The Fastest Flying American

Suunto ambassador Neil Amonson is now the "Fastest Flying American."

Amonson just returned from Norway where he comepeted in the World Base Race. Video footage here.

Neil finished 4th in the world and was the top US racer.

Base Racing is an extreme sport to say the least. Two racers go head-to-head as they leap off the edge of a mountain cliff. Each participant wears a wingsuit and a parachute. At the signal, they leap and race to the finish line before deploying the chutes and gliding to a safe landing.

This year, 35 athletes from 12 different countries competed.

Rarely jumped cliff in North Salt Lake City, UT

Tuesday, myself and two buddies made a trip up to a little known cliff north of Salt Lake City. It doesn't get jumped very often because you have to do a decent amount of hiking to get to a pretty small cliff.

Not to mention there is basically no place to land and you MUST fly out of the canyon to avoid a very rocky, steep hillside that funnels into some rapids fresh with melting snow. Using my trusty Suunto Core, I was able to track our altitude gained/lost as well as how long it took us to get to the top. We were fortunate enough to have near perfect conditions at the exit point and I was able to fly back during a 2+ minute parachute ride and land within feet of our truck :) Gotta love it!

Cross Country BASE jump from neil amonson on Vimeo.