Dan Osman

Daniel Eugene Osman (1963 to 1998) was an American extreme sport practitioner known for free solo climbing and big wall climbing. He is regarded as the inventor of rope jumping, in which a person falls hundreds of feet from a cliff and is caught by a climbing safety rope; his record was a free fall of more than 1,000 feet. He lived in Lake Tahoe, California, worked part time as a carpenter, and helped develop the Cave Rock climbing area. Films in Eric Perlman's Masters of Stone series brought his free soloing to a wide audience, and his 4 minute 25 second speed solo of Bear's Reach (5.7) at Lover's Leap, with its double dyno between two holds, became an iconic image of American climbing. He died in November 1998 in Yosemite National Park when the rope failed during a rope jump from the Leaning Tower.