A vertigo-inducing video of a skier jumping off a B.C. mountain with a parachute fastened to his back is gathering attention online.
Pryce Brown, originally from Alaska, made the daring jump off the Stawamus Chief Mountain in Squamish, B.C., on Boxing Day.
“It really is a profound sense of freedom,” he told CTV Vancouver. “It really is a feeling of empowerment”
Brown has BASE jumped (which stands for “building, antenna, span, and Earth,” the surfaces one can leap from) off the mountain before.
He insists that BASE jumping with skis – a relatively new phenomenon that combines the speed of skiing with the dizzying heights of BASE jumping – is safe when performed properly.
"For me it's about finding the extent of what I am capable of, and it's brought confidence to every other aspect of my life," he said.
Squamish has long been a popular destination for extreme sports, including heli-skiing, downhill mountain biking, and rock climbing. Earlier this year, a daredevil drew attention as he tip-toed across the North Gully of the Stawamus Chief on a 64-metre long slackline.
"It really is the adventure capital," said Squamish Mayor Patricia Heintzman.
She added that the city is “not going to stop” extreme athletes from participating in sports like ski BASE jumping, which are legal.
"We just hope that people prepare themselves well – [that] they're mentally, physically able to do what they're out there doing," she said.
For the owner of a local sports store, ski BASE jumping is simply the natural progression of a popular mountain pastime.
"People have been flying off the Chief for years and this is just a way of flying off the Chief in skis... it's just another step in the evolution," said Murray Sovereign, store owner of the Squamish Valhalla Pure Outfitters.
With files from CTV Vancouver
