Skydivers seek the thrill or conquering their fears.

RITZVILLE – It could be the speed, or the rush of air as you free fall 7,500 feet in about 45 seconds. Instructors offer the easy float back to earth or carnival-ride like turns.

But most people who skydive just want to do it all over again.

“I snowboard and I ride motorcycles,” said Anthony Snyder of Spokane. “But this is the biggest quick rush out of all of them.”

The skies provide one of the most exhilarating experiences of extreme sports and only one family-owned business provides that service in the Spokane area. West Plains Skydiving is located just a tumbleweed roll shy of Ritzville on 100 acres just south of Interstate 90.

The company offers tandem jumps on Thursday through Monday for anyone seeking a thrill they are likely to remember as long as they live.

“It’s the first check off my bucket list,” said Becky Veliz, of Yakima, who jumped late last month for the first time. “It was the main thing on my list forever.”

Lisa Rivera and Nicholas Schott, both of Richland, joined Veliz. Rivera had taken the plunge once before, but Schott had not and he had the extra bonus of feeling uncomfortable around heights.

Asked if he was nervous, Schott’s sideways look answered for him.

“Definitely. I’m going to jump out of a plane,” he said. “I have a thing for heights. I’m going to try to conquer that fear. You need to live every day like you are dying, so why not?”

Instructors Rogers Stack and Joshua Kaschmitter pulled their customers aside and walked them through the harnesses and safety procedures before pilot Travis Shackelford started the Cessna 208 Caravan, a former freight hauler for FedEx.

“Welcome to the One-Way Airlines,” Shackelford said as customers and crew packed with chutes crammed into the plane.

Within moments, the Caravan was aloft and Shackelford radioed the local airport in Ritzville to inform the traffic controller of his position and intent to drop people from the sky.

It takes about 13 minutes for the Caravan to slowly turn and gain enough altitude for the 12,500-foot adventure. As he approached the drop zone, Shackelford learned that a commercial plane was approaching from about two miles away.

He turned away, let the plane clear and then approached a predetermined spot where paying customers were about to become acquainted with the power of gravity.

“I’m just trying to keep them safe, get some altitude and get them out the door,” Shackelford said. “It’s a great job. It’s a lot of fun.”

The instructors, who were shackled to the clients, shuffled their way to the door and it was on. Rivera – the only one who had previous experience – let out a scream that trailed off in a millisecond as she disappeared out the door.

“I knew what to expect but I freaked out for a second,” Rivera later said.

Once clear of customers, Shackelford pushed the airplane down and actually beat the jumpers to the ground. He landed on the far end of the runway and watched as the instructors and clients landed softly on a patch of grass next to the hangar.

Schott, the heights guy, said the jump out the door was “insanely scary.”

Then came the freefall. “That was cool. It was amazing, extraordinary,” he said as he paced. “Time slows down. I want to tell anyone thinking about doing it: ‘You should do it.’ ”

Taking the leap

Stack, the instructor, was in Schott’s shoes 11 years ago. The same owners had been running the skydiving business in Davenport when Stack jumped for the first time. He’s now on jump 1,968 and counting.

“I was hooked. Then I got my license,” he said. “I decided I wanted to do this for a living.”

Stack, 30, of Spokane, eventually gave up his assistant manager job at Lowe’s and started working for West Plains Skydiving four years ago.

“I was making a good living,” Stack said of his sales gig.

“But I chose to pursue happiness. The money didn’t matter. Going to work and being happy every day is much more important.”

The equipment is amazingly simple. The instructors each have a primary chute and a backup chute in case the first one fails to deploy or doesn’t fly correctly and needs to be jettisoned.

Customers are fitted to a harness that connects to the instructor in back. The instructors suggest that clients bring footwear that doesn’t have a tendency to fly away.

But Stack actually jumps in flip-flops. He started wearing that footwear six months ago while working a skydiving job in Hawaii over the winter. He uses a rubber band around one of his toes to keep the sandals from flying into Sprague Lake.

“I haven’t lost one yet,” he said.

He still remembers his first jump.

“It was definitely the rush and adrenaline and the not knowing how it exactly was going to happen,” he said.

“As I got into the sport … I found skydiving very challenging. It’s something to push me out of my comfort zone.”

Plus, the changing conditions make every jump different, he said.

“It’s always a new rush,” he said. “When I started doing tandems, it brought me back that feeling of being new all over again. I get to relive my first jump all over again because I’m with someone who has never done it before.

“I get to see their reaction and I get to see why I started doing this and why I’m in the sport to begin with,” he said.

It’s real

Snyder, of Spokane, said he was supposed to jump with his co-workers, but their initial appointment got postponed because of high winds. He finally got tired of waiting and jumped the same day as Schott, Rivera and Veliz in a later group.

Snyder, who likes to jump off cliffs into water, knew he wouldn’t have a problem when he got to the plane’s door.

“I’ve wanted to do it for years and years,” he said. “Then I’m about to jump out of a plane. It’s real. Then I look at my guide. He’s wearing flip-flops.”

Snyder then made the plunge.

“That first second, your body is trying to figure out what is going on. Then your body adjusts to it,” he said. “The plane was just gone.”

Snyder then remembers seeing another jumper circling around him.

“I kept looking up and I kept getting wind up my nose,” he said.

Then the chute opened and everything slowed down. Stack keeps an altimeter on his arm and the instructors typically pull the chute at about 5,000 feet.

“When you look down, you can’t conceptualize how far that is,” Snyder said. “At 600 feet, I asked how high we were. We were getting close enough that I could grasp that.”

Stack then pulled a 90 degree turn, came in for the landing and flared the chute up to catch wind. Both men came to a running stop on the grass.

“It was exhilarating,” Snyder said.

“You’ve just got to pull the trigger sometimes. You’ve got to live.”