3rd Year Special Annual Double Issue Vol 4 Issue 1 & 2 Jan - Apr 2 3rd Year Special Annual Double Issue Vol 4 Issue | Page 37

as having charges like breaking and entering,
reckless endangerment, vandalism, or other
such charges pressed against them. In some
jurisdictions it may be permissible to use
land until specifically told not to. Perrine
Bridge in Twin Falls, Idaho, is an example of a
manmade structure in the United States where
BASE jumping is allowed year-round without a
permit.
Once a year, on the third Saturday in October
(“Bridge Day”), permission to BASE jump
has explicitly been granted at the New River
Gorge Bridge in Fayetteville, West Virginia. The
New River Gorge Bridge deck is 876 feet
(267 m) above the river. This annual event
attracts about 450 BASE jumpers and nearly
200,000 spectators. 1,100 jumps may occur
during the six hours that it’s legal provided
good conditions. On October 21, 2006, veteran
BASE jumper Brian Lee Schubert of Alta
Loma, California, died while jumping from the
New River Gorge Bridge during Bridge Day
activities because his parachute opened late;
he plummeted to his death in the waters below.
Jumps continued after the recovery of his body.
He and his friend Michael Pelkey were the first
to make a BASE jump from El Capitan in
Yosemite National Park in 1966.
During the early days of BASE jumping, the
National Park Service (NPS) issued permits
that authorized jumps from El Capitan. This
program ran for three months in 1980 and then
collapsed amid allegations of abuse by
Vol 4 | Issue 1 |Jan - Feb 2019
unauthorized
jumpers. The NPS has since
vigorously enforced the ban, charging jumpers
with “aerial delivery into a National Park”.
One jumper drowned in the Merced River
while evading arresting park rangers, having
declared “No way are they gonna get me.
Let them chase me—I’ll just laugh in their
faces and jump in the river”. Despite incidents
like this one, illegal jumps continue in Yosemite
at a rate estimated at a few hundred per year,
often at night or dawn. El Capitan, Half Dome,
and Glacier Point have been used as jump sites.
The legal position is different at other sites and
in other countries. For example, in Norway’s
Lysefjord (from the mountain Kjerag), BASE
jumpers are made welcome. Many sites in the
European Alps, near Chamonix and on the
Eiger, are also open to jumpers. Some other
Norwegian places, like the Troll Wall, are
banned because of dangerous rescue missions
in the past. In Austria, jumping from mountain
cliffs is generally allowed, whereas the
use of bridges (such as the Europabruecke near
Innsbruck, Tirol) or dams is generally prohibited.
Australia has some of the toughest stances on
BASE jumping: it specifically bans BASE jumping
from certain objects, such as the Sydney Harbour
Bridge.
Source: wikipedia
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