I’ve been thinking about mortality a lot lately, predicated by an insanely unawesome tip over the abyss one night after getting high with a friend. Weird—I’ve done all sorts of hallucinogens in my day, but never have I so completely lost my shit as I did that evening as the awareness of my infinitesimal importance slapped me around with some brutal math unlatched by a single toke of marijuana. It’s taken me several weeks to assimilate it, mostly by pushing it as far from my waking thoughts as possible, but it’s still there, broadcasting terror pulses to remind of the unimportance of a speck of ash in the cold furnace of a dead universe. But hey, pussy and beer!

Tales of a man’s brushes with death have always been useful, I think, if you read them in the right frame of mind. They both help you wrap another layer of paper mache invulnerability—I’m still alive therefore…—and enumerate one more way you could reach your inevitable demise. Like falling 35 feet off a mountain while soloing a rock shelf, only to land on your feet, breaking both, as happened to “jsj42″ in January and was related on Rockclimbing.com a month later.

When it happened, I knew immediately that I was off; there was nothing I could do. I had no sense of time slowing down or that sort of movie magic – it was simply an instant of shock and disbelief followed by a fleeting sense that in a moment my life would be very different – and then I was hurtling towards the ground. I only had time for one thought: “Land on your feet.”

In retrospect, perhaps it was more instinct than thought, but whatever it was I believe it meant the difference between living and dying. I spun outward, back to the rock, and as I fell I could see my surroundings rushing upwards impossibly fast. My eyes came to focus only a split second before I hit: The image of my legs and feet extended downwards and the gray rock below me will be burned into my memory forever.

I amused twice-over that this story is in a section called “Trip Reports.”

TR: Soloing, Falling, and Living to Tell About It [RockClimbing.com]

(Photo: Nathan Searles]