Slamming Into Rocks, or Nine Dangerous Ways to Recreate in Oregon
by Ancil Nance

We are talking about getting your body slammed on the rocks. It can happen in a number of ways. It is also about dealing with weather. What is it about us that we call it Mother Nature and Mother Earth? Have our mothers so mistreated us that when we look out to see a storm, we think “Whoa, Mother Nature is really having a fit!” ? My experiences lead me to say Nature and Earth are no mothers I would have. Talk about child abuse! Of course a good part of it is self-abuse in the search for adventure in recreation.

Danger lurks in any recreation that tempts gravity: climbing, kayaking, rafting, mountain biking, paragliding, surfing, bungie jumping, BASE jumping, skydiving, and motorcycling. Sometimes the danger is ignored until too late, and once in a while the danger is part of the calculations. A body was found in the pool of water below Multnomah Falls. Gravity may have sucked it down 524 feet from the top. There is a small rock just off the center of the falls at the point where water plunges over. It is just big enough to sit on and dangle your legs. The body in the pool probably brushed this rock on the way down. Years ago I sat on the rock with a friend while we thought about how dangerous it was to be there, feet in the air, hands behind us in the water, gripping a tenuous edge. What a great joke, we thought then, to throw a mannequin over the edge. The body in the pool was ignored for a while because someone reported it as just a mannequin, a prank. It didn’t take long for us to have enough and we got off the edge of the falls, inching carefully backwards, wondering what it would be like to plummet to the pool below. But I am not suicidal, and just jumping into space without hope is not recreation.

But how about jumping with some hope of recovery? BASE jumpers call that recreation. B stands for building, A for antenna, S for span (bridge) and E for earth. One goal of BASE jumpersis to do all four in one day. Newspapers have reported jumps in our area. One was from the First Interstate Tower, the antenna near Silverton, the bridge over Hoffstadt Creek near Mt. St. Helens, and off of Multnomah Falls. This last spot had a jump that resulted in the jumper slamming into the cliff only a third of the way down, and after a few more bounces he was left hanging by his parachute with broken bones and scraped skin waiting to be rescued. The wind swirls and rotors around in the monster grotto and the water plunges through space. Jumping, even with a parachute, from this bit of earth is very dangerous. I have been told that BASE jumping is not illegal but trespassing is, so the successes don’t get much publicity, only the unavoidable failures, such as the one off 500 foot Crown Point, a little further west from Multnomah Falls. A couple of years ago we were coming back from paragliding in the Columbia River Gorge when we saw many emergency lights around the base of Crown Point. It looked like a massive rescue effort. It was. That afternoon a base jumper had attempted to get his E by running off the edge of that cliff. As with the Multnomah Falls effort, rotors flung the jumper into the cliffs before he could safely parachute away from the rocks. Another failure was reported on a Seattle building when a jumper, about to be apprehended by police, lunged over the edge, fell a hundred feet, pulled the rip cord, and pounded a few windows as he lurched downward. He didn’t die. For more on the subject, go to http://earth.e-raist.com/~raistlin/basefaq.html .

Not dying keeps it from being a suicide attempt, just a dangerous form of hope and recreation. One person’s danger is often another’s recreation, even if it entails slamming into buildings and rocks. Climbing has long been viewed as dangerous, and for good reason. So many people slam rock while climbing, that it is taken for granted. If fewer than ten people die climbing in any single year it is a slow one. Multiple deaths on some expeditions are mourned, but not unexpected. Required reading for all climbers are the reports in Accidents in North American Mountaineering. We pour over the reports hoping to see that all the accidents had causes we could explain or at least attribute to climber error, some mistake we would never make. Loose rocks and avalanches, however, do not respect experience or skill and human error gets its share. The stories of climbers rappelling off into space, having neglected to clip into the rappel rope correctly, are legend. One time I was with a climbing partner on a small cliff at Smith Rocks, Oregon. After the climb we rappelled down only to find that the rope was jammed above us somehow. I thought it an easy solution to simply climb the cliff again, this time using the rope, going hand-over-hand. This worked fine until I reached the top, where the rope in my hands raised slightly, allowing the rope jammed underneath to run freely once more. For a brief second I saw the rope gain speed and whiz past me as I fell thirty feet, landing at the base of the cliff in soft dirt, not harsh rocks. Another time I was with two climbing partners on ice covered rocks near the summit of Mt. Hood’s east side. We were roped for a steep, short ice cliff, but we climbed in unison since steps were already cut and it looked easy. Then I heard someone yell “falling,” and I said to myself, “oh shit, this is it” as I reached in vain to plunge my ice ax into the rapidly retreating ice wall. I knew we were on ledges above an eight hundred foot drop to the glacier below. Nothing could save us. In that instant I knew we were all dead. Then I woke up. I heard someone calling my name. I hurt all over. There was a rope still attached to me leading upwards.

We didn't die, and, except for a few cuts and many bruises, we were OK and moveable. It seems the rocks and ice had snagged the rope that ran between the three of us, halting our flight. I crawled up to Tod and Gene and we decided to wait for daylight in a sheltered area called the Eagle’s Nest. At first light we began our descent, first along the top of Steel Cliffs, and then down the slope toward Mt. Hood Meadows. Here I got a big inspiration. Since it hurt so much to walk (it had taken us over an hour to walk a few hundred yards) I decided to glissade. The slope looked reasonable, covered with soft snow, and it was a joy to sit down. One problem was that we had only one ice ax left, but I thought that putting the spiked crampons in my hands would work to slow me down. This did work fine. I yelled back at my doubtful partners “C’mon, it’s greaaaaaaaat.” Half way through "great" I hit ice and began to accelerate. Not as fast as falling, but almost. Then I watched, as though off to the side of my body, as I began to spin doing cartwheels. My head never hit, which is good, because I was without a helmet. As I looked I thought “Oh great, here I am going to die, spinning down this stupid slope after surviving a real fall last night!” I felt ridiculous for making such a dumb decision, to glissade, rather than walk down the slope. Seconds later I realized that I was in a tight ball at the bottom of a two or three thousand foot slope. I blinked, wiggled my fingers and toes and tried to stand. Ouch. I sat down and waited for my partners. It took them 45 minutes. They were glad to see me alive. Their last view of me was of me disappearing down the slope, over a couple of crevasses, and then nothing. A short check of my condition convinced them to proceed ahead to the ski area where they notified the Ski Patrol who sent a Sno-cat up to carry me down the rest of the way. I was observed and released, with an air splint around my left leg because of a large gash. I took the splint off in order to drive home, since neither Tod nor Gene had driver’s licenses, being only fourteen years of age. We had survived some first class slamming. It was still recreation. Like I said, climbers take falling for granted.

Falling and bungie jumping go together. That’s what it’s all about. So how can it be dangerous, just dangling on a rubber band? Well, OK, it is safer than some sports, but I have a friend who jumped off a bridge and the bungie tangled around her leg and wrenched her knee to the tune of $6000 worth of surgery. It was not broken, no rock slamming, but it hurt. That was a few years ago when the sport was new. Before that, when the sport was really new, a couple set up a bungie jump in their back yard, along with a climbing wall. One on them fell from the wall and died. The other jumped the bungie. It spronged back up and she hit her head on the crane holding the bungie. She died. Crane slamming. Cranium crunching. Now it is much safer, thanks to the pioneers.

The pioneers always run the risks. Early hang gliding was so unsafe there are few pilots left from the early years. Oregon has a few pioneers in that sport. Climbers have been intrigued by flying, wondering how to use flying sports to get down from mountains. Years ago, Reed Gleason, a hang glider pilot, flew from the summit of Mt. Hood. The glider comes in a long bag and weighs more than 50 pounds, so not too many people could carry something that big to the summit. Reed couldn’t, but he talked a strong man into doing it for him...on a bet. The strong man didn’t think Reed was brave enough to fly from the summit, so he said he would carry the glider up to the top if Reed would promise to fly off. It all went as planned and Reed flew from the summit. To repeat that feat today may be impossible because the top of Mt. Hood is in the Wilderness and air craft are forbidden to land or take off in the Wilderness. Anybody with an ounce of brains knows that the Wilderness Act was talking about motorized aircraft, not self launched, kite-like wings with less mechanical advantage than a dome tent. That doesn’t stop the Forest Service from saying no to hang gliding. It is the easy way out for people who don’t understand something to just say no. Any discussion would expose their ignorance and so the conversation doesn’t get past “no.” As much fun or as dangerous as it may be, you cannot fly off Mt. Hood. Unless...

Unless you put a paraglider in a backpack and hike up in the middle of the night. A paraglider is lighter than a hang glider because it has no metal tubes. It is a series of tubes, open on one end and closed on the other, in an arc-shaped wing with lines hanging down to a harness that the pilot sits in and steers through the air to an appropriate landing area. Mountain paraglider pilots using great caution to not get caught have flown from the summit of all the Cascade peaks from Mt. Baker to Mt. Shasta. Getting caught could still be a problem, even though a paraglider is much less an “aircraft” in the sense that the framers of the Wilderness Act meant than a hang glider. It looks like a large version of some beach kite, a kite you can ride on, no more mechanical than a canoe. So that is part of the danger, being arrested by the US Forest Service guys with guns.

When two other pilots and I flew from the summit of Mt. Hood a couple of years ago we hiked up early in the morning, flew off at dawn, and landed well out of the Wilderness Area at the Nordic ski center parking lot near highway 35. Visiting pilots have flown the mountain from just below the summit. No accidents have occurred, unlike the climbing scene. So what makes this paragliding sport dangerous? It is easy to make mistakes and cause accidents. Deaths have happened at other locations. The walking wounded are increasing in numbers among the ranks of paraglider pilots. Narrow escapes abound. While flying at a coastal location I was hammered by unexpected rotors and forced to make a landing very close to the ocean’s edge. When I landed the beach was exposed. Seconds later I was up to my waist in salt water. Luckily the ocean threw my water filled wing up on the beach and I was able to draw it further to high ground. In the San Francisco area a pilot had a similar landing, and for some reason he sat down, didn’t get free of his wing and was dragged back to the water, where he drowned before rescuers could cut him loose.

Another time I was flying over the ocean beach near Cape Meares when I decided to go a little further out toward the lighthouse, then head back to the beach on the far side. My glide ratio was such that I just made it with fifteen feet to spare, this time landing on dry rocks that were above the surf line. Paragliders have about a 5:l glide ratio. I was a little less than a thousand feet in the air and had about a mile to go when I began my flight across the ocean to the far beach. Any air sport is dangerous, because gravity always wins and you have to be on its side. My worst accident happened when I made three pilot errors and gravity won. I lost. A broken leg was the result of not preflight checking the wing, not waiting for more suitable wind conditions, and not keeping my hands on the controls. I launched in a gusty period, gained altitude and reached with both hands to adjust my flight recorder, called a vario. As I did so a change of wind collapsed my glider. I reached for the controls, but unfortunately the ground broke my fall before I could regain control of my wing.

I slammed into the ground just between a large stump and huge log and bounced a couple of feet, according to a witness. My fibula snapped just above the ankle, while the rest of me adjusted to this abrupt halt with a great wheeze and a loss of air, but not consciousness. A padded flight harness and seat prevented a broken back, but I couldn’t walk without assistance. It’s been over a year now, the bone has healed, the cartilage flattened in the ankle joint is not rebuilding, but I am back in the air, flying with more attention paid to weather and preflight checks of the glider.

The common thread in all this recreation is the pull of gravity and the need to pay attention. You can’t have a short attention span, or do anything that keeps you from paying drug-free attention. Motorcycle riding is a prime example because of the speeds involved. You have to know what is going to happen well ahead of the event because there is usually no chance to change your mind. A Sunday morning ride is one of the most enjoyable recreations ever. You meet with four or five other riders at some friend’s house or a small cafe just before the morning chill has lifted. The first cup of coffee goes down slowly while everyone checks out the bikes and talks about what roads to take this time. Who has tool kits? Who has a radar detector? Then the cacophony of different solutions to the noise problem fills the air as we all start our bikes: the whine of the high rev 600s, the gentle pulsing of the BMWs, the kachunking of the English twins and the throaty rumble of the 1000cc plus sport cruisers. They all have a different note, all have a different ride, but each rider knows his bike’s sound, his bike’s handling.

This Sunday’s ride begins going out highway 30, then up twisty Germantown Road, along Skyline’s gentle curves, down to Old Cornelius Pass, out to Helvetia, over to Hillsboro, up Laural Hill, across Bald Peak, along Mountain Top, down Scholls through Newberg, following the road to Willsonville along the Willamette River, take the ferry across at Canby...but wait, where’s George? He was last, but we’ve been at the ferry crossing for five minutes now, and still no Honda 750 sounds. One by one we turn around, head back up the hill, backtrack around the bends to a curve and there he is, lying still against a barbed wire fence, cycle in a ditch. He’s not dead, not even broken. Sore all over, though. A bit of a tumble after not making the curve. His bike has to be hauled home in a pickup, bent rim and gear shift lever. It could have been worse. We know, because all of us have friends who died or got broken bones in some accident. How did this happen? Everyone wants to know as George explains sheepishly between slow breaths that he was just looking at the scenery while trying to catch up and was too fast in the curve. No, he didn’t “lay it down”. He just went off the road, hanging on tight until, before he knew it, he had nothing to hang onto and he was stopped.

We didn’t cross on the Canby Ferry that day. It was a few months before we got back to that route. You can be sure we were all paying attention on our next ride.

Besides a long attention span, dangerous sports usually require being in good physical shape. A healthy night of partying on the beach is not the way to prepare for a long day of surfing the cold choppy waves of Oregon’s coast. If you are extra strong you can get away with it once or twice...late morning wake up calls help, also. So there it is, about 1 PM and the tide is going out, making it easy to get out to the breakers. Swim, swim, swim, swim. The stories of sharks start running in the brain. Swim some more. That guy down near Reedsport a few years ago: great white shark took a bite out of his board and him. He lived to tell. This isn’t suicide, then. Swim, paddle, paddle, sort of look like a seal from underneath. Shark is probably color blind, can’t see this is a green board, probably looks dark, my hands look like flippers. It could happen, but doesn’t. No menacing fins to match the “Jaws” theme strumming in my ears. But where are the breaking waves? Been paddling and getting tired a long time now. Is anyone nearby? Can’t paddle much more, gotta get back. Tide still going out. At least I’m not near the rocks, can’t get thrown on them from here. Need a tow, shouldn’t have come out so far on the first day of the season, out of shape for sure. Yes, surfing is dangerous. Sharks are the least of it. Surfers have suffered from exposure, exhaustion, being thrown on rocks, crushed in turbulence. You have to be in shape to paddle and fight the waves for hours on end. The water here is cold, wet suits required, big fires on the beach a necessity.

Kayaking is similar to surfing. Some whitewater paddlers take their kayaks into the surf to practice handling. Wet suits and big fires on the shore are good to have in this sport, also. Dry suits are worn on the really cold days. Paddle jackets on warmer days. Kayaking starts with learning to sit in a very tippy craft. Then you learn to tip over and come right back up again, the Eskimo roll, and a bunch of other strokes to get you forward, backward, sideways and stopped. Rivers have ratings so that a novice doesn’t make the mistake of getting in over his head, or hers, and staying there. In a kayak you can play on and under the water, do window shade rolls, flips, nose and tail stands, spins and stalls. The rivers with high difficulty ratings offer more for the expert, but beginners can get in trouble on less gnarly rivers by doing what comes natural, namely, leaning away from a large wave. The hardest thing to learn after the roll is to lean into the wave using the paddle as a brace. I took lessons, learned the basics and luckily made it down several nice rivers. The Rogue, Deschutes, White Salmon, Wilson, Sandy and the Umpqua all have moderate runs. But I still tipped over and rolled back up...that is just a part of kayaking. The danger is not knowing when to stop getting on more and more hairy water. There are waterfalls I would never go over, but which entice expert boaters every year. The high water of springtime is fraught with danger: new log jams, faster currents, sleeper logs, but every year an expert boater or two dies challenging those obstacles. At about eight pounds a gallon, water is very heavy, especially if your kayak is full and has you pinned against a rock or under a log. You cannot get free. Rescue workers have to extract you, hopefully before you sink under for the last time, lips sucking air, eyes wild with terror. You get close to that just once and you back off, if you want to live. You don’t see death in any of these sports. You just see how fragile life is. How insignificant and tiny you are. So you back off, and it is still a sport, not attempted suicide. Your T-shirt says ‘MAKE IT LOOK LIKE AN ACCIDENT’, but you are only kidding.

Most accidents are avoidable. Just stay home. You could still have an accident, but the life threatening ones are usually further away, out there on a bike trail someplace. Accidents and bikes seem to go together. It is so easy to fall off a bike. Go fast down a hill, try to stop, misjudge your speed and off you go. Could break your neck or something. A friend of mine did. He survived several first descents of Class V whitewater rivers in rafts and kayaks. He survived some very nice climbing routes. He didn’t survive going too fast on a bike. If you ride much you inevitably come across some rider sprawled on the side of the road nursing a raspberry covered thigh or knee, or picking at a crushed helmet.

Oregon has some fantastic trails and logging roads open to mountain bikes which can be ridden year around. On the coast, near Cannon Beach, Onion Peak thrusts over 3000 feet into the air less than two miles from the beach. Close by are Angora Peak and Sugar Loaf Mountain, almost as high. The roads to these peaks are guarded by large yellow gates, so no motorized traffic gets near the tops. Leave your rig at the gate, climb on your bike and start pedaling. There are miles of untamed roads, roads that used to allow loaded logging trucks to pass, but now are quiet. From the summit passes you can see south to the Nehalem River and north to Astoria. The terrain is wild and knobby, with white snags of former forest giants poking through the new growth of Douglas fir trees. The basalt cliffs are dark with moss, shadow and loose rocks. Nascent coastal streams crash over steep cliffs and then slip through forest grottos before sliding under highway 101 and into the Pacific. Days could be spent on the endless roads, but usually a few hours is enough to wear down all but the most fit biker. Due to the remoteness of these mountains anyone who ventures without a complete repair kit, food, water, map and rain gear is looking for misfortune. A cell phone is worth taking in case of an accident. You could be coming down after a long day of exploring. You could be going faster than caution would allow. Or you could hit a sharp piece of basalt in the middle of your track and then tap your front brake by mistake and go flying over your handle bars. You could if you aren’t careful. If this sounds like fun check in with Mike Stanley at MIKES BIKE SHOP in Cannon Beach. He knows what you need to know.