Quote:
Originally Posted by RM
Just a note before you relocate.....when you mentioned that the clues were from some of Lightfoot's most well-known songs, I thought it would be a piece of cake. But I found it surprisingly challenging. I guess it was the comma......
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Yes, I was worried about that I noted in the beginning - I believe I said with the 'NEW LIST OF 10 SPECIAL ADDITION' that this was experimental, - and I figured it would either be the easist thus far - 2 errors of mine notwithstanding, or the hardest - esopecially when I mis-spel heart as heat.... all things considered - this was actually among the faster sets we've had. The fastest have been like pyrhanna at feeding time - 3-4 hours flat. This was one in large part was about- at most - 2 partial days the way I read 'em. I appreciate the thoughtful input Ron. I hope you have no flats in the near future, (AND jj NO OFF RAMP ELECTRIC ALL OUT W/O FLASHERS, NO BERM - HE MUST HAVE BEEN BALANCED PRECARIOUSLY ON THE CONCRETE DELIMETER, WAITING TO JUMP ON DEMAND ..LOL.. )
I sympathize with both of you. Did you see the 'split-rim' story above ?
That'd be my funniest car-related story of mine.
Funniest story of mine in general,
in the midst of otherwise dire straits -
as jj said when he was on the exit ramp no lights at dusk, this is on the
slim light-side of the Mountaineering accident.
No therapeutic release in this post for me, just an actual funny moment in the middle of the maelstrom.
There I was , as I have told some allready the whole survival story, but not just this funnier moments in this scene, ....so there I was,
hanging upside down, impaled on the Krummholts Tree's iron-like branch spiking upwards. The spike was strong enough to hold MY WEIGHT AND PACK - lignum vitae-like wood. I was a sight on what locals call the 'Methusela Trees' - completely denuded by wind (the tree lol ) and arctic weather at that elevation. At timberline, having just fallen though a perennial snowfield, through a relatively rare,
deceptive on top of - combination of bowl-cirque & 'frozen cresting wave' snow overhang; not a true glacier that moves, carrying rocks. Those are typically on 30 -60 degree slopes,(except at melting toe of the snow, can be near horizontal).
But this was a beyond-vertical overhang that looked (only beneath aaargh) like a wave cresting just over, and frozen in position, beautiful actually and blue most commonly - but this was a disintegrating snow construct - just my luck..lol . Actually, it was deceptive powder on top- near flat, with no indication of the absent structure underneath the curling-over mixed degenerating layers of snow and candle ice. On my VERY unlikely little trip all the way through the snow when my crampon caught on one 'shoe and I 'stubbed' and fell through the unanticipated snow characteristics, with far too much powder to hold that temporal shape, were it not for the mix with that felt like powder,corn snow (skiers worst 'road rash is from this), powder again, and interspersed with almost candle ice, and more powder, with a thin frozen 'glasse' underbelly of that beast is what it fet like as I plunged as dead-weight upside down through the layers. The candle ice layer(s) I felt as I fell through - loosing my highly refractive prism'ed powerful prescription 'glacier glasses'.
Thankfully I had a backup pair of clear prescription glasses in my pack, and a pair of vented ski-goggles - no help upside-down, hanging (I had to laugh at myself, and more in a moment, as my crowd of Verizon network people stood by like the commercial on cell phone infrastructure. Funny thing was - it really worked out in the middle of, or on top of - nowhere ! Anyway, the candle ice was more indigenous to weakening ice on a river, and the whole nature of the plunge all the way through the snow field crest was a very rare occurence of layered snow characteristics, deep into disintegration.
So... there I was, looking and feeling like and idiot, oblivious to the rather acute situation on what was holding me upside-down, from shock. I was hanging upside down stuck ON/BY the tree as it were, bemoaning AND laughing at my circumstances, feeling no pain from shock (yet), and it occurred to me, as hung there, with (I hesitate to express it this way, forgive me, but its part and parcel of the story) with blood running ankle to head upside-down, and I felt an odd warmth before I realized it was blood. It oddly did not concern me, but I pragmatically calculated the time of the team to get to me, versus getting out on my own. More of that to come, with what would make a GREAT cell-phone commercial !
IN no panic whatsoever, as one of shock's characteristics can go, versus screaming in fear and pain -( I was 5 miles out through rough alpine terrain and c 6 ft. of snow on the mild slopes. In an abnormal calm, I thought to myself..."I wonder...since they put up a cell-tower in Estes Park (roughly 6 miles away from the tower by line of site through a saddle in Storm Pass,) I wondered if I could call out on my cell-phone, at least get a tone ? I also had a licensed VHF radio too, used primarily in my work ...out there...danged if it had only been workmans comp on a work day ! lol, but I did not even think of it in altered state) So I get my Motorola (I swear by them - they raised the bar in the industry some years back with 6-sigma plus reliability and DOA after purchase) get my Motorola out, and think to myself "not a chance"....rang my folks number on the edge of RM NAt'l Park - my trailhead I registered over across the valley from the Park Service Long's Peak Station - the registration mandatory for anything considered a climb, or in 4th class terrain or higher..er...I was) My folks' house - my 'trailhead' thankfully was at 10k ft. !
Damned if I didn't get a tone on the Motorola ! I laughed to myself (as jj said for life's little or big slaps in the face).....rang their number....no response - no doubt both were indisposed, or since they were on a party line at the time, their unique ring would often evade them audibly lol.... so I hung up. And instead of ringing another number to tell the Park Service of my circumstances and plan - they would have correctly argued with me - likely to no avail in my shock state... - normally - I'd of none better to stay put and wait - especially wth contact made - and my ability to calc coordinates from the topo - from my line of work. 15 years earlier I'd been on the park's search and rescue team. All that experience was for naught in shock - with, in my ...state...utter obliviousness.
I ignored that, 'cause I estimated their 'turn-out time plus time to where I was, and I hate the helicopter bit - ...because I was
too embarrassed duhhhh stupid stupid, so casually I blew that idea off, knowing it would take a team 4 hours to assemble and get suited up. Chopper back to base was not a given at any time, as was commony the case, and up to me, and find me....and I thought how stupid I'd look, hanging upside down in a denuded wind-shaven gnarly-old methusala tree...branches like iron spikes... and I casually though (shock) knew, I'll bleed to death before they got to me.... I knew I'd twist all the my leg inside out by pushing on a hand-stand upside down with my treking poles and snow baskets, took me several minutes to gain purchase on something.....
And then did what at 229 pounds - 35 overweight, plus a 38 or so pound day and a half pack,I'd never be able to do other wise - I did an adrenaline and shock-fueled handstand on my trekking poles, and pushed my self off of the impalement (noting with mild shock curiosity that my leg looked inside out....thats odd, I thought,) then whipped a tourniquet (femoral artery tourniquets in the leg are...very uhm....noisy to put on..and crank...) had it on, and righted myself in the deep power, hard actually on crampon'd snowshoes, and walked out on a course I should not have been able to plot, on my USGS topo, calc'd the declined magnetic bearing by inversing polar-to-rectangular coordinates, then vice versa with correction for some extranneous factors, and walked on out.
Passed out three times on the way, got home, still in shock, and hollered up stairs to mom and dad "Hi guys, I'm home, gonna shower OK ?" (ok) - and in the dumbest shock -induced moment of the whole thing, tightened down the tourniquet, and took a shower, cause I wanted to be clean and presentable when I bled on the E/R room floor down to town.... thats it. WHAT AN IDIOT ! IDIOTE ! Thats my dumbest funny-to-me (at the time) case of what life can slap you in the face with, as jj put it ! duuuuuuuoyyyyy. The rest is to graphic... but thats the funny part... .
Well Ron, the better part (or worse) of my response had little to do with your response, but jj's laughing at what life can slap you in the face with is what made pop out.... I appreciate the humour in that......
Yea Ron so my next set will be a safe N 40 old-regular set, until I get my axles greased and light a shuck for anothet set of 'Special Addition' clues !
Onward McDuff !