It may be for two very different reasons, but it’s not everyday that two people from Sierra Nevada College are in the national spotlight. One is a SNC student and secret BASE jumper who was featured in a National Geographic spread about Yosemite. The other is a professor who won a nationwide award for starting a wilderness and literacy organization for young people.
Jumping for Joy While Avoiding Arrest
The four men are captured at the exact moment they hurl themselves off the top of Half Dome, each one in a various stage of flight, the bright colors of their jackets outlined against the blue and gray backdrop of Yosemite’s granite walls. The photo, taken last summer by professional freeskier and photographer Lynsey Dyer, made an impression on National Geographic, which published it in its May issue as part of the story ‘Daring. Defiant. Free: A new generation of superclimbers is pushing the limits in Yosemite’ by Mark Jenkins.
One of those superclimbers and BASE jumpers — the one in the yellow jacket — is a Sierra Nevada College student. The student, however, who asked to remain anonymous, is not exactly posting the image on his Facebook page. BASE jumping is currently illegal in all national parks, and if caught, jumpers face arrest and around $4,000 in fines, which includes the cost of buying back their gear from the rangers, who confiscate it. One of the student’s friends, Ammon McNeely, was tased by a Yosemite park ranger last summer after getting caught BASE jumping. McNeely is also on federal probation for jumping off the side of Yosemite’s El Capitan in August.
So it’s understandable that the SNC student, who we shall call Brian, is wary about revealing his true identity, despite his claim to fame.
‘It sucks it’s not legal,’ he said. ‘We’re looked at like criminals, but the only people we would be hurting is ourselves.’
Brian, who first started hanging out in Yosemite as a kid, is an avid climber. For him and other climbers, BASE jumping is a logical progression from climbing; instead of taking hours to hike down a mountain, BASE jumping gives you a fast return to the valley floor. It’s like taking an elevator instead of the stairs, on steroids.
‘Logically speaking, it makes sense that the best way to get down from climbing is BASE jumping,’ he said. ‘It combines two goals — it makes a lot of big walls possible, and you are back in the valley in minutes instead of hours and expending all your energy so you can climb again.’
Brian, who did not want to disclose how many times he has jumped in Yosemite, has never been caught. He thinks the sport should be legal everywhere in the U.S., as it is in Europe.
‘In Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland, you take the train to the top of a cliff and jump,’ he said. ‘It’s no big deal. That’s how it should be here.’
Brian says that thanks to recent advances in BASE jumping gear, the sport is relatively safe now, at least compared to the early days of the sport in the 1980s. And he says there’s nothing quite like the feeling you get from falling 1,000 feet, treading where only birds may go.
‘It’s amazing to feel alive; you’re flying,’ he said. ‘It’s definitely a sense of freedom I don’t get from anywhere else.’
Brian hopes the National Geographic article will bring national attention to BASE jumpers and their quest to get the sport legalized in national parks.
‘It’s what goes on in Yosemite,’ he said. ‘I think it should be celebrated.’
SNC Professor Recognized by L.L. Bean for Outdoor Work
Sierra Nevada College Professor Katie Zanto was shocked when she got word in April that she was one of the L.L. Bean Outdoor Hero Award finalists. So she was even more surprised when she learned in August that she was named one of the five winners.
‘I was amazed; I was really touched,’ said Zanto, who teaches English at the college and is chair of the Interdisciplinary Studies Program.
The Outdoor Hero Award, now in its fourth year, recognizes people who help to preserve and promote outdoor spaces and activities. Zanto won for her work founding Adventure Risk Challenge, a nonprofit in Truckee that combines wilderness challenges with a literacy and leadership curriculum. Zanto, who has a degree in English Education from Stanford and worked at Outward Bound for 10 years, started ARC in 2004 after teaching English in the East Bay and at Sierra Mountain Middle School.
‘There was a need in Tahoe for those who spoke another language at home,’ Zanto said. ‘They didn’t have access to the outdoors like the rest of the community had. I had the idea that I wanted to combine outdoor education adventure with literacy instruction.’
For being one of the five winners, Zanto received a silver Coleman lantern award and a $500 gift certificate. L.L Bean also made a $5,000 donation to ARC in Zanto’s name. A write-up and video of each of the winners and finalists is also on L.L. Bean’s website.
‘It brings about a lot of acknowledgement to the work we’re doing in the community for so many years and national recognition,’ said ARC Director Jen Gurecki. ‘To be recognized for doing outstanding work and making a difference, and at a national level, is huge.’
There were 600 nominations for the Outdoor Hero Awards, which L.L. Bean whittled down to 10. Then the company posted the videos on its website and asked the public to vote. There were 25,000 votes in total.
‘We hadn’t seen a case with a literacy component,’ said Janet Wyper, L.L. Bean community relations manager, about ARC. ‘It’s a way to highlight that the outdoor experience makes all our lives better.’
The other Outdoor Hero Award winners include a paralyzed athlete in Telluride, Co., who advocates for getting the disabled outdoors; an advocate for the healing effects of fly-fishing on wounded soldiers in Maryland; and a 92-year-old hiking enthusiast who leads conservation efforts in New Hampshire.
To see the L.L. Bean Outdoor Hero Award videos, visit llbean.com/outdoors-Online/conservationAndEnvironment/outdoorHeroeRecipients.html.
~ Comment on this story below.
