Fatal fall underscores perils of base-jumping
"You're doing something everybody wants to do, but they can really only dream about. They're either too fearful, or else they don't have the gumption," said Jim Jennings, a Portland man who's completed about 700 base jumps. "You feel special, because you're kind of cheating death."
But Jennings also witnessed too many times what happens when death wins, when a parachute fails to open or a jumper misjudges the wind. He had seen too many accidents like the one that claimed the life of a Seattle man Monday during a base jump from Mount Baring in east Snohomish County.
Jennings quit base-jumping — and his livelihood as an instructor — last fall after witnessing six people die in a 14-month period.
In Monday's accident, Jeff Barker, 32, was killed after jumping from a nearly 2,000-foot-high cliff and striking a ledge when his parachute failed to open, according to authorities.
"He might have misjudged where he was, his velocity and where he was in relationship with the ledge," said Snohomish County sheriff's Sgt. Danny Wickstrom, who oversees search-and-rescue operations. "Moving at those speeds, it's hard to make an adjustment."
Barker was among three men who Wickstrom said hiked up the mountain in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest so they could base jump from the 6,125-foot peak. Wickstrom said one man sailed successfully past a rock ledge, opened his chute and landed safely. Barker jumped and struck a ledge about 1,000 feet down.
Wickstrom said the third man in the group saw the accident and realized the fastest way to get help was to jump. He jumped and met up with the first jumper and another friend waiting for them at Barclay Lake. They then contacted authorities.
Authorities recovered Barker's body by helicopter yesterday morning.
"He died doing what he loved to do," said Betty Barker, the victim's mother, speaking last night from her home in Carrollton, Texas. "We're devastated."
Barker said her son moved here several years ago after getting a job with Boeing. He developed a love for snowboarding and hiking and had been an avid sky diver for the past two years.
Jennings, who heard accounts of the accident from another base-jumper, said Barker was wearing a special "wing suit" used by more advanced sky divers. It has webbing that stretches from the wrists to the hips, he said, making a jumper look something like a flying squirrel.
Jennings said he met Jeff Barker in September while teaching at Perrine Bridge, over the Snake River in Idaho. Barker was a beginner in another class, he said.
Unlike the more traditional sky divers, base-jumpers hurl themselves from fixed objects such as buildings and bridges. The word "base" is an acronym for "building, antenna, span and earth."
In the Pacific Northwest, Columbia River cliffs, mountains and even the Space Needle have been used by base-jumpers.
Jennings said Mount Baring's potential for base-jumping was discovered nearly 10 years ago by Steve Mulholland, a Seattle resident who died in a 1997 sky-diving accident at the South Pole. It was rediscovered — and popularized — about two years ago by base-jumper Dwain Weston, who died in an October sky-diving accident in Colorado.
Popular spot
It's now the most popular base-jumping spot in the Puget Sound area, Jennings said.
Ron DeHart, a spokesman for the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, said base-jumping is so "infrequent" in the forest that the agency has no formal policy regarding it.
Lt. Ernie Walters, of Snohomish County Fire District 28 in Index, said it's not uncommon to see people base-jumping off the Index Town Wall, a popular rock-climbing wall that soars up to 500 feet.
Walters said that about eight months ago he and another firefighter helped a base-jumper whose parachute became stuck in a tree about 30 feet above ground.
"It's just one of those extreme sports. To me it looks like it is extremely fun," Wickstrom said. "The downside is if you make a mistake the consequences are really bad."
Monday's death is the 79th known base-jumping fatality worldwide since 1981, according to a semiofficial Web site maintained by San Diego, Calif., base-jumper Nick Di Giovanni.
The most recent fatal base-jumping accident in the Northwest occurred in August 1999 when a man fell to his death while attempting to parachute from a 600-foot cliff in the Columbia Gorge.
Accident at Space Needle
In November 1996, parachutist Jessica Kluetmeier plunged to the ground after jumping from the Space Needle when her steering line became entangled with her parachute. Kluetmeier suffered a fractured vertebra in her lower back. Mulholland also participated in that jump, which was part of a TV stunt.
The sport has come a long way from its early days, when jumpers would illegally hurl themselves from urban towers. Now it's a legitimate sport, and its fans prefer legal venues, said Todd Shoebotham, president of Uninsured Basic Research, a Southern California manufacturer of base-jumping gear.
The potential of lawsuits spurs many jumpers go overseas to Europe and Asia, he said. In the United States, even in cities without laws banning base-jumping, practitioners can find themselves fined for trespassing.
"We travel to Norway and make 10 jumps in a week and it can cost less than making one jump in the U.S. and getting busted," he said.
Malaysia recruits jumpers worldwide to participate in an annual jump from two of the world's tallest buildings, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur.
Shoebotham made his first base jump when he was 21, from an antenna in the Los Angeles area. He's now 37, and has made nearly 1,000. His most exciting jump was at Angel Falls in Venezuela, where he took part in the filming of a Mountain Dew commercial in the mid-1990s.
Most fatalities involve those with a daredevil attitude, he said.
"Most of us are very calculating, we can look at details and calculate what is going to happen." Jennings, who readily admits he misses base-jumping, tried to explain the rush of the sport. "You never feel more independence or freedom. You'll never take a bigger risk, because it's the biggest risk you can take," he said. "It's your body. You mess up, there's no more you, no more existence. It's a surreal feeling."
Jennifer Sullivan: 425-783-0604 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com
Diane Brooks: 425-745-7802 or dbrooks@seattletimes.com