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this is really sad i was just watching his epic part in seven sunny days
RIP
He truely was the greatest ever. Not only an amazing skier but a dedicated family man. He will be missed greatly.
RIP Shane.
Terrible! he's gonna be missed.
BADASS
RIP Shane
Atleast he was stoked on one of his last days, this is from the redbull site the day before:
We nailed the Sassongher line today!
Today was quite cool! We finally nailed that line variation off the Val Scura couloir on Sassongher. This was extremely satisfying getting to ski such a unique line. Conditions in the couloir were still very hard and icy in places so the skiing was slow and careful. Traversing/hiking the ramp out of the couloir did not present much of a problem and it was a very cool feeling knowing what we were heading out to. The snow on the slope above the cliff was firm and icy and not much fun but it was only about 3 or 4 four turns long before the jump. We spent a lot of time on a rope looking over the edge of the cliff in a few different spots and throwing rocks to figure out how big the cliff was and how to manage this jump. I must say that it seemed a bit more spicy than we were expecting. The cliff bulged out further than we were hoping at the bottom and this made for a very intimidating looking jump. There was a minimal amount of snow at the edge of the cliff due to melt back so the best spots to ski off from were not doable. JT threw some rocks and we got a few 9 second rock drops and then we knew it was on! I had opted to not even bring my wingsuit today so I geared up for a standard slider up ski base jump. JT had brought his wingsuit and was feeling the wingsuit ski base. We called the MSP film crew on the radio and they fired up the heli and it as time to charge off this sucker! I went first and punched it hard into a big ol front flip with as much speed as I was comfortable taking in those conditions. Everything went great and I had an on heading opening. I flew down completely stoked and landed high up on the hillside so I could watch JT from a good angle. No more than 30 seconds after I landed I see JT flying off the cliff with a lot of speed. He yanked his skis off right away and began to fly immediately. It was a perfectly executed wingsuit ski base. Skis off quick and stable and into forward flight with no potato chipping or instability. I was jealous. Today was a good day!
Shane
Ill said it before and Ill say it again RIP dude! You where a HUGE insperation!
This sucks he was my idol i have skied with his huck doll in my pocket for three years for good luck and i swear if i find some selling R.I.P. Shane shirts they should burn in hell for how dare they try to make a quick buck off the death of the greatest skier ever
rip shane.
my condolences to his family and friends.
can someone try to get those pictures up ^ im not good with that shit.
Skiing willl never be the same without saucer boy.
Legendary skier, innovator, friend and all-around superhero Shane McConkey passes away.
March 26, 2009, 5:46 PM
By: Tim Mutrie
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Graeme Murray/Red Bull Photofiles
end wide photoDecorated big mountain skier and BASE jumper Shane McConkey was killed earlier today in a ski-BASE accident in the Italian Dolomites.
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A member of the Red Bull Air Force and pioneer of the ski-BASE-ing phenomenon, McConkey experienced problems in the air after launching off a cliff with the expectation of deploying his parachute canopy and then gliding down to the ground—as he had done successfully some 700-plus times before.
"He did a double backflip off the jump and he has these releasable bindings so they come off in the air and then he flies off in his wing suit," filmmaker Scott Gaffney, a longtime close friend of McConkey's, told ESPN Action Sports in an interview this afternoon via phone.
"But one ski did not come off. And when that happens the drag on the skis causes you to flip over, so the skis go over your head. So he was struggling with the one ski. Then he also got into a bad spin. So he may have never even pulled his pilot chute. And that's coming from JT Holmes, who Shane was with in Italy and who reviewed the footage of the accident. So the combination of the ski, the spin and the pilot chute, apparently. Because you can't throw the pilot chute like that; if you throw it while you're upside down and it wraps around the ski, you're done."
McConkey was filming with Matchstick Productions and Red Bull at the time, according to Gaffney, who said McConkey apparently died on impact with snow on the ground below the cliff. Gaffney was not clear about the size of the cliff. "But it had to be a sizable cliff, at least 400 feet, for him to be planning on flying his wing suit away from it," Gaffney said.
McConkey, 39, of Olympic Valley, Calif., is survived by his wife, Sherry, and their 3½-year-old daughter, Ayla.
Graeme Murray/Red Bull Photofiles
Added Robb Gaffney, "Shane's been a part of our lives for quite a while now. I'm just sitting at Scott's house processing the whole thing. The texts and calls are coming in, and you can really even feel it in the air in Squaw right now. I'm thinking about Sherry and his little girl. But in this area people have always loved Shane, so Sherry and Ayla, they're going to have an immense amount of support around them. That's one thing for sure; that's Shane's legacy."
Also See: Retallack Rip-Fest, a 2008 photo gallery featuring McConkey and friends.
Complete Coverage: ESPN Freeskiing Homepage ESPN Freeskiing Blog
