Delving fully into the history of BASE jumping is outside the scope of this web site. However, in brief, here's how the sport evolved.

A note to Para-historians, I learned early two people can see the same thing yet disagree on what they saw, so be careful.

A Word About Carl Boenish
Carl Boenish is known as the "Father of Modern BASE jumping." This is because he is the first to apply modern gear (ram air parachutes) and modern freefall techniques (tracking) to fixed object jumps. He is also the first to show the world through his films that fixed object jumps are not one-off stunts but jumps that are actually repeatable. Known to his family as Ronnie, Carl is 21 years of age in 1960 when he begins jumping at the DZ in Lake Elsinore, California. He becomes an Electrical Engineer working for the Hughes Corporation and in 1966 he's heavily involved in photographing the early days of RW on the West Coast.

One day in the summer of 1966 Carl hears a weird story. A story that would change the course of his life. Two skydivers from Barstow, California, Michael Pelky, an accountant, age 25 and Brian Schubert, a truck driver, age 26, decided to parachute off Yosemite's El Capitan. They jumped side by side on a Sunday afternoon at around 5:00 PM and both did decent delays but did not track away from the wall. Their round Paracommander canopies opened fine but the updrafts and swirling winds pushed them back into the face and both repeatedly banged into the wall on the way down. By th...