Jump Idea Not A Leap Anymore Plan To Parachute From Top Of Smokestack Is Flying So Far

A California man is getting an enthusiastic reception to his proposal for 20 or 30 people to jump off the 585-foot-tall smokestack of the defunct Washoe Smelter here, the world’s tallest free-standing brick structure.

“I just think it could be the neatest thing that could happen here,” said Marjean Clements of the Anaconda Chamber of Commerce.

“It’s just sitting there not getting used. If we can protect the people and the stack, everyone thought it was interesting and exciting.”

Avery Badenhop of Petaluma, Calif., is trying to arrange a competition of BASE jumpers parachutists who jump from tall places instead of airplanes. BASE is an acronym for Building Antenna Span Earth.

Badenhop is hoping for sometime late in June, but he needs a formidable array of waivers and permits.

He has met with officials of the Anaconda chamber, Atlantic Richfield Co. and, because the state owns the stack, the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

Arco owns the Superfund site that surrounds the stack and would need signed waivers from the divers and everybody else who passed through to reach the smelter.

Badenhop “has done so much upfront work and sounds so professional about this,” said Arco spokeswoman Marcie Kerner. “He’s talked to the right people, and I think Arco would let him cross.”

As part of the plan, a film crew would pay the state to photograph the one-at-a-time jumps.

Badenhop plans to visit Anaconda in the next couple of weeks to climb the iron-rung ladder up its side and check it for safety.

He has organized competitions in California; at the cliffs around Moab, Utah; and off the 876-foot-high New River Gorge Bridge at Fayetteville, W. Va.

The Anaconda smokestack rates as a midlevel jump, he said: “It’s high enough to kill you, but it’s tall enough to compensate for a mistake.”

He said he has not jumped from the Anaconda stack, but others have.

“BASE jumpers know about Anaconda, it’s been jumped before. There’s no tall object that’s a secret to BASE jumpers.”