Daredevil drives snowmobile off 800-foot B.C. cliff for late friend

Professional skier and daredevil Erik Roner pushes off from a snowmobile while completing an 800-foot BASE jump off a Fernie, B.C. cliff. (YouTube)

A professional daredevil is sharing stunning footage of a death-defying jump involving a snowmobile and an 800-foot cliff in B.C.

Erik Roner was looking for a way to honour his friend, Vancouver-born extreme skiing legend Shane McConkey, who died performing a stunt in Italy four years ago.

“Shane, in our eyes, was Superman,” Roner said from Australia, where he’s travelling. “The fact that he died did not seem plausible. It was a shocker for us.”

So Roner paid tribute to his brave pal by driving McConkey’s snowmobile off of an 800-foot-hight cliff in Fernie, B.C., parachuting to safety, and recording the stunt on a GoPro camera.

“He and I always talked about making the snowmobile BASE jump and how much fun it would be,” Roner said.

Earlier this month, the professional skier located the perfect cliff for the stunt. It happened to be in Fernie, B.C., McConkey’s home province.

Roner on jump: 'It was spooky for a minute'

A helicopter lifted the snowmobile – which he had bought from McConkey years earlier – to the top of the cliff.

Roner spread McConkey’s ashes on the snowmobile “to have him with me and be a part of it.”

When it was time, he plunged off the side of the mountain and into freefall.

“There was a lot of unknown as soon as I left into the air,” he recalled. “It went really big on me. It was spooky for a minute. I looked back and saw the cliff – I saw where I was in the distance – so I knew I had to take the nose down.”

Roner grabbed hold of the machine’s back brake to help level it out. But once he was able to get the snowmobile’s nose down, he realized he had five seconds to deploy his parachute before the vehicle came crashing to the ground.

He pulled the cord and landed safely in the nick of time.

“One of the things [Shane] would always say was ‘bitchin’,’ Roner said. “I could just hear him say, ‘That was bitchin’…I think he would’ve been so excited and proud.”

Criticism follows snowmobile stunt

After sharing astonishing footage of the jump on YouTube, which has attracted more than 300,000 views so far, Roner took some heat from commenters who said it was a waste of the machine.

But the skier said he and a crew salvaged every part of the snowmobile, even auctioning off parts for a charitable foundation set up in McConkey’s name.

“I’m still trying to spread the love from it,” Roner said. “I just know that would have made him proud.”

He admitted that McConkey’s death – which happened when the skier had a problem with his equipment during a jump and couldn’t deploy his parachute in time – has changed his attitude toward risky stunts.

“My principles and the things I do have definitely changed since then,” he said. “We used to jump all the time. Now I do more special jumps or meaningful jumps when I get an opportunity.”

The jump for Shane McConkey likely tops that list.