Over the Edge

Kristen Ulmer went on her first ski trip when she was a kid. Ever since then, she has been hooked on adventure and risk. Now in her thirties, she has skied down some of the world’s tallest mountains in remote places from Tajikistan to New Zealand. She has also gone mountaineering in Tibet and ridden a bike solo across India. She goes rock-climbing to relax! Kristen is skilful and fearless – and some might say crazy! She is now part of a new kind of sport where risk is the most important thing. That’s base jumping.
Heart-stopping activities such as mountain biking, snowboarding and skydiving are ‘extreme sports’. And they are attracting more and more people. For example, nowadays, more than half a million Americans enjoy rock-climbing. Only 50,000 were doing it in 1989.
One of the most extreme of all these sports is base jumping. First done in 1980, base jumping is jumping off tall buildings, towers and bridges using a parachute. It’s dangerous - but of course, that’s why base jumpers love it. Like other extreme sports, it’s the risk of disaster that makes base jumping so exciting. As one base jumper puts it, “There aren’t many injuries in base jumping; you either live or you die.”
Some experts predict that extreme sports will become the major sports of the 21st century. They may become more popular than traditional favourites like soccer and baseball. At one recent extreme sports show in Chicago, most of the crowd were kids under sixteen. As they stood watching in their baggy pants and hooded sweatshirts, one excited eleven-year-old spoke for the next generation of athletes. “That is so cool!” he exclaimed. “I gotta do that!”