Contest Drawing : Cliff Hanger II

[Bobby D]

i am not entering the contest, but this is a GREAT THREAD, love the pics, and stories, keep it up guys!

[fatback]

My greatest outdoor ordeal goes back to a summer camp experience I had in Maine. This wasn't your run of the mill camp, oh no, this was Putnum Blodgett's Wilderness Survival Camp, where young ruffians and over eager scout types co-existed for 5 weeks of serious outdoor toil and adventure. Think Lord of the Flies meets Meatballs and you begin to get the idea. We got up at six every morning for P.T. before chopping wood in our "kitchen groups" and cooking our breakfast over a camp-stove and then went on with the day's activities which included anything from climbing ropes courses to orienteering to forestry and axe building?!

A highlight of the camp session was to be an eight day canoe trip though parts of Maine's connected waterways of lakes and rivers. There were three of us per aluminum Grumman canoe with all of our provisions between us. With my long arms, I was up at the bow pulling us along while a junior councelor was at the back with a little dude in the middle. Except for some bickering between the other two in the boat the first half of the trip was pretty mellow. It was on the second half of the trip that we hit some serious rapids and things got interesting for me.

It had been raining for a couple of days before we got to Staircase Falls so the river was swollen and was moving pretty good. The earlier squabbling between the two behind me had deteriorated into a cold silence. Going down a decent set of rapids with three folks in a heavy canoe is not the best time for communication to break down.

The rapids is named Staircase falls because of the steady progression of short drops offs from shelves of rocks. When the river was at normal levels the falls were gentle and obvious to navigate, but with the river swollen it was demanding a lot more attention from the paddlers. I learned an interesting fact that day: aluminum canoes may seems pretty strong, but it only takes a few seconds for one to get horseshoe'd around a rock when you get in the wrong position.

It only took us about 30 seconds to find that wrong position. The two in the back had started arguing again just as we hit the first chute. Straight away we had to decide left or right as a big boulder was looming. Dude in the back who was supposed to be steering called out "left" then changed his mind and yelped "RIGHT!", but it was already too late.

We smacked the boulder with a sickening metallic crunch and I immediately found myself in the water on my side with one leg still in the canoe. I could see and feel the canoe warping around the rock as I struggled to get my leg out. The last thing I saw before I freed myself was the dude from the middle climbing up onto the rock.

Now the real fun begins. Free from the mangled canoe I try to angle my way over to the river bank, all the while being swept down by the current and trying to avoid rocks. We were taught to keep out feet first so we could kick or bounce off obstacles and this was working pretty well for me until I got near the shore. The water was still moving pretty fast, but now there were some half submerged trees that had fallen into the water off the banks to contend with.

I see a large trunk coming up ahead of me and ready my legs for the impact. As my feet make contact my legs immediately begin to feel the full force of the water rushing around me. I push off as hard as I can and next thing I know I'm fully submerged upside-down with my feet still up on the tree and the current keeping me pinned down.












(time stops for a while here...)












After struggling for what seemed an eternity, I was finally able to relax my legs and let the current sweep me under and trough. Then next thing I know I'm popping up on the other side of the trunk and manage to get to the shore where I'm greeted by a half dozen relieved and amazed faces. I remember looking back up the river and seeing the dude that was in the middle of my canoe still sitting on the rock in the middle of the river with the boat totally horseshoe'd around it and laughing his ass off.







There were other misadventures that summer:

- We were backpacking the Presidential Range and had to bivouc for a night in a boulder field on the side of Mt. Washington during a hail and lightening storm. Fun!

-On a solo survival/overnight in the woods I woke up in the middle of the night with my lean-to shelter on fire over my head. It seems I had built up the fire a bit too much before I nodded off.

-Then there was the Orienteering hike/challenge where in pairs we had to get to a meeting point four miles away with just a simple hand drawn map and a compass. The penalty for being late to the meeting spot was that you miss dinner and have to find your way back to camp or generally fend for yourself until they start looking for you the next day. (Yes this was a real camp ) I managed to miss the checkpoint by about 1/4 mile and then walked another four before I realized I was screwed. I had to knock on random farmhouse doors until I could find someone to give us a lift back. We missed dinner, but made the bus ride back to camp. These were all memorable moments I had that summer, but none quite compare to the canoe flipping/bending.




I'll never forget my summer at Putnam Blodgett's

[1bottlerocket]

I was in the jungles of Costa Rica when an earthquake hit and there was a great deal of shaking. Rocks tumbled, trees shook and broke, there were landslides, and the banks of the falls collapsed. The earth rushed down the river and took out the bridge, which we had just crossed.

We then had to hack our way out of the jungle with the help of a guide. While the quake and its aftershocks continued, we hurried to climb over landslides, fallen trees and several other impediments, then we arrived at the top of the mountain, where a resort is located and we had to make an impromptu camp in the parking lot because the buildings at the resort were not structurally safe following the quake and aftershocks.

At the resort, there were more than 400 trapped tourists and locals. We all helped make tents from tarps, gathered rocks for fire pits and wood for fires, and made scrambled and hard boiled eggs for everyone. We also helped clear an area for helicopter landings but we were in good spirits all night, even though no one slept because of the tremors, the cold and the rain.

Two students had to be airlifted out of the resort area, one for asthma attacks and one for hypothermia. Both recovered. The rest of us hiked out because the roads were impassable, one having been obliterated by water from a broken dam, and others cracked open or covered by debris from landslides. It was a five-mile uphill journey through rain-soaked fields. It was sad to see the devastation to the landscape and to the villages, and the Costa Rican National Police were our guides on the way out. Along the way, farmers helped take some on their ATVs.

We later learned that the one of the guides who helped us out of the jungle, lost an uncle and his entire home in the earthquake. We took took up a collection then offered him the money to help feed his family and survive the next few days. Initially he refused, but we insisted and forced the money into his pocket.

[Tonefishin]

I've got a real-life cliffhanger story for yah!! I'm a climber too, and I prefer Alpine climbing, and this story comes from one of my Alpine Mountaineering training courses. It's in southwest Colorado, near Durango. Here's the peak we're climbing, and as is typical we're climbing right along that ridgeline. The photos are poor at showing the true scale, but you can use the trees (~40-50') and the CC skier up ahead on the trail to get an idea. The peak is just under 13,000 ft.

SO you travel in rope teams of 3-4 people with crampons (spikes on your boot bottoms), a helmet, and an ice axe. You are trained to ALWAYS have two of three points (2 feet and your axe) anchored and only move the 3rd. This, and your ability to react quickly, are the keys to survival.

My rope team was made up of one guide who was inexperienced at high altitude, and a wonderful nurse named Jessica. The guide, who had lead us through the lower altitude ice climbing and avalanche training, was joined by a more experienced guide for the summit climb. Most of the route has very steep edges on either side, where you'd fall for thousands of feet tumbing through the ice, rock, and snow, but there is one section in particular, where you must cross a very narrow section about 20 feet long, with shear rock on your upper side, and about a 1500' cliff drop on the other (you can not see the drop over the edge, all you can see is the next level of terrain a couple thousand feet below you). The path in that narrow section is pure ice and not wide enough to put both feet together. So other than that section, most of the climb isn't too bad, just very steep on both sides.

SO we make it up to the top, and I noticed our guide was just plain giddy..bopping around with little balance...obviously light headed. After a few minutes on top, we started our way back down. Jessica was in front and I in the middle with the guide taking the rear. Here we are just starting the decent with Jessica looking back at us to take the picture.

Jessica and I knew we were pretty much on our own, and found that the guide was letting out lots of rope and staying pretty far behind us to keep in contact with the other rope team that was also behind us. When we got to that norrow, exposed section, Jessica went across, and I looked at it with some hesitation because as the day went on the ice had melted some and it looked to me to be very poor footing. I suggested we wait until we know the guide has the other end of the rope and is ready. Jessica says, that I should just cross it. So I tell her to brace herself, and I go. Well, as destiny would have it, sure enough, the ice breaks away under my feet, and there I go, right off the trail over the edge of the cliff. SO as I'm falling, I try to use my weight to force my axe deeper into the snow, as it is the only contact I still have with the earth. Luckily it does slide all the way down to the head in the snow and it does support my weight once it catches. Jessica was also pulled off, and resides next to me having clutched a rock still frozen in the path. So there we hang, freaked out, and looking at each other scared as hell. We consider my anchoring to be the most precarious, we decide that she should stay ahcnored, and I will try to climb out. We're calling for the guide too, but he can't hear us because of the rock wall and no line of sight. SO I climb out and then Jessica does, and around the corner comes our guide almost falling just as I did. The rest of the decent was no problem, and no-one bet JEssica and I had any idea what we had just gone through. What a memory.

My climbing axe now has permanently painted on it, that date and a set of lips signifying the fact that I almost kissed my axe goodbye!!! But it saved me.

SO that's that Cliffhanger. I could tell you also about the time I was climbing Mt. Rainier and the guy behind me on our rope team fell into the crevasse while crossing the ice bridge......here's a picture of that one Notice the 4 man team way ahead of us (up towards the upper right corner), and the crevasse in the glacire we will be crossing. This is where that happened, but I was not the faller, I was the self-arresting catcher to help keep the whole team from being drug into the crevasse. I should get a medal (er pedal) for that!!

Those times and climbs were truly special. Cheeers!!!

[NewarkWilder]

wow. seriously awesome thread. i can't participate either, but i did have a nasty fall while rock climbing in colorado when I was 17 and had to have emergency trauma surgery. true story. not really a cool story, but true nonetheless

[Eskimo_Joe]

Hello, good to see some new stuff happening!

I have one question and one comment:

Question -- Does the new tone knob do anything that a SBEQ can't do for the Cliff?

Comment -- I already own a Cliff and unless there's a vast difference between the original and the new, I'll happily stay out the way and increase the odds that someone new gets a chance to own the Cliff.

That said, I would like to call "first dibs" on buying one of these if someone gets one and decides to sell it at some point. (after all, I am an addict). :)

[Donner]

Well the treble would be in a slightly different freq band - but its a treble adjustment so its a finetune of the same circuit.....



OK winner will be chosen on tuesday about noon central time......

and there should be some more of these coming so if you dont win this one there will be more drawn from this thread later.........



ad yes resistance is futile EJ

[mrpicard]

Geeze, you go away for a month over the Australian summer and look what happens, competitions all over the place!!!!

Just like Eskimo_Joe, I too are a BJFE addict and already have the amazing Cliff Hanger and I would definitely like to have the Cliff Hanger II. I do indeed have a true life cliff hanger story. However, this experience is somewhat traumatic for me as it involved the death of two very close friends on a climbing exhibition we had to the Himachal Pradesh (this is in the Himalaya range in northern India, west of Nepal). This story is incredibly sad and emotional and would totally destroy the mood of this thread so I have decided not to tell it here. Also, like Eskimo_Joe, this will give some other people on the forum the chance to hear the excellent Cliff Hanger. However, as I say, if someone does want to sell their Cliff Hanger II then I would definitely love to purchase it from you as I really, really want one

[mrpicard]

Also, here is a reminder of how great the first Cliff Hanger is: http://www.bjfe.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=712&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=40

[Donner]

First Cliff Hanger II winner:


TONEFISHIN !!!!!



I guess the first one should got to someone that has actualy hung from a cliff



Great stories guys keep em coming there wil be more CH2s


and Im amazed at all the adventure climbers we have here !!!!