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The Old Yankee - Rock Climbing

 
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 1:03 pm    Post subject: The Old Yankee - Rock Climbing Reply with quote

The Old Yankee just loves to tell stories.

One time back in the day when I was rapelling along New River Gorge a nutty squirrel had lept from a nearby tree and jumped on my foot. When I tried shaking it loose, it ran up my bare leg and held onto my shorts! When I tried brushing it off with my hand, I had accidentally moved the rope enough to buzz down unexpectedly. The combination of suddenly falling and the sound of the rope scared the squirrel from my shorts and it lept onto the rope. Just as I began braking the fall and slowing to a stop, the darn squirrel got it's tail caught in the Super 8 (an old-timer ATC)! This is when the fun really began. It was squeeking and squeeling like a greased pig and there wasn't a thing I could do. The squirrel began violently scratching and biting the rope as I was hanging a good 50 feet in the air! Once I saw the large rip the squirrel had made in the rope, I found some footing and climbed to a small ledge to rest. Meanwhile, I had covered the rope with my left hand - sacrificing it to the squireel to save the rope! While the crazed animal was tearing at my hand, I managed to get some slack pushed through the Super 8 to free the squirrel. Once it had popped free from the Super 8, it jumped onto my face and then to a sappling clinging to the edge of the cliff. The surprise of having an angry squirrel jump onto my face was enough for me to lose my balance and fall backwards! I zipped down the rope very fast before slowing down. Right before I had come to a complete stop, the rope snapped and I fell the remaining six feet to the ground. What I didn't know was that the snapped end of the rope had whipped the squirrel from it's perch. As I was sitting on the ground stunned by the fall, my friends were pointing up and screaming something, but I couldn't hear what they were saying. About a second later, I was smacked in the head by what felt like a fast-pitch softball. I think I'm the only person on earth struck unconcious by a squirrel. From that point on I started wearing a baseball helmet which began the safety revolution for rock climbing. Before I knew it, everyone was wearing helmets and started backing up their rappells with a belay rope... all because of the incident with that nutty squirrel.

*This story may or may not be true.
copyright 2007 Bryan McFarland
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