Tribute to Shane McConkey
(December 30, 1969 – March 26, 2009). Born in Vancouver, British Columbia,[1] McConkey was a professional skier based out of Squaw Valley, California. He won numerous awards and competitions. McConkey started as a competitive freestyle skier, but moved on to be featured in a long line of extreme skiing movies. McConkey was known for combining BASE jumping with skiing, as seen in such feats as skiing into a BASE jump off the Eiger. McConkey went to Burke Mountain Academy. He was also known for his contributions to ski design, notably being the father of reverse side cut and reverse camber skis (aka: skis with rocker), first with the Volant Spatula and, more recently, the K2 Pontoon ski design.
On March 26, 2009, McConkey was killed while skiing in the Dolomite Mountains in Italy. He and his skiing partner JT Holmes were skiing off of a cliff while wearing parachutes; after doing a double back flip, McConkey was unable to deploy his parachute because his ski failed to eject, and he crashed to the ground. His parachute did not malfunction, it was never deployed. He died on the scene.[2]
foto via lat34.com
well, a short but full life. the man did what he wanted. Dave Matthews Band have a song: You Might Die Trying, that sums it all up quite well.
Rest in peace,
C
this is the song i was talking about. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypSIiI7bbqo
Statement from JT Holmes
McConkey’s friend and ski-BASE partner provides an account of accident
March 27, 2009, 5:02 PM
By: Tim Mutrie
Contacted by phone in Italy this afternoon, JT Holmes, Shane McConkey’s longtime friend and ski/BASE partner, respectfully declined to field questions about the circumstances of McConkey’s fatal ski-BASE-ing accident in Italy Thursday. Holmes, instead, emailed this statement:
Yesterday, March 26, 2009, Shane died while skiing in Italy. There are some technical aspects that are left out from this statement, and it does not touch upon the beauty of the Dolomites and the skiing we shared before the accident or Shane’s typical shining persona, full of adventure, humor and life experience.
We chose to ski off of a cliff with our wingsuits and fly them away from the cliff wall before opening our parachutes for landing. We skied and hiked off of the Pordoi cable car to a spot Shane had base jumped once before, in the summer. We spent a bunch of time preparing for the jump, building a kicker, helping each other gear up, and finally we were pleased and prepared and went for it.
Shane did a double back flip in perfect McConkey style. As planned, afterwards, he went to release his skis in order to fly away from the wall and safely deploy his parachute. This is where the jump went wrong. He was not able to release either of his skis. He remained focused on releasing them by reaching down towards his bindings. This put him into a spin/tumble/unstable falling style, that may have appeared out of his control, but in reality, Shane was not concerned about flying position or style; just concerned with reaching those skis so that he could get them off and fly or deploy his parachute. He succeeded in releasing both of skis and immediately transitioned into a perfect flying position; then he impacted the snow, and died at that moment.
The whole thing took place in about 12 seconds. Once he released the skis, he was immediately in control of the flight and would have only seen the ground and imminent impact for a tiny fraction of a second before he hit. Shane’s parachute did not malfunction; it was never deployed.
—jt Holmes
March 27, 2009