jianantonic | (no subject)

It took some time to get this together. This is the story of what happened last weekend. With pictures.

Kevin decided to take charge right away. It wasn't long before things started to get ugly.

Turns out, Kevin doesn't know how to use his GPS. He led us off course from the start.

We got scared when it started raining strange objects. Ben wanted to turn back when this dirty diaper fell out of the sky. It would have hit him in the face were it not for that friendly tree branch.

"I think it's this way!" Kevin said. He wouldn't listen when I told him that I have never, in the zillions of times I've hiked Crabtree Falls, had to climb up the jagged side of a cliff...

...or jump across gorges. But we had no choice but to follow him. He had the food.

When Kevin slipped and almost fell to a watery death, we had half a mind to let him fall. But we had another change of heart when we remembered he still had our food. After saving his ass, we decided to put the food under Ben's control, in case there was a "next time."

Having climbed a cliff and crossed a gorge, we found ourselves with a new predicament - another cliff. We made one of those human chains with Kevin anchored at the top of the cliff, and we each shimmied down, until Danny, Ben, and I were safe at the bottom. We were all too tied up at this point to get any pictures. Now, to get Kevin down. He had no way to shimmy.

"Try to jump!" Danny called up. "It's only 30 feet or so." Kevin nearly shat himself at the idea.

"I'll catch you!" Ben assured him. There was nothing left to do but jump.

"Okay," Kevin called down, "I'm coming..."

I tried to talk them out of it. My nerves were a wreck!

He was going to do it. There was no stopping him.

Kevin was able to snap this shot as he plummeted groundward. My heart skipped several beats.

Shit.

That's not right. Do it again. Kevin climbed back up to do the catch again.

Close, but not good enough. One more time, boys. Back up the cliff...

Finally! That's more like it. We can't have a few broken bones ruining my photo album. You know what they say, if at first you don't succeed...

After all the trouble we had, we were finally able to get Kevin to turn over the GPS to Danny, who guided us safely to our destination, and, more importantly, our lunch. We were able to salvage the day, and we all forgave Kevin for leading us into dangerous territory and near certain death. He and Ben are recovering nicely from their injuries sustained in the jumping sequence. They should be back to work in no time - two, three months, tops.