Please note this fatality was professionally guided.
Leo and I planned on meeting at the LZ between 5 and 6 pm the day before the jump to scout it out and to put up a windsock. He arrived around 745 pm and was pretty frazzled about the traffic. I know there’s nothing you can do about traffic but it was a little disheartening to see my partner being so late with such a huge mission in front of us. But he made it with a tiny bit of daylight left and we jogged to the LZ and placed the windsock and went for some dinner.
At this point I was getting worried about how much rest we would have between laying down at 9pm and our 330am wake up time but 6.5 hrs. seemed ok still. We started in the morning on-time as we had both woken up before our alarms. Had coffee and a tiny bit of breakfast and set out. The hike took around 5 hours and we had a wonderful time talking about life. It was an easy pace and he kept apologizing for being so slow but I assured him that the pace was fine and we were in absolutely no rush.
We stopped a few times, ate an early lunch on top, and continued to the crux of the mission to where there are fixed ropes to get out to the exit. Leo did well on this section and we made a smooth passing to the exit point. Once we did make it to the exit Leo displayed some fatigue gearing up.
At this spot, I gear up with my climbing harness on under my rig and I’m always connected to the rope with 2 straps and carabiners due to the exposure on all sides. His lack of experience gearing up with his chosen setup on a small precipice was starting to wear on him. Again he kept apologizing for his endurance capabilities and I kept assuring him that it was ok and we still had plenty of time. Once he finished his gear up he turned on his GoPros and said ok let’s doit. That’s when I noticed his chest strap was undone. He was extremely embarrassed and apologized again. I’ve been doing this activity for over a decade and caught a few pieces of missing gear and it’s not that big of a deal to me but it does show that he’s forgotten to give himself a basic gear check.
After he did his chest strap he requested a gear check. I asked him about his leg straps and he immediately was ashamed again because apparently they were not tightened up. He then took his climbing protection off to tighten his leg straps and I reminded him to stay attached to the rope until he was completely ready to jump. It is a 4000 ft hike from 8000ft to 12000 ft, and with that, the oxygen is thin. I’m sure this played a factor on his mind and body. After he finished his final gear check and we were both confident that it was done properly we took a 15-20 minute breather to let him collect himself. And when he was ready, I jumped first.
Our protocol was that if he was going to be longer than 10 minutes to radio down to me and let me know the situation since there is no cell service in the LZ and you cannot see the exit point from there either. When I landed I turned on my radio and started my timer but I immediately had a bad feeling. Especially after 5 minutes, and then 10, and the 15. At 23 minutes I realized that I needed to get to cell service and contact the Sherriff.
On my hustle out, I somehow saw 2 skydiving friends that were camping there and they helped me get to cell service. Once we got service we didn’t need to call because there was a Sherriff on a traffic stop just ahead of us. The deputy did a wonderful job, had a helicopter there within an hour, and within 5 minutes of searching they found him. From the lat and long that the SAR sent me, he came to rest about 500 ft away from the exit and 800 ft down and on the opposite side of the gully from the exit point which leads me to believe that his start was fine.
Usually it takes 8-15 seconds to get 500 feet away from the exit which also leads me to believe that he was flying. There is a right turn on the exit and he ended up on the left side of the gully so I wonder if he wasn’t able to turn sharp enough or was trying to fly close to the terrain. Leo chose to wear tinted ski goggles and I wonder if this played a roll in his judgement because of the dark color of the rock and the forming cloud overhead blocking the light from the sun, preventing him from seeing exactly where he was flying. I was told there was no camera recovered so we will never know exactly what happened unless it is recovered.
Leo was experienced and aware of the risks and the numbers. He’d been asking about the Sierra for years and was a goal of his.
Leo was also a friend of mine.