Last week, Grand Canyon National Park personnel recovered the parachute used by a Missouri man in a fatal BASE jump attempt from the South Rim.
Park spokesperson Joëlle Baird says most people who try such illegal jumps in the park keep a much lower profile.
On the morning of August 1, 43-year-old Justin Guthrie jumped from Yavapai Point, a popular South Rim tourist area. He deployed his chute, but his body was later found by a search and rescue team about 500 feet below.
BASE jumping is illegal in the park and officials say most who attempt it opt for more remote areas, away from Grand Canyon Village and the corridor trails.
Baird says the park doesn’t have reliable data on how often it occurs. Even so, rangers will occasionally receive reports of BASE jumps in the eastern portions of the canyon where the park borders the Navajo Nation.
Visitors will see someone descend into the canyon, or pack up a rig and prepare to hike out.
Baird says the park’s eastern edge is more attractive to BASE jumpers because it is more remote and the descent to the canyon floor is shorter.
The law enforcement jurisdiction is also more complicated there.
At the rim, BASE jumpers are in the Navajo Nation. But they often cross over into the park as they descend the heights and land.
That area is also where the park recorded the last such BASE jumper fatality. In 2014, a Canadian man died near the Little Colorado River after a failed jump.
Rangers are rarely able to find illegal BASE jumpers in the park because they jump around dawn or dusk.
Baird says BASE jumpers often have a team of people helping them coordinate their movements to evade law enforcement.
