Moab, Utah – The first hint that something mischievously daring is afoot comes from the Tyrolean traverse spanning a 570-foot-wide chasm known as Welshman’s Walk near Moab.
The twin ropes set perhaps 3 feet apart from each other are anchored in a confusing twist of knots and carabiners, two stoppers placed about 100 feet from the cliff’s edge where two more ropes dangle from heavyweight pulleys.
The elaborate configuration is the handiwork of 20-year-olds Nick Garcia and Matt Hecker, both of Evergreen, although it surely could qualify as the stage for some outdoor offshoot of Cirque du Soleil. After a day and a half of rigging, Garcia clips his climbing harness to the appropriate rope and completes the scenario with a prolonged swan dive off the cliff, his body accelerating to suicidal speed for nearly four seconds in a 220-foot free-fall before the rope stretches tight and he swoops above the talus now a mere 10 feet below.
Not to be outdone, Hecker retrieves the rope minutes later and hurls himself upside- down like a diver performing a full gainer off the ultimate rope swing. But this system is designed to hold the acrobat, cradling Hecker as he plunges toward terra firma dangling from the high-tech twine. The swaying stops and he lowers the remaining rope from a backpack and rappels down to meet his partner on the valley floor.
“It’s pretty much a controlled free-fall using climbing and rescue-style equipment, mostly modified,” said Hecker, a student at Metro State. “We got away from what the equipment was designed to do and started using it for what it ‘can’ do. Our goal is to get as much free-fall as possible and as many jumps as possible with minimum impact to maximize the life of the ropes, and ourselves.”
Hecker and Garcia’s preferred pastime is a derivative of rock climbing known as dynamic rope jumping. The duo began dabbling in the sport in the backyard along with childhood friends Alex Miller and Matt Appel before working their way up to jumps into the 1,053-foot Royal Gorge using the appropriate gear and systems they have learned to design over the course of five years.
“It comes down to figuring out what can make one of your systems more intense,” said Garcia, a pre-med student at the University of Colorado. “Intensity increases with the danger factor. Unfortunately, that’s what happens. Once you know what you’re doing, there’s not as much risk involved, so you have to figure out how to make it more interesting. It’s fairly dangerous, but we’re pretty safe about it. We always back everything up.”
The fringe sport of rope jumping suffered its greatest blow in the fall of 1999 when its most proficient disciple – Dan Osman of Lake Tahoe – died while attempting a record-breaking free-fall of nearly 1,000 feet in Yosemite National Park. The ensuing press and climbing community reaction have turned some accomplished climbers away from the sport, depicting it as reckless. For Garcia and Hecker, however, the challenge of overcoming that label is as compelling as the thrills rope jumping offers.
“Some climbers say jumping is bad for climbing and not something we should be doing,” Hecker said. “But I think everything can be done safely. Every human dreams about flying at some point, and that’s what we’re trying to do. But the challenge of building designs that are safe is my favorite part, for sure.”
