SPREAD YOUR
WINGS AND
FLY
Hi ! I ’ m Liz Freeman . I grew up in the Wasatch Mountains in Park City , Utah , and I am an artist in sky sports . I am a professional skydiver and wingsuit BASE jumper . I have a Bachelor ’ s degrees in Enviro n mental Science and Spanish from the University of Utah . I started skydiving in 2009 at Skydive Utah . In 2011 , I moved to Hawaii to work at Skydive Hawaii as a camera flyer . One summer , an old friend from Utah came to visit and taught me to fly a wingsuit . I was super scared because I had lost a boyfriend to a wingsuit skydiving accident in Moab . However , my first flight was so peaceful , I felt connected to him . I continued to fly and train until I had 1,000 skydives . A friend ( now my boyfriend ) who is a BASE jumping instructor offered to teach me . BASE is an acronym for Building , Antenna , Span ( bridge ) and Earth . BASE jumping is different from skydiving because it is classified as parachuting from a fixed object . Wingsuit BASE jumping is when someone flies a wingsuit off a fixed object , generally a cliff . It takes years of practice to fly a wingsuit off a mountain . Opportunity , experience , and new friends led to more opportunities and soon I found myself in Italy , wingsuit BASE jumping off massive granite walls . I have jumped in Italy , Switzerland , France , and China and all over the western USA . Currently , I have 4,500 parachute jumps . Some people treat BASE jumping like a wild , daredevil sport . I take a very methodical approach and try to eliminate as much risk as possible by training and learning from the best pilots out there .
34 / SPRING 2017 LIVING MAGAZINE