Since the dawn of time, man has looked to the great mountains and dreamed of jumping off of them. When Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay summited 60 years ago, they didn’t have the equipment to fly off. But today we do. And to celebrate the diamond jubilee of the first summit, Russian BASE jumper Valery Rozov threw himself off the north face in China, 23,688 feet above sea level. It wasn’t the top, but it’s at least the highest BASE jump ever completed.
In the thinner air and colder temperatures of high altitude, Rozov had far less control of his wingsuit, and the flight was a little touch and go. After a minute of flying along the north face of the mountain, he landed safely in the snow on the Rongbuk Glacier at about 19,521 feet of altitude. Chalk up another success for man in our instinctive quest to jump off of things.