were giving way to a younger, more personable bunch, Jimmy flipped. He became an unofficial spokesman for what he called the new face of the climbing community, one that worked with, instead of against, the park and the rangers. He said his goal was to make sure there always would be room for climbers and climbing in the valley along with the increasing gazillions of tourists mobbing the place. He really threw himself into supporting Camp 4 in particular.”
The trail climbed through a thick stand of pines above Sentinel Creek. In minutes, Ponch was breathing hard. Even so, he kept up with Janelle as she took long strides up the trail, passing slower groups of hikers, her orange paramedic-kit backpack high on her shoulders.
Where the trail climbed through a cliff band, Chuck followed her up a short flight of hand-hewn stone steps. “Didn’t I see Jimmy on Facebook or YouTube or somewhere a year or so ago?” he asked Ponch. “In nice clothes, no less?”
“Yep. The footage bounced around online for a while. He attended the park superintendent’s holiday gala.” Ponch drew a deep breath after every few words. “He said he was willing to do whatever it took, including renting a tuxedo, to work with the park on behalf of climbers’ rights in the valley.”
“But Thorpe went the other way?”
“He’s always considered himself the ultimate rebel, to the point of being pretty uppity about it. It’s part of his persona.”
“His brand, you mean.”
“Yeah, that. After the rest of us moved on, Jimmy and Thorpe needed each other for the climbs they still wanted to complete. After they split, though, Thorpe, being Thorpe, wasn’t about to devote his time to anything that benefited anything or anyone but himself. With his big-time climbing days done, he had to find something else to keep his name in the public eye and hang onto as many of his sponsorships as he could.”
“So he started flying.”
“It turned out to be perfect for him. Instead of fighting gravity to climb cliffs, he put on a wingsuit and used gravity on the way down instead. Plus, wingsuit flying turned out to be ideal for the internet. He started flying at the beginning of the extreme-sport craze, when helmet cams were brand new. All his videos play up the rebel thing, which his viewers love. He capitalizes on the fact that it’s illegal to fly wingsuits in Yosemite. His most famous clips are the ones where he lands out in the open and gets arrested. When he had himself filmed while reporting to jail the first time—accompanied by one of his ever-present babes, of course—his viewer numbers went through the roof. That video spurred other fliers, all of them a lot younger than him, to come to Yosemite and try to outdo him with their own flights.”
“I assume that’s where his Pied Piper nickname came from.”
“It came later, actually, when the younger fliers started getting killed—or killing themselves, as Thorpe would say—by trying increasingly dangerous stunts. ‘I’m still here,’ became Thorpe’s tagline after each of his flights, while the body count built up around him. The rangers blamed him for the young fliers’ deaths. They said he set a bad example. But he kept flying, and the rangers got more and more frustrated with him until, finally, they zapped him with a Taser after one of his flights. The whole incident was caught on video by an onlooker, including the part where, after Thorpe was tasered and fell to the ground, he jumped to his feet and announced, ‘I’m still here!’ while the rangers led him away. The video went nuts online.”
From in front of Chuck, Janelle said, “So Thorpe and Jimmy went in opposite directions.”
“They’re not shy about it, either,” Ponch replied. “They trade barbs on their Twitter feeds, rip at each other on their YouTube channels. It’s a very public catfight.”
“But Jimmy invited Thorpe to the reunion,” Janelle noted.
“Of course. They’re smart guys. You don’t survive for long in Yosemite Valley if you’re not. Their feud keeps their names in lights. I’m sure both of them will play it up big time this weekend. It wouldn’t surprise me, in fact, if that’s not part of the reason Jimmy decided to get all of us together in the first place.”
Janelle rounded a switchback in the trail and stopped. She looked down at Chuck and Ponch, who halted on the stretch of trail below. “What, exactly, is wingsuit flying, anyway?” she asked.
Ponch hunched forward, breathing hard, his hands on his hips. “It’s pretty much just what it sounds like,” he said. “Fliers jump off cliffs, bridges, skyscrapers, that sort of thing. They fall straight down until their wings fill with air and they’re transformed from falling rocks into flying squirrels.”
“Except,” Chuck added, “they’re not really flying at all. They’re always going down.”
“But in controlled fashion,” Ponch said, straightening as his breathing calmed. “They’re gliding while they fall. They’re able to turn and adjust their flights and complete maneuvers until they get close to the ground, at which point they parachute in for a landing.”
“Sounds dangerous,” Janelle said.
“It’s extremely dangerous. Or, it was, then not so much, and now, today, it’s dangerous all over again.”
“How’s that?”
“In its first years, wingsuit flying was one hundred percent fatal. The first flier sewed some cloth between his arms and legs and jumped off the Eiffel Tower straight to his death. Other early fliers met the same fate. Then somebody had the bright idea of substituting airfoils for cloth wings. The foils—layers of fabric held apart by plastic rods—fill with air at high speeds and create lift. This was in the 1990s. All of a sudden, winged fliers could actually, in a sense, fly while they fell. The foils gave them a glide ratio of two to one, even two point five to one in perfect conditions.”
“Glide ratio?”
“How long they could stay in the air. A two-to-one glide ratio means fliers move forward two feet for every foot they descend.”
“So airfoils made the sport safe.”
“For a while, anyway. Fliers could glide for long distances and control their speed and direction. The sport really took off.”
“But then . . . ?”
“They got bored. By definition, wingsuit fliers are adrenaline junkies. And with so many fliers like Thorpe trying to make names for themselves, the ante kept going up.” Ponch pulled a liter of water from a side pouch of his daypack, unscrewed the top, and took a swig. “It’s testosterone-plus with them, the men as well as the few women fliers. It didn’t take long for someone to come up with the idea of proximity flying. Pretty soon, they were all doing it, Thorpe included.”
“Proximity flying?”
“That’s where they do fly-bys as close as possible to stationary objects. Videos of fliers zipping within a few feet of ridges and cliffs and trees and buildings became internet sensations, and the fliers who starred in them started making real money. The whole thing became a game of can-you-top-this.”
“Which is when things got dangerous again?” Janelle asked.
“Right-o. And have stayed that way ever since. There’s even a world championship of proximity flying in China, where fliers complete a set course in the shortest time—or, often as not, die trying. The life expectancy from when a wingsuit flier takes up the sport until he or she dies doing it is roughly six years.”
“Sounds suicidal.”
“It is suicidal.”
“But Thorpe would disagree with you.”
“Thorpe Alstad is an anomaly in the flying world, the same as he was as a rock climber. When he and Jimmy climbed together, they never had accidents, never even got hurt. They said it was because of their intense focus combined with their willingness to turn back from a climb for any reason. They could do that because they were full-time climbers. They made money through their sponsorships. If a