So I'm driving home from Leavenworth Sunday evening and not far ahead of me a major accident completely stopped traffic both ways on highway 2.  It just so happened that I was stopped literally right in front of Eagle Falls.  Kinda weird I thought to myself, "what does this mean?  Was I meant to run Eagle Falls by myself today?  Nah, it's way too high, don't even think about you moron...."  After sitting in dead stopped traffic for 20 minutes while listening to Eagle Falls raging beneath the highway I couldn't resist, I had to run it.  So I pull over and gear up real quick and realize everybody on the highway is getting out to watch me and started getting scared.  Whatever, I sack up, put in, run it and get my ass handed to me in a hole at the bottom of the rapid, scared the shit out of me....stayed in my boat though..  So traffic starts moving and I'm hiking back to my car and a professional photographer comes up to me and asks me if I'll run it again so he can get some shots. I agreed... Hiked up and ran it again and went upside down twice and got stuck in some weird whirlpool for while but it all worked out. Notice the 19 year old kid I gave a throw bag to, WOW, I'm sure that would have helped!

 Anyhooters, I thought I would try to tell the story so everyone knows how big a dumbass I am while their looking at these pictures, or maybe everyone will think I'm cool... Either way it was damn fun!

 

The Skykomish river was at 12,000cfs that day, the Photographers name is Blake Siebe and his site is www.bsiebe.com    Check out the pictures under Eagle Falls, some of them are really good..

Nice work Jake.  The 19 year old throw bagger looked like a pro.

-Brad

Huge cajones, Caron! Nice job making lemonaide out of stopped traffic lemons.

*shiver* 

Yeah that looked burley. he should of had a camera from where he was standing.

I thought about giving that kid my camera but decided against it, to much money to put in a strangers hands.. Especially a 19 year old that looked like smokin weed was his main hobby.  we'll go back with the video camera's, who's in??

Well said, Jonathan.

I'm a Libertarian and in general I think that as long as people take responsibility for the outcome of their decisions and don't effect others, they should be able to do whatever they want with their lives.  Ride a motorcycle w/o helmet, huck falls, do crystal meth, watch Oprah, etc. etc. 

Let me say it again, I am the last person that wants to stop someone from pursuing what they think is their passion and I'll defend their rights for individual liberty (again as long as it doesn't hurt others).

And, I don't want this thread to devolve into talking about how society would be forced to pay for the attempted rescue on failure, etc.  Even though it probably isn't true, let's assume that somehow that really wasn't an issue here.

Now then, at the risk of being ostracized by all the real adrenaline junkies, when I was reading this thread (and the thread about the solo free climber), I couldn't help wondering what the comments would have been on the thread if the guy had died or was seriously injured in the attempt.  Bad decisions often lead to good outcomes which leads to more bad decisions.  Until your luck runs out.


Edited by arnobarno - 06 Jun 2007 at 5:46am

and i'm bout positive Jake aint' lucky,

I am sure both Jake and the guy in the other video are super skilled at doing what they are doing.  Amazing boaters and amazing climbers.  More skilled than I or most mere mortals will ever be.

But, still, I have to think that doing these activities without any safety increases risk substantially.  Maybe it increases the thrill substantially also.  So, that is cool.  It is their lives and, like I said before, as long as no one else is hurt, they should go for it.

But, for the equation oriented:
if good.decision -> bad.outcome then  tragedy
if bad.decision -> bad.outcome then darwin.award

And, to my original question, if the end result was terrible (death or serious injury) what would people be saying on this forum??


Edited by arnobarno - 06 Jun 2007 at 8:39am

Life's a risk.  Some are better at tolerating more than others. 

Two quick points based on Arn's comments:

Awww... what's the big deal. It looked basically washed out at this level. Read and run 4-.

Dave has climbed that route hundreds of times, many of them solo.  It is class II for him.  I will not judge his decision, it was his. 

This is a fascinating and revealing discussion.  I'm not on a high horse and do not appreciate the personal attack, Jon.

If you'll recall, I'm the first to say that I made a bad decision.  Also, I am not judging his decision and I am the last person to stop him from making it.  Like I said, his life, his decision.

All, I am talking about is risk and a thought exercise to consider.  If you are willing to take that 1 in 100 chance on a certain day that you will die or be seriously injured it means one of three things:
1) You really aren't taking a 1% risk (that is, the actual risk is much lower).
2) Or you aren't doing it very often.
3) Or you are dead man walking.

Just to put it in perspective, you have roughly a 1% LIFETIME risk of dying in a car crash.  Roughly 50% of the people that take a 1% single event risk would die or be seriously injured if they took this type of risk 50x.

Again, I'll ask the question, if the end result of this was death or serious injury, what would the comments on the board be??



Edited by arnobarno - 06 Jun 2007 at 10:53am