Skydive Tahoe is region's only drop zone

For the residents of Johnson Lane: If you have happened to notice numerous individuals parachuting out of the sky in recent weeks, you aren't seeing things.

Skydive Tahoe, Northern Nevada's first and only full-service drop zone, has been in operation at the Minden-Tahoe Airport since June.

"It's really been well-received so far," said Aja Niemann, who owns the business with Wes Harberts. "We get a mix of people, some who have always wanted to sky dive and they are here on vacation for their birthday or something and some who really want to get into skydiving as a hobby and of course some experienced certified sky divers."

Niemann and Harberts worked with Skydive Lake Tahoe, which was ironically based in Placerville, Calif., after going through extensive training in Davis, Calif., to receive their United States Parachute Association rated tandem instructors license.

The duo attempted to set up Skydive Tahoe at the Lake for about three years, but ran into difficulty clearing the numerous permitting processes there. They in turn shifted their focus to Carson Valley.

"Basically, the Reno-Tahoe area is known as America's Adventure Place, and we felt that skydiving would fit in very well here," Niemann said. "After it didn't work out at the Lake, we began trying to start up in Minden about a year ago.

"It's turned out to be such a great place for us. The people here are so friendly and so helpful. The Minden-Tahoe Airport has been a great host for us."

Getting started has been a little on the tricky side.

"A lot of it for us has simply been word of mouth," Niemann said. "We didn't really want to start publicizing what we were doing until we were sure that we had enough instructors lined up to handle a bigger clientel."

Now, with six instructors working out of Skydive Tahoe, Niemann said they feel ready to press on.

"Obviously, we target tourists a lot," she said. "We have a Web site, and people coming to the area on trips can find us that way. But we also really want to reach out to the community here and let them know what we have going on in their back yard.

"Our pilots and instructors bring so much experience to the table. We're talking 10,000 jumps, 7,000 jumps."

Among the largest highlights that Skydive Tahoe brings to the table is its custom-built Pac 750XL plane.

"This model is the first ever built specifically for skydiving," Niemann said. "The manufacturer is based in New Zealand and they've only made a handful of these planes."

Skydive Tahoe offers a number of training packages for aspiring skydivers to earn their certification.

"We send them out on tandem jumps, where they are attached to an instructor the whole way, and we have ground school that lasts several hours at a time," Niemann said. "It really depends on the person. Some people can bust out their certification in three or four days. The super-focused athletes can get through it pretty quickly.

But it does take a lot of hard work, focus and concentration."

Beginners can come for one-time tandem jumps, or certified divers can go on solo jumps. Skydive Tahoe even offers coordinated photography and videography from additional divers who jump along with the client.

Niemann said she hopes eventually Minden will become a hub for the sport.

"We want this to become a center for state and regional competitions," Niemann said. "We'd like to host skydiving festivals and really do some cool things down here. Ideally we want this to be a destination site."

The official drop zone is located on the northwest quadrant of the airport.

Skydive Tahoe is primarily open on Saturdays and Sundays but will schedule on other days by appointment. Their hangar is located just past Soar Minden at the Airport.

For more information, visit skydivetahoe.com or call 783-8708.