The thought of jumping has persisted during my time in Twin Falls as a constant uneasiness in my gut, and as I sit on a cooler in Miles's garage two days after the record attempt, watching him pack a parachute "with your name on it," the uneasiness hardens into genuine fear. Miles will be standing behind me, holding my pilot chute to make sure my canopy opens properly. Once I land safely, he'll jump. Shane will be standing next to me, his helmet cam recording for posterity the precise facial expression of a grown man who might soon need diapers. I am to land in the water, which is less dangerous for first-time jumpers, who may lack the steering skills to manage a ground landing amid the endorphin rush. Mike Vail will be waiting there in a boat to pick me up and film another angle of my triumph—or humiliation.

"It's not gonna be butterflies in your stomach when you step over that rail for the first time, dude," Miles told me earlier in the week when describing what a first jump might feel like. "Those'll be bats."

And then it's happening. Step over the rail, ignore the shuddering of the bridge with each passing semi truck because, as Shane reminds me, "You're going off anyway, one way or another." Eyes on the horizon, don't look down. High-five Shane, glance at Miles, eyes on the horizon. Then a voice, my voice, says something that I hear but am not fully conscious of saying: "Three, two, one . . . Jump!"

My memory goes blank for a second, in this case an eternity. Then I'm floating down in an amazing stillness nothing like the jolting rush of air during a skydive. I look up to check my canopy and find my hands already gripping the steering toggles, though I don't recall grabbing them. I flare my canopy twice, steer out over the middle of the river, absorb the sight of the canyon walls on either side of me and my inflated parachute above me. One final flare, and then I drop the last few feet into the cold water and it's over. Now I'm the one woo-hooing.

"Dude, you stomped it! I totally knew you would!" Miles says, smiling proudly, as we pick him up at the landing area. My induction as a very junior member of the flying fraternity has been a success. There is much high-fiving. "It kind of makes all that other stuff go out of your head, doesn't it?" Yes, it does.