I kicked my backside into gear yesterday and forced myself to get out there and get up a hill, it was still damn hot but I thought I would have a nice steady day on a straightforward mountain. I picked out a moderate 8000 footer, sent a text to Sarah telling her where I would be and set off.
It was a wonderful hike getting some beautiful photos as I ascended until I was about 100metres from the summit where I saw a herd of mountain goats and stopped to take a photo, they looked stunning walking the very edge of the ridge with blue skies behind them and I was glad of the break on the steep final section.
As I looked through the lens and composed the shot the entire ground upon which I was standing gave way in spectacular fashion. A huge chunk of rocky ground about 4 metres x 4 metres began sliding down the mountain with me in the middle of it, in less than a second it broke up into pieces and threw me backwards down the slope.
I was then in real trouble, my feet flew back over my head and I was suddenly doing backward somersaults with rocks bouncing all around and off my skin, even in the midst of the fall I was aware of the hits. Scrabbling for any kind of fall arrest just tore at the skin on my hands, finally after what seemed like minutes (but was only a second or two) I scrambled round so I was at facing uphill and sliding down on my front on an moving blanket of rocks. I took hold of the bottom section of my 1 remaining walking pole with both hands and dug it into the mountain in a standard fall arrest movement (as you would with an ice axe in winter) The tungsten tip dug in momentarily before kicking out, the carbon pole flexing and bucking under the stress, I pushed down hard with every ounce of effort I had and slowly jerked and bucked to a stop.
I was disorientated, trying to take stock of injuries and situation, I was still holding all of my weight in both hands as I involuntarily vomited then hung there as the fluids ran down the slope straight onto me...nice. I began to tremble quite badly, I'm not sure if that was the puking, adrenalin, shock or what but it was an incredibly unpleasant experience.
Then as I lay there, trembling, hurting from just about everywhere, bleeding from various locations and still in trouble a tiny mosquito landed on my bare arm and dug right in, with both hands holding the pole I could do nothing but watch, I suddenly said out loud "you lousy, opportunistic little bastard"....then I laughed, I laughed a lot, relieved perhaps that I hadn't fallen further where I can now see, a few metres below me, a dry waterfall with a 15 foot drop.
The laughing made me realise I was ok...ish. I slowly scrambled sidewards/downwards swearing very, very much with every movement. I found a less threatening area and sat taking stock, all of my joints seemed to be working ok but I was banged up, particularly my right hip and left knee. Strangely my daft hat and sunglasses were still on my head, my camera and the attached 'virtually new' £2k lens were gone, my bear spray and flares were gone too. I found I still had my GPS, phone, wallet and car keys so I tagged the GPS then turned it off so I could measure the fall later...I later discovered that I had tumbled for 114.7metres (370 feet) no wonder it seemed like a long time. The bad news was I had hiked 7.2km and though my fall would shorten the return a little I still had a hell of a hike out in my condition. The image below is a screen grab from the GPS unit showing the route to the fall.
I had no option but to follow the dry melt-water channel as ascending anything was out of the question, I pulled myself together and began the slow progress down the channel toward my inward route. I found the lens cap from my camera hundreds of feet later, then trapped in the rocks the camera itself, sans lens.
I was strangely pleased to find the camera body and sat a while examining it, hoping that I might rescue the photos I'd got so far, unfortunately the door to the CF Card slot was broken off and the card was gone. I glanced around the area hoping to see it but was in no shape to go looking so it stayed somewhere on the mountain. I couldn't even save the battery as it too was scattered.
I was surprised to see the screen was still in one piece, and put the camera back into my camera bag and continued on down the slope.
Another few hundred feet and I found my lens, bent in the middle so it would no longer extend, the front two pieces of glass gone and the next one shattered and the rear connection torn off.....it was a sad sight but as I was hurting like hell I didn't care too much. I felt a bit better when I found my other pole, then the bear spray and my flare box, I felt like I'd gained something every 50 feet or so.
the long journey back to the car was the most miserable hike I have ever made, really hurting like hell and feeling sick and dizzy it took me 3.5 hours to cover a downhill distance I would normally make in less than half that time.
When I finally got home Sarah gave me a hard time about walking alone in the mountains before running me a bath and looking after me. Today I woke up at 04:00 after repeatedly waking up during the night from rolling on my injuries, nothing is too bad though, I got lucky....very, very lucky so once I get rid of these (and the others I'm not showing on a family site) I'll be right back out there.
I would be interested to know if anyone else has ever had a huge stable lump like that just give way underneath them, I put it down to the post winter freeze/melt (just ended around here at this height) loosening it and my weight was enough to finish it off. I'm not sure how I could have avoided this as it was the 'safest' piece of rock on the ridge.....for a few moments at least
