On January 22, 2025, I hiked to the top of the Chief, a 2,303-foot granite monolith in Squamish, British Columbia for what I thought would be a casual BASE jump. I’ve done it over 100 times. It’s one of those jumps where you take off, open, fly to the parking lot, and land. There’s only one tricky spot: a corner ledge about 30 meters to the left after you jump—that’s the main hazard to worry about. You don’t want to make a 90-degree turn into that corner.

After two months of traveling and BASE jumping in Patagonia, these would be my first jumps back in British Columbia. The day that I was leaving Chile, I packed my BASE rig in a rush. It was a messy pack job, and I was distracted on the phone with another jumper.

The wind calmed, but with the cross-breeze blowing I thought I should static line—that’s the type of BASE jump where you tie the line that opens your parachute to an anchor on the rock so the action of jumping opens your chute. A static line is a safe way to jump for a windy day or a low jump.

I remembered that this was the pack job from Patagonia and made up my mind. I suggested my friend and I do a two-way jump, where we both leave the cliff at the same time. Since my parachute would open immediately as I jumped, the two of us wouldn’t collide.

We counted down, and, one after the other, we took off. My parachute opened in a 180-degree line twist to the left, and suddenly I was facing the cliff. Because of the twist, any input into the parachute with my control lines was useless.

I don’t know what ultimately went wrong. I assume it was some combination of my hasty pack job and the cross breeze. Maybe I’ll never know.

I reached for my lines but didn’t have time to look up because the wall was so close. I tried to fight it, but there was nothing to fight. I smashed into the wall with my whole body. The rest happened in five seconds. I smashed into the wall, trying to fight the parachute to fix my lines because I had some clearing air-wise. The parachute continued collapsing as I slid down the wall. Then the chute caught air again and I smashed into the wall once more. The crashing and sliding went on for a few seconds as I waited for the final impact. In those moments I knew I was ready to die or get really badly hurt. There was nothing below me but hundreds of meters of air.

Then my parachute caught a tree. I was left hanging—air below me, air around me, nowhere to grab, nowhere to step. My first thought after the chaos died down and I caught my breath was, What am I hanging onto and how long is this going to take? I was in a panic for the next 20 minutes because I didn’t know if my tangled chute was going to hold. I called my boyfriend—he’s a jumper as well—and said he needed to call 911 and get the search and rescue process going. I didn’t know how long I was going to be hanging, I might have gone at any moment.

I heard people above me screaming, and they probably had called for a rescue as well. Within five minutes, I saw cops and firemen below, but they couldn’t get to me from above. I waited—dangling on the line.

I’ve been part of rescues like this before with other jumpers and I knew that it was going to take a long time. I tried to assess my body. I had hurt my knee crashing into the wall and it was swelling up. My next problem was suspension trauma—extended periods in a harness can restrict your blood flow and cause an injury—because I was fully hanging on one leg. I didn’t want to move an inch, because I was scared that if I moved, my parachute could give in and I would fall. I tried to look up at the parachute, but I couldn’t see what it was hanging on. I tried to look at the ledge below me, which was about 100 meters down, and I thought that at least I would have a very clean death if I fell.

After half an hour, my leg started going numb. I knew I had to take the weight off it to get blood flowing. After that much time, I felt better about the stability of whatever I was hanging on, so I pulled up on my risers to put the weight on my arms for a few seconds and immediately felt the blood rush into my leg. Some friends came up to rescue me with ropes on their own, but they decided to wait because they didn’t want to throw a rope that messed with the parachute and could cause me to fall.

It was the longest four hours of my life.

I was just trying to keep my mind occupied counting to 60 slowly ten times, trying to count minutes. Ten minutes of counting was 30 minutes in real time. Words came into my head, something like With the power in my mind I am pushing forward. I probably repeated that line a thousand times. I have no idea where it came from.

I thought of TomaĆŸ Humar, the great Slovenian alpinist and soloist who had a very bad, very famous rescue on Nanga Parbat that took six days. He was wet, cold, and stuck in a snow cave at 21,000 feet. My situation wasn’t even that bad, and he survived with the power of his mind. That’s all I could think of.

Two hours in, my body started to shut down. I just wanted to conserve the energy I needed. I was running out, and then all of a sudden I heard this voice: James, one of the SAR team members.

“Hey Alenka, I know your dad.” He was a few meters away from me. The moment he clipped me in, I felt everything I didn’t feel before. I felt cold. I felt my knee really hurting to the point where I was screaming. I just felt everything. I felt safe.

Alenka Mali walked away from her crash with nothing but a bruised knee. She łÙŽÇ±ô»ćÌęșÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű that she doesn’t know why she is still alive, but that she believes there must be a reason. —Ed.

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The first time I watched my boyfriend, Josh, BASE jump, I was a mess of nerves. We were at the Tombstone in Moab, Utah, a towering, 405-foot cliffÌęin Kane Creek Canyon. I lingered in the parking lot, taking one too many trips to the bathroom. I could barely take in my surroundings; I was too busy trying to keep my breathing steady, warding off the sense of panic that grew with each step as we hiked up.

When we arrived at the summit, two other BASE jumpers were already there, checking their gear. Josh walked straight to the edge and assessed the windsock below. I wanted to grab his arm to warn him not to get too close, but it felt silly. He was there to jump off of this cliff; he wasn’t afraid of the airy abyss like I was. I remained quiet, watching him suit up—two leg loops and a compact backpack with his single precious parachute packed neatly inside. He asked the other jumpers for a final check on his rig, his calm contrasting with my barely contained dread. I knew if I spoke one word I would start to cry. I didn’t want my fear to influence his decisions. As I watched him, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was losing him to something he loved more than I could ever understand.

One jumper counted down—“3, 2, 1, see ya!”—and leaped, his voice echoing as his parachute burst open below. The second went soon after, whooping into the canyon. Then, it was just Josh and me up there.

When we first met last winter, Josh was broken. After leapingÌęoff a cliff in Spain, he got caught in a crosswind on his landing approach. Turning his canopy too low to the ground, he smashed into the road breaking both wrists and his cheekbone.

The , an international database that tracks deaths and accidents related to BASE jumping, reports 29 fatalities in 2024 so far. That’s the highestÌęnumber in the last five years. It’s not a forgiving sport. ThereÌęis little room for error. Surviving an accident is a stroke of luck.

While healing, Josh experiencedÌęmany slow moments—a pace that was good for both of us. Recovering from injury is never easy. Having undergone ACL surgery just a year earlier myself, I understood the pain of being forced to step away from what you love. For me, that was a multitude of outdoor sports: rock climbing, trail running, skiing, biking, and soloing the Flatirons in Boulder, Colorado. Climbing, free of ropes, the series of monolithic slabs that frame the town,Ìęis my way of feeling connected to nature and myself. Though the routes are easy, mostly graded 5.6 or lower, the awareness of risk is always there. One slip could be fatal.

When I had to stop during my recovery, even looking at the Flatirons made my heart ache. But I learned to find joy in the simpler things: going on walks, grabbing coffee with friends, playing board games (something I used to abhor), and,Ìęmost importantly, spending time reflecting—thinking about what I really wanted out of life. I got to share those things with Josh all over again.

Early on, I asked if he’d ever start BASE jumping again. His response: “I don’t know.” After that I let it go. He was still recovering, and I was happy to let the possibility fade into the background.

He broke both scaphoid bones–small wrist bones notorious for slow healing due to their poor blood supply.Ìę As a result, seven months passed before he was out of his casts. His itch to return to the sport began to creep back into our conversations once his wrists were free. After a week-long trip out of service, he confessed that the thought of jumping had crossed his mind while I was gone. That’s when it hit me: accepting BASE jumping wouldn’t come easily for me.

There’s a part of me that understands the pull. Two years ago, I took up paragliding, and although it’s very different from BASE jumping, the allure is the same: free flight. I craved the purity of being alone in the sky, where your canopy and choices are the only things keeping you afloat. Although I don’t paraglide as much now, I can still recall the feeling—the thrill of carving through the air, flying with the birds, and witnessing the world from above
there’s freedom in flight.

Standing on the rocky outcrop of the Tombstone, I watched him, clutching my phone, ready to capture his jump on video. But as he prepared to leap, I couldn’t bring myself to lift it. What if I recorded his death? I’d rather not have the image burned into my memory. He slowed his breathing, looked into my eyes, said, “I love you,” and jumped. And then it was just me—all alone. I stepped forward and peered down into the canyon, watching as Josh’s canopy opened with a loud thwap. He grabbed his risers, guiding himself to the landing zone below. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, turned around, and cried.

I cried out of relief, out of what this success meant for our future, and, in a way, out of jealousy. Why couldn’t I have that freedom—that total confidence to jump into the unknown and trust myself to do everything right?

When I got back to the parking lot, Josh had already packed up his rig and was chatting with another BASE jumper who’d been watching from below. She sat in a chair with crutches by her side and a boot on her leg. I knew without asking that her injury was from BASE jumping. It was a painful reminder that Josh was like her not so long ago. And yet here she was, still wanting to be a part of it all.

She commented on how rare it was to see someone in a relationship who BASE jumps. Was I the anomaly or Josh? Maybe we’ve made things work because BASE jumping isn’t his everything; he still loves adventuring in other ways. Maybe my anxiety doesn’t have to be my everything, either.

Dating Josh forces me to reckon with the unknown in a way I never expected. I’m guilty of looking ahead—I want to know that things will be OK because I’m terrified that as I fall more and more in love with him, the potential for loss will be too much for me to handle.

But being with him has taught me how to be more present, too. We can try to avoid danger by sheltering ourselves, but that’s not really living.

Trust allows us to move forward. I trust Josh will make the safest decisions for himself. I would never want to take away something that brings him so much joy, and through our relationship we have learned to share our concerns and discuss the risks together.ÌęBASE jumping enhances our communication. The little things seem to matter less. After all, loss is always a possibility, but love is a risk in and of itself—and it’s one I’m willing to take.

Want more ofÌę°żłÜłÙČőŸ±»ć±đ’s șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű stories?

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When Justin Guthrie, 43, of Saint Anne, Missouri, died while illegally BASE jumping in Grand Canyon National Park earlier in August, one of the nation’s preeminent BASE instructors bristled at calling it a BASE jump.

According toÌę, rangers found Guthrie’s body and a deployed parachute 500 feet below the south rim of the canyon. Guthrie had apparently jumped from Yavapai Point, an overlook popular with tourists for its stunning views.

Tom Aiello, a leading BASE instructor, says Yavapai Point is not an “exit point.” Exit points are jump sites that are widely accepted by the international BASE (an acronym which stands for the features that participants jump from the most: Bridges, antennae, spans, and earth) community as safe, from a technical perspective. “It’s too short, the cliff is underhung, there’s no landing area, or a very, very bad landing area,” Aiello says. “And doing it in the middle of summer when it’s hot indicates turbulence from thermal air.” In other words, an experienced BASE jumper would not have thought to jump off Yavapai Point.

Aiello is the owner and founder ofÌę in Twin Falls, Idaho, the home of Perrine Bridge, a popular destinationÌęfor introductory training. He oversees a staff of instructors and has been teaching the sport for 20 years.

The general consensus among the BASE jumping community is that practitioners should begin with skydiving to develop both freefall and canopy skills. There is no BASE licensing system, but most instructors and equipment retailers will want proof of canopy skills before teaching you or selling you gear. According to , the recommendation is to get a skydiving license and jump 150-200 times before your first BASE jump. USPA (skydiving’s governing body) maintains an of everyone who has completed the pre-requisite training. Justin Guthrie’s name is not on the list.

But in a sport with such a renegade history, it’s unsurprising that some practitioners will flout the recommendations and take a leap of faith. Aiello says people attempting first-time BASE jumps DIY-style are, unfortunately, on the rise. He łÙŽÇ±ô»ćÌęșÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű that there have been a number of recent cases in which “somebody who was able to access gear but didn’t know anything about BASE jumping went out and tried to jump off and object and either critically injured or killed themselves.”

Last year in Yosemite National Park, a 17-year-old with no experience packed a rig (the term for the BASE canopy system), took a running start, and leapt off of El Capitan. The young man’s GoPro helmet cam captured the experience, which he posted to Reddit. The has since been deleted, but the comment thread—including harsh criticism from the BASE community—remains.

In it, the 17-year-old detailed that he lied about his skydiving and BASE experience to the person who sold him his rig—and that his parents had no clue what he was doing. Though the video has been deleted, users describe the jumper getting his canopy lines tangled and firing his brakes early, which could have led to him spiraling uncontrollably. A video showed him getting his canopy back under control a few hundred feet above the valley floor. “Essentially he had followed some videos on the Internet trying to figure out how to do it,” Aiello says. “He did so many things wrong, it was shocking that he didn’t die.”

A BASE jump from the Grand Canyon requires at least intermediate-level skills. After learning to skydive, a new BASE jumper would start with a tall bridge—like 486-foot Perrine Bridge in Aiello’s hometown or 410-foot Limska Draga in Croatia—where there’s no rock face to contend with, just open air. Their first EarthÌęjump would be from a place likeÌęBecco dell’Aquila, the “Eagle’s Beak” exit point, located on a massively overhung wall of Monte Brento in Italy. By the time they stood on the lip of the Grand Canyon, a more challenging “big wall” due to being a shorter jump with a more vertical face, they would have completedÌęhundreds of successful BASE jumps.

BASE jumping is technically illegal in National Parks without a permit. But Aiello says legality is not the first consideration for determining an exit point. “We look at whether it’s possible—physically possible—to make a jump and to successfully deploy a parachute from this point.”

He says that there is a long history of BASE jumping into the Grand Canyon, both inside and outside the National Park boundary, and that the canyon walls contain multiple well-established exit points. , a big-wall climber who served in the 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Military, was one of the pioneers of BASE jumping in the Grand Canyon in the 1980s. Bowlin died there in 1993, when his canopy released prematurely and became entangled with another jumper’s after launching off a rock protrusion known as “The Nose” on the east side of the canyon.

Miles Daisher, a BASE jump stuntman and member of Red Bull’sÌęÌęwith more than 10,000 skydives and over 6,000 BASE jumps under his belt—perhaps best known for working as Tom Cruise’s BASE instructor inÌęMission Impossible: Dead Reckoning—has been featured in multiple clips of BASE jumps into the Grand Canyon. One of them, the 2017 YouTube shortÌęÌęcalls the Grand Canyon “a dream destination for base jumpers.”

For Justin Guthrie, it was a nightmare. The National Park Service is still investigating the incident, and therefore not able to comment on Guthrie’s gear or BASE experience. Aiello hopes that publicizing the death won’t draw inexperienced BASE jumpers to the Grand Canyon, but instead serve as a wake-up call that BASE is not a do-it-yourself sport—increased availability of gear and online instructional material notwithstanding. “If you can’t climb 5.14, trying to free-solo a 5.14 will not kill you because you’re not even going to get off the ground,” Aiello says. “But the equivalent in BASE jumping will.”

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The zigzagging route to the top of the South Peak of Seneca Rocks—the high point on a 900-foot-tall ridge of Tuscarora quartzite shaped like fins on a dragon’s back—was the most challenging climb I have ever done. Vertical rock faces were interspersed by grassy traverses where we had to coil and half-carry our ropes, and I was building anchors and setting protection for the first time.

Though moderate in difficulty, the four-pitch route demanded a repertoire of skills. And we were way, way up in the air.

Guess where I was? West Virginia. I’ve long come to the Mountain State to push myself, where you’ll find some of the best adventures east of the Mississippi, holding its own with better-known Eastern destinations such as Vermont and North Carolina for scenery, trails, and general badassery.

From to the big rapids of the Gauley River to the World Cup downhill-mountain-bike course at Snowshoe Mountain Resort, West Virginia is a wonderful and largely underappreciated outdoor destination. Over the last 20 years, I’ve climbed on sandstone cliffs, skied powder dumps, and gotten lost on my mountain bike more times here than I should admit.

Now I’m going to share with you all the ways you can enjoy it, too.

What to Know Before Visiting West Virginia

West Virginia is transitioning out of an extraction-based economy and into one based on outdoor adventure and recreation. Coal was the leading industry in the state for decades; before that, it was timber. Now, it’s tourism. According to the state’s 2023 , tourism contributed more than $7 billion to local economies, employing more than 59,000 people.

What many people don’t realize is how much public land there is in West Virginia, which boasts 36 state parks, nine state forests, one national park, and the 920,000-acre Monongahela National Forest. The vast majority of that land is concentrated in the Allegheny Mountains, which define the eastern side of the state. The mountains aren’t especially high (Spruce Knob is the tallest, at 4,863 feet), but they are steep and wild, loaded with sandstone outcroppings and dense hardwood and spruce forests.

The state is within a day’s drive of many large regional cities (Washington, D.C. is about 177 miles east; Baltimore 210 miles east; and Cincinnati 365 miles west), so the most popular spots can be crowded on weekends. If you’re looking to raft in New River Gorge National Park during the summer or to ski at Snowshoe Mountain Resort in winter, book your trips a couple of months in advance. Otherwise you probably won’t find too many visitors, at least not compared to other outdoor destinations in the Southeast and mid-Atlantic.

The Best șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍűs in West Virginia

Mountain Biking

I was first lured into West Virginia for its mountain biking, and the trails seem to get better every year. Seventy miles southeast of Morgantown, in the high-elevation and ring of surrounding mountains, more than 100 miles of single track pass through an array of public lands, from state parks to wildlife refuges and national forest. Much of the trail system is connected, so you can create big, all-day rides around the central town of .

The eight-mile point-to-point runs through the heart of the valley, with numerous connections for potential loops. It’s a technical mix of rocks and bogs—classic old-school West Virginia mountain biking. The mile-long , east of downtown Davis, is fun and flowy for beginners and can become part of a longer ride when added to local favorites like Splash Down and , with its unusually long rock garden. in Davis has beta, bike rentals (from $50 a day), and shuttles (contact the shop for prices).

, 90 miles south of the Canaan Valley, has an extensive bike park and one of the largest trail systems in the East, combining lift-served terrain and backcountry single track. The has hosted UCI World Cup events, so even top mountain bikers can find a challenge, but the 40-trail package also contains plenty of green-level berms and rollers (lift tickets from $45).

If you’re not looking for gnarly single track, consider the , an old railroad bed converted into an essentially flat, 78-mile linear park from Cass to Lewisburg, with a crushed-limestone path hugging the side of the stream. Thanks to 14 trailside campsites, you can tackle the route over several days. can help with logistics (from $85).

Hiking

West Virginia recently introduced the , where you can chase 43 different cascades scattered around the state. Some of the waterfalls come at the end of long hikes, while others only require short jaunts from the trailhead. Download the mobile passport for details on different falls, and check in as you find each—20 visits gets you a T-shirt; see all the falls, and you receive a limited-edition letterpress print. , which drops 57 feet in a curtain over a sandstone cliff in Blackwater River Canyon, is one of the trail highlights.

The 18,000-acre , 17 miles northeast of Canaan Valley, protects a high-elevation plateau with rocky outcroppings, remote creeks, and flora such as red spruce and heath barrens—plant life more typical of southern Canada than southern Appalachia. It’s a bucket-list romp for backpackers and day hikers. is the classic Dolly Sods summer adventure, a 12.3-mile out-and-back full of sandstone boulders, swimming holes, and meadows that in August are loaded with blueberries.

The , a 25-mile point-to-point that traces the craggy ridge of North Fork Mountain within the Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area, offers nearly continuous views of the pastoral valley below. I once hiked it during the winter and was mesmerized watching peregrine falcons circling just off the pinnacles. You don’t have to hike the whole trail to enjoy it, though. From the northern trailhead, hike the 5.2-mile out-and-back to Chimney Top, a large sandstone outcropping that juts out from the ridge with a view of North Fork Mountain’s silhouette.

, near Morgantown, has 50 miles of trails through boulder fields that offer the occasional view of the Cheat River Gorge below. The 1.4-mile is an easy walk through rhododendron tunnels to a moss-covered rocky field. For the big river view, hike the 2.4-mile out-and-back to Ravens Rock Overlook, where you can stare straight down into the heart of the gorge.

New River Gorge National Park is best known for its climbing and whitewater rafting, but don’t miss the hiking. is a three-mile out-and-back through a hardwood forest to an overlook with the best view anywhere of the New River Gorge Bridge. The five-mile out-and-back Endless Wall Trail is a bit more involved, crossing a small creek (narrow enough to hop over) and then traversing the canyon rim for 2.5 miles. You’ll pop in and out of the woods, with views of the river 1,000 feet below from the cliff’s edge. You may see climbers working their way up the rock walls. For something a little shorter and still plenty great, an outcropping named has an incredible view of the gorge and makes for a good two-mile out-and-back from Fern Creek Trailhead.

Skiing

is the biggest such operation in the state, with 244 skiable acres, mostly accessed from a mountaintop village. The skiing is legit, thanks to the 1,500-foot vertical drop and consistent snow every winter. Shay’s Revenge and Cupp Run are twin black-diamond runs that drop off the western face of the mountain; expect steep pitches and lots of bumps.

Canaan Valley is home to two downhill resorts (one also named Canaan Valley) and a cross-country ski center. Canaan gets most of its powder from lake-effect storms, and the consistent snow has encouraged a vibrant ski culture. is the bigger of the local lift-served options, with steep fall-line groomers and hidden stashes of glades. A six-person chair facilitates fast top-to-bottom laps, or stick to the mid-mountain quad for its glade runs. The aprĂšs scene is the best in the state.

No trip to Canaan Valley is complete without a cross-country day at . More than 50 kilometers of groomed trails meander up and around Weiss Knob, West Virginia’s first ski hill (established 1959). There is a nice skate-skiing track, but cross-country skiing here is mainly about going up and down, finding tree stashes, and making the most of the 1,200 vertical feet of gain.

Rock Climbing

The New River Gorge is one of the top climbing destinations in the East, with thousands of established routes throughout the canyon. Its hard sandstone cliffs rise 40 to 150 feet, and you’ll find everything from beginner-friendly top-rope options to multi-pitch lines and sport test pieces. Head to Bridge Buttress for mellow top-rope routes like , a 5.7 up a dihedral (corner), the perfect introduction to climbing in the area.

I’ve taken climbing courses and gone on guided climbs with , and its staff always put me on good routes for my ability and goals.

Some 150 miles north is Seneca Rocks, loaded with multi-pitch routes that take on an adventurous flare with scrambling and hiking between roped sections. During World War II, the famous Tenth Mountain Division trained at Seneca Rocks for deployment in the mountains of Italy. (5.4) is a two-pitch classic that finishes on the very exposed fin of the South Peak with 360-degree views of the valley and greater Seneca Rocks-Spruce Knob National Recreation Area.

If you really want to learn the art of climbing, check out the three-day traditional climbing clinic with . I took this course several years ago, and learned everything from tying the standard figure-eight knot to setting my own anchors.

Rafting

West Virginia has a trio of rivers that offer big-water rafting, with high-volume runs similar to what you’ll find in the western U.S. The New River is the most accessible, thanks to the bevy of raft guides operating out of Fayetteville and the family-friendly Class III–IV rapids. The eight-plus-mile has the most action, with countless wave trains, various Class III drops, and two Class IV+ rapids.

The Cheat River has a thrilling through a deep canyon that drops 50 feet per mile, juicing the experience with more than 40 Class III–V rapids. The river is not dammed, so the run is dependent on precipitation and usually only viable in the spring.

The ultimate whitewater adventure is running the Gauley, a dam-controlled river in central West Virginia, during Gauley Season. Over the course of six weekends every autumn—this year starting September 6—controlled releases create a choice 24-mile stretch of whitewater that draws pro kayakers and recreational boaters alike.

The gathering grounds are in the area, just north of the put-in, which maintains a festival-like atmosphere, and at nearby campgrounds. The 11-mile is considered one of the most high-adrenaline commercial rafting trips in the country, with one rapid stretching for a continuous mile and five Class V’s, including a 14-foot waterfall. The 13-mile Lower Gauley also has its share of Class V water, but with calm stretches between the action, and most of its whitewater rolls along as relatively carefree wave trains.

Lake Activities

Summersville Lake, 20 miles north of Fayetteville, spans 2,700 acres and is the state’s largest body of water. It’s been dubbed Little Bahamas for its clear blue water. Sandstone cliffs encircle much of the lake, making it a particularly beautiful place to boat or fish for smallmouth bass. Around the area are various excellent cliffs for climbing.

Paddle the mile from the Salmon Run Boat Launch to Pirate’s Cove, an inlet hemmed in by overhanging sandstone cliffs, where a waterfall tumbles directly into the water. has paddleboard rentals and guided trips (from $65 for two hours). Or check out the new Summersville Lake State Park, which occupies 177 acres on the northern shore. Eventual infrastructure will include campsites, cabins, and a robust trail system for hiking and biking. Right now you can hike a 0.7-mile trail to the Pirate’s Cove area.

The Best șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Towns in West Virginia

Fayetteville

Located on the outskirts of the New River Gorge, the historic city of Fayetteville has attracted climbers and paddlers for decades. Now that the New has been designated a national park, the rest of the world has discovered the magnificence of this little town. The downtown is laid out in a square, with a picturesque courthouse surrounded by shops and restaurants. has the gear and beta you need to make the most of your rec time in the gorge. Grab breakfast or lunch to go at , located in a small former church. In the evening, you can find pizza, salad, and beer at the lively .

Davis

Davis, in Canaan Valley, might be the perfect small mountain town. It’s only a few blocks wide, but full of good food, and it has a bike shop and immediate access to mountain-biking and hiking trails. Blackwater Falls State Park is on the edge of town, and Canaan Valley State Park is just ten miles south. Both downhill skiing and cross-country skiing are also only ten miles away. Get the Gendarme burrito at and pizza and beer at .

Morgantown

Home to West Virginia University, Morgantown has a fun college-town vibe, but it’s also a great base camp for exploring Coopers Rock State Forest and the Cheat River Canyon. The wide, slow Monongahela River passes through town, with five miles of along its banks. is the go-to outdoor shop, with gear and accessories for all adventures, and makes some of my favorite beers in West Virginia. Its Almost Heaven Amber goes down easy after a day on the trails.

Where to Stay in West Virginia

Snowshoe Mountain Resort has all sorts of on-and-off mountain lodging to fit almost any budget (management has even let me sleep in my trailer in the parking lot behind the affordable Snowshoe Mountain Inn). has the nicest digs, and rooms are across the street from the expert terrain of the ski area’s Western Territory (from $99).

To explore Davis and the Canaan Valley, book into the ten-room , which has a retro vibe and a happening evening cocktail hour (from $100).

, a complex just outside Fayetteville, has everything from inexpensive tent sites to luxury cabins. Most accommodations are scattered around a 350-acre campus complete with restaurants, lawn games, a swimming pool, and views of the New River Gorge (covered platform tent sites from $49).

And don’t overlook West Virginia’s entire state-parks system; a $200 million renovation project is wrapping up that has improved every single . The is particularly enticing, with just 54 rooms and a back patio that stares straight down into the river gorge below (from $156).

Best Time to Visit West Virginia

Spring

Spring is the sleeper season. Temperatures can still be chilly in March and April, but the crowds are thin, so you can get good deals on lodging and guided trips to popular destinations like New River Gorge National Park. If you show up in early March, you could still enjoy lift skiing at Snowshoe, which typically has the latest closing date among resorts in the state. Hardwood leaves will bud in early April, and the forest typically reaches a full, lush canopy by the middle of the month. May is a great month to hit the state because the temperature is rising but school is still in session so families aren’t traveling yet. The leaves are fully back and, after the gray and leafless winter, everything is green again.

Summer

I think summer is the best time to visit West Virginia, but I’m a sucker for swimming holes, lakes, and whitewater rapids. You’ll be cooler in the mountains than on the flats, though even there it can get hot and muggy. New River Gorge National Park will be crowded in summer, but you could have most of the other destinations in this article to yourself.

Fall

Aside from some stands of evergreens scattered throughout its highest peaks, for the most part, the mountains of West Virginia are covered in hardwoods, which means autumn is spectacular. Look for the groves of maple trees, which locals . Fall is also the famous , when, for six consecutive weekends, water from Summersville Lake is released into the Gauley River, creating one of the country’s most beloved annual events for whitewater enthusiasts. Keep an eye out for , on October 19 this year, when thousands of people converge on Fayetteville to watch BASE jumpers leap from the New River Gorge Bridge, the third-highest bridge in the U.S. at 876 feet.

Winter

You might not expect a vibrant snow-sports scene in the southern Appalachians, but West Virginia isn’t called the Mountain State for nothing. Storms generated to the north on the Great Lakes deliver plenty of powder (annual snowfall at Snowshoe Mountain Resort averages over 150 inches a year), and five downhill resorts and one cross-country ski center soak it up. Those centers are located across a band of mountains in Pocahontas and Tucker Counties, along the eastern edge of the state.

The rest of West Virginia experiences pretty mild winters, without much snow at all. New River Gorge National Park has temperate winters with reduced crowds, making it an ideal time to bike and hike.

Graham Averill is șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű magazine’s national parks columnist. He considers moving to West Virginia permanently after every trip.

For more by this author, see:

The 10 Best National Parks in Canada

The Ultimate Guide to Driving the Blue Ridge Parkway

The 9 Most Fun șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Lodges in North America

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In a feat of pure joy and technical precision, Jonathan Cox took a sip of a caramel milkshake and jumped off the renowned Perrine Bridge on the northern edge of Twin Falls, Idaho, on a late-summer afternoon.

The 31-year-old runner-turned-BASE jumper didn’t spill a single drop as he sailed down 486 vertical feet into the majestic Snake River Canyon. After touching down at a predetermined landing spot on a dirt path adjacent to the river, he savored more of the milkshake as he removed the harness-rig attached to his deployed parachute and began jogging along a trail that led to the top of the bridge so he could do it all over again.Ìę

While Cox’s seemingly nonchalant milkshake leap was actually a well-organized jump with a safety-first approach, it was one of the more notable moments of an epic, adrenaline-filled weekend in mid-September. During an almost nonstop flurry of parachute flights that weekend, Cox flew off the massive steel truss arch span 102 times to shatter the world record for most BASE jumps in a 24-hour period.Ìę

Jumping Into the Record Books

Cox easily broke the previous record that was set by Denver’s Danny Weiland in 2017, when he made 64 jumps off the Perrine Bridge. While Cox’s wild feat was grounded in technical flying skills and safety precautions, it was ultimately an astounding endurance undertaking. During that 24-hour period (which began just before sunset on September 15), Cox covered about 20 miles on foot and logged 49,086 feet of vertical gain—considerably more than two of the world’s most difficult ultrarunning races, the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc in Chamonix, France (31,200 feet over 106 miles), and the Hardrock 100 (33,200 feet over 102.5 miles) in Silverton, Colorado.Ìę

The Perrine Bridge has become a popular destination for BASE jumpers—especially new jumpers just learning the craft—both because of its height over the wide canyon below, but also because it’s one of the only bridges in the U.S. where BASE jumping is allowed year-round without a permit.Ìę

“It was a pretty wild couple of days,” said Cox, a self-employed arborist who began BASE jumping only 18 months ago. “It’s just an awesome feeling to fly the canopy off that bridge. But that’s only part of it, because the trail is straight up, and doing that 101 times took a lot out of me.”Ìę

A Bridge to SomewhereÌę

The Snake River Canyon has held a seminal place in action sports history for nearly 50 years. In 1974, when the Perrine Bridge was being reconstructed from its original 1927 form, , the first modern daredevil action sports athlete, attempted to jump the canyon from a massive ramp just east of the bridge site in a .Ìę

A design flaw caused the parachute to deploy during the launch, leaving Knievel well short of his intended destination on the other side of the canyon as the rocket crashed at the bottom of the canyon, barely missing the river. The dirt portion of his takeoff ramp still remains about a mile and a half east of the bridge, while a memorial to Knievel is located just below the bridge not far from the trail Cox ran back to the top.

“The ramp is still there and still kind of a big feature in the area,” said Jonathan’s wife, Olivia Cox, 25, who grew up in Twin Falls. “I run by there almost every day and there’s all these people up on the ramp, exploring, hiking up it, taking photos, checking it out.”

BASE Jumping’s Outlaw Origins

The early roots of BASE jumping can be traced to Yosemite National Park, where a few early pioneers of the renegade discipline began making jumps off high cliffs of El Capitan in the 1960s and 1970s using slightly modified traditional parachuting equipment. In the late 1980s, as it was still in its infancy, three former U.S. Army paratroopers from Twin Falls had become so intrigued with the idea of parachuting off the Perrine Bridge, they began testing the concept by dropping 55-gallon drums over the edge attached to military parachutes. After several successful trials, they daringly started jumping off the bridge strapped to MC1-1B chutes fixed to a static line tied to the bridge, a technique to ensure the parachute would open immediately.

BASE jumping gained an underground following in the 1980s and 1990s, many municipalities and government agencies prohibited it. However, that only fueled the intrigue and growth as an outlaw activity. Even though it was originally off-limits, the Perrine Bridge became one of the most popular jump sites by the late 1990s, as hundreds of jumpers tested their mettle in renegade style, often at night or by scurrying out of vehicles traveling over the bridge.

Because it was increasingly harder to stop jumpers—and there was a growing belief it would be safer if it was legalized—Idaho passed a law to prohibit cities, counties, and transportation officials from banning BASE jumping from bridges. Since then, the Perrine Bridge has been one of the country’s most iconic legal jump sites, along with the New River Gorge Bridge (and its 876-foot vertical drop) in Fayetteville, West Virginia, which is legal to jump from only one day every year.

When Jonathan and Olivia moved to Twin Falls in 2021, he wasn’t yet a BASE jumper. But he recalls seeing the bridge for the first time when he was on a family trip more than 20 years ago and always felt compelled to try it someday, especially when he and his wife bought a house about 10 minutes away.Ìę

After talking with and observing other local athletes jump, and watching instructional videos on YouTube, Cox made his first jump in April of 2022. He admitted there was some carryover to his daily work in trees, but that’s really more akin to rock climbing. He’s aware that BASE jumping can be dangerous and deadly—10 people have died BASE jumping from the Perrine Bridge since the early 1990s—but he said training and preparation are of the utmost importance to him, just as it is when handling chainsaws for his day job.

“I didn’t think it was freaky at all. I just thought it was freaking cool,” he said. “I just always wanted to try it because I just thought it was the coolest thing. But I never thought I would, mostly because I thought you had to have skydiving experience—that’s not the case.”Ìę

Taking the Leap

Cox participated in a wide range of sports as a kid, including wrestling, soccer, and cross-country. By his early 20s, he started running longer distances to stay fit, and eventually qualified for the Boston Marathon by running the Wasatch Revel Marathon in 2:55:58 in Park City, Utah, in 2021.

He liked the freedom of trail running a lot more, so he didn’t register for Boston the following spring and instead chose to run the Beaverhead 55k in Idaho last summer. Although running Boston is still intriguing to him, he’s been mostly running trails, and often with Olivia. They both ran the Tough Mugu 25K in Malibu, California, back in July.

“Ever since I’ve known him, he’s always been a big adrenaline junkie, always doing crazy stuff,” said Olivia, who works as a dietician. “BASE jumping is a little bit more out there than some things, but kind of par for the course for what he does—not anything super unexpected. And so when he said he was going to go for the record, I never doubted that he would follow through with it. But the world record was an endurance event, so there was a ton of overlap to running, especially when it comes to fueling.”Ìę

In the ensuing 14 months after his initial leap, Cox logged more than 1,300 jumps around the West, but most of those have been from the Perrine Bridge. “Once I started jumping, it just became addicting,” he admitted. “I’ve just always wanted to push myself. Like, like I just wanna see how far I can actually go.”

RELATED: The Max Vert October Challenge Is Getting Out of Hand

Going for the Record

As he got more into the sport, Cox heard about the BASE jumping endurance records set at the bridge. The all-time record for the most BASE jumps in one day is still held by Idaho National Guardsman Dan Schilling, who flew off the Perrine Bridge 201 times in 2006 using a crane to lift him back up to the bridge deck after every jump.

But Cox was more interested in the human-powered records set by Miles Daisher and Danny Weiland from the same site. Those two had traded the 24-hour record back and forth for several years, with Daisher setting an unofficial world record with 63 jumps in 24 hours in 2017, followed by Weiland taking it back a few months later with 64 flights.Ìę

After hearing Weiland racked up 29,200 feet of vertical gain—greater than the height of Mount Everest—Cox knew the most difficult part of the record attempt would be to get back up to the top of the bridge. The trail from the landing zone to the base of the bridge is only about 350 meters in length, but it’s grudgingly steep. After a short flat section to the base of the climb, the trail ascends 486 feet on a technical, near-vertical trail that requires hand-over-hand scrambling on rocks at certain points. It’s the rough equivalent of climbing the stairs of a 45-story building for every lap, only with far more treacherous footing.

Cox initially believed he could go for 70 jumps, then later he thought he could maybe shoot for 80. Last spring, he met , a Hoka-sponsored world champion trail runner who, after several years of skydiving, made her first BASE jump from the Perrine Bridge in March. During one of her several trips to Twin Falls this year, McLaughlin time-trialed the trail to help give Cox a baseline for what was possible and covered the route in 4:36.

“I did a couple hikes with him last spring and I could tell he was really fit, and I knew that was going to be important,” said McLaughlin, who has also been intrigued about going for the record. “Then after spending a few days there with him, it was hard not to be a big fan of him. He just brings so much positive energy into it everytime.”Ìę

‘That’s just an Insane Effort’

During his record-setting frenzy, Cox did his first ascent in 4:58 and wound up averaging between five and eight minutes for each of his first 30 ascents. Once back up to the concrete path at the bridge level along Highway 93, he would meet his mother in law, Deanna Sutter, who handed him another newly packed parachute rig and a bike. Cox would then pedal to the middle of the bridge where a friend, Sam Shank, or his brother, Michael, would provide a pilot chute assist—essentially pulling out his pilot chute to facilitate its opening—as he jumped off the bridge once again. All the while, another brother, Timothy, managed logistics and kept count of every jump.

After making a record-breaking 65 jumps in 13 hours and 20 minutes, Cox took a pre-planned break on Saturday morning and got rejuvenated with a 30–minute massage and two saline bags administered through an IV drip. That reinvigorated him to keep going through the evening, even though he admitted to being pretty tired on the last few laps.

Ultimately, it was Cox’s solid trail running fitness—and his dedicated crew, which also included Olivia (who managed his fueling and hydration) and about a dozen friends and fellow BASE jumpers—that enabled him to blow away the record. He had some slower hikes during the middle of the night—when he averaged 8 to 12 minutes—and had to fight off fatigue with an 18-minute hike on his 99th climb. (He said he couldn’t have done it without his friend Chantz Lund, who coached him for the world record, ran hundreds of miles with him in training and accompanied him on the final 10 ascents on the trail up to the bridge.)

“When I heard he did 102 jumps, I was just blown away, especially after doing the math and realizing the vert he got,” McLaughlin said. “That’s just an insane effort. I don’t think a lot of people realize how big that is until they realize it’s more than UTMB. People have told me I should go for it, and yeah, I want to give it a try, but I have no expectations of beating his numbers. What he did is huge.”

RELATED: Armed with Smarts and Science, Camille Herron Sets an Astounding Record in Greece

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J’Accuse! A man has been arrested in Paris after parachuting from the 1,083-foot Eiffel Tower and landing in a nearby stadium.

, the man was an “experienced climber,” and he allegedly entered the tower’s perimeter shortly before 5 A.M. on Thursday, August 17. He was quickly spotted by guards, according to Sete, the tower’s operator. But the unnamed assailant apparently reached the top before the security service’s “intervention brigade” could stop him, smuggling the parachute in his backpack.

“This kind of irresponsible action puts people working at or below the tower in danger,” a spokesperson for Sete said in a statement.

The man landed safely at Émile Antoine stadium before he was promptly arrested, . The usual 9 A.M. opening of France’s iconic tourist attraction was slightly delayed by the stunt.

The Iron Lady has been put through the ringer recently. On Saturday, August 12, authorities had to evacuate the tower twice due to false bomb threats, . The alleged threats were made on the gaming site jeuxvideo.com and moncommissariat.fr, an online platform for citizens contacting French police.

The tower’s opening was delayed again on Monday, August 14, after authorities found two American tourists sleeping there, . The men had entered with tickets the night before, and apparently, alcohol was involved in their decision to spend the night.

“They were detected in the early morning by the Sete security service, during daily rounds of checks carried out before the monument was opened to the public,” a spokesperson for Sete said in a statement.

The tower is a popular destination for BASE jumpers, even though several have died or been injured in jumps from it. In 2005, a Norwegian parachutist died after jumping from the Eiffel Tower’s second floor. “His parachute got caught, he became detached from it, and he hit the first floor more than 50 meters below. He died instantly,” a police officer told .

, in 1912, the French inventor Franz Reichelt plummeted to his death after jumping off the tower’s first floor, wearing a parachute suit that he designed. The incident earned him an unfortunate moniker: “The Flying Tailor.”

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When a BASE jumper slammed into a red-rock tower and his parachute snagged on a ledge, there was only one way to save his life: go up and get him. That’s how climber River Barry ended up getting suddenly pulled into a daring rescue operation in Utah. In this episode from the team at the , we hear how Barry snapped into action and took charge during a perilous moment. With no formal rescue training, she had to improvise—and put all her skills to the test.

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A southern California skydiver is lucky to be alive after a midair mishap sent him crashing into the roof of a home at high speed.

°Őłó±đÌę that the incident occurred just after 5 P.M. on Friday, January 27, in Oceanside, California, approximately 40 miles north of San Diego. The unnamed man had jumped from an airplane operated by local skydiving company GoJump Oceanside when his parachute failed to fully deploy. He was not in a complete free fall—his partially-opened chute slowed his descent—however the local fire department told reporter he plummeted to the ground at “an accelerated pace” that was uncontrollable.

The man crashed into a residential neighborhood near the Oceanside Municipal Airport and struck the roof of a two-story home before coming to land in an adjacentÌęyard. Eyewitness Amber Sweet-Smith that the entire house shook when the skydiver impacted the roof. She and her husband watched the man fall from the house into their front yard.

“It felt like forever, just looking at him,” Sweet-Smith said. “We stood there in, like, shock just going, ‘He has to be dead.’”

But he wasn’t.ÌęOceanside fire officials told The Los Angeles Times that the man survived the fall and was airlifted to an area hospital with “serious but non-life threatening injuries.” According to the KSWB report, he was released on Monday, January 30.

“We’re just grateful that he’s fine, you know, a few broken bones. I mean, looking at him when he moaned, did the first moan and everything, it was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is a miracle,’” Sweet-Smith said.

Skydiving fatalities are rare in the United States, and , ten people died while skydiving in 2021, the lowest mark since the group began keeping records in 1961. Those ten fatalities came amid 3.57 million jumps done by USPA members—the most on record. This equates to .28 fatalities per 100,000 jumps.

“Each fatality is a heartbreak for the skydiving community, which has collectively taken steps each year to learn from these events and improve the sport,” the organization says on its website. “Subsequently, better technology, improvements to equipment and advancements in skydiver-training programs have made the sport safer than ever before.”

Still, the sport has razor-thin margins for error, and recent fatal skydiving accidents have been attributed to , , and . Last January, veteran skydiver Susan Sweetman of New Jersey in Florida after her primary parachute failed to fully deploy. Of the 419 documented U.S. fatalities between 2002 and 2021, 55 resulted from problems with equipment, says the USPA.

Officials do not yet know why the man’s parachute failed in the Oceanside, California, incident. Blake Dorse, battalion cheif of the Oceanside Fire Department, Ìęthe skydiving accident was the first he’d seen in 17 years with the agency involving a non-opening parachute. Dorse said skydivers regularly miss their landing spot and end up in neighborhoods.

The man was jumping with other skydivers, and Dorse said that others in the party realized something was wrong during the descent.

“The other skydivers who jumped with him witnessed the event,” Dorse said. “And saw that his chute did not properly open.”

According to Sweet-Smith, an instructor from the GoJump skydiving center landed safely in the street near their house and came over to help the injured man as he lay on their lawn. Sweet-Smith told KSWBÌęshe and her husband often hear skydivers during their falls, but the sound they heard during the accident was different.

“We usually hear the screaming or, you know, people laughing—just in the air, and he heard like an unusual scream, looked up, saw the guy and went, probably in his head, ‘Oh [crap], he’s going to hit our house,’” she said.

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Utah-based climber River Barry, 30, was standing in a parking lot in Moab’s Kane Creek Canyon, prepping her gear for a day of mountain biking, when a BASE jumper crashed into the cliff in front of her. At the time, she never imagined that she’d be the only one able to save him.Ìę

It was Saturday, November 26, and the annual local BASE-jumping festival Turkey Boogie 2022 was in full swing. One jumper, an Australian man whose name has not yet been disclosed, was just a few hundred feet above the ground when he. As planned, a scarlet bloom of fabric erupted skyward, slowing his freefall. It probably took him half a second to understand what had gone wrong—and half a second more to realize that instead of sailing away from the cliff face, he was flying straight toward it.

“Basically, when you [base] jump out from the wall, your chute is supposed to open straight out, and you fly away. But it can open in a different direction,” explains Justin Beitler, a Las Vegas-based fellow BASE-jumper who was on the scene the day of the accident. In this case, the victim’s chute opened about 160Ìę degrees “off-heading,” or about 160 degrees in the opposite direction of where it was supposed to. Maybe it was because of his body position, maybe because of some asymmetry in his pack. But by the time he realized what was happening, it didn’t matter: the world was reeling around him, and there was nothing he could do.

“His body was spinning, and he didn’t have time to reach up and turn his chute,” says Beitler. Instead of lifting the victim away from the wall, the parachute sucked him into it, slamming his body against the rock and sending him rag-dolling along the cliff face.

At the time, Barry was with two friends, bent over her bike, pumping up her tires. She didn’t see the victim fall, but her friend did. Barry could see the horror register on her friend’s face as he turned to her.

“A BASE jumper just crashed,” he said. Barry glanced to the wall where the scarlet chute was now dangling, caught precariously on the end of a sloping ledge, pinned by nothing more than friction and body weight. The victim hung 80 feet off the ground. She felt her breath catch in her throat.

“We were all just watching in terror,” she recalls. “That’s when this dude came running up to us.”

The guy (who turned out to be Beitler) was a friend of the victim and had seen the whole thing happen. He’d bolted down from the wall into the parking lot, leaving two other jumpers to man the unconscious victim. Beitler started shouting as soon as he was within earshot, asking if anyone had trad gear. Barry raised her hand.

“I have a double rack, two harnesses, and a rope in my van,” she said. Beitler ran over to her.

“Give me what you’ve got.”Ìę

Barry handed him a pack full of cams and packed a separate bag with food, water, and first aid. By the time she started scrambling up the loose approach, Beitler was already nearing the base of the wall.

“My heart was pounding through my chest, but I was in go-mode,” Barry says. “It’s like you don’t think, you just do.

After a few minutes, she arrived at the base, started pulling on her harness, and asked Beitler for a mission briefing. For a few moments, he tried to explain his strategy, which involved climbing a crack ten feet to the left of the suspended base jumper and then traversing over. Barry blinked.

“That’s not going to work,” she said. The traverse was nonexistent. The only way to get to the victim would be to climb the line just beneath him—a wide crack that looked to be about 5.10. Barry, who’s been rock climbing for years and has extensive trad experience, explained all this. That’s when Beitler confessed that he’d only ever led two trad routes before.Ìę

Barry took a breath.

“I realized there was no one else there who was going to do this but me,” Barry says. She looked up at the wall. The rock was spattered with blood. The victim was limp, unconscious. She wasn’t even sure if he was alive—but she did know that the longer she took to get moving, the higher the odds that a wind would kick up and upset his precarious balance.Ìę

The route looked loose and sandy, but she knew she’d be able to get up it. Barry’s kicked in, and she started delegating, asking one bystander to flake the rope, ensuring the rest of the scene was safe, and putting Beitler on belay. Together, they made a plan.

“We both knew there was a good chance that [the suspended victim] could fall,” Beitler says. If Beitler started screaming “Rock,” that’s how Barry would know that the victim was coming down.

“River just looked at the situation and said she’d lean into the wall and hope for the best if that happened. And then she just headed up there anyway—for some dude and a group of people she didn’t even know,” Beitler says. “I was really impressed.”

Barry finished racking up and took a deep breath.

“I brought everything I had,” she says. “The crack was fists to fours, and then it was all chossy and awful, and then it got so wide I didn’t have any gear for it.” Still, she kept going, fighting through off-width sections and a narrow squeeze chimney toward a thinner crack at the top.

Meanwhile, blood continued to drip down the wall, spattering the sandstone and Beitler. For the first half of the climb, Barry wasn’t even sure if the victim was alive. It wasn’t until she was about 40 feet off the deck that she saw he was breathing. But it was too soon for any sense of relief.

“Handholds were popping off left and right. It was so sandy, and the gear was scary—it was hard to tell what was real rock and what was a flake,” Barry says.

On top of that, the victim soon began to wake up, rocking against his tenuous lines, slow at first but then more violently.Ìę When Barry was close to eye level with him, he spotted her and began to moan.

“Please get the weight off my leg,” he begged. “Please help me.” He started to move, thrashing to alleviate his discomfort. Barry could see the parachute begin to slip. She could hear the desperation and agony in his voice. It was unnerving.

“He’s begging me over and over. He’s in so much pain,” she recalls. “I have to speak out loud to myself to block him out. ‘Take your time. Place safe gear. Take your time. Place safe gear.’ And the whole time I’m climbing, I’m saying this to myself and I’m screaming over to him, ‘You’re a fucking badass. You got this. We’re going to get you out of here.’”

Barry reached the victim, built a three-piece anchor, and leaned over to him, holding her breath as she grabbed hold of his chest harness. She clipped him into her anchor, and she felt the first wave of relief. But she wasn’t done yet.Ìę

Barry climbed a few more feet, built a higher anchor, clipped into him again, and slipped the emergency knife free from the victim’s harness. One by one, with her heart in her throat, she began cutting the lines.

When she snipped the last one, she could feel his weight transfer seamlessly from the chute to her harness. Slowly and carefully, she executed the lower.

“I don’t think I realized what a big deal this all was until I touched the ground and everyone was saying, ‘Thank you,’” Barry says. “Justin just came over and hugged me and held me and said, ‘Thank you for saving my friend.’ That’s when it really hit me.”

“I just want to say that I’m super impressed by River,” Beitler says. “She was super calm the whole time. You would have thought she was leading any other climb on any other day, and she was talking to him and calming him down the whole time. She just killed it.”Ìę

As for Barry? She’s still getting a lot of attention after the rescue—including questions about what she hopes to name the 80-foot route she put up in the process. (She hopes to return to free the line sometime soon.) In the meantime, Barry plans to continue honing her own . But mostly, she says, her biggest takeaways are more philosophical.

“That day made me realize, one, the fragility of human life and, two, the human capacity to just do,” she says. “The human mind and body and soul have such a capacity to show up for someone in need,” she says. “I’m grateful to have been able to be there and be able to do my part.”

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For survivors of harrowing events, the most challenging part of the saga often comes after they’ve lived through what seemed like an impossible scenario. Such was the case of Joe Stone, who was a high-flying athlete addicted to the thrills of sports like skydiving and BASE jumping before a brutal accident left him a quadriplegic. Confined to a wheelchair, he faced a giant question: What am I supposed to do now? His answer was to do things that everyone told him would be impossible. Joe’s story, one of our favorites from the șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Podcast archives, offers a remarkable lesson in resiliency that feels fitting for a moment when the whole world is wondering how we’re supposed to move forward after a really hard time.

This episode is brought to you by Sonos, maker of speakers for all around your home and beyond. This includes the Move and the all-new Roam, which is smart, lightweight, waterproof, and ready for any adventure. Learn more at .

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