YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. — Afternoon gave way to evening, and the parade of restless clouds and the occasional bursts of rain had moved on from Yosemite Valley. In their wake was the empty quiet of Taft Point, 3,000 feet above a famous green valley going gray in late-day shadow.
加州优胜美地国家公园——夜幕开始降临，天上的行云和间歇的降雨已经移出了优胜美地山谷。塔夫点悬崖从3,000英尺的高度俯瞰这个有名的翠绿山谷。悬崖被一片孤寂笼罩，在迟暮中变成灰色。
There were no tourists, only a raven, black and unhurried, circling at the edge of the cliff. It spiraled upward, a silent signal of rising air. A good sign for BASE jumping and wing-suit flying.
这会儿一个游人也没有。只有一只黑色的乌鸦，缓缓地在悬崖边盘旋。乌鸦打着转上升，这暗示着有上升气流，是定点跳伞和翼装飞行的好兆头。

Dean Potter, a 43-year-old professional climber and jumper, considered one of the world’s best in a wing suit, stood a few feet from Graham Hunt, 29, his apprentice and flying partner.
43岁的迪恩·波特(Dean Potter)是一位职业登山者和跳伞者，世界顶尖翼装飞行高手之一。这会儿他穿着翼装，站在他的徒弟和飞行伙伴，29岁的格雷汉姆·亨特(Graham Hunt)几英尺远的地方。
About 20 feet to their right was Jen Rapp, Potter’s longtime girlfriend, and the couple’s dog, Whisper. Rapp held a camera. She framed the photos so that El Capitan, across the valley toward the setting sun, was in the background.
在他们右上方20英尺的地方是波特交往了很长时间的女友简·拉普(Jen Rapp)和他们的狗狗维斯普。拉普拿着一台相机。山谷对面太阳下山方向就是酋长岩，她的照片就是以它为背景。
BASE jumping is illegal in the national parks. But that did not keep people from surreptitiously doing it, at the risk of being caught, especially in Yosemite, where the sheer cliffs make it the best place on the planet to do it, some believe.
在国家公园里定点跳伞是违法的。但是这并没有阻止爱好者们冒着被抓的危险偷偷进行这项活动——尤其是在有着垂直悬壁的优胜美地。一些人认为此处是进行定点跳伞的全球最佳地点。
“Anywhere else you go is a compromise,” Potter would say.
“去别的地方就是打了折扣，”波特会这么说。
The men had jumped from dozens of spots around Yosemite Valley, but they knew this route well. At the end of a 1.1-mile downhill trail from a small parking lot on Glacier Point Road, Taft Point is marked by a railing meant to keep tourists from falling. Potter and Hunt preferred jumping from an edge about 100 yards left, to the west. They would drop hundreds of feet with their arms and legs spread, the webbing between their limbs and the baffles inside their suits filling with air until falling turned to soaring.
波特和亨特在围绕着优胜美地谷的几十个地点都跳过伞。但是这条路径是他们所熟悉的。冰川界点上的一个小停车场往下，有一条1.1英里长的登山步道，尽头就是塔夫点。这里被围栏圈起，以防游人落下。波特和亨特喜欢从这里西侧的100码处起跳。他们把手脚展开，向下坠落几百英尺。他们四肢之间的翼膜和翼装的遮护物充满了空气，使他们的坠落变成滑翔。
They would fly right, toward the heart of the valley. There is a sloping rib of a ridge there, a relatively unremarkable feature called Lost Brother. It is not marked on the park maps handed to visitors. It juts downward into the valley before it ends abruptly into a vertical wall known mostly to climbers. In that ridge is a notch, a V like a rifle sight.
他们计划向右飞，朝向山谷的中心。那里有一条像肋骨一样突出的山脊。这一处叫“迷路的兄弟”的地貌不是很有名，在给游客的地图上并没有标出。山脊斜坡向下，与山谷连接处是一个垂直的崖壁。大多数登山者都知道这里。在山脊上有一个V字形的槽口，就像步枪的准星。
Potter and Hunt had made the jump many times, sometimes together, sometimes not. Hunt had done it without Potter several days before. He would usually steer himself through the notch. Potter had been through the notch a couple of times, but he usually went around the ridge to the left. It depended on how well they maintained altitude once they began to fly.
波特和亨特像这样跳过多次，有时一起，有时单独行动。几天前，亨特一个人跳了一次。他通常会飞过槽口。波特也飞过槽口几次，但是他通常会绕过山脊向左飞。采取什么样的路径要看他们起飞后能否很好的掌控高度。
The men were zipped into their suits. They did not wait for the full cloak of dusk. A breeze from behind caught their attention but did not send a strong enough warning to pause. It was 7:25 on May 16.
他们并没有等暮色完全降临就穿上了翼装。 他们注意到了从身后吹来的一阵微风，但风并没有强到成为停止行动的警告。这时是5月16号的晚上7点25分。
“I don’t mind if I’m on the record,” Potter wrote in an email in March, discussing the decades-long fight to legalize BASE jumping within National Park Service sites, and especially at Yosemite, with its unique valley of sheer cliffs.
优胜美地的定点跳伞文化
Yosemite’s BASE-Jumping Culture
“我不介意我说的话被实名引用，”在3月的一封电邮里，波特这么写到。他在电邮里谈到了几十年来人们为争取在国家公园管理局的管辖地界里定点跳伞合法化而作出的努力——尤其是在有着独特垂直悬壁的优胜美地。
“I’ve been flying in the park since 2003 and the N.P.S. knows it, but they haven’t been able to catch me or prove anything,” he added.
“我从2003年就在优胜美地飞了，这个国家公园管理局也知道，但是他们还没能抓到我，也没有任何证据，”波特补充道。
Potter offered a tour of the BASE-jumping culture at Yosemite, allowing himself to be captured on video leaping, illegally, from the cliffs at dusk or dawn and landing before being detected.
波特自告奋勇为本报记者充当介绍优胜美地定点跳伞文化的向导。他允许我们录像，拍摄他在傍晚和拂晓非法地从悬崖上跳下，并在被发现之前着陆的过程。
“There are at least 10 local guys who are regularly BASE jumping in Yosemite and probably 50 to 100 others annually traveling to Yosemite from around the world to experience the birthplace of big-wall BASE,” he wrote.
“至少有10位当地人定期地在优胜美地定点跳伞，另外可能有50到100人每年从世界各地来到这里体检大岩壁定点跳伞的发源地，”波特在电邮里写道。
Potter knew the long history of enforcement at Yosemite. Robin Heid was arrested and charged with jumping off El Capitan in 1979, which helped lead to a midsummer trial run for legal parachuting there in 1980, aborted after six weeks of unruliness. BASE jumping took hold in the global extreme-sports culture of the 1990s, and stories of Yosemite rangers hiding in trees and using night-vision goggles became legend.
波特对优胜美地长久的执法历史了如指掌。罗宾·海德(Robin Heid)在1979年被捕，并因为在酋长岩跳伞被起诉。这个案子推动了1980年夏天在酋长岩跳伞合法化的试运行，但却因为难以管理于六个星期后被终止。定点跳伞在90年代流行，成为全球极限运动文化的一部分。关于优胜美地巡护员躲在树林里用夜视镜盯梢跳伞者的故事成了传说。
In 1999, Frank Gambalie drowned in the Merced River after trying to escape rangers. Months later, in a protest of park policy and enforcement, Jan Davis fell to her death from El Capitan without her parachute ever opening; she wore a borrowed rig, not wanting her own gear confiscated. In 2010, Ammon McNeely was caught and subdued with a stun gun.
1999年，弗兰克·甘勃利(Frank Gambalie)为了逃避巡护员而淹死在美熹德河中。几个月后，在一次针对公园政策和执法的抗议活动中，简·戴维斯(Jan Davis)由于降落伞没有打开而从酋长岩上跳下摔死。当时她用的是一套借来的装备，以免自己的装备被没收。2010年，艾蒙·麦克尼利(Ammon McNeely)被执法人员发现并被电击枪制服。
In between, dozens have been arrested, jailed and subjected to thousands of dollars in fines and have had their gear confiscated. Several have gone to court to challenge the National Park Service rules banning the activity, ultimately to no avail.
在这些年里，几十名跳伞者被捕送监，并被处以几千美元的罚款，他们的装备也被没收。一些人不满禁止跳伞活动的条例而把国家公园管理局告上法庭，但是没有人成功。
It made no sense to Potter, and plenty of others, that climbing was legal, and that falling was legal, but that stopping a fall with a lifesaving parachute was illegal, a result of the application of an arcane law banning the delivery or retrieval “of a person or object by parachute, helicopter or other airborne means.”
在波特和许多人看来，在国家公园里攀爬合法，摔落也是合法，但是用能救命的降落伞来阻止摔落却是非法，这实在不可理喻。在国家公园里，有一条不被很多人知道的法律禁止“用降落伞、直升飞机或别的任何跟空中航行有关的方式运送个人或物体”， 对跳伞的禁令就是依据了这条法律。
But it was 2015. Potter was hopeful. He believed he could be both renegade and diplomat.
但是现在是2015年了。波特充满了希望。他相信自己既是一个叛逆者，也能运用外交手腕与当局周旋。
“The N.P.S. and the law enforcement have changed a lot in the past year or two,” Potter wrote in March. “Most all of the lead positions in the park service are now held by people who either don’t have a huge problem with BASE or are quite lenient when it comes to catching and prosecuting jumpers. For sure the rangers enforce the law. If they see us, they pursue, but for the most part, they are not hunting us as before and there seems to be a lot more respect on both sides.”
“在过去的两年中，国家公园管理局和执法人员改变了很多，”波特在一封三月份的电邮中写道。“大多数担任公园管理局重要职位的官员并没有对定点跳伞有很大成见，在抓捕和起诉跳伞者时也比较宽容。当然了，巡护员还是会执法。如果他们发现我们，他们会追来，但大多数情况下，他们不像过去那样会穷追不舍。较之以前，跳伞者和巡护员之间多了几分互相尊重。”
A sport that began as a rebel offshoot of sky diving had evolved into a popular and respected derivative of rock climbing. Places in Switzerland, Norway and Italy welcomed BASE jumpers. And Yosemite, the best place — maybe the safest place, with its vertical cliffs and grassy landing areas — had only six known BASE-jumping deaths in its history, and none since 1999, despite thousands of jumps since.
定点跳伞最早是特技跳伞的一个叛逆旁支，后来发展成了攀岩运动的衍生运动而流行开来，并受到认可。瑞士、挪威和意大利都欢迎定点跳伞者前往。优胜美地是定点跳伞的最佳地点。由于有着垂直的崖壁和青草覆盖的降落区域，可能也是最安全的地点了。在历史上已知的只有六位跳伞者在这里遇难。而1999年以后，尽管有数千名跳伞者在此活动，还没有一人遭到不测。
Into the Dusky Valley
跳入暮色中的山谷
Potter jumped. Hunt followed, like a shadow. Rapp clicked photographs. The men fell out of the frame before her lens caught them falling away, soaring with wings spread.
波特跳了下去。亨特像他的影子一样跟上。拉普开始拍照。两个男人从她的取景框消失，然后她的镜头跟上了他们的下落。他们张开了翼装的翅膀，滑翔着。
Hunt quickly passed Potter. His suit was made for speed. Potter had set records for long flights and preferred loft. He had been in Canada working on a design to allow him to land on his belly on glacial ice, no parachute necessary.
亨特很快超过了波特。他的翼装是为速度设计的。波特喜欢在高空滑翔，他创造了几项长时间飞行的记录。之前他在加拿大参与设计一种翼装，能让他不用打开降落伞，而用腹部在冰川的冰面上着陆。
“He’s low,” Rapp thought to herself. “Why is he going toward the notch?” She saw Hunt veer left, as if to go around the ridge, then quickly back to the right. Potter held his line for the notch. They disappeared into the hole that led to the dusky valley.
“他飞的好低啊，”拉普暗自想到：“他为什么要朝槽口飞？”她看见亨特往左一偏，好像是要越过山脊，但接着又很快地向右折回。波特朝着槽口过去。他们俩消失在对着暮色中山谷的凹槽里。
Rapp heard a thwap. Her mind tried to tell her that it was the familiar sound of a parachute deploying. It was followed almost immediately by a duller, heavier sound.
拉普听到“啪”的一声。她的理智试图告诉自己这是降落伞打开时发出的熟悉声响。这声过后紧接着又传来了一声更闷、更沉重的响声。
Rapp waited alone on the cliff’s edge for more clues from below. None came.
拉普独自在悬崖边等待下面传来更多的动静。什么也没有。
She clicked through her camera to retrace the flight paths in the photos. In two dimensions, without depth perception, it was hard to tell what happened to the shrinking specks in the frames. There was Hunt, who disappeared into the grayness of the rocks. There was Potter, who made it through the leading edge of the notch, a downward halfpipe, and fell out of sight.
她翻看相机里的照片，试图在照片上追溯俩人的飞行路径。在没有深度的二维画面里，很难观察到逐渐缩小的两个点到底遭遇到了什么。有一个点是亨特，消失在灰色岩石的背景中。另一个点是波特，他飞过了像是一个朝下开口的U形槽的边缘，就不见了踪影。
Somewhere far below was Rebecca Haynie, Hunt’s girlfriend of a few months. She had been on a hike when Hunt called saying that he and Potter planned to jump at Taft Point. Meet at the meadow at 7:30, Hunt said. She aborted her hike and went to the lodge area in Yosemite Valley to get a drink and pass the time.
亨特刚交往了几个月的女友吕蓓卡·黑尼(Rebecca Haynie)就在远处的山下。当亨特那天打电话给她，说自己和波特要在塔夫点跳伞时，黑尼正在徒步远足。亨特告诉她七点半在草坪碰头。她终止了远足，来到了优胜美地谷的住宿区，在那里喝酒打发时间。
She did not see a text message that Hunt sent at 6:55 until about 7:25 because of spotty cellular service in Yosemite. He had asked her to turn on her two-way radio so they could communicate. She quickly texted back that she would in a few minutes. She drove around the darkening, forested roads for 90 minutes, waiting to hear from Hunt again.
优胜美地的手机信号时断时续，亨特在6点55分发来的一条短信，她到了7点25分才看到。亨特让她打开她的双向无线对讲机，这样他们两人就可以说话了。她很快回复了短信，告诉亨特她过几分钟就把对讲机打开。黑尼在夜色渐暗的林间道路上开了90分钟的车程，等待再次得到亨特的消息。
“I was putting my faith in a lot of irrational places,” she said in a phone interview. “Even though I knew what probably happened.”
“那时我想出了许多不合理的解释，”黑尼在一次电话采访中说，“尽管我知道可能发生了什么。”
In the dwindling light, Rapp rushed back up the trail to the parking lot. She drove her car the 13 miles or so back to Wawona Road, made a right and headed the 10 miles down to the floor of the valley.
在渐暗的天色中，拉普匆忙沿着登山步道回到了停车场。她开了差不多13英里，到了瓦沃纳路，向右转，往下开了10英里到达谷底。
She went to El Capitan Meadow, but there was no one there. Her phone had no text messages. Unsure of what to do or where to go, she drove to the rented house that she and Potter shared in Yosemite West, a cluster of homes back up Wawona Road, past the Glacier Point turnoff. The couple recently bought 31 acres nearby and had plans to build their own home. That day, rainy and cool, had been spent clearing trees and brush, and Hunt was there to help, until the clearing skies led to the idea of making an evening jump off Taft Point.
她来到酋长岩草地，那儿一个人也没有。她的手机也没有收到任何短信。她不知道该做什么，也不知道该去哪儿，就朝着她和波特在西优胜美地的租住处开了过去。西优胜美地是一个聚居区，就在过了冰川界点的岔路口、瓦沃纳路的尽头。
The house was dark and empty. Mind racing, Rapp studied the photos and scrolled through various outcomes in her head. Maybe the sounds she heard were Hunt crashing. Maybe Potter saw it happen and was searching for his friend. Maybe Potter crashed and was hurt. Maybe they were both O.K. but were hiding from rangers. Maybe they had been arrested.
屋子里是黑的，空无一人。拉普仔细研究照片，脑子转得飞快，设想了种种结果：她听到的声响可能是亨特撞击地面发出的。波特可能看到发生了什么，现在正在搜寻他的朋友。也有可能是波特掉了下来受了伤。可能他们俩都没事，这会儿正在躲避巡护员。也有可能他们已经被捕。
Her mind was a tug of war with hope. Maybe they would pull up to the house any minute. A car came at 9:30. Out stepped Haynie. She was alone.
她还抱有希望：他们俩随时有可能开着车回来。九点半的时候来了一辆车，黑尼下了车，她是一个人。
Discouraging the Spectacle
阻止跳伞场面
A little more than a year earlier, in March 2014, one of Potter’s best friends and flying partners, Sean Leary, was killed BASE jumping at Utah’s Zion National Park. It was only the second known BASE-jumping death at Zion, but the first had come just over a month earlier.
一年多以前，在2014年3月，波特的好友之一、飞行伙伴肖恩·列里(Sean Leary)在犹他州的锡安国家公园定点跳伞时遇难。这是在锡安国家公园已知发生的第二宗定点跳伞死亡事件，而第一宗就发生在一个月前。
Leary, alone, had apparently jumped off a sandstone tower called West Temple and tried to fly through a gap in the Three Marys, a set of statue-like formations resembling chess pieces. Leary was missing for days, and Potter was among those who rushed to Zion to help find him.
列里当时是一个人。很显然，他是从一个叫做“西寺”的砂岩山尖上跳下，并试图穿过“三个玛丽”之间的空隙。“三个玛丽”是一组像雕塑一样的岩石构造，像棋子一样排列在一起。列里失踪了好几天，波特是赶去搜救的人员之一。
Potter and a few other climbers reached Leary’s body, but the park service would not allow them to bring it down. Rangers packaged the body, and a helicopter, borrowed from Grand Canyon National Park, lifted it out.
波特和几个登山者找到了列里的尸体。但是公园管理处不允许他们把尸体带下山。巡护员们包好了尸体，一架从大峡谷国家公园借来的直升飞机把它运了出去。
“There are places within the United States that one can BASE jump, but not in Zion,” the park’s then-superintendent said in a news release. “There are many reasons for this, from resource protection, to visitor and employee safety, to Wilderness mandates. BASE jumping is not congruent with the founding purpose of this park.”
“定点跳伞在美国有的地方是合法的，但是在锡安是非法的，”公园当时的主管在一次新闻发布会上说。“这样做有许多理由：保护资源，保护游客和雇员的安全，还有《荒野法》的规定。定点跳伞与锡安国家公园的建园宗旨不符。”
Ray O’Neal, a longtime ranger at Zion, said that the problem with BASE jumping in national parks was not necessarily one of safety or rescue costs, as many jumpers presume.
雷·奥尼尔(Ray O’Neal)是锡安国家公园的老巡护员了。他说，禁止在国家公园里定点跳伞不一定是像许多跳伞者想的那样，是出于安全或是搜救成本的考虑。
“The reason we would like to discourage it is not so much because of the danger of it, but the spectacle of it,” O’Neal said during an interview at the park’s Emergency Operations Center. “We like to think that people come here to enjoy the scenery, and not the spectacle of people jumping.”
“我们阻止定点跳伞倒不是完全因为它的危险性，而是因为它制造的场面，”奥尼尔在公园的紧急行动中心接受采访时说：“我们希望人们来这儿欣赏自然美景，而不是来看跳伞。”
Scott Gediman, a Yosemite park spokesman, agreed. On average, 14 Yosemite visitors die each year — from falls or drownings, car accidents or natural causes. Rarely are they BASE jumpers.
优胜美地国家公园的发言人斯科特·盖迪曼(Scott Gediman)同意这种说法。在优胜美地，平均每年有14个游客由于摔落、溺水、车祸或别的自然原因丧生，但是他们之中几乎没有定点跳伞者。
“We’re not against BASE jumping as a sport,” Gediman said while sitting on a bench at Yosemite, where a rappelling accident had killed a climber the day before. “But we have to look at the big picture and its appropriateness in the park.”
“我们并不反对做为一项运动的定点跳伞，”盖迪曼说。他坐在优胜美地的一个长凳上。前一天在这里有一位登山者在下山途中因绳索事故丧生。“我们需要考虑全局，权衡定点跳伞在这个公园是不是合宜。”
The frustration for Potter and other BASE advocates has been the apparent lack of consistency in park policies. It is generally legal to catch a fish but not to pick flowers. Horses are allowed on many trails, but mountain bikers are not. The Merced River is a jumble of colorful rafts carrying tourists; El Capitan is a dot-to-dot slate of climbers and ropes; and Yosemite even allows hang gliding on a limited basis off Glacier Point, not far from Taft Point. Potter was allowed to string tightropes between formations. But if he fell, it was illegal, in theory, to prevent his own death with a parachute.
困扰波特和其他定点跳伞拥趸的是，公园政策明显没有连贯性。捕鱼是合法的，但是摘花却是非法的；许多步道都可以允许马匹通行，但是却不允许登山自行车通行。美熹德河上充满了载客的五颜六色的橡皮筏。酋长岩上到处都是攀岩者和他们的绳索。在优胜美地，虽然有一定限制，但是人们甚至可以在离塔夫点不远的冰川界点出发进行悬挂式滑翔。波特可以在岩石之间系绷索。但是如果他从绷索上掉下，要想用跳伞来挽救生命却从理论上来说是违法的。
In 2006, the last time the National Park Service updated its management policies, individual park superintendents were allowed the discretion to pursue approval of BASE jumping. None have. (The exception in the national park system is the annual Bridge Day at New River Gorge, in West Virginia, where hundreds take part in a one-day jumping celebration that dates back nearly 40 years.) Potter thought times were changing. He pondered ways to devise a permit system, to limit the number of BASE jumpers and to ensure that only well-trained jumpers would leap into the valley. He did not have that part figured out yet. But it was his goal. He wanted nothing more than to BASE jump and fly wing suits legally in Yosemite, the place that he loved more than anywhere else.
国家公园管理局于2006年最后一次更新了管理规定。各个公园主管有权自行裁定是否要申请定点跳伞的许可，但是没有人这么做。（西维吉尼亚州的新河峡国家公园是国家公园系统中的例外。在那里， 几百人举行一天的跳伞活动庆祝一年一度的“桥日”。这个传统已经有差不多40年了）波特认为时代在改变。他构想有无可能设计出一种许可证制度，用来限制跳伞者的人数，同时确保只有训练有素的跳伞者才能获准跳入山谷。这后一点他还没想出方法解决。但是这是他的目标。他最想要的无非是能够合法地在优胜美地这个他最热爱的地方定点跳伞和翼装滑翔。
Seeking Familiar Faces
寻找熟悉的面孔
The women drove back into the black valley. They looked for people they knew — climbers camping or hanging around the village and the bar. There were no familiar faces. At about 10:30, they showed up at the door of Mike Gauthier, Yosemite’s chief of staff, a conduit between park bureaucracy and the climbing community.
拉普和黑尼开车回到了漆黑的山谷。她们在露营或是在村子和酒吧里消磨时间的登山者中寻找认识的人，但是她们一张熟悉的面孔也没有找到。在大约十点半时，她们来到了麦克·哥提亚(Mike Gauthier)的家。哥提亚是优胜美地的办公室主任，负责公园管理当局和攀岩者之间的沟通。
A call to the Yosemite dispatcher quickly deflated hope that Potter and Hunt were in custody. There were no reports of BASE jumpers caught by park rangers.
打给优胜美地警察分局的一通电话破灭了波特和亨特被拘捕的希望。公园巡护员那里也没有任何定点跳伞者被抓的消息。
A late-night search was called. Rangers and volunteers from Yosemite Search and Rescue were told that a pair of BASE jumpers were missing off Taft Point. It was not until they saw Rapp that they realized that one of the men missing was Dean Potter. Everyone knew him.
一个深夜搜寻队被组织起来。巡护员们和从优胜美地搜救组织来的志愿者们被告知有两位定点跳伞者在塔夫点下失踪。当他们看见拉普时，他们才明白过来有一位失踪者是迪恩·波特。人人都认识他。
“I hoped he was just hurt,” Rapp said. “Maybe he had two broken femurs. Maybe he was bleeding to death. We just needed to get up there.”
“我希望他只是受了伤，”拉普说：“他可能摔断了两根股骨。他可能正流血不止，生命垂危。不管怎样，我们都要到事故地点找到他。”
She tried to leave the searching to the experts. But at 4 a.m., helplessly waiting, she took binoculars and headed to the base of the canyon below Lost Brother. She scanned the darkness for movement or color. She screamed into the black void above her. She got no response.
她试图放手让搜救专家们展开行动。但是时间到了凌晨四点，她再也等不下去。她带上望远镜，来到了“迷路的兄弟”下面峡谷的底部。她在黑暗中查看有无任何动静，或是有无有颜色的物体。她向上冲着黑暗的空间大喊，没有人回应她。
There were still no answers from above by daybreak. A helicopter took off and headed over the top of Lost Brother. Two bodies were quickly spotted. Neither man had deployed a parachute.
直到天亮的时候，谷底上面也没有传来任何消息。一架直升飞机起飞来到了“迷路的兄弟”的上空。两具尸体很快就被发现。两个人的跳伞都没有打开。
Hunt had cleared the base of the notch, but having most likely entered the downward funnel on a diagonal path, he had crashed into the right wall.
亨特越过了槽口的底部，但是在一个对角线的路径上，他很可能遇到了一阵朝下吹的气流。他撞到了右边的一堵岩墙。
“Turns out the sounds I heard, I think, were the sounds of Graham hitting a tree and then the wall,” Rapp said.
“我想我听到的声响就是格雷汉姆先撞到了一棵树，然后撞上了岩墙，”拉普说。
Potter was found several hundred feet farther into the notch. Speculation began immediately that maybe the sight of Hunt, or the air disturbance caused by his maneuvers, had affected Potter’s concentration or control. Neither man was wearing a GoPro video recorder, contrary to some news reports, but Potter had jumped with a smartphone strapped to his head. It was heavily damaged, but park service investigators have it, along with Rapp’s photos, hoping to mine them for clues.
波特在离槽口好几百英尺的地方被发现。很快就有猜测说可能由于看到亨特的事故，或是亨特的飞行引起的气流改变，影响到了波特的注意力或是他的操控。不像有些新闻媒体报道的那样，两个人都没有戴GoPro摄像机。但是波特在跳的时候把一个智能手机绑到了自己的头上。手机毁坏严重，但是公园管理局的调查者们拿到了手机和拉普的照片，希望能从它们得到线索。
Rapp returned to Taft Point three days after the accident. By then, there was a memorial at the cliff’s edge, where Potter and Hunt had made their final jump. El Capitan sits across the valley a little to the left; Yosemite Falls can be seen a little to the right, over the top of the brown, down-sloping ridge with the notch. The memorial included feathers, a beer can, Tibetan prayer flags and a photograph of Potter.
事故发生的三天后，拉普回到了塔夫点。波特和亨特的追思会已经在悬崖边他们最后跳下的地方举行。在左边一点，酋长岩屹立在山谷对面。往右边一点， 顺着那个有槽口的山脊顶端，能看到优胜美地瀑布。追思会留下了羽毛、啤酒罐、西藏的经幡和波特的照片。
Rapp sat alone on a rock. A raven appeared. Unflinchingly, it approached and patiently ate a piece of salami out of her hand. It had never happened to her before.
拉普独自坐在一块石头上。一只乌鸦飞了过来。它毫不惧怕地飞近拉普并耐心地吃起了她手上的一片意大利香肠。拉普从来没有遇到过这种事。
“The way the raven looked at me, so intently, so. …,” Rapp said, the thought drifting, unfinished. “Yeah, it was Dean.”
“这乌鸦看着我的样子是那么专注，那么……”拉普若有所思地说：“对，它就是迪恩。”