You could call it the 鈥淏oxing Day Sail鈥� off the Stawamus Chief.
On the day after Christmas, Pryce Brown was in 麻豆社国产and marked the occasion with a ski base jump off the community鈥檚 iconic granite wall. The feat was captured on video; a one-minute segment can be viewed at Gripped.com.
Brown hails from Alaska and has plenty of experience both on the slopes and as a base jumper. While he has been to 麻豆社国产before and had done wingsuit or regular base jumps off the Chief, he had never used skis.
鈥淭his is the first time I鈥檝e actually had enough snow up there to do a ski base,鈥� Brown told The 麻豆社国产 on the phone from California, where he was wingsuit training.
The video includes footage from his perspective using a helmet camera. He posted it a couple of days after the jump and found it attracted attention from people in the jumping community around the world 鈥� and also media and the general public.
鈥淚t seems like the public鈥� is really keyed into it,鈥� he said.
He started skiing around age three. He later got into other activities including paragliding and eventually base jumping. Ski base jumping is a recent activity for him, and he describes ski base jumpers as a small group within the broader jumping community. The sport requires expertise and years of training in several disciplines.听
听
鈥淥bviously, being a good skier is really important,鈥� he said. 鈥淭his type of jump is really a multi-faceted jump鈥�. It鈥檚 not something that somebody walks off the street and does.鈥�
For Brown, the jump is not about being an 鈥渁drenaline junkie鈥� or a 鈥渃heap thrill鈥� but rather about setting a goal to push his capabilities.
鈥淚t鈥檚 really extra-human,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t just makes you feel like your capabilities are limitless.鈥�
The sport, he said, began with the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me in 1977, when it was relatively unsafe and the equipment unreliable. Within the last decade the sport has come into its own and the tools have improved, especially over the past five years, Brown said.
He credits the late skier and jumper Shane McConkey, originally from Vancouver, for pushing the sport into uncharted areas.听
鈥淗e really showed what could be done,鈥� he said. 鈥淗e was truly a pioneer in ski base.鈥�
McConkey died during a jump in Italy in 2009, and the result has been that jumpers make sure they do not push too hard with their jumps now.
鈥淚 can鈥檛 imagine anybody doing the things that he did ever again,鈥� Brown said.
Now, the jumping community wants the broader public to know how safety is at the top of the list when it comes to making these kinds of jumps, whether it鈥檚 on skis or it鈥檚 a regular base jump.
鈥淲e want to see ourselves established as a responsible user in the area,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 good that people are seeing that it can be done safely and responsibly鈥�. It seems counterintuitive, but we鈥檙e a very safety-oriented group.鈥�
