The dream of flight seems to be as old as any human desire.  Somehow the thought of flying like a bird in complete freedom seems to have wormed it’s way into our collective consciousness long ago.  While most of us fly in our dreams, others enjoy their feet planted firmly on the ground, but there have always been the rare few that attempt to make the dream a reality.  Wingsuit basejumping is still in it’s infancy as a sport, but there are rumors of pilots in the Leavenworth area giving it a spin and more are surely to follow.

This video features former Leavenworth, Washington resident Matt Gerdes, along with Ellen Brennan and Mike Steen as they fly through valleys and canyons, over snow and off giant cliffs.  The footage is breathtaking and the feats they are performing are so extreme they are hard to believe.

“For millennia, humans have looked to the sky and dreamed of arcing through the air, like birds. And now, after hundreds of thousands of years, humans can fly. It is dangerous, deadly, and requires years of training, but a select few have committed their lives to the pursuit of the purest form of human flight: Wingsuit BASE Jumping.

‘Birdmen’ follows the dream of human flight, from its inception in ancient times to the modern world. What started with stuntmen hurling themselves to their death from objects such as the Eiffel Tower has become a respected extreme sport in which athletes zoom through the mountains at 150mph, just inches from trees and cliff faces.”

-Team Thirteen