Dangling – Railay Beach, Thailand.
Dangling – Railay Beach, Thailand.
Posted By : Techhdarre
Koh Lanta.
Patrick and I were climbing something called the Bungaloo and I was about three quarters of the way up. I was straddling a rock formation but just couldn’t hold it so I let go. Out I swung away from the rock. The anchor was bolted to an overhang which was 5 meters from the rock face where I let go. The belay station was on a ledge, ten meters up from the ground. I was suspended in mid air 5 meters out from the rock and 30 meters up. Actually I wasn’t suspended, I was swinging. The rope was going back and forth over the jagged lip just under the anchor like a big string over a big serrated knife with my full body weight acting as a big hand working to cut through the rope.
The realization of what could happen next gripped me and I instantly played in my mind the next sequence of events in disturbing clarity: The rope saws itself across the jagged rock, eventually sawing right through(I’ve seen this in the movies a dozen times!); I plummet to the ground in silence, the surreal feeling of free falling as the rock face whizzes by and the ground ‘rises up to meet me’ all in that silent slow motion feeling you get when you are in the middle of something very, very bad but have little or no control over it. I could feel myself hitting the ground, landing in the shallow rocky water below landing in such a way that would surely break my back or at the very least both my legs…even the possiblity of death ran through my mind. I felt this as if it were sure to happen. A disturbing thought escaped my subconscious mind…I objectively wondered “Would I bounce when I hit the ground from here?”. A question I sometimes wondered about the poor sap who reportedly jumped from the office building beside the one where I worked in Calgary. Scary to think something like that with such detachment in such circumstances.
Koh Lanta.
All this went through my head within a matter of seconds and no more than 5 seconds passed before I yelled to Patrick “Lower me!” Needless to say I made it down without further incident, but not without a fair bit of adrenaline pumping through my body and reluctance to do anymore climbing that day !
I asked a veteran climber later that day if he ever heard of a rope breaking “Never!” he said “The only way it could possibly break is if it were cut against a jagged rock”!!
With kind permission, source by : http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/techhdarre/4/942384388/tpod.html
