The History of BASE Jumping

There have been references that people have been jumping off fixed objects with parachutes for the past 900 years. These jumps were practised infrequently and were mainly by Chinese acrobats and daredevil groups in Europe. Most off these ended badly. Fixed object jumps died out in the late 1700s with the invention of hot air balloons.

Carl Boenish from "Sky Diver Magazine" by 
Lyle Cameron Sr.

Carl Boenish is considered the father of modern BASE Jumping. This is because he used modern equipment and techniques to fixed object jumps. 

Boenish was a free-fall film-maker. In 1975, he went to Yosemite National Park, in the western Sierra Nevada mountains of California to film some hang-gliding footage. It was then that he saw the scale of the cliffs surrounding him. On 8th August 1978, Boenish filmed four of his friends jump El Capitan. This footage spread throughout the skydiving community and popularity for the sport increased. 
In 1980, Yosemite National Park began issuing permits for jumpers. Over the next nine weeks, 372 jumps were made from El Capitan but several accidents and damage to the park forced the closure of the program. This did not deter hard-core jumpers, who jumped illegally or at different locations.


In the 1980s there were a number of advances in fixed-object jumping. People experimented with different equipment, methods of jumping and objects to jump off. 

In 1981, Carl Boenish coined the name BASE Jumping. He also started issuing numbers to people who jumped off all four objects. Texas jumper Phil Smith received BASE#1. Numbers now are in the 1400s.