What was the most heart pounding moment

“(frightening)during a wilderness trip you have ever had. And how did it turn out”

“Hiking above the Deer Creek narrows in the Grand Canyon. The trail runs along an outcrop on the face of the canyon. At one point the trail is about a foot and a half wide. It wasn't flat but tilted down at about a 25 degree angle. And to make it more trechereous, there was an outcropping of rock head high. So to get past it you needed to be a contortionist while exercising exquisite balance.

You can see about twenty feet down but the canyon dropped another 20 or so feet to the river, which ran through a slot canyon to a 100 foot high waterfall.

I'm a little clumsy and not good at contortioning or balancing but made it through. That was bad enough but then I had to watch my wife squeeze through. That was worse. I really didn't want to drag her into the bowels of the canyon then watch her plummet to her death.

She got through fine and I think everyone else does too since I haven't heard of anyone dying there. But it sure was scary as hell.”

“Up in the Sangre De Christos during the rainy season, which means lots of hail and sudden temperature drops. Two guys want to stay in camp, while myself and the fourth want to explore ahead.
Weather looks fine and, being the daring types, (translation: fools), we go up and over a 12,000 ft pass and hike farther than we had planned.
Clouds appear like right now! Wind starts howling, and the temp goes down fast. Well, since we were on a recon mission, we packed light and dressed light, figuring that we could beat the weather back to camp. No such luck for the dumbass crew.
We decide to try to cut off some distance between us and the camp, so we veer off the trail. Mistake number two. Oh, it's shorter, alright, but we come to a slope of scree and the hail has begun in ernest. (Ya gotta love them white ice-rocks bouncin' off your head!)
Well, there is no way but forward, so we take off down the tumbling rock field as fast as we can. What number of mistake are we up to now? I barely make it OK, then turn around to see my buddy make a complete flip and land on his back. Visions of dying of hypothermia as I try to carry my friend flash through my head.
We luck out and he gets up, banged and bruised, but able to keep going.
We start to run faster and sweat harder, (we are losing track of mistakes here, aren't we?), and have just enough energy to make it back to camp.
Well....my usual foursome includes a doctor, and he has foreseen our dilemma and has warm soup and dry clothes ready for us.
Kids, do NOT try this at home. I learned many lessons that day, first hand, that I had discounted when I read about them. Since then, they call me the sensible hiker.”

“So YOU are Sensible Hiker.......what about Plain Hiker?”

“OK, Liz, so I'm exaggerating by using the word, "sensible". I still like to push it, but I have calmed down some.
A guy can't get by with much, with you around.”

“My dear Brainy Lizzzz... never ever confuse Plain with Sensible.”

“Nor Brainy with Sensible.”

“Thankyou, Plain. Which part of the plains?”

“My scariest moment was when the very old guy showed up naked at the same hotspring me and my buds were trying to hang in. I'm talking scary.”

“Why Newgirl, he had a weapon on him? heheheh”

“Not to heart pounding but once a friend and i were out on a short hike 10 miles, two lakes and a water fall.
With a 8 week old puppy...we make it all the way to the spectacular (really piss poor waterfall)then back to the first lake. Desided to go the other way around the lake..mind you the oneside has boardwalks all the way around and the other side looks to have board walks. So off we go, about half of the way there the boardwalks end and so does the great trail, never mind the fact that our daylight is running out. So we pursh on, not wanting to waste the time to back track. Well my hiking buddy loses the trail, by now it's getting really dark...and he is starting to freak. Well i finally find the trail, we get back to the boardwalk right about the time darkness really starts to set in. Oh, course we have a flashlight, great save...right the batteries go dead about a mile from the trail head. Darker than dark we are walking in roots and rocks..triping along.. then of coarse use your strobe on your camera to light the trail. Hey, it worked.
Took - four hours to get two miles. Then the bummer was the car wouldn't work when we got out. But that's another story. P.S. we finally made it home about 3:30am. What an adventure.”

“Not hiking but it fits well with dunadan's sensible story.

Iowa City, Iowa - Tornado Season 1988

While watching the NBA plyoffs, programming was periodically iterrupted with tornado warnings. They showed a map of the state and highlighted, in red, the county where the storm was.

Eventually Johnson County was highlighted and the city-wide warning sirens started to howl. Being from the desert, the worst weather I'd ever seen was the occasional dust storm or thunderstorm.

I thought, "Cool I'ver never seen a tornado before!." I grabbed my camera, got my roommate (who was a native Iowan and should have known better), and ran to the top of the hospital's parking garage.

We had a good view of the city and watched the storm blow into town. All of a sudden the wind stopped blowing and the temperature dropped about 20 degrees. The air was eerily still. I looked up and the clouds directly above us were a light shade of green and were spinning.

Eighteen year olds aren't known for their decision making skills. I decided we'd be safe in the stairwell. We ran to the stairs and noticed they were glass all the way down to the first floor. So the only thing between me and a forming tornado were several sqare feet of glass.

The tornado blew past and I think it touched down in some fields outside of town. But for a couple minutes it must have been real entertaining for anyone who was watching me and my roommate running around the top of that parking garage like a couple of aimless lemmings.”

“Camera strobe for light??? Ingenious!! LOL

Dunadan...... Plain Hiker is not from the plains. He is........ plain............ heheh”

“It wasn't much of a weapon. HaHaHa! I can pretty much relate this horrifying event to anything. I shouldn't be so mean though. It's respectable that the guy got up there and had the courage to get naked and come check out our pool.”

“Of course the prospect of hanging out with some naked young women could be a pretty strong motivating factor for a scary old man.”

“I've had a few 'loose shale ledge' type of experiences, as well as a couple of nasty storms, but I think grizzly encounters were the best, for increasing the heart rate and adrenaline.”

“A couple of incidents where I realized that there was a lethal amout of air between my heels and anything solid. Acrophobia sucks.”

“In AZ I was laying in my bivy, and I thought a elk was running towards me. I turned over, the noise stopped in front of the bivy, and I saw a black and white striped tail waving at me. My heart was pounding thru my head, and I was holding my breath, hoping the skunk wouldn't hear the pounding. All I could think of was "there's no way out of this thing!"”

“Finding a bug in my salad.”

“Hitchhiking up Coastal highway through Ocean City, Maryland. This dood that picked me up, and later almost ran a stop light. When I mentioned that the light was red...the dood acted like he never saw it, slammed onto the brakes and placed his right hand on my thigh.

He put his freakin' hand on my thigh and kept the thing there till, after a second, I asked if he'd "remove his f-ing hand".

I was out of the car in a split second (the car was at a stoplight) and he pleaded with me it was an accident and that he'd give me a ride to where I needed. Yeah, right!

It didn't hit me till after it was over that he might have been up to more than no good and that. I may have gotten away with my life...I'll never know.

But I got so such an adrenaline rush of fear afterwards. It was definitly heart-pounding!”

“Buddur, you're just too sexy. Lol

Snow Nymph, that's cute.

Lipsticks, better than finding half a bug.”

“Getting cliffed out on a ledge. Kicking myself for leaving the rope in the car. Wondering who would get me first, the mountain lions or the buzzards.

For my ex? Wondering if I was really gonna throw him down that cliff.”

“It would have to be the time I was in Jellystone. I was sound asleep when I was awoken by the snorting and grunting and ground vibrations of a half dozen or more bison that had decided to bed down for a few hours right outside the tent.

The only thing that kept going thru my head was ..... what if one of these beast gets tangle up in a guy line and freaks out and does the neutron dance to free itself. I had visions of flying hooves and bodies rolling in fear.”

“Like they say newgirl: "Aging ain't fer Sissies."”

“Ped, you are right on target w/ that. I admit it, I'm a sissy.”

“The usual acrophobia incidents, bear encounters (though none as close as Wallman's recent one), but one that was really scary was having a lost hiker on a backpack I was leading. We were on the first week of a hike of the John Muir trail 30 years ago, and we all got to camp except a gal who was hiking in front. The 12 of us were spread out on the trail, and some had passed her, or so they thought. Some thought she was ahead of us. I brought up the rear, and knew she wasn't behind us. Our camp was Lake Ediza in the Minarets, and she could have taken the wrong trail and gone up into the Minarets, or she could have gone on down the trail toward the Devils Postpile. We had one guy go out after her on the Devils Postpile trail, and he came back the next morning empty handed. We hiked on down to the Postpile hoping to find her there, and there she was.”

“Whitewater rafting always has a share of pulse-pounding moments when you get above Class III, so we knew it was going to be exciting when five of us headed over to the Presque Isle River in the western U.P. to run its canyon upriver from Porcupine Mtn. State Park. To get runnable water volume, of course, we had to time the run to go with spring snowmelt, which was early April. Air temp was 50s and sunny, but the woods were still half full of snow and the water temp was about 33. The section is Class IV-V difficulty with a series of falls and ledge drops from 3-12 feet, one serious dog leg with a giant white pine log jammed crossways, and no exit once you enter the canyon other than getting to the other end. But, hey, we were an experienced group except for the raft owner's fiancee -- but he's an ER doc, so...

Well, it was all the rush we could have expected, remote, beautiful, great whitewater. We were the only ones on the river (and later discussions with kayakers who had years of doing the run under their belt, we discovered we were perhaps the first to run it in a small raft), so we were cautious and carefully scouted every drop and falls and run...until, full of ourselves over our successes on all the major drops and difficulties, we looked at the final ledge drop of about 5 feet and said, ta da, "No need to scout this."

Turned out it was an undercut pourover into a recirculating hole of froth. On the plunge, three of us were tossed out. The raft owner was thrown within reach of the blocking boulder that pushed the river back on itself. I had one hand on the safety line of the raft and was being dragged around and around under the pourover while the hole was trying to suck me under the raft itself. The fiance was nowhere to be seen. I was sure I was going to drown if I stayed with the raft, so on the third or fourth revolution, I let go on the downstream side of the hole and was flushed into the class III rockgarden below, pinballing until I could swim to a gravel bar. The two still in the raft made a jump for it since the raft kept being sucked back under the falls. Bob made it to the big rock with a line, while his wife was swept on my path, yelling "Catch me," which I managed to do. The fiancee, however, had become the agitator in the hole, the top of her helmet appearing in the froth every so often, then descending. Her man took a line and jumped in, managing to grab her and to be pulled back to the rock by Bob. The two guys on the rock managed then to pull the swamped raft out of the current (amazing in itself). With no paddles, they got down to us on the gravel bar, where I had found a couple paddles. As we ran the rest of the section (no more falls, but numerous rocky rapids), we found several paddles, including one that wasn't ours. The biggest challenge was to not go hypothermic, even in our wetsuits. We tried to cheer up in the final miles of the run, but we were pretty shaken.

It took a loooong time for the adrenaline to flush out of my system.”

“On July 4th, 1976 (the summer I graduated from high school) a couple of friends and I climbed to the top of Santa Fe Baldy (elev. ~ 12,600) in the Sangre de Cristos (New Mexico). As Dunadan can attest, the storms can show up there in no time flat. We were watching the clouds come in when I started to hear a strange buzzing in my ears, and my scalp began to tingle. I looked at one of my friends, and his hair was standing almost straight out (so was mine, but I didn't realize this fact just then)! We just stood there for a second, dumbfounded, and then we realized what was about to happen. As a group, we started to run down the mountain as fast as we could, when lightning struck VERY close by - it was so close that I was momentarily deafened by the blast. When it hit again directly AHEAD of us (we were still on the trail which runs along the ridgeline), we all fell to the ground and started CRAWLING downhill. I was completely prone on the ground, inching my way over rocks and gopher holes, and I wanted to get off that mountain BAD. The weirdest thing I can recall from this was, at one point, I stopped to look sideways at my friend who was crawling on the gound next to me. As I was looking at him, the wind was blowing the sparse grass on the ground, and as the tips of individual blades of grass would bend over to almost touch the ground, a little spark would jump between the blade and the ground! The lightning continued to blast around us, and then the rain and the hail started. I figure we'd gotten ~ 50 feet below the summit when one of our group (he was older than us by 2 years) decided he was low enough, and just jumped up and started running downhill, perpendicular to the trail. We followed suit, and in a short time, we were well below the summit, cold, scared, but alive. We kept on running until we hit treeline, and then we had a long hike of bushwacking through the forest to get back to the trail.

Ever since then, I always keep an eye on cloud development when I climbing a peak...”

“Not sure if I ever experienced a true heart pounding experience while backpacking.

However, when at camp while hiking Mt.Rogers, we heard a stampede with a sound that seemed seemed to be coming from every direction...it was like thunder roaring toward us. We both ran for the closest tree. And sure as my name ain't Raymond J. Johnson, Jr., a herd of ponys came running right past the thicket of trees our camp was in. They didn't run through our camp, though...but it was close.”

“Grizzly encounter

First time I needed to do a self arrest

First hike with Pamster

...but not necessarily in that order”

“Out on a rock out-cropping,
over-looking the bluff
the rocks gave way,
falling was easy,
the landing was rough
screaming going down,
I landed with a thud
nothing was broken,
but there was lots of blood
cut up a bit,
some needed patches
feelings hurt most,
that and the scratches
that wasn`t my worst time,
but it was somethin`
funny how little things,
will get your heart to pumpin`”

“Hiking down from the summit of Mt Washington, the trail (Gulfside Trail I think) crosses the Cog Railroad tracks. I decided to stop and see if I could snap some photos of the train coming up over the horizon. I told the 2 guys I was with to head towards Mt Clay and I would catch up with them, so I was sitting there all alone waiting when I heard a noise from above me. I turned, and about 20 feet away, moving rather quickly towards me is a guy holding a big ax over his shoulder. Scared the snot out of me!! I think he saw the fear in my eyes, or maybe noticed that my lower jaw was about waist high, and quickly explained that he was doing some kind of track maintenance. Whewwwww!!”

“You REALLLY want to know?















Are you SURE?










This is your last chance......














Have you put down your lunch?






















When I was 17, I looked down and discovered all those freckles had legs.










MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

“Hey look ---> a little ad for REI in the corner. We are cool.”

“Crabs aren't just for eatin', huh Mel? Did you shave or buy the shampoo? Not that it's any of my business.”

“When I falled off a clift in Wyodaho and falled on a rok on the clift. It was a skeery time.”

“While bushwacking to get onto the Bailey Range Traverse in the Olympics. We climbed down a verticle dry stream bed. We gabbed on to scrubby krumholtz bushes and tried not to create to many rockslides. The valley was 2000ft below. Instant death if we didn't have a firm handhold to stop us and our 50lb packs. That was after we crossed the incredibly steep snowfield with a boulder strewn runout and walked along the "Snuffy Smith" type, narrow cliff edge. It was WAY beyond heart pounding. I had three Addam's Apples.”

“For me I think it was the first time I disturbed a rattlesnake. I was absent mindedly walking down the trail and stepped on a stick and that snake sounded off - it was next to the other end of the stick. No harm done to either me or the snake but it did get the old heart a-going for a bit.

A close runner up was a bit of blow-down removal I did recently - a largish tree had fallen across the trail from a spot about 5 feet up the side of the trail - I made the first cut with no problem and the main part of the tree dropped just past the edge of the trail - just were I aimed it. Then I started cutting the remainder from the high side then went around to the low side to finish the cut - just as I started the finishing cut the last rotten roots let loose and the whole stump started falling toward me including a good amount of dirt and rock from the roots. Again - no damage to me and due to the way the stump fell it did not really block the trail anymore - kicked the foot of dirt and rocks off the trail and left the stump there since the was no way to finish the cut with the equipment I had with me.”

“When my dog decided to pounce on a rattlesnake. I yanked her back by her leash before the snake decided to strike. That sound will definitely get your heart pounding.”

“Really, heart pounding time was when, a friend and i went to the ice caves. We decided to climb up the side (in the rocks) then go straight across to this hole in the ceiling of the ice cave. (sounded cool)
So, we climb up about 1000 ft. then make our plans on how to get over to the hole. i get on the glacier first (mind you this puppy is almost straight up and down). i was doing ok till, i slipped and that was all she wrote, next thing i know i was sliding down, fast, hurt (we won't talk about that). My friend is running down loose rocks and gravel, trying to get to catch me. No such luck, then there is this five or six foot drop off coming up, so i didn't want to do that so i rolled over on my stomach, then back on my back. Then i see this ice wedge sticking out, i am thinking if i stick my leg in there i might be able to stop myself...(hope) But i might end up breaking my let, or either i finish the ride down another 700 ft or so or i try to stop and maybe break my leg. Being beat up pretty back from coming down as far as i had, i chose to try to stop.
Luck was on my side, i got stopped and no broken bones. My friend made it there shortly and ask how i was doing, my only thought was to get off the ice so my tursh would stop being cold.
i managed to hike back out to the car, pretty shook up and hurting, with my backpack on. i came away very lucky only had one huge bruise on my thigh and a bunch of none, hurting ones. It sure scared my for the ride down.”

“"What was the most heart pounding moment"

The moment I first laid eyes on my wife in person on our first date.”

“Who was your date with???”

“Where was your iceaxe, icegirl?”

“Meeting a medium-sized grizzly on the trail in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. It spooked and took off up-trail where we were headed. That night we were awakened by a noise in camp. It turned out to be a chipmunk, but I could hear my heart pounding.

Actually, meeting newgirl was right up there on the list, too.”

“Believe it or not i don't own an iceax, i walk on these gaciers all the time and have never had a problem. But it only takes once.
i will work on getting one, ok.”

“Icegirl, I can't believe you attempted to go on top of the ice cave. About a year ago, a women was killed by going inside of it. You're lucky to be alive.”

“Fly - WHEN I LAID EYES ON MY FUTURE WIFE, ON OUR FIRST DATE, FIVE YEARS AGO


GGGGGEEEEEEEZZZZZZ

Sorry for trying to get mushy”

“Hmmm, the opening message in this thread inquired about "the most heart pounding moment (frightening)"... lagtis, was it that bad??”

“yeah and was it in the wilderness ????”

“As far as I know, they didn't have the shampoo, back then.

If they did, nobody talked about it!

Camphophenique (Don't ask ME how to spell that word) - liberally applied - (yyyyyyeeeeeoooowwww!) was the remedy I overheard my stepmother recommend to my cousin a few years before I knew such "things" existed.

But that remedy sure did take the starch out of MY date's tent pole.”