Joby Ogwyn isn’t exactly intimidated by Mount Everest: in 1999, at age 24, he was the youngest person to climb to the summit — and he’s climbed the world’s tallest peak twice since.
So how do you up the adrenaline factor when you’ve already climbed to the top of the world?
You jump off of it.
Ogwyn is aiming to be the first person to throw himself off the mountain in a wing suit — a sort of strap-on parachute — and while he’s soaring at 150 miles per hour back down to base camp you’ll be able to watch it live on TV.
It’s the first jump of its kind.
Ogywn will strap on a specially made suit that will allow him to glide — weather permitting — for about 10 minutes 10,000 feet down and (hopefully) land safely more than 5 miles away.
The event will air live in a two-hour special on the Discovery Channel in May (the exact date will be announced closer to the feat), with the live jump captured courtesy of a camera strapped to Ogwyn’s wing suit. Camera operators will also be stationed at the Everest summit, base camp and along the mountain.
“You feel like Superman,” Ogwyn, 39, tells The Post, describing the wing suit experience. “And you get to go up and do it again and again.”
The custom-made suit is smaller than a typical wing suit, tailored to the exact needs of Ogwyn’s jump. It’s got less surface area so he can move faster, and it lets his arms and legs move freely so he can operate different parts of his equipment.
“What I need is a smaller, sleeker suit that’s more like a rocket,” he says.
Ogwyn and his team are meticulously planning the jump to take into account factors like weather and wind. Still, much of his fate will be in his own hands. He’s had lots of practice in the wing suit, including jumping out of an airplane, flying around the four faces of the Matterhorn and flying near Mount Everest.
“For me, it’s just a matter of being able to share it with the world,” he says.
The experience of soaring like a bird is so intense, Ogwyn can only do it so many times in a row so his brain can cope with all the sensory overload.
“You’re seeing something you shouldn’t be able to see,” he says. “It’s really hard to process. It takes a day or two.”
Ogwyn, a Louisiana native who now lives in Southern California, has been climbing mountains since he was 15, when he scaled a volcano in Guatemala. After that, he started checking off the highest peaks in the seven continents (known as the Seven Summits).
He’s done other televised adventuring, including a stint working with National Geographic for its “Adventure Wanted” series, which saw him racing stock cars, riding a bull and learning how to BASE jump. That’s where he got the idea for the Everest jump.
But even though he’s done Everest a few times, he doesn’t take its majesty for granted. “It’s a really powerful place,” he says of the summit. “It’s a very tiny, tiny little place that you work long and hard a long time to get [to].
“It’s the most amazing piece of real estate in the world.”