media outlets including BBC .

Baumgartner is, as you may recall, an Austrian daredevil with a penchant for jumping off stuff that he really shouldn’t, but he does anyway, and it makes for some sick video. That’s why he’s awesome. On his list of de-virginized BASE Jumps, Petronas Towers, Taipei 101 and the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio De Janeiro. God bless you Felix Baumgartner.

But it’s his next jump, planned for several years now, that I blogged about a few years ago, that’s really gonna drop your jaw. This time he’s setting the record for a free fall – he’s jumping from a location up, WAAAYYYY up, 36 kilometres above the Earth, in what’s been dubbed ‘The Space Jump’.

If he’s successful, the jump will eclipse the previous record, set by Joe Kittinger in 1960, in which Kittinger did a 31 kilometer free-fall. Cojones the size of watermelons that man has.

Baumgartner’s Space Jump, assuming it happens, will have him falling so fast he’ll actually break the sound barrier. That will be the first time man has achieved that speed without assistance from a machine.

BBC and National Geographic are working on the documentary. Will keep an eye on this one…

Watch the video, and hear Joe Kittinger as he speaks of his 50 year old record and passing the torch, so to speak. I still think it’s touching everytime this man talks about working up the courage to set such a crazy record, and how he “said a little prayer” before he jumped.

Dean Potter just keeps being Dean Potter. The American climber, mountaineer, BASE jumper and general alpine bad-ass has done some freaky things over the years. He slack-lines, he climbs mountains without safety equipment and he base jumps, including this record setting jump with a wing suit.

Turns out Dean’s not one for sitting on his duff at home watching re-runs of Gilligan’s Island, cause he’s at it again. This time he crosses Yosemite Falls on a high line, as the wind ravages above and Yosemite Falls rages below. And he talks a little about what he does, and why he does it.

Cojones, Dean. You got a big set of ‘em

Yosemite Falls High-Line from Camp 4 Collective on Vimeo.

Most people either fly across the English Channel or do the chunnel in a high-speed Eurostar train. This is a video of two Britons, Wayne “Worsil” and Tom “Tiny Tops” who, like many Brits to each year, flew the distance from England to France. What’s different about these guys? They braved some seriously choppy waves and kite surfed the English Channel, for charity, and became the first to achieve that incredible feat.

Richard Branson is planning to do the same, on his 60th birthday. Cojones, Richard. Very cool.

By the way, this is officially post #100 at The Bodhi Tree – a blog dedicated to adventure travel, and living life with the just some of the adrenaline that coarsed through Bodhi in Point Break. I should stop livin in the 90′s I know…

I honestly think that beavers and BASE Jumpers have a lot in common.  A beaver looks at a pond and thinks “I am so gonna dam that pond.”  A BASE Jumper looks at a huge building and thinks “How quickly can I jump off that bad boy?”

Of course, the bigger the building, the better the rush…and bragging rights.  In this case, it’s the GM Building in Detroit.  I really hope you’re not scared of heights, cause when they pear over the top before they jump, it’s,uh, really f%$&ing high.  But that’s what BASE Jumping’s all about baby!

By the way, notice how they drive away in a Ford Truck after this amazing jump.  I really hope an executive from Ford sees this video, cause they’ll piss themselves laughing.  And you know what?  If I’m the CEO of Ford, I’m giving them a new Mustang for this!

Cojones, boys. You got brass balls.

I thought I’d seen it all.  I’ve blogged about wing-suits, kissing sharks, glacier surfing and plenty other neat ways to get your rocks off.  But this one takes the cake.

I’ve only seen this attempted once before, in that 1991 classic Point Break, aka the best movie of all time.  Evidently Travis Pastrana felt a little boxed in with his life, and felt like taking a plane, quaffing a beer, and jumping out of said plane…without a parachute.

For all us adrenaline monkeys, Travis Pastrana, no matter what he does for the rest of his life, has achieved the level of steel cojones.  Brass balls.  But the best part?  He chugs a beer first.  Actually, I think it’s a Red Bull, but I’m pretending it’s a beer.

Travis Pastrana, you’re my new personal hero.

After watching this video I realized three things.  First I am glad to have Norwegian ancestry because if YouTube is correct, Norwegians have mastered the art of skiing and BASE Jumping and have cojones big enough to fit in a dump truck.  Two, this video, of Norwegian daredevil Halvor Angvik speed flying (if that’s what you want to call it) in Wengen, Switzerland this year is amazing, and three, I am definitely asking Santa Claus for a wing-suit for Christmas!

Name your fix.  Some people drink.  Some buy shoes, others eat chocolate.  Heck, some people watch self-help videos to feel alive.  Then there are those, such as this guy who feel alive when jumping off a cliff – and God bless’em for it.  This is one sick video.  To be honest, I can’t believe people have the cojones to pull stunts like this, but it sure is fun to watch!  If only his friend would get his foot out of the way…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUTFj90zsN4

On August 16, 1960, American Air Force Captain Joseph Kittinger boarded a helium balloon at Wright Field, Ohio. For the next hour and 31 minutes, Kittinger ascended into the stratosphere. Then, at 102,800 feet, or 31,333 metres for us metric system devotees, he stepped OUT of the balloon gondola. What transpired for the next 13 minutes and 45 seconds was beyond awe-inspiring. Kittinger fell without a parachute for 4 minutes and 31 seconds and reached a maximum speed of 614 miles an hour plummeting to Earth. Suffice to say, this is the highest skydive in history, and the record has stood for 50 years. Now Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner, of BASE Jumping Christ the Redeemer fame, wants to break the record, some time within the year, in a highly publicized jump that would see him take a leap of faith from 23 miles above planet Earth. I hope he makes it, but I have to nod in respect to Kittinger first. A man who jumps from 20 miles in the air and lives to tell about it has cojones big enough to fit in a dump truck, and while records are made to be broken, Joe Kittinger will always be remembered as the first man to jump from space.

Leave it to them crazy cats at Red Bull to come up with the sickest, most hardcore stunts ever conceived by someone on, well, Red Bull.  This one’s beyond hardcore.  In this video, Ueli Gegenschatz jumps from a moving truck on the Ataturk aqueduct and dives straight into oblivion.  While there’s obviously a corporate plug going on here, you gotta admit that the cojones are thicker than soup in the production of this video.  This guy is bad, bad, bad!

Anyone ever tell you to take a cold shower?  I’m not sure if anyone ever told Lewis Gordon Pugh to cool off that way, but it seems he’s done one better than that.  Well I wouldn’t say better, but a lot colder.  Last week, Gadling.com reported that Pugh successfully swam a kilometre of arguably the coldest waters on Earth – Pumori Lake in the Himalayas, near Mount Everest.  At 17,700 above sea level, Pugh’s little dip set a world record for the highest altitude swim ever recorded, and the longest known time anyone’s swam, let alone survived, a glacial lake swim, at 22 minutes and 51 seconds.  brrrrrrrrrr.