Two more Base Jumpers DEAD in Zion & Moab

[accadacca]

Both stories are below.. Yikes!!!! What a dangerous sport! :facepalm1: :crazycobasa:

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Body of BASE jumper recovered near Moab

The body of a BASE jumper was recovered Saturday in Grand County after the 35-year-old man jumped from a cliff above Mineral Canyon on Friday (3/21/14) evening.

[COLOR=#333333]According to Grand County Sheriff

[rich67]

What a waste of life. I think that some of these people lead such boring lives that they feel the need to push the envelope with life in order to feel more alive. I personally don't get it. If people want to BASE jump, let em. If you look at life as a thing to be toyed with and gambled with, then I guess natural selection has a way of weeding those people out. Skydiving is safer than BASE, because there are failsafes built in that give you a little extra chance of survival in the event of an initial failure. But there is not a similar thing in place for BASE. If your equipment fails, there isn't any time to correct the error . People who do it know the inherent risks associated with it, and the penalty for error is death or debilitating injury. Some of my skydiving friends tell me that my enjoyment of mountain biking or jetskiing carries the same risk of death. Certainly... if I am reckless and fail to know my limitations. You can't practice limitations when you fall to earth like a rock from a fixed object or from a plane. You're at the mercy of gravity and equipment. You can't stop mid free-fall and walk down the hill if things are hairy. You can't let off the throttle and slow down to lessen the impact of the hard ground. Life is a precious thing; to risk it simply for an adrenalin dump just seems pointless and makes me shake my head.

[Glenn]

You. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me. This is just dumbfounding.

[Brian in SLC]

Condolences to friends and family. Tough weekend.

Some sobering thoughts:

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=2370729&tn=60

[sancik01]

BASE Jumpers have a death wish.

[Brian in SLC]

BASE Jumpers have a death wish.

Quite the opposite, I'd think.

But debating about it isn't going to change either of our minds on our different point of views.

"Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing." Helen Keller

[Sombeech]

Dang, I wonder what went wrong. I'll go ahead and say this for all those who loathe the GoPro generation, but secretly can't wait to see the footage... I hope some of the footage becomes available so we can see what happened.

[sanfairyanne]

I can kind of get base jumping to a point, what really confuses me are those people you now see who like to hang off cranes by their fingers. Or one guy recently who was hanging from his friend who was also hanging, like Sylvester Stallone holding that girl in the early scenes of Cliffhanger.

Now you have to ask yourself would these people be doing this if they got no publicity out of it. I'm absolutely sure the biggest kick from doing these acts is the notoriety one gets on You Tube, which tells a lot about the individual.

[Brian in SLC]

Now you have to ask yourself would these people be doing this if they got no publicity out of it. I'm absolutely sure the biggest kick from doing these acts is the notoriety one gets on You Tube, which tells a lot about the individual.

Hmmm. I didn't know Kevin (the Moab fatality) but hadn't heard of him. Sean is a very well known climber (Zion fatality) and also has a reputation as being a very humble guy. He's not a household name, but, if you paid any attention to significant climbing ascents in the last few years, he's always mentioned.

Sad deal. Given these fatalities, and, how well liked these two guys were, and, that they died in a short time span from each other, were experienced, etc, the BASE community is no doubt doing some serious soul searching.

[TJ Sheridan]

I love watching Base Jumping videos, partly because I'm so amazed that people have the nerve to do such a thing (full well knowing I don't), and partly because I love the idea of flying without power. Sad day for all involved, I wish the families the best. Still, there's got to be some other way to do this more safely. Opening a parachute as you're dropping directly next to a cliff, full well knowing you only have partial control of a chute when it first opens, seems beyond dangerous. It's not that much different than Russian Roulette. How many times can you pull the trigger before you're a dead person?

[Mountaineer]

Indeed, tough news. Condolences to both families.

[accadacca]

I wonder if this is the norm for these guys? Death has got to be a regular occurrence for the BASE jumping community.

3 dead in Utah in the last month with 2 at Zion. I bet we'll see the park take swift action.

[jman]

I wonder if this is the norm for these guys? Death has got to be a regular occurrence for the BASE jumping community.

3 dead in Utah in the last month with 2 at Zion. I bet we'll see the park take swift action.

I dunno about the norm but the odds are highly stacked against em. Especially with wingsuits and where they barely squeeze through a opening or arch, etc.

And compared to many sports (which is their "justification" when those sports are "just as dangerous") it's not like if you make a error you will be okay. It's either you survive or don't. If my mountain bike brakes go out - I can crash it on the hill, or "lay It down" or jump off. Compared to BASE jumping - if it doesn't deploy, doesn't inflate enough - that's it. None of that...I'll just fly over to that lake and I'll be fine...it's a 8second drop and extremely little time to react if an error occurs.

That's why skydivers have a higher survival rate - they fall for MUCH longer and can "ample" time to find a backup shoot or hopefully find a buddy in time to attach too.