OK, here's a non climbing one.
Around '90-'91 there was a winter with almost no snow, but several big rain events, and very cold. I was in Bartlett with the crew, (my eventual wife, my climbing partner Joel, his GF, and some other locals) in between skiing and Ice climbing, we looked for fun winter activities. Since there was no snow, all the ponds had frozen into glassy smoothness, perfect for ice skating.
We undertook to Drive/Hike up to a bunch of ponds to go skating, over the course of several days. Back Country Skating. Awesome fun. We'd bring liquid and herbal refreshments, and have a blast.
This culminated in a journey up Town Hall Road up to Mountain Pond. We drove up as far as we could, then the road ceased to be sanded and salted, but had a solid coating of ice on it. Once the trucks started to slide sideways off the road, we parked and hiked the rest of the way, probably about a mile, of a steady incline. The only way to walk safely was to walk in the brush/rocky edge of the road. The road itself was treacherous.
We all made our way up to the pond and skated until the sun was about to drop behind the ridge line. Great times.
As we booted up and started to walk back, it occurred to me, this road is completely iced over, and downhill, all the way to the trucks. Why are we hiking?
We should skate.
So, we put the skates back on, and tried it out. Yup. it worked, we were quickly able to get way more speed than we wanted. So we would go, then stop after a bit, then start again. Joel and I wanted longer runs, so we grabbed long branches, and used them trailing behind us as outriggers, as the blades were so short, the fore and aft stability was awful. With this support in the back, we could maintain stability and get going really fast. we went flying down the road, carving turns like skiers. With the light fading, it was getting a bit darker, that's when it got really cool. There was the occasional piece of gravel or sand, and we found that if your blade hit it, it would make a spark off the skate blade. So there we were, flying down the hill whooping and hollering, laughing at the tops of our lungs, carving turns with some serious sparks flying off our feet every 10-15 feet. Racing down the hill, side by side.
We made it down to the bottom in one piece, then sat there in the dark, listening to all the others come down, seeing those sparks jumping around as the others came in to view.
We almost lost one of our number, when, without the benefit of the outrigger, she got going too fast, and was wildly windmilling her arms to keep her balance before finally tumbling off the road into the brush. Thank god for fluffy winter clothing and mittens, as she escaped with not even a scratch, but just some bruising.
We called it "Extreme Skating". One of the most fun days I've ever had in the Mountains. We all laughed so hard we couldn't talk.
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Topic: Dumb things you do when you're young and inexperienced (Read 2698 times)