3 Base Jumpers Have Now Died in Utah

2 last weekend along
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 25, 2014 6:34 AM CDT
2 Utah Base Jumpers Die in One Weekend
In this Friday, Oct. 11, 2013 photo, visitors to Zion National Park take in the sights after the park opened on a limited basis. Thousands of hikers, bikers and nature-lovers traveled to Utah's red rock national parks this weekend as they were reopened for the first time since the partial government...   (AP Photo/The Salt Lake Tribune, Trent Nelson)

This weekend saw two separate base jumping deaths in Utah, one in the state's Mineral Canyon and the other in Zion National Park. The latter comes weeks after the park, where the practice is illegal, saw its first-ever base jumping death, the Deseret News reports. Yesterday, authorities announced they'd found the body of a jumper "in difficult terrain" where helicopter use is limited, the Los Angeles Times reports. Officials haven't released the jumper's name, but climbing magazines say it was Sean "Stanley" Leary of California, a "world-class rock climber" and base jumper as well as a stuntman.

His body should be recovered within a few days, officials say. Separately, on Friday, base jumper Kevin Morroun died in Mineral Canyon; he'd leapt from an area called the "Sweet Spot." Morroun had done "thousands of dives" in the past, says a law enforcement official, but "in the course of doing his aerial acrobatics, I don't think he gave himself enough time to get the canopy fully deployed." His body was recovered Saturday. During a 2,000-foot plunge in February, jumper and newlywed Amber Bellows died when her parachute didn't open in Zion National Park. (Meanwhile, three daredevils have copped to making an "exhilarating" jump—from the World Trade Center.)

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