ROYAL GORGE — The Royal Gorge has lured Native Americans, Spanish conquistadors, fur traders and vacationing families over the centuries.

Recent visitors came in brightly colored pilot suits, helmets with cameras, and giant goggles — a new tribe from a new age — drawn by the opportunity to climb, leap, fall and party during the annual Go Fast Games.

For three days in September, on bungee cords, they jumped from the world’s highest suspension bridge, pulsating up and down until the energy in the giant rubber bands was used up. They flung themselves out of a tramway car that normally carries visitors across the ancient gorge, and they inched along a taut wire high above the Arkansas River.

The nerviest of them all, BASE jumpers, nose-dived into the void with tiny parachutes, free-falling for several seconds toward a tiny landing area 1,053 feet below.

“Those guys are basket cases,” an athlete from another extreme sport said.

About a decade ago, a 58-year-old woman, determined to prove that the National Park Service’s ban on BASE jumping was ill-founded and that BASE jumping could be done safely, slipped into a black-and-white prison suit for dramatic effect and made a daytime jump at Yosemite National Park. Her parachute failed to deploy, and she fell more than 3,000 feet to her death.

Because of the danger, BASE jumping is illegal at the Royal Gorge, too — except for the Go Fast Games. Even then, it’s by invitation only.

On the other hand, bungee jumpers are free to join the festival after signing the following document — and reading it aloud before a camera.

“I agree that if I’m injured or killed in this event, I and or my family members or heirs will not be able to make a claim against any person or entity involved in the Games. I agree that this release will apply even if my injury or death is caused by the negligence, gross negligence, recklessness or will-full and wanton conduct of another. I certify that I’m not impaired, or under the influence of any drug, alcoholic beverage or medication.”

The contract isn’t unusual. The jumpers who converge on the New River Gorge Bridge in West Virginia each October make similar pledges. And a pamphlet from the Snake River BASE Academy in Idaho warns, “If you are not ready to die BASE jumping, you are not ready to go BASE jumping.”

Not in the genes

BASE jumpers weren’t the only risk takers at the gorge. Just finding a spot to watch them was an extreme adventure for some.

The Royal Gorge Bridge roadbed is made up of wooden planks, with enough space between them to allow a dizzying glimpse of the river below. Sounds of raging white water come and go with the wind ... rafts look like tiny toys, the people in them specks. ... Birds circle and swoop — below the bridge.

And when a routine breeze came along that day, causing the bridge to sway, Go Fast Games spectators grabbed the nearest railing — or one another.

“My mom couldn’t even walk across it,” said BASE jumper Max Kuszaj, indicating that risk taking isn’t necessarily genetic.

Sometimes the view is terrifying.

After jumping from a plane during the inaugural Go Fast Games, Dwain Weston was headed toward the bridge, where some of his friends had gathered. The 30-year-old Australian, miscalculating by less than a foot, slammed a leg against the railing, severing it, and plunged to his death.

At another Go Fast Games, a woman blew her landing and snapped her back on railroad tracks; in 2007, a jumper ended up hanging from a canyon wall, the result of an entangled chute.

Going for it

The woman was undecided: Jump or retreat. Staring spellbound at the rocks below, she seemed oblivious to the bizarre scene surrounding her — a man leaping from a tramway car; tourists screaming as the “Scariest Skycoaster in the World” flung them over the gorge, then pulled them back; men with helmet-cams hurrying to their next jump.

Her focus paid off.

“One ... two ... three,” she said, and off she went on a major bungee cord plunge.

Hanging on

On the other side of the gorge, a man tried his hand at highlining, a terrifying sport in which a taut “rope” is strung across a gap 20 to several thousand feet off the ground.

Most highliners wear a climbing harness with a leash attached to the line, but unleashed walks aren’t unprecedented. Though this young man was roped in, he inched along the wire like a crab, chest above the wire, instead of trying to walk. That didn’t work, so he dropped into a hanging position, arms fully extended. That didn’t cut it, either, so he worked his way back to the starting point and called it a day.

Rocket man

A man with a mohawk haircut talked about his craft.

“It’s not about the buzz, it’s about the performance,” said Eric Scott, a Denver resident who made his first flight with a rocket-powered backpack in 1995.

A spectator was turned back when he strolled onto the bridge with a can or two of beer. Then, Jet Pack Man was set to go.

Now, with a deafening roar, he soared above the bridge, hung a left and zipped to a landing area on a boulder.

“The best part for me is when I touch down,” he said.

Nearly two months later, Scott flew across the 1,500-foot Royal Gorge in his jet pack, a record-breaking day instead of a Scott-breaking day.

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