Court Backs Ban on BASE Jumps by Mike Conway The Fresno Bee - July 19, 2000 The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that park rangers can ban a dangerous sport that has taken six lives at Yosemite National Park, a federal appeals Court ruled. The San Francisco court with jurisdiction over nine western states, ruled Monday that parachutists who leap from mountains and cliff faces in national parks can be arrested. "I think this decision reaffirms our feelings that it's not only an illegal activity, but it is an inappropriate acting within a national park," park spokesman Scott Gediman said. BASE jumping involves parachuting from buildings, antennae, spans and earth, which combine to form the acronym BASE. At least 45 people have been killed while BASE jumping over the past 20 years, National Park Service officials said. The last known casualty in Yosemite was Jan Davis, a 60-year-old stuntwoman from Santa Barbara. She was part of an organized protest Oct. 22, trying to get the park service to reconsider the ban. She died when her chute failed to open. The park service knew about the protest jump in advance. "We did not in any way, shape or form condone what they were going to do," Gediman said. "In the interest of public safety and cooperation, we said we would work on it with them." Rangers cleared onlookers from a landing area and the protesters agreed to get arrested, surrender their equipment and appear in court. They were fined $2,000, put on probation for one year and had to repay the $6,155 spent to recover Davis' body. Gediman said the park service briefly permitted BASE jumping during a 1980 trial, but it was banned because of injuries, illegal jumps and traffic problems created by rubberneckers. "We donŐt condemn BASE jumping as a sport; we just donŐt feel itŐs an appropriate activity here in the park," he said. Parachutists can damage the park's resources. They also divert ranger resources, when BASE jumpers are injured and because they create crowds of onlookers. In June 1999, a jumper landed safely on the Yosemite Valley floor and led rangers on a foot chase before he leaped into the Merced River. Rangers recovered Frank Gambalie's body from the river several weeks later. The Court of Appeals case dealt with 12 people who were arrested for jumping at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Arizona in May 1995. They appealed their $865 fines, claiming that their aerodynamically designed equipment, called a ramair aerolastic wing, was an aircraft and did not fall under the park service's ban. The appellate judges dismissed the argument, saying, "We think that ordinary people would find that the chutes, although technologically sophisticated, are still parachutes." The park service's rule prohibits "delivering or retrieving a person or object by parachute, helicopter or other airborne means," except in an emergency.