A rock jumper attempting a Grade 4 leap, the second-most-difficult category, in the Adrspach region of the Czech Republic.
ADRSPACH, Czech Republic — Exactly a decade has passed since a man called Oxygen first hurled himself across Amerika. Known for his jumping ability, Oxygen, a lanky Czech, catapulted to legend status by leaping a nearly 10-foot-wide abyss separating two 100-foot sandstone spires.
Jan Prochazka, a rock jumper in the Adrspach region of the Czech Republic. Broken ribs and spinal injuries are common in the sport.
Today, Petr Kops, 21, is wearing Oxygen’s hand-me-down pants.
“I did not know Oxygen personally, but my sister did,” Kops said. “I wear his trousers for good luck.”
Minutes later, Kops was standing at the edge of a 70-foot chasm called Broken Bones. He announced that he was about to damage his ankle. Then he jumped.
While it may seem suicidal, leaping across a gaping crevasse is actually an extreme sport that is gaining in popularity.
Called rock jumping, or simply jumping by the locals, this adrenaline-charged activity is taking place in the Adrspach-Teplice Rocks, a remote nature preserve in the northeast part of the Czech Republic.
Known for its roughly 11 square miles of phallic sandstone formations, the region has been a breeding ground for lifelong rock climbers, including Jaroslav Houser, 63, the purported conqueror of more than 1,000 sandstone spires.
In their frenzy to subdue as many unclimbed tower tops as possible, seasoned climbers like Houser unwittingly gave rise to rock jumping in the Adrspach.
“The objective is to get to the top of as many towers as you can,” said Vladimir Prochazka, known as June Bug, a 59-year-old climber and a collector of Czech rock climbing histories. “You try to reach the hardest summit, sometimes by jumping.”
Because jumping is often the most logical way to get to a descendible tower, almost every climber encounters a basic-level jump at one time or another, he said.
In most cases, climbers jump with a rope tied around their waist.
If they miss the landing — which is not uncommon — they plummet into the wall of the base tower.
“Jumping requires fearlessness, a fair amount of agility, and a high threshold for pain,” Prochazka said. “Broken ribs and damaged spines are fairly common.”
Still, there are those who prefer to spice up their experience by jumping without a rope. Among the most well known of these adventurers are Petr Prachtel and his wife, Zorka, who helped create the sport in the 1960s and ’70s, a time rock jumping’s early practitioners refer to as a golden age.
After meeting in college, the inseparable climbing partners became legendary for their escapades on the tower tops of the Eesky raj nature preserve in the central Czech Republic. Here, they pioneered countless jumps, sometimes without the safety of a rope.
“Back then, there were several jumpers in on the scene,” Prochazka said. “This healthy competition helped the sport flourish.”
While many climbers jump out of necessity, few people specialize in the sport. In fact, some local climbers frown upon it.
“A few of the old-timers say that jumping has no place here,” Prochazka said. “But there is always some lunatic who goes crazy for it and becomes the dominant jumper in the region.”
For years, the alpha jumper title of the Adrspach — and some say the world — has belonged to Oxygen.
By the time he arrived on the scene in the mid-1990s, local jumping aficionados had developed a grading system.
A Grade 1 jump is an easy crossover from one tower to the next, and may be executed by any reasonably skilled climber. As the grades rise, so do the required levels of precision. At Grade 4, the jump does not offer a flat landing surface, forcing the leaper to land monkey style, clutching the crevices of the opposite wall.
Most of the popular jumps range from Grades 2 to 3, and few jumpers have successfully landed a Grade 4. Until Oxygen came.
In 1997, Oxygen made history with Amerika — the only Grade 5 jump ever recorded.
“I don’t know how he even made it to the other peak — it seemed so far away,” said Prochazka, who witnessed the event. “Somehow, he managed to land on the crevice he picked out, but his body was leaned back, and it looked like he was in for a nasty fall. Then, he snatched a protruding pine tree, and a victorious war cry rang through the valley.”
Not long after his epic leap, Oxygen, whose name is Milan Zdvooily, disappeared from the Adrspach. He now is a gunsmith in London, and says he feels no need to replicate his jumps.
“I wonder if some crazy person will ever dare to make the jump,” he said, referring to Amerika. “People are always looking for something new, so maybe it’s possible.”
Indeed, contemporary jumping continues to attract individuals who appear to lack the self-preservation instinct. Seconds after predicting an ankle injury, Kops hollered a warrior cry and threw himself across the chasm.
His sandaled feet landed on the opposite tower with a flat thud, and his ankle promptly swelled to twice its natural size. Kops could barely walk, but somehow this did not deter him from executing two more jumps.
When the day was over, he nursed his injury with a half-liter of lager at the buffet near the entrance to the Adrspach rocks.
Kops attributed his affinity for jumping to “camaraderie and adrenaline,” and while he did not feel confident enough to try to match Oxygen’s leap, some of the old-timers suggested that the future of rock jumping depended on people like him.
“My prediction is that jumping will only live on thanks to a handful of individuals,” Prochazka said. “The only way this would change is if a new generation arrived on the scene. Their thirst for adrenaline could make it into a massive sport.”
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