The Most Haunting Day in Yosemite National Park History

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Lock in for kickoff, because everyone and everything is on PrizePix. What you want? Download the app today and use code SPOTIFY to get $150 instantly in lineups if you win your first $5 lineup. PrizePix. Run your game. Star Wars, The Mandalorian and Grogu is now streaming on Disney+. What are you waiting for? Hop on. The must-see galactic adventure comes home on Disney+. This is the way. Our only chance is to work together. I like this kid. Always wear your seatbelt. Star Wars, The Mandalorian and Grogu now streaming on Disney+. Rated PG-13. And now, we're talking about two women who stepped into places that people dream about visiting and quickly became part of the darker history attached to them. First, we're going to Yosemite National Park, where a protest on the edge of El Capitan was supposed to prove a point until one wrong move changed the entire argument in less than 20 seconds. Then we're heading to Nepal, where a solo trek through the Himalayas quickly became a nightmare of changed stories, false arrests, unanswered questions, and a lot of other things. And a family forced to investigate a foreign disappearance almost entirely on their own. Now, just a heads up, the first story starts with some disturbing video footage, but you don't actually need to see it in order to really understand this story. So if you're listening audio only, don't worry. And it's my goal to get the show to 1,000 five-star reviews and we're getting super close. And so please do us a favor and leave that five-star review right now. And once you do it, drop a comment and let me know where you're listening or watching from. I'm Kyle Hates Hiking. Listen on if you dare. Listen up. You're about to see the most disturbing footage in Yosemite National Park history. The date is October 22nd, 1999, and Jan Davis is standing at the edge of El Capitan. That's right, the El Capitan, probably the most famous landmark in all of our national parks. 3,200 feet of sheer granite dropping straight down into Yosemite Valley. Now below Jan, 150 people are packed into the meadow looking straight up at her. They're screaming, they're chanting. There's reporters, tourists, protesters, as well as a line of park rangers who were pissed off with the spectacle that was taking place in their park. Back on the cliff, Jan was about to make the most consequential decision of her entire life, but she didn't know it yet. She wasn't scared. She had done this thousands of times before. She thought this time would be no different than the last. And so she took a deep breath and then, she took a deep breath and then, the countdown began. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. See ya! I promise that you don't understand what you just watched. At least, not yet. Because that jump was only the beginning of this story. The story of the ugliest, and possibly the deadliest controversy that Yosemite has ever seen. Now, to understand how we got here, you know, to a Friday afternoon in 1999 where a 60-year-old woman leapt off of the most famous cliff in America wearing a prison jumpsuit, to understand how we got here, we need to back up. Have you ever heard of something called base jumping? The name is an acronym. It stands for buildings, antenna, spans, which is a fancy word for bridges, and earth, meaning cliffs. It's essentially skydiving, except instead of jumping from a plane at altitude, you're launching yourself off of a fixed object. It's one of the most dangerous extreme sports that exists, and the margins between a great jump and a disaster are razor thin. You literally only have a few seconds at most to pull the parachute. And honestly, that's why these jumpers love the sport so much. It's thrilling to do and thrilling to watch, and once you get the hang of it, it basically becomes muscle memory, almost as simple as just tapping a button. And now, to understand why 60-year-old Jan, as well as four other daredevils, were willing to risk it all in Yosemite, you need to know about a different base jumper first. His name was Frank Gambily III. It was the early hours of June 9th, 1999, and Frank peered over the western edge of El Capitan, shivering in the pre-dawn chill. At 28 years old, Frank was already known as one of the best base jumpers alive, with over, this is crazy, 600 successful jumps. A pioneer who'd made the first ever jump from El Capitan's Salathe Wall, and now he was planning to do it again. He belayed over the edge while hanging backwards, pulling stones from his pocket and dropping them to calculate fall rates against the wind. You see, Frank wasn't just a simple thrill seeker jumping off cliffs with no plan. He was a. a tactician, doing his due diligence as if his life depended on it, because, well, it literally did. Just before 5am, Frank stood at the edge, and this time, well, he stepped off. No ropes, no wingsuit, just a simple parachute. Frank plunged 3,600 feet, and what followed, well, it was pretty much a perfect jump. A few seconds of free fall, a parachute deploying exactly right, and then a soft landing in the meadow, absolutely ideal. Frank, he nailed it. He then took a moment to kind of soak in what he had just accomplished, but he quickly realized that he was not alone. Now, you can probably understand why base jumping isn't just frowned upon by most authority figures, but that it's actually illegal in a lot of places, including national parks, and it's been that way for a long time. And yet, despite that, you can probably also imagine how hard it is to actually enforce that. I mean, base jumpers would strategically plan their stunts under the cover of darkness and even have elaborate plans with, like, getaway cars, all in an effort to evade park rangers. However, on this particular day, someone had tipped off the park rangers about Frank's jump, and instead of them trying to stop him, they actually decided to try and make an example out of him after the fact. And so, before Frank could even pack up his parachute, two park rangers began bounding, holding towards him, coming out of the bush, you know, basically from nowhere. In 1999, getting caught base jumping in a national park would be chalked up to a federal misdemeanor, carrying a very hefty fine, as well as mandatory gear confiscation, and that would have been devastating for Frank, and let's just say that he wasn't gonna be an easy takedown for these particular rangers. A game of cat and mouse was about to commence, and no one knew it at the time, but this game was about to have consequences so severe, that it still haunts the park to this day. Now, by the time Frank took this fateful jump, and then started running from the park rangers, he had already acquired a bitter distrust of them from a previous bad experience. You see, in 1998, the year before this particular jump, Frank had lost one of his good base jumping friends, Dan Osmond, to a fall while he had been anchored to a rope. Or should I say, fall, basically, what really happened was that Dan's rope, which he had left out overnight on a spire in Yosemite called the Leaning Tower, well, that rope had somehow weakened. And while the story goes that weather or friction caused Dan's rope to break, there were also theories of foul play. There was chatter that maybe a park ranger came by and then messed with the anchor system, tired of daredevils like Dan and Frank mocking the rules of the park. And so with this distrust, in the back of his mind, as well as the panic of losing his gear at the front of it, Frank ran away from the rangers, sprinting towards the Merced River that cuts through Yosemite. His new plan, which he seemed to be coming up with on the fly, was to jump into the river, try crossing it, and then disappear into the wilderness before the rangers could catch him. But for all of Frank's careful calculations, he missed one very small but very important detail. June was runoff season, and the Merced River was pumping with snowmelt moving fast enough to knock down a grown bear, let alone a human being. And so before Frank could even feel the shock of the cold in the water, the current grabbed him and then pulled him down hard into what divers call a washing machine. In a flash, Frank was rushed away with the river. A search and rescue team later found Frank on July 7th, almost a month later. His body was covered in algae. He was struggling, stripped of all of his base jumping gear. and of course he was lifeless the official cause of death as reported by the park rangers was accidental drowning resulting from fleeing an illegal parachute jump but the base jumping community well they saw a very different story frank had survived the jump which they felt was the actual like dangerous part right and then frank had died because of the threat of arrest forcing him into fleeing and so to them essentially a murder had occurred within just days calls for protests began spreading throughout the base jumping community frank's mother was absolutely devastated frank's friends were outraged and the yosemite base jumping community decided that enough was enough enough hiding enough running enough enough watching friends die fleeing rangers instead of facing actual jump hazards they were going to make a statement and they were going to make a statement and they were going to make a statement and they proved that base jumping could be done safely and a 60 year old woman from santa barbara stepped forward to help make this happen her name was jan davis and if you designed the perfect base jumping ambassador you would create her not a 20 something adrenaline junkie or an influencer chasing viral videos but a 60 year old grandmother with 16 years of jumping experience 3000 plus skydives and about 50 to 70 base jumps under her belt do you hear that that sound right that means that summer's officially here it means that grown adults just sprint into the street for a frozen dessert shaped like a cartoon but this summer mint mobile has a better tree every plan including unlimited is 15 a month and unlike ice cream it won't uh drip down your wrist or look nothing like the picture does anyone have any cash give it a try at mintmobile.com switch upfront payment of 45 for three months 90 for six months or 180 for 12 month plan required 15 per month equivalent taxes and fees extra new customer offer for initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy see terms show button here football is finally back and prize picks is going crazy with the deals to start the season giving out promos every day in september on prize picks you can make all the picks you want all in the same app and now prize picks is available nationwide so what are you waiting for lock in for kickoff because everyone and everything is on prize picks what you want download the app today and use code spotify to get 150 instantly in lineups if you win your first five dollar lineup prize picks run your game i see you avatar fire and ash is now streaming on disney plus it's the film critics are calling the best avatar yet a true epic and completely jaw-dropping this is the only pure thing in this world return to pandora on disney plus it will be an adventure for the whole family and watch the oscar-winning phenomenon at home this is sick avatar fire and ash now streaming on disney plus rated pg-13 hank joined bj's wholesale club the day he became a father of 30 i coach football now coach hank saves up to 25 off grocery store prices 30 pounds of pasta three cases of protein bars 75 sports drinks and that's just pre-game he knows teamwork and bj's knows savings this is your home coach home of the save join for just 20 dollars at bjs.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months open soon limited time offer new members only bj's home of the save this episode is brought to you by txu energy for the first time ever texans have an energy plan that combines free nights all year with daytime summer savings it's called free nights and cool summer you get free nights every night all year long plus a 25 bonus toward your daytime use all summer it's a first of its kind plan created for how texans actually use energy discover how much more you could save with free nights and cool summer txu energy energy for everything visit txu.com for more information rep number one zero zero zero four jan was the first woman to ever jump angel falls in venezuela which means that she leaped off of a 3212 foot waterfall which is higher than el capitan jumping into mist and rainbows with a very long fall before eventually deploying her parachute over the rainforest canopy but one thing that's important to understand is that jan wasn't just a base jumper or a skydiver she was a master rigger which means that she was certified to pack other people's parachutes and she literally packed parachutes for james bond movies you see when stunt coordinators needed someone who understood free fall physics canopy deployment mechanisms and folding patterns that meant the difference between life and death they called jan davis she worked on drop zone and terminal velocity in multiple bond films and she didn't just coordinate she worked on drop zone and terminal velocity in multiple bond films and she didn't just coordinate she she executed jumping alongside performers and showing them how it was done in base jumping's small world jan was royalty she was even referred to as the queen of base jumping she wasn't just playing around with this it was her her life her passion her her profession even and of course it was her identity however she wasn't born into it either jan had lived an entire previous life married to a santa barbara police chief raising a family and a wife and a wife and a wife and a wife living the the conventional respectable life that you'd expect from a police chief's wife in an upper class beach town but then sometime in her like mid to late 40s after that chapter ended jan davis reinvented herself completely through skydiving base jumping and stunt work transforming from someone's housewife into the queen of the earth's most dangerous sports and that kind of transformation does not happen casually you don't accidentally become a master rigger you don't accidentally become a master rigger you don't accidentally become a master rigger or whimsically become the first woman to jump off the legendary angel falls jan davis had something to prove maybe to herself maybe to the world i don't know which one but she had spent her last 15 years doing just that over and over with a determination that was impossible to ignore and that same energy also led jan to meet a partner who was willing to go to the edge alongside her his name was tom sanders 46 year old tom sanders had been base jumping since 1978 now he was 14 years younger than jan but to them age clearly was just a number tom was also a stunt filmmaker documenting humanity's most dangerous activities like skydiving and base jumping in high altitude mountaineering wingsuit flying you name it basically if it involved defying gravity then well tom would be there with his camera in 1988 he started a company called aerial focus which was a a santa barbara based cinematography company that supplied photographers and technical support for films commercials and documentaries and somewhere around that same year tom met jan who was already an experienced skydiver with a deep understanding of the sports technical side tom was surely captivated by jan's ability to to pack a shoot that sounded way dirtier than i thought it would however you want to put it tom sanders fell rapidly in love with jan and together they built a business that emphasized both the safety and the thrill of base jumping they became partners both romantically and professionally with jan working alongside tom on productions as a technical advisor and safety coordinator when tom needed complex aerial maneuvers demonstrated jan strapped on the gear and showed the stunt performers how it was done and when jan needed her jumps documented you know like angel falls all these impossible cliffs well tom was there to film it and what made their relationship powerful was that they understood each other's risk tolerance completely tom knew which jumps made jan nervous and which ones didn't and jan knew which shots tom needed and exactly how to deliver them they'd done this dance hundreds of times across years of working together which makes what happened on october 22nd 1999 particularly cruel you see tom wasn't worried about jan jumping el capitan tom even said quote this is a very very forgiving base jump and while hindsight is 2020 um he was he was right by base standards el capitan is one of the safest jumps possible high enough for plenty of deployment time overhung enough that you know you fall away from the rock with a massive open meadow as a landing zone and no technical complications or tricky wins el capitan is the jump you do when you want to feel the rush without any serious damage it's base jumping's bunny slope essentially an easy scenic drive and so tom set up his camera that day expecting to document jan's jump as well as a successful protest you see the park rangers were allowing the base jump to happen peacefully and freely and then one at a time once the jumpers landed from their jump they would be arrested and their gear would be confiscated that was the plan they had essentially brokered this deal between the park rangers and the park rangers and the jumpers the rangers would let them go up they would let them jump even though it was illegal and then the base jumpers would essentially let the rangers arrest them at the bottom now it's important to note that all of the jumpers would be using either borrowed gear or like cheap backup equipment uh stuff they could afford to lose because once again when they landed on the ground their gear was going to be compensated by the rangers i mean why lose your best expensive equipment when you could just use someone else's cast off rig it made perfect sense and all five jumpers made the same calculation keep your real gear don't use it and then sacrifice someone else's is cheaper gear after they got arrested the plan would be for all five base jumpers to have their day in court they would fight the criminal charges against them and hope to create a safe regulated system for future base jumps and i do have to say it's just kind of unbelievable to me that after all of the intense efforts that the park service made to stop base jumps from happening you know literally chasing down base jumpers on foot that they would then go and double back and let this peaceful protest play out i mean it was essentially sanctioned by them it's just very strange and maybe the strangeness around this whole plan is actually a little bit of foreshadowing to the truly insane sequence of events that would follow the night before the protest jan called her friend frank zinn to invite him along tom and jan were heading to yosemite and they wanted frank there to photograph the protest however frank was house sitting and said that he couldn't come because well he had a cat to feed and in response jan said well double feed the cat in a playful voice and so with that frank double fed the cat and the next morning at 8 15 he joined tom sanders and the crowd gathering beneath el capitan a photographer from the associated press paul sakuma snapped photographs of the scene park ranger mary littell hinson instructed her team on the protocol for seizing gear and arresting the jumpers and the protest was a success and the reporters the park rangers the base enthusiasts and onlookers was a grieving mother ricarda gambali she had just buried her son frank a few months earlier and now she was present for the protest that these base jumpers had organized in honor of her son that morning the five jumpers summited together accompanied by park rangers who were monitoring the protest which actually allowed them to speed up the protest and the protest was a success and the protest was a success by all accounts everyone was excited except for maybe the park rangers but even they apparently were feeling the momentum of everything that was going on i mean maybe base jumping was actually safer than the media was making it out to be maybe this protest would actually work everyone was playing their assigned roles and everything was in place for it to operate smoothly or almost everything i'll get to that in a second the jumps were scheduled for 2 p.m. and as the hour approached the tension among everyone continued to build it was now abundantly clear that this wasn't just a protest anymore it was a spectacle being broadcast through all those cameras down below and all of the notepads pointed skyward and so at exactly 2 p.m. the first jumper stepped to el capitan's edge and launched into the void after about 16 seconds a parachute deployed perfectly and bloomed against the ground and the jumpers were able to get to the ground and the ramparts were able to get to the ramparts and the ramparts and the ramparts were able to get to the ground face of el capitan spiraling down with a soft landing ranger mary's team then clicked handcuffs around the jumper as as the camera snapped and led them away the crowd applauded and then the second jumper followed with a perfect exit a textbook deployment and a soft landing that drew even more applause and cheers everything was going according to plan for both the jumpers and the rangers the third jumper then executed flawlessly and the atmosphere became almost festive with people relaxing and chatting and enjoying the beautiful october weather because by this point the jumpers they had pretty much proven their point this sport was much safer than it looks and all the park service had to do was stop treating them like criminals and speaking of that jan took the criminal theme quite literally that day she showed up wearing a black and white striped jumpsuit dressed like an old school prisoner so that she could make her point loud and clear she would be the fourth jumper and there was little fanfare as she stepped to the edge frankly it was it was a little bit too calm tom sanders positioned himself with his camera down below ready to capture his girlfriend's historic contribution to this historic moment ap photographer paul sakuma pulled his lens skyward ranger mary prepared her handcuffs jan took a deep breath she leaned into the wind around her recognizing the familiar weight of the parachute that was on her back this all felt normal it felt safe and so after a countdown jan jumped from the ledge of el capitan with a clean exit no tumbling no awkward positioning no no problems at all tom watched through the viewfinder of his camera the crowd down below ood and odd but ranger mary who was standing over a half mile below she felt something clench in her chest and she was able to take a deep breath and her stomach show button here football is finally back and prize picks is going crazy with the deals to start the season giving out promos every day in september on prize picks you can make all the picks you want all in the same app and now prize picks is available nationwide so what are you waiting for lock in for kickoff because 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seat belt star wars the mandalorian and grogu now streaming on disney plus read pg-13 tammy regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college that's why she shops at bj's wholesale club saving up to 25 off grocery store prices beef jerky microwave meals laundry pods even they can't screw up have you met my kids and with bj's gas she gets there for less they call me the road warrior this is your home road warrior mom home of the save join for just 20 at bjs.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months open soon limited time offer new members only bj's home of the save home of the save home of the save home of the save this episode is brought to you by txu energy for the first time ever texans have an energy plan that combines free nights all year with daytime summer savings it's called free nights and cool summer you get free nights every night all year long plus a 25 bonus toward your daytime use all summer it's a first of its kind plan created for how texans actually use energy discover how much more you could save with free nights and cool summer txu energy energy for everything visit txu.com for more information years around parachutes and base jumpers had caused her to develop an instinct for what a good deployment looks like for for the timing between exit and parachute canopy and something about how jan was falling about the slight delay well it made mary's alarm bells start ringing five seconds passed with jan falling down from el capitan's peak her black and white stripes stood out starkly against the gray granite the wind whipped through her costume making a sound kind of like thumbing rapidly through a deck of cards if you know what i mean eight seconds passed with still no parachute jan was cutting it a little bit close but she still had plenty of time and by that i mean about five or so more seconds but still in base jumping that's that's more than enough time to deploy a parachute as she had done thousands of times before jan's right hand moved to the back of her pack she was reaching for where the handle of her chute should be where it always was where where 15 years of doing this had trained her to find it without thinking but this time for the first time in her life the handle wasn't there she reached her left hand back and then both hands but still there was no handle now once again if you'll recall jan had borrowed someone else's gear not wanting to get her stuff confiscated by the park rangers she had kind of taken a shortcut and there was now a massive problem the rig that jan was wearing didn't have a bottom of container style chute where the handle was at the small of her back instead the handle for this particular parachute was on her thigh and apparently jan had no clue around 10 seconds passed as jan fell further and further down the crowd's cheers of go baby go and and excitement turned into confused shouts of open open open people in the crowd even those who knew nothing about base jumping were now starting to realize that something was wrong and their voices were getting tense and rising tom sanders watched jan through his viewfinder he watched as his girlfriend picked up speed thinking she'll deploy that parachute any second i mean she's just waiting for the right altitude she knows what she's doing she's she's jan after all but as tom tracked jan further down the face of el capitan he eventually saw something that he wished he hadn't it was the tree line it came into frame at the bottom of his shot And when this happened, he knew what was coming next. At this point, Jan had given up on the parachute. She actually put her arms to her side, trying to keep what's called a boxman position, which is what you want to do if you're free falling to limit tumbling and slow your speed as much as you can. But this was all happening way too late. Just about 18 seconds after she had jumped, Jan abandoned that pose and she put her hands over her face because she was starting to see something far more horrifying than trees. She was seeing the ground. And so, 19 seconds after she first jumped, Jan hit the boulders, traveling at 120 miles per hour. At this point, she was out of view of everyone. She was too low, and so no one saw it, but everyone heard it. The sound was described by witnesses as almost like slapping a deck of cards. Against the table, except much louder, a horrible impact that echoed across the entire meadow and was followed by absolute silence. Absolute silence, as 150 people began to process what they had all just witnessed together. Eventually, someone screamed. A car alarm went off. A child in the crowd started to cry. Tom Sanders slumped forward. Tom Sanders slumped forward onto his camera, with his hands gripping the equipment sides. And both Frank Zinn, as well as Riccarda Gamboli, ran over to comfort him. It was just a brutal scene. I mean, I can only imagine. Ranger Mary had spent years performing Yosemite's most dangerous rescues, dangling on ropes beside giant cliff faces during helicopter operations, while heavy winds threatened to slam her into rock. Technical recoveries where one wrong move meant joining whoever she was, trying to save in death. She knew what humans looked like when gravity won, but she'd never watched someone die in real time from only 150 yards away, while knowing that there was absolutely nothing she could do. She recounted that she had never heard a sound quite like Jan falling so fast, so violently through the air, and then that sound of her hitting the ground. An impact that didn't just mean instant death, but something far messier. Ranger Mary, who'd recovered dozens of bodies in her career, put on rubber gloves and walked over to where Jan Davis's body lay on the rocks. I mean, just imagine watching someone die, knowing that you couldn't help them. The sound of that impact, the silence afterwards, the awful scene you had to go inspect, you know, looking like it's straight out of a horror film. Honestly, I wonder if she even felt like a tinge of guilt as the hand, the handcuffs that she had planned to place on Jan Davis dangled on her belt. And not that she should have felt any guilt, obviously not suggesting it's her fault, but I don't know, man, it's just so sad for everyone involved. Tom Sanders gave one quote to reporters on October 22nd before disappearing into his grief that day. He said, quote, If only she had used her own gear. He repeated this, this, this what if over and over, to the friends who tried to help him fixating on that single decision, that practical choice, that financial calculation that Jan had made, the calculation that ended up costing her, her life. And you might think that a death like this would end the debate about base jumping on the spot, but it didn't. It actually made the fighting over base jumps in Yosemite even nastier. And folks, the deaths didn't stop there either. In the immediate aftermath of Jan's death, park service officials and base jumping advocates went to war with each other once again. Park officials reaffirmed the ban, citing what had played out on October 22nd as proof that the sport is in fact too dangerous. And on the other hand, base jumpers countered that danger wasn't the point, freedom was. And they also said that Jan had died because they were forced to once again operate in the shadows using unfamiliar equipment. Tom Sanders scattered Jan's ashes near Lake Elsinore at a skydiving ceremony surrounded by friends who jumped with her and understood why she did what she did, even as they mourned her loss. And then life moved on in the way that it always does. Jan became a story that base jumpers told each other, a cautionary tale about borrowed equipment and muscle memory. Yosemite's base jumping ban obviously remained in place. And if anything, Jan's death hardened the positions on both sides. For the base jumping community, she became something like a martyr. And here's the thing about martyrs. Well, they don't end movements, they fuel them. Jan Davis's death didn't stop base jumping in Yosemite. It intensified everything. More and more base jumpers came to the park, sneaking up trails in the darkness, launching at dawn and pushing boundaries precisely because the park said that they couldn't. And the park rangers would try everything they could to stop them, threatening arrests and gear confiscation and even bans from national parks. Over the years, people kept jumping from El Capitan illegally, kept getting arrested, kept getting their gear confiscated. But surprisingly, no one died base jumping in the park for almost two decades. The community seemed to have learned something from Jan's death. You know, use your own gear, know your equipment, respect the jump, all that stuff. However, all of this would change once again because on May 16th, 2015, these two men threw a giant wrench into any park, and it was a huge part of this story being over. They were Dean Potter and Graham Hunt. Just after sunset on this late spring day, Dean Potter and Graham Hunt hiked to Taft Point, which is a 7,500 foot prominence on Yosemite's South Rim. And they did this to attempt a wingsuit flight, which is different than base jumping. But in terms of the thrill and the danger and stuff, at least to those of us that don't do it, it seems pretty similar. You know, they were going to weave themselves between rock formations before eventually deploying their parachutes, which sounds insane to me. But it's important to note that Dean Potter and Graham Hunt were basically legends in the world of extreme sports. Dean, a 43-year-old, he had walked lines between Yosemite's peaks. He had base jumped over 3,000 times and flew in wingsuits across giant valleys and gorges. And Graham, who was 31 years old, he was Dean's wingsuit partner. And just three days earlier, he had carved his way through Taft Point. Already on a successful flight, a flight that went undetected by Rangers, by the way. Dean and Graham were also known for being two of the safest in the sport. And by 2015, base jumping had changed a lot. Show button here. And now PrizePix is available nationwide. Lock in for kickoff because everyone and everything is on PrizePix. What you want? Download the app today and use code "Spotify" to get $150 instantly in lineups if you win your first $5 lineup. PrizePix. Run your game. Do you hear that? That sound, right? Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch. $15 per month equivalent, taxes and fees extra. May slow when network is busy. See terms. I see you. Avatar Fire and Ash is now streaming on Disney+. It's the film critics are calling the best Avatar yet. Yeah! Go, go, go, go! A true epic and completely jaw-dropping. This is the only pure thing in this world. Listen to Pandora on Disney+. It will be an adventure for the whole family. And watch the Oscar-winning phenomenon at home. This is sick! Avatar Fire and Ash, now streaming on Disney+, rated PG-13. 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Rep number 10004. Since Jan's jump in 1999, more fail-safes had been discovered by the community. And there were more evolutions to equipment that reduced the chances of severe injury or death. There's actually a TV series on HBO Max right now that tells Dean Potter's story. story and captures this moment in base jumping. history but to bring you back to yosemite at 7 30 p.m as the last light of the day drained from the sky dean and graham stood over the south rim of the park for a moment they processed their flight plan for one final time and then they jumped together for the first few seconds everything was perfect they were two silhouettes flying against the fading daylight but that perfection would only last for a few seconds because moments later with no one around to see or hear what happened both dean potter and graham hunt hit a ridgeline at high speed neither of them deployed their parachutes the next morning their bodies were found and they became the seventh and eighth people to die base jumping in yosemite since 1980 joining dan osmond frank gamboli the third and of course jan davis the base jumping community was once again devastated dean potter especially was considered one of the sport's safest leaders someone who calculated risks obsessively and so if dean could die then pretty much anyone could park service officials gave the same statement essentially they'd given after jan's death and after frank's death after dan osmond's death after pretty much every death and the base jumping community gave the same exact counter argument and here's what makes the base jumping debate so impossible to resolve both sides actually have some pretty valid points and there's no clear answer that's going to satisfy everyone now obviously base jumping is extraordinarily dangerous 573 ish deaths worldwide since 1981 a fatality rate of one death per 2317 jumps and just for context that makes it 43 times more dangerous than seven times more dangerous than seven times more dangerous than seven times more right and we know that number because the base jumping community is actually keeping track on the website baseaddict.com they have what's called the base fatality list where every person who has died is not only honored but their cause of death is also recorded and i think this is notable because it illustrates that the base jumping community obviously doesn't want more death they want to prevent it they want to make this very dangerous thing as safe as it possibly can be however once again if you're base jumping you're you're voluntarily doing something that might kill you and to me the park service essentially saying you know we won't facilitate this risky thing on our public land well that's not exactly unreasonable either but i do have to tell you that there actually was a time when yosemite allowed base jumping in 1980 the park service instituted a trial period for base jumping you know they had to go get a permit but as long as they did that it was allowed and for a little while it worked jumpers went and killed people and they were able to do it again and again and again and again and got their permits they jumped safely and everyone was happy but then apparently jumpers started violating rules because you know they're they're kind of rebellious and on the last day of the trial period a group of 10 base jumpers did something absolutely devious they actually drove a pickup truck as far up the mountain as they possibly could and when they couldn't drive it anymore they hiked the rest of the way to the summit and from there these 10 jumpers started launching themselves off of el capo and they were able to get to the summit and they were able to get to the in the most creative ways possible and folks this was like a scene out of a summer camp movie i'm talking pogo sticks and skateboards jumpers dressed in hilarious costumes and i can even imagine there may have been a few beers involved but who's to say later on this whole thing became known as the flatbed 10 incident and it embarrassed the hell out of the park service it embarrassed them so badly that they reinstated the ban on base jumping and they were able to get to the summit and vowed to never allow it in the park again and the little moments like this flatbed 10 incident were followed by even more moments of like true tragedy like dan osmond's ropes that whole scenario frank's chase down and death jan davis's equipment swap out and then dean potter's nighttime flight it just created a culture of mistrust between the base jumpers and the park rangers and so to me it kind of seems like a classic case study but i'm not sure if it's of of finger pointing where both sides have contributed to an impossible situation with no good resolution and this is especially tragic because the names of these base jumpers who died became tied into this whole controversial story the one i'm telling you right now instead of simply being remembered for the people that they actually were jan davis jumped off of el capitan on october 22nd 1999 in order to make a statement she wanted to prove that base jumping could be done safely and that jumpers deserved the right to pursue their sports in america's national parks but ultimately her jump proved pretty much the exact opposite it demonstrated that even a 60 year old master rigger with 70 previous base jumps could still die on one of the sport's easier cliffs all because of one single oversight it gave the park service their strongest argument against ever reconsidering the ban it may have been a mistake but it was a mistake and it was made jan a cautionary tale about borrowed equipment about protests about the price of standing up for what you believe in i mean she became a story that base jumpers tell each other a reminder that skill and experience don't guarantee survival and that even the easiest jumps can still kill you if one small thing goes wrong but here's the thing folks jan davis believed base jumping was worth dying for she knew the risks she calculated them precisely with the same analytical mind that made her a master rigger in the first place and after all that she still chose to jump anyway and tom sanders i mean he stood there with his camera knowing what jan was doing was incredibly dangerous and he still filmed it anyways ricarda gamboli stood in that meadow months after burying her son and watched other people jump the same cliff that started his death essentially anyways they all believed in something enough to accept the consequences and honestly who am i to say that they were wrong and who am i to say that the park service is wrong either for trying to prevent those consequences it's really an impossible question with no satisfying answer which is why the debate continues to this day why jumpers keep jumping and why rangers keep arresting them why the ban endures why it all just repeats and repeats i'd love to hear your take in the comments on this one because the debate rages on please just be sure to be respectful to all the memes i covered be respectful to the park rangers remember these are real people with real loved ones and i've also linked the book ranger confidential by andrea langford down below which was absolutely invaluable when researching this story i mean we wouldn't have even known about it without that book and so i highly recommend you read that especially if you like my videos i promise you're gonna love that book so in our last story everyone saw what happened they just couldn't agree on what it meant but in our next story there were no cameras no crowd and no clean version of the truth and i'm sure you're all going to love that book and i'm sure you're all going to just a solo female's trek that ended in silence in april of 2010 a young beautiful and adventurous girl began a solo trek through nepal's lang tang national park i'm sure that everything seemed right in the world as she started off into the mountains staring out at scenery that's so unbelievable that you'd normally only see it in screensavers unfortunately this journey that started out so dramatically would end in total tragedy and heartbreak aubrey sacco wouldn't have known it at the time but as she crossed the border into lang tang national park she was marking the start of a mystery that would last for over a decade and counting this mystery would have her family flying across the world on a whim multiple times it would have three men being apparently falsely arrested and jailed only to be released less than a year later and this mystery would bring the dangers of solo trekking internationally as well as the corruption and dare i say uselessness of the nepalese government to the forefront of headlines in the united states and other western nations countless search hours three arrests and theory after theory after theory and yet nobody knows what the hell happened to aubrey sacco this is the story of her mysterious disappearance and the search that followed ryan reynolds here for mint mobile with your summer price forecast now unfortunately we're seeing rising costs across the country with possibility that big 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free nights every night all year long plus a 25 bonus toward your daytime use all summer it's a first of its kind plan created for how texans actually use energy discover how much more you could save with free nights and cool summer txu energy energy for everything visit txu.com for more information rep number one zero zero zero four in april of 2010 23 year old aubrey sacco was nearing the end of a five-month journey throughout asia the colorado native was fascinated with eastern culture and during her adventure she had spent time in sri lanka and india she wanted to end this epic trip on a high note and so she planned to visit one more country before returning to the united states that would be the country of nepal aubrey had graduated from cu boulder in 2009 with a degree in psychology and art therapy she loved yoga and she was also an avid traveler with a great appreciation for the natural world around her and so given all of this it's it's not surprising that she didn't just want to like visit nepal's cities she wanted to go and experience the beautiful nature of nepal and she wanted to go and experience the beautiful nature of nepal and beauty of nepal's mountains its rivers and its valleys though there's definitely no shortage of places to go trekking in nepal the one that she chose for her week-long excursion was lang tang national park in the himalayan mountains lang tang national park encompasses miles and miles and miles of protected wilderness and there's tons of trails and small mountain villages that lie within its borders it's incredibly remote and visitors are actually required to travel like seven hours by bus from nepal's capital city of kathmandu just to reach the park's boundaries on april 21st 2010 aubrey sacco was fresh off this long bus ride and she was eager to start her journey she passed through a military checkpoint at the base of the himalayas and then she was off the woman that was manning the checkpoint actually remembered seeing aubrey she like specifically remembered her and she also remembered her smile unfortunately this positive encounter would soon prove to be the start of a timeline of aubrey's known whereabouts in lang tang national park leading up to her disappearance so after she leaves this military checkpoint she continued trekking north all by herself i'm not sure if she was aware of this but at the time and actually still to this day for that matter i believe both the u.s state department and the government of nepal itself strongly recommends against solo trekking in the country this was just a recommendation in 2010 i do not believe it was illegal to do so i do believe that that has since changed however i read that starting in 2023 tourists they're now required to hire a licensed guide before trekking through the wilderness in nepal around 10 a.m aubrey arrived at the namaste guest house which was her final destination planned for the day she apparently spent the rest of the day just hanging out and relaxing taking in the scenery and at some point she met a local trekking guide whose name i'm gonna have a hard time with but i'm gonna try his name was renzing dorji yanzan aubrey and renzen we'll we'll call him apparently these two were quite fond of each other's company and they spent hours talking to each other that evening aubrey was eager to learn more about the local culture and customs and in order to help her do this renzen actually gave her a copy of a book called quote ethnic groups in nepal some people believe that aubrey and renzen may have spent the night together that night but nobody really knows for sure what happened we do know however that following morning the two of them well they split up renzen was actually traveling south down into the valley while aubrey continued her trek north up into the mountains her time spent with renzen is an important part of her timeline moving through langtang national park on the morning of april 22nd aubrey continued further into the mountains um this is obviously a wilderness area that she's traveling in but my understanding is that she still would have encountered plenty of people along the way other trekkers certainly but also locals who live in the small villages dotting the langtang valley she also would have encountered military personnel and probably porters as well eventually aubrey reached the small village of lama hotel which like many of the villages in nepal can only be reached on foot my understanding is that lama hotel pretty much only exists to serve tourists that trek to it it's tiny it pretty much just has a few tea houses a few places to get some food a few places to stay and that's pretty much it it's a small place but it plays a very big role in aubrey's timeline so apparently she was seen by the locals in lama hotel drinking soda eating food and possibly reading the book that renzen had given her the previous day at one point she made her way into the sherpa hotel and lodge and she sat down at a table after she did this she spent some time just kind of lounging around here and she began talking with three local men in their late teens in early 20s while she was in there i wasn't able to find the names of these men knowing myself i wouldn't have been able to pronounce them anyways and so i have no idea who they were or what they were up to however i do know that at some point during her conversation with these men aubrey said that she was going to continue on to her journey to the small village of lama hotel and she was able to go to the next village which is called riverside at this point morning had come and gone but it wasn't super late either it was like early afternoon and aubrey felt that she could easily reach the village safely in a reasonable time frame to spend the night there these unnamed men apparently disagreed with her about this they insisted that it was just too late in the day for her to make the trek and for whatever reason aubrey would end up concluding that they were lying to her and so with that she grabbed her gear and she left presumably to start her trek to riverside but she she never made it to this day aubrey sacco has not been seen dead or alive since she departed the lodge in llama hotel aubrey was very good about keeping in touch with her parents back in colorado she apparently was emailing or calling them just about every day i'm sure it was expected that communication would be tough while she was on her trek because i mean she's in the wilderness this is a remote place but once again her trip through the langtang valley was only supposed to last for one week so her parents didn't hear from her and then after a week plus a few days had gone by her parents did start to get incredibly worried they got so worried in fact that they even contacted the u.s embassy in kathmandu the officials at the embassy noted that there had been some political unrest in nepal at the time and that could have possibly delayed her travel so maybe she was still out there in the national park she was safe and sound and she was just running a bit behind this definitely seemed plausible at first but as more and more days passed by aubrey's parents still heard nothing from her and so eventually they decided that they needed to take matters into their own hands aubrey's father paul and her older brother crofton actually flew to nepal on may 16 2010 and when they arrived they were eager to figure out what the hell was going on by this point a search was already underway in langtang national park but of course they hadn't found anything yet and so they land they travel to the border of the park and then paul sacco who was fresh out of a recent hip surgery by the way began trekking up the very same path that his daughter had traveled on less than a month earlier as paul and crofton began their investigation they remained hopeful that aubrey would be found alive or even that they would coincidentally just run into her on the trail i mean it's certainly possible that while they were hiking up she could have finally been ready and able to hike out and so they could have intersected each other but unfortunately this didn't happen the days dragged on they searched the mountains and the trail just tirelessly and no results so eventually crofton returned to colorado but paul stayed behind and continued to investigate he met with the nepal police he met with u.s embassy officials and he interviewed anybody who could have possibly had some answers in his daughter's disappearance despite his best efforts he didn't get any closer and he had no choice but to return home i can't imagine how painful that that return flight must have been because yeah i just said it there on his return flight home he was no closer to finding his daughter than he was when he first landed in nepal however the investigation didn't just stop after paul returned to colorado the sacos enlisted the help of a local guide back in nepal who interviewed folks from the llama hotel village during the summer of 2010 it's through these interviews that they learned many of the details of aubrey's time line leading up to her disappearance the very same details that i shared earlier in the video the investigation is just dragging on at this point and the longer that it dragged on the more things just didn't seem to add up the sacos arrived in nepal again in july of 2011 and once again they trekked to llama hotel in order to re-interview some of the locals that had reportedly seen aubrey the year prior this time the story of aubrey's time in nepal was a little bit different stories that they were told were different a few of the people they interviewed changed their mind and all of a sudden now they're saying they had never seen aubrey overall they just seemed unwilling to provide any information which was incredibly frustrating to the sacos and unfortunately things weren't much better when it came to the nepal police either the sacos were told that the police had conducted multiple searches for aubrey that they had interviewed and re-interviewed the villagers and the locals and the locals were told that the police had interviewed the villagers and this renzen dorji guy and they had also apparently interviewed members of nepal's army that were stationed along the trail that aubrey was following they were told all these things and yet despite all of that the sacos began to doubt how seriously the police were taking their daughter's disappearance now i don't know much about nepal i've never been there but just from what i understand from researching this country isn't exactly known for having the best justice system or the best justice system in the world and i don't know much about nepal investigative skills for that matter corruption runs deep and this made it all but impossible for the sacos to find a stable trustworthy contact working for the government of nepal now i really hate to say this but at some point it must have dawned on the sacos that foul play could be the reason that their daughter vanished i mean of course anytime someone goes missing the but in this case it seemed especially likely and i say that because well langtang national park had some pretty shady recent history when it came to trekkers a an alarmingly high amount of trekkers have gone missing in nepal and in langtang national park specifically there have been numerous cases of western female trekkers being assaulted many of them hiking solo without a guide by the way just like aubrey in 2005 two different french women disappeared in the park and this prompted the nepal police to state that they actually believed a serial killer was roaming the area in december of 2011 a different woman from the united states was threatened and attacked by a man wearing a black mask and carrying a knife fortunately in this case the woman was actually able to escape but then a few months later in may of 2012 a female tourist disappeared and was soon found murdered off of the trail in langtang valley coincidentally but also disturbingly both of these girls were 23 years old the exact same age as aubrey sacco and those are only a few of the disappearances and murders of trekkers in nepal the truth is that we really have no idea how many people have gone missing or run into foul play out there the government doesn't really do a very good job of finding out how many people have gone missing and how many people have gone missing and how many people have gone missing and how many people have gone missing of tracking or reporting these these cases and maybe that's intentional maybe it's not but regardless we know that crime has been an issue for trekkers in nepal in fact there's been so many disappearances that an entire website called missingtrekker.com has been created to document and spread the word about those missing in the country and that should illustrate just how common this is and so with some of these sketchy disappearances and crimes in mind both of which happened before and after aubrey disappeared by the way i imagine that foul play was certainly on the minds of aubrey's family in addition to the obvious grief and of course the lack of closure and then just when it seemed like things couldn't get any worse aubrey's family got the official news that she had been murdered and her killers had been caught on august 1st 2013 right around 8 p.m the saccos received a phone call from a nepalese man that they had been working with on aubrey's disappearance this man said that his father who lived in langtang had heard that not one not two but three local men had been arrested after they confessed to the murder of aubrey sacco so within the day the saccos were communicating with the u.s embassy in nepal and they were learning more details about what the hell had happened finally the saccos were able to get a hold of a local family and finally over two years after aubrey's disappearance her family were were starting to get some closure the news of these arrests quickly made its way from local headlines all the way to national and even international headlines there was just something about aubrey's case that struck a nerve with people i mean i can't place my finger on it exactly but if i had to guess it's because of the positive energy that aubrey just gave off even just from the photos of her you can kind of see what i mean right she just seems so content so happy she seems like the kind of person that bad things just aren't supposed to happen to an undercover investigation had been conducted in nepal and during the course of this investigation one man had actually confessed to murdering aubrey eventually this very same man well he ratted on two other men and with that plus the alleged discovery of aubrey's clothing at one of the man's houses boom case closed well actually that's how things would have gone if there was any sense of justice in this case and in the saccos world shortly after the saccos received news of these arrests around the same time that the story was just exploding across international headlines the saccos learned in cruel fashion that these arrests were a false alarm apparently the men had changed their story and the reports that the police had found aubrey's clothing was just complete bs the saccos wrote on facebook quote the u.s embassy confirmed again that the reports about aubrey were prematurely leaked to the nepal media and were inaccurate this is what we were afraid might happen as nepal's media can be very unreliable although three arrests were made the rest of the reports were wrong there were no admissions made and no camera or clothing found the three parties were questioned but the report was not found and the reports were not found and the reports were not the results were inconclusive these three men were all released 28 days later and so just like that the saccos they were back to square one and as much as it pains me to say this my understanding is that there really hasn't been any updates in this case since those false arrests that's not to say that the saccos have given up on trying to find their daughter however since 2013 the saccos have continued to work tirelessly to find the answers they so desperately deserve as well as to improve safety for future trekkers in nepal they've hired local private investigators to follow up on leads they've interviewed and re-interviewed witnesses countless times and they eventually pushed hard enough that all of these witnesses were actually polygraphed paul sacco has gone back to nepal multiple times to follow up on new clues and the family continues to actively seek out new information about what could have happened to this day and yet despite their tremendous efforts 14 years have gone by 14 years and we still don't have any idea what occurred in april of 2010 i had the pleasure of communicating with paul sacco about this story and i asked him if he had any message that he wanted to pass on to you through this video and here is exactly what he told me quote don't hike without a guide or group of people what i'm going to say next is that i'm next is controversial. The mountains of Nepal are a dangerous place, and not so much because of the natural dangers. The military who guard the national parks may actually be the foxes guarding the hen house, or there could even be serial killers roaming the national parks, some of whom could even have ideological motivations against foreigners. This is not the safe place described in Lonely Planet. Despite this though, the people of Nepal, by and large, are a wonderful, peace-loving people, denied an education by their government, and victimized by their government's corruption. So what could have happened to Aubrey Sacco? I mean, I've harped on the foul play theory a lot in this video, but I do think it's important to acknowledge that it's possible that she did experience an accident while trekking, something like a fall or a slip, something natural like that. The fact is that accidents do happen to hikers, especially solo hikers in wild and remote areas. But at the same time, I don't know, foul play just really seems to be the leading theory here. In addition to the possibility that she was murdered, there's also been theories over the years, kind of like Paul just touched on there, that the soldiers who patrol the area might have had something to do with her disappearance. In 2010, only a few months after Aubrey disappeared, three women from France were allegedly SA'd by soldiers stationed at a checkpoint close to where Aubrey was last seen. Now it should be noted that this checkpoint is further up the trail than Aubrey is suspected to have made it, but it is close enough that it's awfully suspicious. Still though, I mean, there's never been any proof of foul play. Nothing like that has ever been found. I don't know. It's a sad case, and I hope that someday the Saccos get the closure that they so badly desire and deserve. So if you have any information about what happened to Aubrey, I put an email address in the description that you can reach out to Aubrey. I'll see you in the next video. Bye. in order to reach her family. And in addition to that, if you're interested in supporting the search for Aubrey, my give back call out this week is AubreySacco.com. You can go there, you can either make a donation, which is what I did, or you can purchase some art. I'm not affiliated with this website or the search fund in any way, but I did want to mention this because I feel for the Saccos. They were so kind in helping me make this video, and I just hope that my audience will enjoy it. And I'll see you in the next video. Bye. audience can help make a difference.