Cliff Jumpers Perform Flips Off Burney Falls

Warning: Do not try this stunt. Not only is it illegal, it can be deadly.

It’s considered the most dangerous stunt in Northern California. The 131-foot waterfall that President Theodore Roosevelt named the “Eighth Wonder of the World” is nearly impossible to jump off. In fact, a 30-year-old man was killed attempting the stunt in early-July.

And now, some professional cliff jumpers have hucked flips off the massive waterfall.



Travis Sims, Brandon Beck and Scott Pollman simultaneously posted photos of themselves jumping off the cliff over the waterfall, garnering a ton of attention online. Then, a brief video was posted by the videographer:

The video gives you an idea of the process of the jumpers, who went to the waterfall in the morning and quickly jumped off the cliff one-by-one. Jumping off the cliff is illegal and they were probably in a hurry to attempt to avoid legal action.



The three jumpers are part of the crew that made Flow State, a documentary featuring the lives of Northern California’s professional cliff jumpers. In the documentary, the filmmaker, Nick Coulter, did the jump at Burney Falls. Here’s what Beck said about the jump:

Today I found myself upside down off a waterfall that I’ve been staring at since I was a small kid. We ran to the top and I showed my friends that we had it by sending the first flips off 130 ft Burney Falls. So much training went into this jump I’d hate to see another accident here, it’s way gnarly. It’s been a dream of mine to launch this waterfall and that dream is lived. I honestly can say I don’t ever plan on jumping it again or going larger. Burney Falls you will always be in my heart and I will never forget that impact or the huge gap that we all barely made it over!

The stunt from the waterfall is difficult for a multitude of reasons. 131-feet is a long drop and if you land wrong it can knock you out or cause internal damage. But more importantly, the gap that you have to jump over to hit the water is very large. You can see in the video that the three men barely made it out into the water.



The history of jumping off Burney Falls is old but not well-documented. It was said that Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller dove off the falls in the 1930’s while shooting his famous Tarzan movie. The first time it was recorded on video (to our knowledge) was Coulter’s jump a couple years back. This is probably the first time anyone has flipped over the falls.

The three promised to post a video in the future of the jump. For now, you can see their photos from Instagram:

Thankful to be alive!! Not after the jump but just in general!! I want to say that this is extremely dangerous and the gap to clear is so large that me and @scottpman and @travissims all barely made it!! Plus the 130 ft impact was so hard that I almost got knocked out! With that being said don’t try this you could die!! Now who is ready to see the video?? 📸 taken by @freedomwoods . . . @tahoenative @volcom @spyoptic @senditofficial @cliffjumpingisnotacrime @get.sendy @vibramfivefingers @redbull @cleancliffsproject @redbullcliffdiving @svgebrand @superhumanspower @risks #tahoenative #getsendy #happylens #volcom #truetothis #130ft #first #fly #waterfall #livesvge #redbullcliffdiving #redbull #cliffjumping #cliffjumpingisnotacrime

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