Penny Counts was showing her boyfriend around the Alcova area on Sunday when she saw something she’d never seen: someone bungee jumping in Fremont Canyon.
“We just happened to be out there when that guy was up on that rock,” she told Cowboy State Daily. “I saw him rigging up, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh! He’s gonna try jumping!' And he made the jump, swinging back and forth and hollering all the way.”
Counts filmed the jump with her phone. She said watching it was “insane.”
“The video doesn't give justice to how steep that canyon is,” she said. “Somebody to actually want to jump off of it with that type of rigging is insane. I was worried he’d swing back and smack into the wall, but he knew what he was doing.”
Amid her shock and surprise, Counts admitted it’s something she might have tried in her youth.
“If I were younger, I'd have tried it, but I guess I lost my Peter Pan complex a long time ago,” she said. “But not now. Broken bones and bad wishes on that one.”
Bungee jumpers continue to leap off the 112-foot bridge despite a tragic and notorious history that goes back more than 50 years when a young girl was pushed to her death in 1973, and her sister died at the same spot nearly 20 years later.
Bungee Glee
Like many outdoor recreation activities, bungee jumping is becoming increasingly popular in Wyoming.
Eric Lyman is the owner of Over The Edge Bungee in Idaho Falls, Idaho. For several years he has taken people to bungee jump off the Fremont Canyon Bridge, a span 112 feet above the North Platte River about 40 miles southwest of Casper.
“We're always looking for new bridges,” he said. “I had a friend that lived there who stumbled on that bridge and sent me a picture. I was there a month later, and that’s that.”
Over The Edge Bungee travels to bridges in several states to provide optimal experiences.
As bungee jumping becomes more popular, more people are looking for a memorable experience. That’s been the foundation of Lyman’s business for 35 years.
“The beauty of bungee jumping is that you jump from a complete standstill in perfect silence,” he said. “It’s not an airplane that's buzzing at 100 miles an hour. We pick up where skydiving leaves off. It’s just a great experience.”
Lyman described the Fremont Canyon Bridge as ideal for bungee jumping. There’s low traffic, incredible scenery, and the bridge is an excellent overhead anchor for his retrieval systems.
Beyond that, the same things that made bungee jumping so insane from Counts’ perspective enhance the experience.
“It’s a fairly narrow canyon,” Lyman said. “When you jump, the bottom drops out a lot faster, and the peripheral views intensify the free fall even more. The ground rush experience is intensified, since you can see the water coming straight at you. There's a nice deceleration before you get there, a bounce that shoots you up underneath the bridge, and another big bounce just as lively as the first.”
Freedom To Jump
Lyman visits Fremont Canyon once or twice a year for bungee jumping, but not just because it’s a long haul from Idaho Falls.
“We've got a lot of other bridges, here and there, that we jump as well,” he said. “When we come out to Casper, we’re there to see the great things in that area. It’s our way of sharing something we do with the locals.”
That’s not to say that someone has to wait for Lyman to go bungee jumping off the Fremont County Bridge. That’s another perk of the bridge and the experience.
“It’s not illegal, and nobody’s asking for a permit,” he said. “It’s pretty straightforward. You have the anchor right above where you intend to jump, so it's easier to calculate the range and know where you’re going to be.”
Lyman wasn’t anywhere near Fremont Canyon on Sunday, so whoever was bungee jumping there was with another outfit or on their own. He and his clients also jump straight off the bridge, rather than the canyon wall.
“What (the man in the video) was doing was a pendulum swing,” he said. “We do those on occasion, but not at this bridge. When we jump, you climb over the rail of the bridge. It’s awkward and scary, without a lot of fanfare, and then you jump.”
To each their own. Lyman can see the allure of a pendulum swing, but thinks Fremont Canyon offers a thrilling-enough experience with a traditional jump.
“That's a unique-enough activity in the area that people are pretty anxious to give it a try,” he said.
Not Jumping The Gun
There’s another reason why Lyman limits his Fremont Canyon trips. The area is a largely undiscovered gem, and he would like to keep it that way.
“We're not interested in mass production,” he said. “I think there would be a lot more demand if we got the word out, but we don’t let it. It’s still an adventure, not an assembly line or amusement park.”
The Fremont County Bridge is a notoriously tragic symbol to Casper residents as the spot where Amy Burridge, 11, was pushed to her death on Sept. 25, 1973.
Her sister, Becky, was violently assaulted and pushed off the bridge as well. She survived, only to die at the same spot on July 31, 1992.
That tragedy is what brought Counts to the area Sunday.
“I've always considered it a bridge of tragedy,” she said. “I was showing my boyfriend what had happened out there and how far the drop was.”
That said, Counts wasn’t taken aback by the bungee jumper.
“It was mind-blowing because I’d never seen it before,” she said.
Lyman is aware of and sensitive to the bridge’s tragic symbolism, but he said he feels it’s a place where many others have and continue to find happiness through outdoor recreation. One can be respectful of the past while finding memorable moments for themselves, family, and friends in the present.
“There’s camping, boating, and climbing in Fremont Canyon,” he said. “Lots of people do swings and climb on the walls. I feel (bungee jumping) fits right into the crowd and their level of adventure.”
From his experience, Lyman described Casper as “a pretty adventurous crowd.” He’s sure he could find a lot more business offering more bungee jumping off the bridge, but he has no intention of doing so, both out of respect for the bridge’s history and the desire to keep the experience special.
“I don’t think we’d ever be overrun in that spot, but we don’t want that,” he said. “Fremont Canyon is a very positive area with a lot of great activities, and bungee jumping fits right in.”
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
