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COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS — Skydiving was not on 76-year-old Kaye Barnes' proverbial "bucket list." She wouldn't even describe it as fun. But Friday, she jumped out of an airplane with little fear or anxiety.
Barnes decided she wanted to skydive after taking a trip out to the Ogden Airport with others living at the Canyon Creek Assisted Living in Cottonwood Heights to ride a helicopter.
"Our activity director talks about doing different activities, and things that we've never done before or things that we'd like to do," Barnes said. "I saw them doing some skydiving out there (at the airport). We had talked about doing that and I thought, 'that doesn't look so hard, I could do that.' So I signed up."
Barnes, who owned a small plane with her husband, never learned to fly it. She told him if he couldn't land the plane, then she would crash alongside him.
On Friday, she headed out to Skydive Utah in Tooele, watched the training videos, and climbed into the plane.
"I was never really fearful about doing it. I was never really nervous about doing it," Barnes said. "The hardest thing was getting in the airplane because they just put a little step ladder and the last step into the airplane was a big step."
After climbing aboard, jumping out was easy.
"The first thing out of the airplane was just, it just took your breath away," she said. "But I was bound and determined to keep my eyes open."
As she and her skydiving instructor fell, Barnes had to tell herself to breathe in and out through her teeth, against the pressure of the wind.
"That was an experience with all that force against you. It was a lot of force against you."
She said a cameraman had told her he may come fall next to her, close enough that she could grab his foot. As she fell, she said she wondered why he never came up close to her. Afterward, she asked him why.
"He told me, 'I figured you had enough to take care of, so I didn't do that.' "
People have asked me since I got back if I had fun, and I said, 'I don't know that I would ever describe it as fun, it was just an amazing experience.'
–Kaye Barnes
She fell in tandem for 15 minutes, with one minute of free falling. Barnes said she felt much longer.
"It seemed like a long time. And then I remember when (my instructor) said we have about a minute before we landed and he was telling me what to do to help with the landing," Barnes said. "And actually, it seemed like a long time."
When she landed, her granddaughter and four of her great-granddaughters were there cheering and hugging her.
"People have asked me since I got back if I had fun, and I said, 'I don't know that I would ever describe it as fun, it was just an amazing experience,' " she said.
When asked to describe the experience, she said she doesn't really know how.
"Well I think it's very very difficult to even explain it at all. I've just never, ever experienced anything like that," Barnes said.
So what's the next adventurous activity she's never put on her bucket list?
"I guess I have to see what the activity director comes up with," Barnes said. "She's talked a hot air balloon, but I don't think it can top this."
