Outdoor Recreation - Thrill Chasing—extreme Sports

Growing numbers of people have begun participating in high-risk recreational activities. Young adults dominate the thrill seekers, but older people are jumping in as well. Skydiving, hang gliding, rock climbing, mountaineering, bungee jumping, white-water rafting, and other extreme sports have all shown huge increases in participation.

The U.S. Parachute Association (USPA) reported that its membership had grown to more than thirty-four thousand in 2003 and that between 130,000 and 150,000 people went skydiving in a typical year. A USPA membership survey conducted in 2002 reported that 84.1% of member skydivers were men, half of whom were under the age of forty. Almost half of USPA members said they had jumped more than 250 times in their lives, with a third having jumped between twenty-six and 250 times. The ranks of parachutists came from a diverse group of occupations, but the most common field cited was the military (10.1%), followed by business management (9%), building trades (7.9%), the computer industry (7%), engineering (6.8%) and medicine (6.3%).

The Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association's (SGMA) Sports Participation Topline Report for 2004 reported that 2.2 million Americans participated in mountain or rock climbing during 2003. Participation had grown almost 4% from the year earlier. Rock-climbing gyms were also beginning to spring up around the country. Participation in artificial wall climbing grew by almost 84% from 1998 to 2003, to 8.6 million participants. (See Table 1.6 in Chapter 1.)

Another popular new extreme sport was paintball, in which participants staged mock battles with air-powered guns that shot paint-filled projectiles. According to the SGMA, total sales of paintball equipment increased by more than 5% between 2002 and 2003, to $390 million. (See Table 2.6 in Chapter 2.) The organization also found that in 2003, there were 9.8 million paintball players, up 13% from 2002 and a 66% increase since 1998. (See Table 1.6 in Chapter 1.)

Advocates of extreme sports continued to search for new challenges in the early twenty-first century. Skydiving had grown to include several new forms, including sky surfing, free flying, and aerial ballet, for those who thought simply jumping from fifteen thousand feet was too easy. Bungee jumping had also been expanded to include bridge, aerial, structure, and earth jumping.

One explanation for the rising popularity of extreme sports was the heightened awareness of them created by the media. Movies and advertising often featured mountain climbers or skydivers in dramatic, breathtaking scenes. In addition, many participants reported a life-affirming "adrenaline rush," and some experts suggested that extreme sports enthusiasts enjoyed the appearance of living on the edge.

Others believed that the improved safety of extreme sports as a result of technological advances and training had stimulated this growth. Equipment was well engineered to ensure that bungee cords and parachutes were highly unlikely to fail, and modern sports medicine could prepare participants with conditioning programs and exercises and assist them in recovering after mishaps.

Sports manufacturing industry experts predicted that the popularity of extreme sports would grow as young adults' earnings continued to rise. Furthermore, traditional obstacles to participation, such as gender and age, were rapidly disappearing because Americans remained physically active longer.