I am going to kick off my new blog with the most terrifying story of my life so far. I’ve had accidents and close-calls before, but never have I been so sure of my impending death as I was on this day. Every time I tell this story it evokes powerful feelings in me. I don’t tell it often.
On Monday July 12, 2004, I started out on a four day hike in the Julian Alps of Slovenia, during which I would be staying the night at various mountain huts – large huts high up in the mountains where food, beds, and blankets are provided.
I hiked up through Krnica Valley, a long narrow forested valley with high mountain walls on both sides, until I came to the head of the valley, which ends abruptly in a towering cirque. At this point you’d think that there would be no way to get up these vertical walls without ropes, but the trail turns into a “via ferrata” (Italian for “iron way”). Basically it’s a marked path that winds its way up through the vertical cliffs via the path of least resistance. There are cables and pegs bolted into the cliffs to grab onto during the hairy sections.
So off I went, scrambling and climbing up and around cliffs and traversing on narrow ledges, all the time following the little red and white circles painted on the rocks to mark the path. I had just come off above a vertical section onto a flatter section about halfway up the mountain face when I was shocked to hear an awful low-pitched rumbling sound. For an instant I was confused, but before I could even think, I heard the terrible sound of a massive rockfall coming down towards me from above like a freight train from hell. I couldn’t see anything above, since the closest cliffs blocked the view, but I could hear that the loud rumbling was coming down towards me fast. At this point the entire mountainside was shaking badly, but I had enough sense to run uphill toward the nearest cliff so that hopefully the boulders would fly over my head. As I was running towards the cliff, about three or four paces away from it, I could see and hear the first rocks zipping past my head — luckily none hit me. I made it to the base of the cliff, which was only about ten or fifteen feet tall, and huddled in the corner as rocks cascaded over my head and bounced off nearby boulders. At this point even the cliffs I was clinging onto were shaking violently, and combined with the deafening noise of crashing rocks, I was convinced that the entire mountainside was collapsing in a major rockslide. I am sure you can imagine how helpless and terrified I felt at this point. The only things I remember thinking about were first of all how completely pulverized I would soon be and therefore how completely helpless I was, and secondly I just thought, no, I’m not done yet! I don’t want this to happen!
(more…)
