5/8/2008
What I Learned From Falling Down A Mountain
This post is part of Robert Hruzek’s latest What I Learned From … group project. This month’s topic is Mashing It Up, and I decided to take it literally.
The Preliminaries
When I was in high school, our family lived in Colorado. So let’s begin by talking a little about school, relatives, and recreation. When it came to learning, my best lessons took place outside the classroom. School felt like being trapped in a box with no air. I’m lucky my parents valued family and recreation as much as they did. They’d pile me, my brother, my sister, and our faithful and gentle pet Doberman, Shadow, into our Jeep Wagoneer and tote us all over creation hiking, skiing, exploring for artifacts, or just driving through the Rocky Mountains. At the time, I’m not sure we kids knew how much fun we were having, or how much we were learning.
The Story
One day we were packed in the Jeep driving up a mountain pass; I can’t remember where, but we were high, well above the tree line. As we came through a hairpin, we saw a steep jeep trail off to the right heading straight up the side of the mountain, finally turning sharply to the left maybe 500 feet up. Man, I was excited. Getting off the main roads and driving the jeep trails through the rugged terrain was the kind of adventure we all loved. (As I understand it, many of the jeep trails in Colorado have been closed off because of accidents. Makes sense when I think about all the close calls we had. But then, as you will see, I had enough problems just walking.)
We parked at the base of the trail. I couldn’t wait to drive up there! My parents weren’t quite as enthusiastic. They suggested I take a walk up and see where the trail went after it turned. Here were my parents being parentally prudent. The trail was steep and very narrow, barely wide enough for the Jeep, with a sheer drop of (what seemed like) 1000 feet all along the right side. If the trail became too rugged or disappeared altogether, it would be no easy matter to turn the Jeep around and get back down.
I didn’t walk up — I ran. Tough climb. When I finally reached the turn, I was thrilled — a piece of cake. The trail widened and leveled out, but the views would be incredible. I yelled down to my family with the good news, but they couldn’t hear me. They looked like dots. So I started down, still full of excitement. My quick walk became a jog.
That’s when I learned my lesson about mountains.
When you’re jogging down a steep mountain trail, you learn that gravity is more than a theory. In short order, my jog became a run. I started feeling a little out of control, so I decided to slow down. I couldn’t. My pace got faster and faster. My head was bouncing up and down and everything looked blurry, like an out of focus chase sequence from an action film. Even so, I could see my family at the base, still far off, looking up anxiously.
Now I was scared. My legs were pumping as fast as they could, paying no attention to my brain, which was telling them to STOP! I was hurtling toward the precipice like a rocket. What was I going to do? If I couldn’t stop, I would run right past my family and off the side of the mountain. That was a sheer drop of several hundred feet, maybe more. Space and time had become precious commodities. I was running out of both, and quickly.
Even though I was scared out of my wits, I gathered them at the last second. I tripped myself, bounced across a bunch of rocks, flipped, somersaulted, and slammed shoulder-first into the side of the Jeep. I thought I had broken every bone in my body. Luckily, I was quite muscular at the time, so I escaped without even one broken bone, although I was black and blue and sore everywhere for weeks. Had the accident happened today, I’d be dead without question.
The Musing
I don’t know which was worse — the pain, the embarrassment of doing something so stupid, or not getting to drive up the trail. Today, I think the worst of it was subjecting my parents to the horror. (My poor mother watched me slip off a diving tower years earlier and come inches from hitting the concrete instead of the water.)
As we all know, the younger we are, the faster we learn. Or do we? In this case, experience was a slow teacher. I continued to look for the most challenging Jeep trails I could and do other things I shouldn’t have done. High school kids consider themselves indestructible. You would think after this episode, I would have become older and wiser. But no. The rest of my high school career more closely resembled The Dumb and the Reckless as opposed to The Young and the Restless.
So although falling down a mountain didn’t necessarily teach me to use better judgment at the time, over the years I’ve recalled the incident on occasions where it most definitely helped me make better decisions. Time and space are funny things. Not having enough of them, like when you’re falling down a mountain, can be frightening. But having space and time to digest such a lesson can be enlightening. Have you ever had a delayed-reaction learning experience? One that took months or years?
17 Responses to What I Learned From Falling Down A Mountain
Great story Brad! I loved it.
My ex-husband once went glassading (right word?) when he was running out of time and light to get down a mountain in Scotland. He and his friend decided to climb into their survival bags and slide down the mountain. As you might imagine they picked up a lot of speed then realised they couldn’t stop. My ex watched in horror as his friend went ahead of him and flew over a ledge into space…
Fortunately he landed in a shallow river, with nothing worse than shakes and bruises. But they could both easily have been killed. The recklessness of youth… except they were both in their mid-40s at the time…
I think maybe it’s a male thing.
Joanna
PS Keep up the story telling, I love it!
“Have you ever had a delayed-reaction learning experience? One that took months or years?”
Yes, Brad; I have. All of ‘em! (I’m a slow learner!)
Great effort, Brad; I found 8 topics!
I think we can all look back on our youth and shudder at the number of near-misses and outright lucky breaks we’ve survived! Stories like this make “running with scissors” or “go swimming within 1 hour of eating a meal” seem pretty tame.
Joanna, IS it a male thing? Or a human thing?
Hi Joanna, yours is another real heart-thumping story. Makes you realize how fragile life is, truly. Thanks for the encouragement — I will follow your advice. (I think the word is “glissading”. Close enough for me!) Bob, slow learning may be a male thing, but reckless behavior is an equal opportunity employer.
awesome story — I can really see it in my mind
my daughter had this experience in france, she added additional drama and shared that it was raining buckets, her denim skirt soaked from the rain kept getting larger and larger – mom it could have wrapped around my ankles it got so big – that the temperature dropped 6 million degrees, and at the end of it all she and her friends slathered mud all over their faces because they were warriors – they had survived the steep steps of the french alps ( or where ever we were she said laughingly ) Brad I have to tell you that when she described the story over the phone my heart about skipped a beat or two, I was not prepared to scrape my daughter off of some french hillside -I was completely horrified.
Karen, wow, I can relate. A friend I know from church described children as a piece of your heart walking around in another body. Stories like yours (I have one or two; most parents do I’m sure) are not fun even to think about, so thanks for sharing.
Brad, your tell this story with so much realism it seems like I am there trying to figure out what I would do in similar circumstances. I’ve always had a fear of downhill skiing for the same reason – that I would plummet down the slope so quickly that I’d run out of control.
I’m wondering in a situation like this if there is any kind of opportunity to go sideways like skiers do when going down a slope? That would help cut speed. I’m just wondering if now, you see another way of addressing the same problem.
Robyn, in my case, changing direction was not an option — too much momentum (or whatever the term is). I was no longer in control of my body. Your comment makes me laugh, only because I was a horrid skier and have a few funny stories about falls. Take my word for it, changing direction is possible on skis, but does not always lead you to safety!
Brad, I did some cross-country skiing and even with that landed on my “can” when going down even slight hills.
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I know I shouldn’t have but I laughed out loud ( maybe hysteria). Your story was so real but told with the benefit of hindsight and I know you are OK…so that’s OK isn’t it?
I have a fear of going down hills – worse now after reading your story. A few years ago as part of a leadership development course I had to climb a hill with fellow participants. I was chuffed that I made it and then it hit me – I now had to get down. I froze and started to panic. A couple of colleagues took one arm each and yomped me down the hill at a pretty quick pace. I had no alternative but to trust them ( a helicopter rescue would have been the alternative – oh think of the embarrassment). Those colleagues are both now very good friends!
Hi Jackie, by all means, laugh. I do whenever I think about it. You learned the same lesson I did – what goes up must come down (unfortunately!).
great story—I almost hurt—just running along w/you
the mark of a good story for me is having it carry me with it, and I was almost w/you every step.
Thanks for sharing
Brad, I heartily agree with the others here: You are a great storyteller! I’ve had my share of bumps and bruises which came from being too ambitious on various Hawaii hikes, but I can’t recall that I ever felt as out of control as you describe… just close enough to make your story a bit too real for comfort!
As for the parental apprehension, most of my anxiety attacks came from my son’s football games since he was the running back everyone was usually gunning for. It was always so hard to sit on the sidelines and silently pray “get up, please get up…” when he’d get hit and end up under a pile-up. Felt better after he sheepishly admitted one day that he’d lie there an extra 10 seconds or so (forever to a parent!) just to relax a bit longer before trotting down field for the next play.
Hi Mike, thanks for the nice words and for visiting Word Sell! Rosa, I put my mom through lots of that kind of misery; I have girls, so those episodes were few and far between (fortunately). You’re a good mom to go through all that!
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