CrAzY things that you have seen, or that happened to you while hitting the trails

[Gearspoke]

While hiking along Cherry Lake in California, up in the Sierra Nevadas, we had to cross a slab of granite on a very steep hill. But it was unfortunately covered by moss, and little did we know there was a very tiny stream underneath the moss, like a slate of water trickling down the granite underneath the moss. So when we were crossing, my brother slipped and fell, now there was nothing to stop him, it was about 1000 ft steep hill till you start leveling out to sharp edged rocks. He reached out his hand as last attempt to survive, luckily my father ran over to grab him in time, and pulled him over to safety, well a dryer area to at least stand up on. This was probably the most terrifying moments of my life, watching my brother fall to his near death experience.

What crazy things have you seen on the trails? They don't have to be serious, they could even be funny!

[grizzled]

I don't know that this counts as a trail adventure, but back in my more youthful days I liked to get in some summer backcountry skiing. The favorite place was the chutes above Cliff Lake in the Tobacco Roots. While you know in your mind what is likely going to happen if you screw up on that stuff, it really doesn't sink in too well until you actually see it happen. In this case, the chute we were skiing had a decided dog leg in the middle with a small rock buttress on the inside. I went first and pulled up at the dog leg to wait for my buddy. Unfortunately, he blew the first turn off the cornice. He came by me about 3' off the ground on his back, missed the dog leg a flew over the buttress, landed on the snow beneath and then spun snow angels into the boulder field below. When he landed below the buttress, he hit directly on the mini burgschrund next to the rock face which really absorbed a lot of the velocity but I still thought he was dead. He wasn't but was still a big mess. There were a couple of other friends at the lake who also watched it all happen and were there within a few minutes. Fortunately, nothing appeared broken so we did a first aid patch job to stop most of the blood leakage, got him to the Jeeps (about half a mile) and then a 2.5 hour Jeep ride to the Ennis, MT hospital. Mind you this was a couple decades before cell phones and locators.

Of course the first question at the hospital was "How did you do this?" It was the second week of August and skiing wasn't a possible correct answer. The doctor spent quite a while stitching my buddy back together but other than more than a few scars and a concussion, he was one really lucky dude.

Me strapping on the boards at the top of that same run a couple years earlier.

[Gearspoke]

First that sounds like a lot of fun! Second, I'm sorry that happened to your friend!