What's the...

[imec]

scariest thing you've ever done? What did you willingly do that, when it got to the moment of truth, made you have very serious second thoughts? Would/did you do it again?

me? Jumped out of an airplane - was so scared I don't actually remember jumping (and, if the truth be known, the jump master told me he had to push me) but only remember my chute opening. From sheer terror to sheer bliss in a matter of seconds. Did it twice more after that.

[Deleted]

That sounds like so much fun, imec. I'd love to do something like that.

Well, I think one of the scariest things I ever did was sleep overnight (alone) in a haunted house.

[traveler63]

Learned to scuba dive which I adore now. Just live nowhere close to the ocean. Wouldn't jump out of a plane for any amount of money. Too dangerous!!!

[bixaorellana]

I used to be a typesetter and one of our contracts was Parachutist Magazine. When we finally got a second employee, I used my seniority to shove the fact-filled fatality reports off on her.

Even thought I've typed reams & reams of copy about the exhilarating thrill of jumping out of an airplane -- mother of god! and looked at picture of happily beaming people on their way down down down dowwwwwn, I know there is no way in hell I'd even contemplate doing it.

[Don Cuevas]

More than one very very tight squeeze passage while underground in a cave. Too many lovely claustrophobic incidents to decide which was the worst. (Usually one involving sticky red clay, arms extended ahead, wriggling my a55 and my toes to gain purchase and s l o w l y inch forward while tightly sandwiched betwen ceiling and equally sticky floor.)
*SCREAMS!*

The low air space passage, "salamander swimming" through on toes and hands, with head cocked to the side in order to gain airspace: those were fun, because they weren't tight.

I came to my senses about 14 years ago and quit caving. But it wasn't because it's sometimes scarey. I'd lost my lust for such craziness. I still like to read about others' exploits.

[bixaorellana]

ohgawdohgawdohgawwwwwd!

I have claustrophobic attacks pulling a tight garment over my head!

[hwinpp]

While I was still studying I joined an old student club that still followed the tradition of student fencing, a very ritualised form of the sport, one would hardly recognise it.
I don't think I could ever work up the courage to do it again, even if I was 20 years younger.

I don't think I'd ever jump out of a plane.

[Deleted]

I once thought that my time had come during an unauthorized underground quarry expedition in the suburbs of Paris. We knew this great place with gigantic cathedral ceilings which was carrved out on multiple levels, and sometimes you would find an abandoned car from the 1950's, because you could theoretically drive around in there for kilometers, it was so huge.

These visits generally began around midnight and much alcohol was involved (also other substances). You had to climb through two different locked gates that had been partially ripped open. About 30 to 50 people would generally attend, so even though there were generally a couple of 'reasonable' experts in charge, splinter groups would form and go exploring.

In one such instance, we climbed down a hole into which water was flowing. The first person was a mindless idiot who dropped into complete darkness, not knowing how far the drop was or if there was a bed of spikes down there. Everybody said "no, no, don't do it!" as well as "Even if he does, I'm not following!" He survived, however, and convinced another one or two people to go. By then, we could see their flashlights and it became a situation of group pressure. What a delightful dilemma -- stay on the upper level all by yourself without having the slightest idea where you are, or jump in the wet hole having no idea how you will ever get out, because there was no way to get back up through that hole once you had dropped into it.

So all of us finally went down in the hole.

We scrambled over gravel and through holes in rock walls. There was a succession of partially collapsed chambers, always with a little hole cut through to the next chamber. Believe me, you really wanted to have a reliable flashlight on those nights, because there was not much group solidarity and everybody was going as fast as they could. You would just see the lights in the distance and try to catch up with them.

After about ten chambers, I noticed that there was not much oxygen available. Then it took just once person to say it out loud for panic attacks to do the rest. We were all asphyxiating and we were going to die. It might take months to find our bodies.

Here is a photo from the web. Try to imagine going through places like this without the lighting.



Anyway, shortly before I was ready to pass out, somebody yelled out, "I found the exit!" It took some major acrobatics to boost the first person out through the hole in the ceiling, but finally we all got out. We still didn't know where we were, but at least we knew the basics of leaving a candle at the major intersections, so within about 10 minutes, we came across a gallery where a candle was burning.

I went to those quarries at least a half dozen times, but we did nothing "dangerous" any of the other times. Usually we stayed on the main corridors.



However, there was another quarry that I went to once, very claustrophobic and more like old abandoned mine shafts with rotten timbers and lots of collapsed areas. We had to slog through a lot of mud and shallow water and you should have seen us by the time we got out.

It is surprising that so many young adults live to become more mature adults.

[spindrift]

I wouldn't like jumping into an unlit and unknown hole in the ground knowing I couldn't get out the way I got in. I doubt I'd do that, pressure or not! And how terrible feeling that the oxygen was lessening in the air. That was a truly nightmarish experience. Do you still dream about it?

[Deleted]

I have never dreamed about it. We were laughing about it the moment we got out of the hole. Stupid, stupid, stupid. (And yet, as you can see, I have never forgotten it.)

[spindrift]

Some of you have seen this rockface before. I suppose this is quite chilling. There is a tiny path with a steel rope for people like me to hang onto. It wasn't easy in my big climbing boots. One slip and I'd fall into the abyss. This was on the Santis ridge, Appenzellerland, Switzerland.

But however bad the previous experience was, this was worse. We had spent a jolly evening in a climbers' hut on top of a mountain never thinking we'd have to face a really dangerous climb down the next day. I begged my friend to give me her mobile as she has a gammy knee that sometimes 'gives way'...
but she wouldn't. I went down first. It needed a lot of courage just to step to the right near that red mark on the rock...in Switzerland these marks signify the way. By the time I reached the bottom (you can see the bottom, straight down) I was speechless.

We couldn't turn back because we'd have to face the first 2 hour path on the edge.

Neither of us expected such dangerous paths and we were not prepared for them. We had imagined we were going for a 'stroll' in the mountains. My friend's daughter-in-law sent us up there. It turned out that she had never done the paths and had only seen them on a map.

Would I do it again......YES!

[rikita]

i am scared very easily and all the time. so i don't know what the scariest was, but last time i was really scared was monday, on a trad lead. was a very easy route, but just not THAT easy that the moves happened without thinking. in top rope or if it was bolted i'd have said it is so easy it is boring - but doing a move where there is a small chance i might not manage - and knowing the only thing i fall into are those few nuts and tricams i placed myself, none of which i am really sure of is placed well, is scary. oh well, i guess i don't actually have the nerve for climbing, at least at that moment i was thinking of giving it up - but then again, i probably won't give it up...

[happytraveller]

Spindrift, you are one crazy girl ! (Actually the two of you are crazy !)

Scariest thing I've ever done: Signed up to go sky diving.

But I chickened out of it
;D

[tillystar]

God Spindrift just looking at that terrifies me. I would LOVE to be able to do that but would be paralysed by fear and be a danger to everyone else!

We climbed up the last section of Kota Kinabalu, which is similiarly steep in darkness with steel ropes, when we had to come down the same way in the light I was nearly left up there. It was horrifying, one of the scariest thing I have ever done and not enjoyable at all. I'd do it again in the dark though!

Like imec it was jumping out of a plane for me that was THE scariest but also the most exhilerating! Sitting in the little plane I was soooooo scared. It was a freefall jump and the release of falling was amazing, so magically free! I would have done it again soon afterwards but now I don't think I'd go out my way to! I'd fall again, its just the getting out the plane door!

[rikita]

spindrift - seeing the little bit of steel rope in one picture (can't recognize it very well) - was that a hiking path that you could walk, and just hang onto the rope with your hand? or was it more a climbing path where the steel rope was meant as a belay, with a special belay set for those paths? can't really see well where the path is in the pictures, but it all looks quite steep and scary...

(i mean like this - not sure what you call it in english:




I have never done one of these, so i can't really tell...)

[spindrift]

Rikita - it was a walking path with just the steel rope to hang onto. Apart from ourselves there was only one man on the 'path' that day. Obviously he was local and worked at a mountain hut because he positively sprinted past us but then stopped, looked back warily at us, waited a little and asked if we were all right. When we said yes he ran off again. He had to be well used to it. ;D

Happy - I love the challenge!

Tilly - I want to talk to you sometime about your parachute jump. I'd like to do that

[spindrift]

I remembered this scary bridge crossing that was compulsory if you wanted to go to Gosainkund (14,000ft) a certain way past the village of Thulo Syabru. I had no idea this bridge would be part of the deal. No-one tells you anything of this sort when you start on a trek. This was one day when it poured with rain all day long. Despite our waterproofs we were all soaked to the skin. The ground was muddy and very slippery as were the gappy tree trunks acting as a bridge

The woman in front of me had rigged up a see-through umbrella and fastened it to her backpack (I wonder how she did that?). There was no time to ask. We were suddenly faced with this awful crossing with people queued up behind us and everyone anxious to reach shelter - still hours away hours up the facing mountain. Some of us (not me) sat down and wept with fear. I have no idea whether they made it over or not. I felt very sorry for them. There was nothing to hold onto and the icy cold rushing river could be plainly seen through the gaps in the tree trunks. The rushing water noise was horrendous. No rescue would have been possible or even attempted had anyone fallen. Afterwards I was told that many local had fallen down and died, probably at night and drunk.

[imec]

Wow! That would get my heart rate up!

[Deleted]

I am experiencing vertigo as we "speak". OMG. I would have been "one" of those people Spindrift. I took part in an experiential outdoor education program in Missouri while in college. One of the many things we had to do ,some of which I had no problem with except this one task of crossing over a chasm( not even a fourth as deep as the one pictured )on a well made rope "burma bridge". I became paralyzed with fear half way across and it took forever for me to cross over and this was with the supportive coaxing of my "teammates". Mon dieu. Y'all are crazy!

[spindrift]

;D

[bixaorellana]

I know what side I'd still be on.

[rikita]

just remembered the jumps you sometimes have to take up the rocks in elbsandstein... like, sometimes the only way to get to the abseil point is by jumping across to another rock...



well i never had to do a big jump so far - but on one occasion i went forward on a rock to get a good view for a photo, and had to jump over a small gap. it was easy in one direction, but when i had to return, the gap somehow seemed a lot bigger (well it had to do with the height of the rock and all, i couldn#t get as near to the edge from that side) and it took a while and some help before i dared to jump back. wasn't all that dangerous though, just a bit scary.

[Deleted]

Once, idiot that I am, I followed two other people crossing the underside of a bridge like this, by walking along the arch without any sort of safety equipment. There were places where you had to hang out over the void to get around the beams.

We did this at night so nobody could see that I was shaking like a leaf.

[spindrift]

Rikita and K....those were very scary experiences

[Deleted]

Aug 31, 2009 8:49:08 GMT spindrift said:

Rikita and K....those were very scary experiences

And this leads us to believe yours was not ,my dear?
I repeat,Y'ALL are crazy!