EL DORADO COUNTY, Calif. – Deciding between yard work, a hike or a few ski turns are typical weekend contemplations, but for Truckee-born Kasey English, when the weekend rolls around, he’s thinking about which cliff, bridge or structure to hurl off next.
The professional skydiver, BASE jumper and wingsuit pilot recently gained online attention for his skiBASE (combining skiing and BASE jumping) off Lover’s Leap near Lake Tahoe on Dec. 29, taking advantage of being in town for the holidays, the long-awaited snow and ideal wind conditions.
“Don’t duck ropes,” his Instagram post quips with a video of the event revealing the front of his two skis quickly charging towards the edge of the snow blanketed landscape. The nail-biting video from his helmet-mounted GoPro gives the viewer English’s point of view.
In a stomach dropping series of events, the scraping noise of skis suddenly gives way to wind as the earth drops off. It’s the puff of a parachute that allows the viewer to finally breathe again and English’s celebratory “wo-ho” that caps off what feels like a roller coaster ride.
“When you’re doing a high-risk activity like skiBASE,” English says, “your only focus is on that jump.” The concentration these activities demand quiets the everyday noise of life, offering him an escape and way to connect with nature at the height of what earth has to offer.
In the moment before launching off Lover’s Leap, gaining as much speed as possible on his skis consumes his attention. Counter to everything survival instincts invoke, velocity is a friend when launching off a cliff, English explains, because it provides a greater distance from the rock and more room for error should the parachute malfunction.
Once safely launched and gliding with a parachute, his focus shifts from speed to navigating the wind and identifying a landing spot.
The stressors of life await him upon touch down, but for nearly a minute, it’s just him, his skis, the parachute above and the wind around.
It’s the reward for earning his elevation, the idea of toiling up a mountain to then harness gravity and descend down one way or another.
As his third skiBASE, which are logistically more complex than sky diving and BASE jumping, it is the next progression in the field of jumping. English thrives on pushing himself to progress in sports and skiBASE is a new way to master not only the air, but also the earth.
The evolution to skiBASE also came as no surprise since as a kid, English had watched Shane McConky skiBASE and wingsuit.
SkiBASE is also where English’s two worlds of ski and air merge. Having grown up in Truckee and clicking into his first pair of skis at three years old, skiing is second nature to English. A life in the mountains meant many outdoor activities and adventure which set the tone for this action-packed future.
At 18, he joined the military, where he initially learned how to jump as part of his job and hasn’t slowed down since. In fact, the day of the Tribune interview, he had jumped eight times, taking the calls in-between jumps.
Between his career and recreational jumps, he’s tallied approximately 1,600 jumps. Aside from testing out new equipment or doing a new type of jump, he doesn’t get nervous to jump anymore. But what does make him nervous might surprise you.
“It’s funny because I’m actually afraid of heights,” he says, “but I think it’s different when you’re so high up, you don’t have that relativity to the ground anymore.”
For him, being on a 15-foot ladder is scarier than jumping from 10,000 feet.
When it comes to all the ways he’s mastered the air—skydiving, wingsuiting, BASE jumping and now skiBASE—he will tell that wingsuiting is his favorite.
“It’s as close to human flight as humans can get,” he says.
Human flight has also taken him to incredible locations around the world to defy heights, including Switzerland, Italy and even record books after he was a part of a world record setting 39-person wingsuit formation in Perris, Calif.
He notes that stunts like the Lover’s Leap skiBASE require a multi-year progression with first becoming an experienced skydiver, to then gaining experience with different BASE jumps. That’s on top of being an expert skier and factoring in many considerations when planning a skiBASE, such as wind and conditions.
Currently, English has no intention of slowing down. This year, he hopes to add other pins on the map of the world, eyeing France and British Columbia as a location to wingsuit.
