BASE Jumper Gabriel Hubert Dies After Rockies Jump

Ha Ling Peak in Canmore has long been popular for BASE jumpers and paragliders.

Gabriel “Ramrod” Hubert, 40, was a BASE-jumper from Edmonton with more than a decade of experience. At 9:30 Sunday morning, he crashed into trees below  the mountain while using his wingsuit.

According to a report on Blinc Magazine’s website (full report here) by another jumper who was with Hubert at the time of the jump, it was his second wingsuit flight and he did not deploy his chute.

They had arrived on Saturday, Gabe’s last Facebook post read, “Sun is shining, institutionalized on sirius, going wingsuiting, ahhh f@(k ya!! Thanks life.”

“We spent the evening listening to stories from Gabe and his grand plans for the summer, he was excited about life, his kids and BASE.”

The group started hiking at 7 a.m. and everyone was excited. They geared up, but no one checked their “loads.” After the first jumper, Hubert jumped and then one second later, the last jumper.

“The following is opinion from video of my flight with Gabe and the other jumper watching the entire flight from the ground following his flight.

“After exit, he really didn’t start flying his suit until 30 metres over the trees at the end of the talus and the suit was not performing well, this was the start of a 30-second flight maintaining this distance for the remainder, with not enough separation we assume he had a problem reaching his BOC.”

Since the deaths of Dean Potter and Graham Hunt, who died jumping in Yosemite Valley, one jumper died in Russia on May 28 and one in Brazil on June 4. Hubert is the 11th person to die BASE jumping in 2015. He leaves behind a wife and two children.