Shane Mc. Conkey's Last Run - Men's Journal. That last morning, they rode the Sass Pordoi cable car to the summit. Deep in the Dolomite Alps of Italy, Sass Pordoi, at 9,6. But Shane Mc. Conkey and JT Holmes had no interest in marked ski runs. They were there for the cliffs. Clipping in, they skated across the plateau and skied down about 3.

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The snow was firm, verging on icy, so they switched their skis for crampons. It had snowed during the night, and they had already managed to trigger a small slab avalanche, which slid away from under them and roared over the side, falling hundreds of feet. They paused to collect their wits, then kept going, reaching their destination just before 2 pm.

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Mc. Conkey had jumped this cliff before, in summer, and ski- BASEing it had been on his to- do list ever since. Now that he was pushing 4.

RELATED: 'Reviving Shane Mc. Conkey'To gauge the height of the cliff, they threw stones over the side and timed the drop. Eleven seconds later, Holmes heard one smack the scree field at the base. They guessed the cliff was about 1,4. Holmes remembers that the trees down in the valley looked really small, and he took comfort in that; it suggested they were high enough to pull off a stunt nobody else but them had ever done: a combined ski- wingsuit- BASE jump. Mc. Conkey and Holmes would ski down a steep, hanging snowfield and launch themselves straight off the edge of the cliff; jettisoning their skis, they would then spread their arms and legs to open a wingsuit, a high- tech fabric garment that would allow them to fly. Steering the wingsuit with their arms, they would swoop out over the valley like flying squirrels before finally throwing their chutes to land.

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Two camera crews would film the whole thing for Matchstick Productions, the world's leading maker of ski movies. On paper, the stunt sounds insane, but it was something Mc. Conkey and Holmes had been carefully developing for years. They had both done ski- wingsuit- BASE jumps before; JT had pulled one from a nearby cliff the day before. After sizing up the line and choosing the best takeoff point, Mc. Conkey and Holmes used their avalanche shovels to pile the thin, windblown snow onto their run- in, building a small kicker jump at the edge to carry them well clear of the wall.

Finally, at 5: 3. The men tested their bindings one more time, pulling on the release straps they had designed. Both sets released perfectly. JT radioed the film crew: all set. Dropping!" he called, and leaned down the slope, arcing six strong, graceful turns before pointing his skis toward the edge and launching himself off the kicker into open air. Holmes turned two quick backflips, then yanked on the straps that jettisoned his skis, arching his back and spreading his arms and legs so the wingsuit could catch the air. He flew away from the wall for 1.

As he dropped to the snow, Holmes noticed that the trees in the valley were really small, but he didn't think much of it; turning, he pointed his helmet cam back up the cliff, waiting to film his best friend's jump. But Mc. Conkey never came. Later, when Holmes forced himself to watch his friend's helmet- cam footage, he saw exactly what had happened.

Mc. Conkey had jumped not long after him and hit the kicker perfectly. But when he came out of his flips and yanked the release straps, only his right ski came off; the left one stayed fixed to his boot. Worse, the right ski had gotten snagged on the left, leaving both skis attached to his body. As Mc. Conkey picked up speed, his free fall became more unstable. If he threw his chute, it would go straight up into his skis and get tangled. But JT could see that even in this desperate situation, Shane didn't panic. They had talked about this scenario.

Shane calmly, methodically reached down to manually release the binding, working to get the right ski off as he plummeted to Earth. Finally it popped free: Both skis flew clear from his body, and Mc.

Conkey was able to quickly flip over onto his belly to throw his chute. But he was already nine seconds into free fall, and the ground was right there, rushing up to meet him at 1. It was fitting that Shane Mc. Conkey went out with his ski boots on.

Whether or not it was inevitable is subject to debate. A once- in- a- generation athlete, Mc. Conkey had not only influenced the way people skied; he actually altered the skis themselves, first by jump- starting the fat- ski revolution in the mid- 1. In a sport where 6. Mc. Conkey was still pushing at the boundaries.

Year after year, in film after film, nobody went bigger than Shane and JT. They were already the acknowledged masters of ski- BASEing, having skied off the world's most spectacular cliffs, from the north face of the Eiger to Norway's Trollstigen Wall. It was there that they filmed a shot- for- shot re- creation of the opening scene of 'The Spy Who Loved Me,' with Mc. Conkey as Bond leaping off the 3,0.

Holmes. Such exploits cemented Mc. Conkey's iconic status. Best of all, he was getting paid to live his dream, by Red Bull, K2, and a handful of other sponsors. Watch The Mummy Torent Free. Even at 3. 9, with a wife and three- year- old daughter back in Squaw Valley, he wasn't ready to give it up."You step off the edge, and everything goes away," an emotional Mc.

Conkey explained to an interviewer in early March, days before he died. You're flying now. You're a bird."Mc. Conkey was just as well known for his shaggy, approachable persona, freckle- faced smile, and sense of humor apparently on loan from Beavis and Butthead. He was always playing a joke, often as his alter ego, Saucer Boy – a neon- Bogner- jacketed, Jack Daniel's–swilling, saucer- riding, ass- grabbing caricature of, well, Shane Mc.

Conkey. Even if you'd never met Mc. Conkey, you felt as though you knew him. More than 2,0. 00 people packed his memorial service at Squaw in April, and countless tribute videos appeared on You. Tube. Online donations poured in for Shane's widow, Sherry, and daughter, Ayla. He was mourned in ski towns from Chile to Bulgaria; one friend, snowboarder Jeremy Jones, christened an unnamed Alaskan peak "Mount Mc. Conkey," and another friend commemorated him by dropping into one of Shane's favorite steep runs naked."He was adored," says filmmaker Scott Gaffney, one of Mc.

Conkey's oldest friends. He was the clown prince of the ski industry."In the raw weeks after his death, friends and fans wavered between sadness and denial. I keep thinking he's playing a joke, and he'll pop up somewhere," one close friend said.

Death was certainly no stranger this year to the tight- knit community of Squaw locals: A well- liked patroller had been killed in a slide, and a promising 2. It was also a rough time for Red Bull, which had lost another athlete, Chris Muller, in a 2. Shane's death made the company's slogan – "It gives you wings" – now seem unfortunate at best.

And just one month before Mc. Conkey's accident, Rock Star energy drink–sponsored motocrosser Jeremy Lusk was killed in a backflip attempt in Costa Rica. Beyond the energy drink world, the death toll among adventure athletes over the past decade is truly sobering, with a new obituary appearing every few months.

Climbers Todd Skinner and Dan Osman. Mountaineers Charlie Fowler and Jean Christophe "JC" Lafaille.

Swedish adventurer Göran Kropp, who, the year of the 'Into Thin Air' disaster, cycled all the way to Everest Base Camp, summited solo, and rode his bike home, only to die in a rock- climbing accident six years later. Then there was big- mountain skier Doug Coombs, who died in a fall in April 2. Man, I miss Doug Coombs," Mc. Conkey told ESPN the Magazine in 2. When I found out he died doing the same stuff I do, it was a reality check. I think about him every time I'm in a dangerous situation. It's a reminder: Be careful."Mc.

Conkey was careful – meticulous to the point of neurotic, friends say. Shane's one of those guys that's so talented you never expect something like this to happen," says Holmes. He really thinks things through, and he has so much talent to fall back on.