Rappelling, Where I say “Do you honestly expect me to do a trust fall of a 300 foot cliff?”
Well it was made perfectly clear during Sunday’s hike that I would not have made it through 40 years in the wilderness, in fact I’m not sure I would have lasted 40 minutes after summer started. I started the day worrying about the rappelling which was, upon reflection, kind of fun. However by the very end of the hike I could feel my body starting to get sick from the heat and so the trek back to the bus was probably the least fun I had on the entire trip. This was also the only hike I have ever done where I can say truthfully that I hiked uphill both ways.
Words cannot possibly describe how much I don’t want to do this. Today we’re doing a hike / rappel in the Judean Desert just up the street from the Dead Sea and this brings me up against my last irrational fear, heights / falling. It would seem strange that this is the last one but it is. I’m not bothered by spiders anymore, nor heights on its own, nor falling (so long as I can’t see the ground rushing up), nor crowds, nor any of the hundred other things that used to bother me. Literally the only irrational fear I have left, besides teddy bears with knives, is descending from a great height, and guess what I just paid $1600 to do in the middle of no where, where I’m sure to snuff it if something goes wrong? Well the goal of the day is not to die.
Getting out of the bus I survey my surroundings and immediately add two extra bottles of water to my pack. The tour guides tell us we’ll need at least 3 liters to make it through this hike, I’m packing 7 liters and praying I won’t wrong out. Something I learned about myself down here is that my body is like a sieve when it comes to retaining water. I have never in my life drunk 10 liters of water in a day and found myself not needing to pee. We are all given a harness and helmet to carry up with us, I jam both of them in my pack and then hear one of our guides call for someone to help carry ropes. I stare in horror at the several (six) lengths of rope that they want us to carry up the trail and then I begin ticking off the men in our group. Dave, one, Simon, two, Zach, three, Mike, four, Izzy, five, Me, shit. Izzy sees me staring at the rope.
“I think we want to survive this trip man, so you shouldn’t really be carrying ropes too.”
“Oh don’t worry I wasn’t planning on it.”
“Heh, I saw you eyeing them and I wasn’t sure.”
“That was more of a look of dread than a look of wanting to help.” We both laugh and Izzy picks up a length of rope.
I really do feel terribly useless here and I’m really not used to that. I can say for certain that I don’t like being the guy in need of help, hell I’m usually the guy helping. Out here in the desert though, yeah that’s a different story. We’re given a lecture on the hike we are going on, the lower canyon of something, and about the importance of drinking plenty of water, I’m already halfway through my little 1 liter bottle. Look up the trail in front of us it doesn’t look at bad. It’s a long snaking path that winds its way up the side of the ridge we are next to. It looks like it can’t be more than half a mile to the actual ridge and since we’re going to the lower canyon it can’t possibly be that far up once we get to the actual ridge.
Starting up the trail I find that gauging distances in the desert is somewhat different than gauging them in the forest. Not so much in actually distance but in the amount of energy it is going to take for you to get from point A to point B. This makes the distance seem a lot longer than it really is. So naturally, it doesn’t look like we’ve gone very far at all by the time everyone but Izzy and our tour guides are completely out of breath and ready for a break, in the scorching hot sun. One of our guide, a tell skinny blonde gentleman who looks like he was specifically bread for leaping from stone to stone in the middle of the desert, smiles at us and asks us why we’re tired. When everyone looks at him like he’s insane he just smiles and says:
“We have finished maybe one fifths of our ascent.” About half the group laughs as if he’s joking the other half of us look at our tour bus (which is smaller but still in full view) and then up at the ridge and despair begins to show its ugly head. As we pick up our packs I decide that I might as well find a group and start chatting with people to help the time pass. I spy Simon, Dave, Ro, and Mira and I amble up beside them and strike up a conversation. It does indeed help because before I know it we’re at the ridge and although I am assured by out guides that we have a significant distance to go still I at least spy spots of shade I will be passing through as we snake our way along the path. As we enter the ridge the path ceases to resemble the flat gavel road we had been on and begins looking like a collection of rocks cleared off by years of people scrambling over them.
After several more rest breaks and one or two near death experiences (from stumbling next to a 100 foot drop) we finally arrive at the spot where they teach us how to rappel. Putting on helmets and harnesses is easy enough, and then we learn how to lower ourselves down, again it looks easy enough. In fact this whole thing looks totally simple and utterly routine, so why is it my body won’t quick quaking. It’s while I’m pondering the finer points of falling to my death when I spy a pair of black birds circling down from the sky. Now most normal people would either attribute no symbolism to this at all or would be slightly unnerved by the sight of two raven black birds flying out of no where and starring at them. Luckily I’m not most people, and I am definitely not normal. I’ve always felt an affinity with crows and ravens and so seeing two of the local black scavenger bird is immensely comforting to me. I even try to call one of them over to me, when it noticed me it took a few tentative hopes towards me, and then, seeing I had no food, it gave an angry squawk and hopped towards some others in our group.
Two of our three rappelling guides had gone to set up the first rappel and they call up to the third guy (the blonde guy) in Hebrew that they are ready for us. He tells us to collect our helmets and put on our harnesses and follow him. Walking around the creek bed I find myself face to face with a ledge and a steep drop off with several of my friends waiting by it. Occasionally, the blonde guy calls one of us over and they begin descending the cliff out of my sight. After a brief conversation I head over to him and he clips a rope onto my harness.
“Ok you can practically walk down this but we’re going to hook a rope to you just in case. When you get to the ledge clip yourself onto the second rope and call up to me than finish going down, okay?” I nod and look over the ledge I was greeted by a 20 foot drop onto a small ledge followed by another 20 foot drop onto the ledge I was going to, and beyond that probably a 40 foot drop into the creek bed below. After quashing the rising sense of panic bubbling up in my gut I begin to descend over the ledge. I quickly learn two things, firstly that I can support the entire weight of my body using just my arms and lower myself some distance that way when I really need to, and secondly that you could practically walk down that cliff side if you were a fucking mountain goat. I am two rocks down by the time I slip and find myself clinging to the rope I am attached to for dear life. Lowering myself down to the small ledge I attach the second rope before detaching myself from the original one. I then start down the second cliff side and quickly find it is just easier to lower myself by my own strength rather than trying any of this climbing horseshit. Being a control freak I find it more comforting to be lowering myself down by my own power then by the good grace of the rocks I standing on.
Reaching the bottom of the ledge I unhook myself and make my way quickly to the second of our guides who is hooking people up. He takes one look at me and says:
“Which hand do you use?”
“My left”
“Left! Great! Are you the only left handed guy in this group?”
“Yup”
“Damn, well ok at least we have you on this trip, so ready?”
I like this guy, in no time I’m hooked up for a left handed person and I’m leaning back over a 50 foot drop where I can hear Brooke and Mike yelling encouragements below me. My first impression of rappelling was that it wasn’t that bad at all. For the most part I never see how far I’m going down and I’m so busy concentrating on keeping my legs straight and evenly space that I don’t notice the fact that I’m dangling 50 feet in the air with only a rope and a harness between me and a very messy end. I also take a moment to teach myself how to lock the resistance giver (I forget what it is called) so I could take my hand off of it without falling. After this I lower myself down to the ground and begin chatting with those already down there.
“That was great wasn’t it?! I took a picture of you. You should have seen I got it at an angle that made it look like you were way higher up than you really were!” Brooke was as exuberant as ever and at this moment I actually kind of appreciate it since I just survived the things that I was definitely not looking to the entire trip. “This is great! I can’t believe it though we have to do so many more of these and I think the guy said the last one is going to be 100 meters! It’s that great!” No, it isn’t. In fact the thought of lowering myself 100 meters is about as far from great as I could possibly envision at that point.
“You mean we have more than just that one rappel?” I’m not sure how much color is in my face at this moment but it is significantly less than the moment just before Brooke told me this.
“Of course! We have like five or six more” Brooke rolls her eyes slightly as my good mood suddenly vanishes. I really should have known better but I thought that was it. I mean it was a good 50 feet down, that has to count for something right? There is more? Great, wonderful, and this was the kiddy climb.
The rest of our group shuttles down the side of the cliff one at a time and I journey forth to find the next guy setting up. We were specifically forbidden to look over the edge of the cliff we were rappelling down but I am in no way shape or form ready to obey that rule since I want to know how long the next one is down. It does nothing for my self esteem to see that it’s a good 60 feet down and that its not so much a sheer cliff as a really, really steep side. The third of our guides is setting up the rope and scrambling up and down the side of the cliff we were about to rappel down using no harness or anything other than a rope he has tied at the time. This does nothing for my self esteem. Here I am mister Dopey McWhitingtone worried about a rappel down the side of a cliff that someone else is literally walking up and down with total ease. With wounded pride I return to my cohorts and ready myself for the next rappel. It prove only somewhat tricky as I still have a problem with the whole concept of keeping my legs straight and I keep dancing sideways across the cliff due to not being properly balanced. I then find that the cliff side I am walked down comes to a V which is maybe three feet across and filled with water. I remove the rope from my resistance giver and planted one foot on each side of the V and waddled my way down towards drive land. Brooke, Mike, and Zach stood their playing cheerleader as I inched my way closer to them.
By the time I get to dry land they are set up and the first girl is going down the cliff for the third rappel. I listen carefully and then hear a splash and the girl shouts up that there is water down here. I settle down and make myself comfortable because soon I will be getting wet. The next rappel is probably close to 100 feet down and the water it drops into is hardly hygienic. We also have a second harness that is controlled by one of our guides since it seemed like a drop of 50 feet is fine for your average person but a drop of twice that much is dangerous enough to warrant extra security. By this time I had learned how to keep my legs straight and I am proud to say I only slipped and smashed my face into the rock once. Getting to the bottom I removed my second harness and am helped to the top by Mike who pointed out which nook of rocks was the bathroom and then proceeded to get as far away from that foul smelling corner as possible.
Sticking around long enough to ensure that the next person got out of the pool of water, I wander over to the shade that everyone else is hiding in. Settling down for some lunch my friends the two black birds come down and begin begging for our food. Izzy doesn’t like the birds, which is odd because this is the first time I ever saw him show a dislike of anything. I can see why he doesn’t like them as they prove terribly aggressive when it comes to scrounging food and Izzy explains that these types of birds have terrible tempers. This doesn’t stop other members of our group from feeding them and soon the two birds are happily squabbling over bits of bread and meat.
It was sitting up there in the shade chatting with Helaine and Izzy that the first twinges of nausea begin to creep into my consciousness. I start feeling weak and at the time I vainly think that it is just because I haven’t been drinking enough water. I look in my pack. I only have one and a half bottles left, about 2 liters. Quickly downing the rest of one of my bottles I settle back into the shade and await my turn at the next rappel. This one seems to be a much farther rappel, 80 meters if I recall what our guide said correctly, so it is taking much longer for people to get to the ground. By the time my turn has come I have finished all of the water in my backpack and have begun bumming water from Helaine and her backpack of doom.
I seriously am in awe of how Helaine manages to lug that backpack around with here, it needs to weight close to 50 pounds and I have already seen the sort of shape her shoulder is in. I am really not sure that Helaine’s brain actually registers pain in the same way normal people’s brains do since she is walking around with a 50 pound pack digging into sunburn which has gone from a blistered patch to a deep red scab. My thought process is broken by the guide calling me over and hooking my up. I begin my descent with no real idea of how far down I’m going. I couldn’t get close enough to look down this time and I’m not about to look down when I’m dangling by a pair of ropes trying hard not to stumble and fall while I struggle down.
After what seems like an eternity I manage to make it to the bottom of the cliff and I landed on a small ledge which is just below the surface of a pool which seems to be an unnaturally neon shade of green. I look down at my feet and wonder vaguely what super power this particular goo would give me when I feel the rope on my harness tug.
“I’m not out of it yet, hang on!” I yell up and begin to struggle out of my backpack and harness. Next I see Brooke who is basking in the sun on the opposite side of the pool.
“Ok James, you are on a tiny ledge, do not move to the right because it ends right there. You need to creep around to your left and climb onto that little outcropping of rock right there. Ok, now see that V in the rock? Yes the ledge ends right before that V so watch for that?”
“That V there?”
“Yes, it ends right about where you are, be careful!”
“Oka…” Splash, I’m not careful. One wrong step and I plunge over my head into a pool of something that looks like it should be creating ninja turtles. Thinking quickly I thrust my backpack, which is currently in my arms, over my head and manage to keep it dry even as the rest of me goes under. My feet hit the bottom of the pool and I bounce up.
“Take my ba…” Under I go; I bounce again and spy Mike who is straining at the opposite edge of the pool to receive my still dry backpack. “Mike, take my…” Back under I go and back up I go “Take my fuc…” back down. Eventually I bounce over to make who relieves me of my pack allowing me to properly tread water and I swim for the opposite side of the pool. I get to the ledge and attempt to scramble up the side only to find that the side slopes inward and that I am currently coated in green slime which is preventing me from getting a good grip. My momentum continues to carry me under the ledge on the opposing side of the pool and I have to clutch to it under I come to a full stop. I try three times to scramble onto the shore and three times I slide right back into the water. Finally rolling his eyes Mike comes over and drags me halfway onto dry land, then after I slide in again he drags me three quarters of the way onto the shore and I roll the rest of the way to safety.
I look around for the shade and find that the tiny patch of shade is currently being taken up by Simon and Brooke, and from the look of it Ro was in it as well but had lost her spot to the sun’s movement. Within five minutes I’m completely dry and I brush to fine green dust off of my person and I get up and get in line for the final rappel. It seems to be taking forever and it begins to unnerve me when I heard various people crying out as they are lowered down the cliff side. I walk up to the third guide, a tall skinny guy with black hair. He tells me that the cliff side slopes away from people’s feet and so most of this last rappel is just hanging in mid air. I nod a couple of times and then go back to sitting down. I am not sure if it’s the sun or the worry about dangling in mid air but I am starting to feel ill. It seems to take forever for my turn to come to rappel down. By this time a second group is rappelling down another, more challenging way, which I am just fine with as it removed most of the people from the wuss’s line. Soon I am standing second in line feeling like my stomach is about to leap out of my throat and run all the way back to America.
The girl in front of me is close to tears by the time she is hooked up. Apparently she looked behind her, saw how high up 100 meters is, and started to cry. Our guide has all the warmth of an overworked secretary and it doesn’t help that he is trying to convince the poor girl, who is now in a full blown panic attack, to let herself fall backwards with only his verbal assurance that he wouldn’t let her fall. She kept repeating:
“Its not attached look all this rope goes through it”, to which he replied
“Look, see, I’m holding it you’ll be fine now just fall backwards.” Obviously, no one ever explained to this guy that when someone is having a panic attack about heights the worst thing to tell them is ‘Oh just lean back over the sheer fucking drop’. This is also doing nothing for my nerves. I am in the strange position of being simultaneously ill from the sun, ill from the rising panic coming out of my gut, and remembering a psychology paper I read about the way the human mind begins to take on strong emotions it witnesses in the people around it. I can seriously say part of me is sitting there and wondering how this panic that the girl in front of me is feeling would effect my actions. I then distract myself by wondering how this affects broader social networks as emotions propagate through groups from the first person who feels them to the next person and the next, to finally people who never even knew the original person who was experiencing the emotion. My thoughts are again interrupted by the sight of the girl behind me, she experiencing the same rising sense of panic and this brings me back to the here and now where I am still scared, still sick, and ah fuck it if I die I die I just want my stomach to quit complaining. By this time Izzy comes over and helps the girl down to the point where she has to lower herself the rest of the way down the cliff. I give the girl behind me a reassuring smile and go back to concentrating on not puking before I’m over the sheer drop.
The girl who was in front of my screams half a dozen times on the way down but before I know it the rope is back up and I am being hooked up for a right handed person.
“I’m left handed”
“Of course you are” he says in a heavily accented voice, I can tell he didn’t understand me.
“No I’m left handed, left, left!” I am well past being mature about this.
“Oh! Left, oops, I thought we had all right handed people here.” He unhooks me and rehooks me up for a southpaw. He then looks down behind me to the girl who is being lead up to the group of people who have already gone down. “You’re not a pussy are you?” I glance behind me at the nearly 300 foot drop.
“Let me get back to you on that.” He laughs and then tells me to just lean back. I start to lean back and I feel what the girl in front of me felt, the fact that the rope has about three feet of give to it before it catches me. “This is a trust fall.” I muse. He just looks at me and tells me to lean back. This motherfucker wants me to do a trust fall off the side of a 100 meter cliff. I don’t do trust falls into the arms of my best friends and family much less over a fall that will kill me and trusting a total stranger to catch me. After a moment of hesitation I mentally think ‘Fuck it, what the hell is death gonna complicate’ and I fall backwards. The rope catches me and before I know it I am walking down the side of the cliff trying hard to forget how far down the ground it below me. The cliff slopes away and soon I am dangling in mid air trying hard not to think about the few seconds it would take me to hit the ground if this rope snapped.
This is when I learn why all of those people before me screamed when they were going down. The guy at the top lets through a couple feet of rope more than I let through. Now he controlled the harness on my chest, I controlled the harness on my groin. Being that my groin is below my chest I immediately flip over and I find myself high in the air looking down at the ground below me as I begging to struggle and spin. Holy fucking hell it is a long way down when you’re dangling upside down by a rope. To my credit I don’t scream but really it is because I’m too fucking scared. Quickly I let enough rope out of my harness to compensate and I right myself almost immediately.
I start counting my breath trying to force my mind back to the present and away from the knowledge that I was just dangling upside down nearly 150- 200 feet above the ground. After a few minutes of lowering myself I ease me death grip on the rope I am holding and after a small complication right before I hit the ground the rest of the rappel goes smoothly.
After I unhook myself I find a shady spot and plop down to find that I am out of water again. I go to Mike and bum water from him hoping that we would be back at the bus and the air conditioning soon as I am feeling horrible now that I no longer have the rappel to worry about. After what seems like hours the last person goes down and after some chatting and laughing we pack up to leave. As soon as I hit the sun my heart rate quadruples and the bottom drops out of my stomach. I focus all of my energy on my next step and try to keep walking. We are climbing up again back towards the bus, which we are now below. I recognize where we are as the riverbed we walked beside when we first got to the cliff side at the beginning of the hike. I don’t even bother looking up I just keep walking and I find myself passing other people on the thin trail and being to sick to even acknowledge them. Finally I walk into a patch of shade and I find I need to take a break.
The group passes me and Izzy comes to sit next to me. After a brief talk in which I apologize, again, for being so useless and we ascertain that I am not dehydrated I begin to walk again with Izzy, Helaine, and the third guide. By the time we crest the hill and I see the tiny speck of the bus off in the distance I am feeling like someone has grabbed me and wrung me out like a rag. At this point I am focusing all of my concentration of remaining conscious and walking. I remember talking to Izzy about Ohio and how the heat is nothing like here, I’m not sure if I am even making sense at this point as I reach the bus and stagger past the people who are putting their stuff away. I then stagger back out of the bus to drop off my harness and helmet and then back on the try to enjoy the air conditioning. Our next stop was the Dead Sea but I was sure that I was done for the day.
Words cannot possibly describe how much I don’t want to do this. Today we’re doing a hike / rappel in the Judean Desert just up the street from the Dead Sea and this brings me up against my last irrational fear, heights / falling. It would seem strange that this is the last one but it is. I’m not bothered by spiders anymore, nor heights on its own, nor falling (so long as I can’t see the ground rushing up), nor crowds, nor any of the hundred other things that used to bother me. Literally the only irrational fear I have left, besides teddy bears with knives, is descending from a great height, and guess what I just paid $1600 to do in the middle of no where, where I’m sure to snuff it if something goes wrong? Well the goal of the day is not to die.
Getting out of the bus I survey my surroundings and immediately add two extra bottles of water to my pack. The tour guides tell us we’ll need at least 3 liters to make it through this hike, I’m packing 7 liters and praying I won’t wrong out. Something I learned about myself down here is that my body is like a sieve when it comes to retaining water. I have never in my life drunk 10 liters of water in a day and found myself not needing to pee. We are all given a harness and helmet to carry up with us, I jam both of them in my pack and then hear one of our guides call for someone to help carry ropes. I stare in horror at the several (six) lengths of rope that they want us to carry up the trail and then I begin ticking off the men in our group. Dave, one, Simon, two, Zach, three, Mike, four, Izzy, five, Me, shit. Izzy sees me staring at the rope.
“I think we want to survive this trip man, so you shouldn’t really be carrying ropes too.”
“Oh don’t worry I wasn’t planning on it.”
“Heh, I saw you eyeing them and I wasn’t sure.”
“That was more of a look of dread than a look of wanting to help.” We both laugh and Izzy picks up a length of rope.
I really do feel terribly useless here and I’m really not used to that. I can say for certain that I don’t like being the guy in need of help, hell I’m usually the guy helping. Out here in the desert though, yeah that’s a different story. We’re given a lecture on the hike we are going on, the lower canyon of something, and about the importance of drinking plenty of water, I’m already halfway through my little 1 liter bottle. Look up the trail in front of us it doesn’t look at bad. It’s a long snaking path that winds its way up the side of the ridge we are next to. It looks like it can’t be more than half a mile to the actual ridge and since we’re going to the lower canyon it can’t possibly be that far up once we get to the actual ridge.
Starting up the trail I find that gauging distances in the desert is somewhat different than gauging them in the forest. Not so much in actually distance but in the amount of energy it is going to take for you to get from point A to point B. This makes the distance seem a lot longer than it really is. So naturally, it doesn’t look like we’ve gone very far at all by the time everyone but Izzy and our tour guides are completely out of breath and ready for a break, in the scorching hot sun. One of our guide, a tell skinny blonde gentleman who looks like he was specifically bread for leaping from stone to stone in the middle of the desert, smiles at us and asks us why we’re tired. When everyone looks at him like he’s insane he just smiles and says:
“We have finished maybe one fifths of our ascent.” About half the group laughs as if he’s joking the other half of us look at our tour bus (which is smaller but still in full view) and then up at the ridge and despair begins to show its ugly head. As we pick up our packs I decide that I might as well find a group and start chatting with people to help the time pass. I spy Simon, Dave, Ro, and Mira and I amble up beside them and strike up a conversation. It does indeed help because before I know it we’re at the ridge and although I am assured by out guides that we have a significant distance to go still I at least spy spots of shade I will be passing through as we snake our way along the path. As we enter the ridge the path ceases to resemble the flat gavel road we had been on and begins looking like a collection of rocks cleared off by years of people scrambling over them.
After several more rest breaks and one or two near death experiences (from stumbling next to a 100 foot drop) we finally arrive at the spot where they teach us how to rappel. Putting on helmets and harnesses is easy enough, and then we learn how to lower ourselves down, again it looks easy enough. In fact this whole thing looks totally simple and utterly routine, so why is it my body won’t quick quaking. It’s while I’m pondering the finer points of falling to my death when I spy a pair of black birds circling down from the sky. Now most normal people would either attribute no symbolism to this at all or would be slightly unnerved by the sight of two raven black birds flying out of no where and starring at them. Luckily I’m not most people, and I am definitely not normal. I’ve always felt an affinity with crows and ravens and so seeing two of the local black scavenger bird is immensely comforting to me. I even try to call one of them over to me, when it noticed me it took a few tentative hopes towards me, and then, seeing I had no food, it gave an angry squawk and hopped towards some others in our group.
Two of our three rappelling guides had gone to set up the first rappel and they call up to the third guy (the blonde guy) in Hebrew that they are ready for us. He tells us to collect our helmets and put on our harnesses and follow him. Walking around the creek bed I find myself face to face with a ledge and a steep drop off with several of my friends waiting by it. Occasionally, the blonde guy calls one of us over and they begin descending the cliff out of my sight. After a brief conversation I head over to him and he clips a rope onto my harness.
“Ok you can practically walk down this but we’re going to hook a rope to you just in case. When you get to the ledge clip yourself onto the second rope and call up to me than finish going down, okay?” I nod and look over the ledge I was greeted by a 20 foot drop onto a small ledge followed by another 20 foot drop onto the ledge I was going to, and beyond that probably a 40 foot drop into the creek bed below. After quashing the rising sense of panic bubbling up in my gut I begin to descend over the ledge. I quickly learn two things, firstly that I can support the entire weight of my body using just my arms and lower myself some distance that way when I really need to, and secondly that you could practically walk down that cliff side if you were a fucking mountain goat. I am two rocks down by the time I slip and find myself clinging to the rope I am attached to for dear life. Lowering myself down to the small ledge I attach the second rope before detaching myself from the original one. I then start down the second cliff side and quickly find it is just easier to lower myself by my own strength rather than trying any of this climbing horseshit. Being a control freak I find it more comforting to be lowering myself down by my own power then by the good grace of the rocks I standing on.
Reaching the bottom of the ledge I unhook myself and make my way quickly to the second of our guides who is hooking people up. He takes one look at me and says:
“Which hand do you use?”
“My left”
“Left! Great! Are you the only left handed guy in this group?”
“Yup”
“Damn, well ok at least we have you on this trip, so ready?”
I like this guy, in no time I’m hooked up for a left handed person and I’m leaning back over a 50 foot drop where I can hear Brooke and Mike yelling encouragements below me. My first impression of rappelling was that it wasn’t that bad at all. For the most part I never see how far I’m going down and I’m so busy concentrating on keeping my legs straight and evenly space that I don’t notice the fact that I’m dangling 50 feet in the air with only a rope and a harness between me and a very messy end. I also take a moment to teach myself how to lock the resistance giver (I forget what it is called) so I could take my hand off of it without falling. After this I lower myself down to the ground and begin chatting with those already down there.
“That was great wasn’t it?! I took a picture of you. You should have seen I got it at an angle that made it look like you were way higher up than you really were!” Brooke was as exuberant as ever and at this moment I actually kind of appreciate it since I just survived the things that I was definitely not looking to the entire trip. “This is great! I can’t believe it though we have to do so many more of these and I think the guy said the last one is going to be 100 meters! It’s that great!” No, it isn’t. In fact the thought of lowering myself 100 meters is about as far from great as I could possibly envision at that point.
“You mean we have more than just that one rappel?” I’m not sure how much color is in my face at this moment but it is significantly less than the moment just before Brooke told me this.
“Of course! We have like five or six more” Brooke rolls her eyes slightly as my good mood suddenly vanishes. I really should have known better but I thought that was it. I mean it was a good 50 feet down, that has to count for something right? There is more? Great, wonderful, and this was the kiddy climb.
The rest of our group shuttles down the side of the cliff one at a time and I journey forth to find the next guy setting up. We were specifically forbidden to look over the edge of the cliff we were rappelling down but I am in no way shape or form ready to obey that rule since I want to know how long the next one is down. It does nothing for my self esteem to see that it’s a good 60 feet down and that its not so much a sheer cliff as a really, really steep side. The third of our guides is setting up the rope and scrambling up and down the side of the cliff we were about to rappel down using no harness or anything other than a rope he has tied at the time. This does nothing for my self esteem. Here I am mister Dopey McWhitingtone worried about a rappel down the side of a cliff that someone else is literally walking up and down with total ease. With wounded pride I return to my cohorts and ready myself for the next rappel. It prove only somewhat tricky as I still have a problem with the whole concept of keeping my legs straight and I keep dancing sideways across the cliff due to not being properly balanced. I then find that the cliff side I am walked down comes to a V which is maybe three feet across and filled with water. I remove the rope from my resistance giver and planted one foot on each side of the V and waddled my way down towards drive land. Brooke, Mike, and Zach stood their playing cheerleader as I inched my way closer to them.
By the time I get to dry land they are set up and the first girl is going down the cliff for the third rappel. I listen carefully and then hear a splash and the girl shouts up that there is water down here. I settle down and make myself comfortable because soon I will be getting wet. The next rappel is probably close to 100 feet down and the water it drops into is hardly hygienic. We also have a second harness that is controlled by one of our guides since it seemed like a drop of 50 feet is fine for your average person but a drop of twice that much is dangerous enough to warrant extra security. By this time I had learned how to keep my legs straight and I am proud to say I only slipped and smashed my face into the rock once. Getting to the bottom I removed my second harness and am helped to the top by Mike who pointed out which nook of rocks was the bathroom and then proceeded to get as far away from that foul smelling corner as possible.
Sticking around long enough to ensure that the next person got out of the pool of water, I wander over to the shade that everyone else is hiding in. Settling down for some lunch my friends the two black birds come down and begin begging for our food. Izzy doesn’t like the birds, which is odd because this is the first time I ever saw him show a dislike of anything. I can see why he doesn’t like them as they prove terribly aggressive when it comes to scrounging food and Izzy explains that these types of birds have terrible tempers. This doesn’t stop other members of our group from feeding them and soon the two birds are happily squabbling over bits of bread and meat.
It was sitting up there in the shade chatting with Helaine and Izzy that the first twinges of nausea begin to creep into my consciousness. I start feeling weak and at the time I vainly think that it is just because I haven’t been drinking enough water. I look in my pack. I only have one and a half bottles left, about 2 liters. Quickly downing the rest of one of my bottles I settle back into the shade and await my turn at the next rappel. This one seems to be a much farther rappel, 80 meters if I recall what our guide said correctly, so it is taking much longer for people to get to the ground. By the time my turn has come I have finished all of the water in my backpack and have begun bumming water from Helaine and her backpack of doom.
I seriously am in awe of how Helaine manages to lug that backpack around with here, it needs to weight close to 50 pounds and I have already seen the sort of shape her shoulder is in. I am really not sure that Helaine’s brain actually registers pain in the same way normal people’s brains do since she is walking around with a 50 pound pack digging into sunburn which has gone from a blistered patch to a deep red scab. My thought process is broken by the guide calling me over and hooking my up. I begin my descent with no real idea of how far down I’m going. I couldn’t get close enough to look down this time and I’m not about to look down when I’m dangling by a pair of ropes trying hard not to stumble and fall while I struggle down.
After what seems like an eternity I manage to make it to the bottom of the cliff and I landed on a small ledge which is just below the surface of a pool which seems to be an unnaturally neon shade of green. I look down at my feet and wonder vaguely what super power this particular goo would give me when I feel the rope on my harness tug.
“I’m not out of it yet, hang on!” I yell up and begin to struggle out of my backpack and harness. Next I see Brooke who is basking in the sun on the opposite side of the pool.
“Ok James, you are on a tiny ledge, do not move to the right because it ends right there. You need to creep around to your left and climb onto that little outcropping of rock right there. Ok, now see that V in the rock? Yes the ledge ends right before that V so watch for that?”
“That V there?”
“Yes, it ends right about where you are, be careful!”
“Oka…” Splash, I’m not careful. One wrong step and I plunge over my head into a pool of something that looks like it should be creating ninja turtles. Thinking quickly I thrust my backpack, which is currently in my arms, over my head and manage to keep it dry even as the rest of me goes under. My feet hit the bottom of the pool and I bounce up.
“Take my ba…” Under I go; I bounce again and spy Mike who is straining at the opposite edge of the pool to receive my still dry backpack. “Mike, take my…” Back under I go and back up I go “Take my fuc…” back down. Eventually I bounce over to make who relieves me of my pack allowing me to properly tread water and I swim for the opposite side of the pool. I get to the ledge and attempt to scramble up the side only to find that the side slopes inward and that I am currently coated in green slime which is preventing me from getting a good grip. My momentum continues to carry me under the ledge on the opposing side of the pool and I have to clutch to it under I come to a full stop. I try three times to scramble onto the shore and three times I slide right back into the water. Finally rolling his eyes Mike comes over and drags me halfway onto dry land, then after I slide in again he drags me three quarters of the way onto the shore and I roll the rest of the way to safety.
I look around for the shade and find that the tiny patch of shade is currently being taken up by Simon and Brooke, and from the look of it Ro was in it as well but had lost her spot to the sun’s movement. Within five minutes I’m completely dry and I brush to fine green dust off of my person and I get up and get in line for the final rappel. It seems to be taking forever and it begins to unnerve me when I heard various people crying out as they are lowered down the cliff side. I walk up to the third guide, a tall skinny guy with black hair. He tells me that the cliff side slopes away from people’s feet and so most of this last rappel is just hanging in mid air. I nod a couple of times and then go back to sitting down. I am not sure if it’s the sun or the worry about dangling in mid air but I am starting to feel ill. It seems to take forever for my turn to come to rappel down. By this time a second group is rappelling down another, more challenging way, which I am just fine with as it removed most of the people from the wuss’s line. Soon I am standing second in line feeling like my stomach is about to leap out of my throat and run all the way back to America.
The girl in front of me is close to tears by the time she is hooked up. Apparently she looked behind her, saw how high up 100 meters is, and started to cry. Our guide has all the warmth of an overworked secretary and it doesn’t help that he is trying to convince the poor girl, who is now in a full blown panic attack, to let herself fall backwards with only his verbal assurance that he wouldn’t let her fall. She kept repeating:
“Its not attached look all this rope goes through it”, to which he replied
“Look, see, I’m holding it you’ll be fine now just fall backwards.” Obviously, no one ever explained to this guy that when someone is having a panic attack about heights the worst thing to tell them is ‘Oh just lean back over the sheer fucking drop’. This is also doing nothing for my nerves. I am in the strange position of being simultaneously ill from the sun, ill from the rising panic coming out of my gut, and remembering a psychology paper I read about the way the human mind begins to take on strong emotions it witnesses in the people around it. I can seriously say part of me is sitting there and wondering how this panic that the girl in front of me is feeling would effect my actions. I then distract myself by wondering how this affects broader social networks as emotions propagate through groups from the first person who feels them to the next person and the next, to finally people who never even knew the original person who was experiencing the emotion. My thoughts are again interrupted by the sight of the girl behind me, she experiencing the same rising sense of panic and this brings me back to the here and now where I am still scared, still sick, and ah fuck it if I die I die I just want my stomach to quit complaining. By this time Izzy comes over and helps the girl down to the point where she has to lower herself the rest of the way down the cliff. I give the girl behind me a reassuring smile and go back to concentrating on not puking before I’m over the sheer drop.
The girl who was in front of my screams half a dozen times on the way down but before I know it the rope is back up and I am being hooked up for a right handed person.
“I’m left handed”
“Of course you are” he says in a heavily accented voice, I can tell he didn’t understand me.
“No I’m left handed, left, left!” I am well past being mature about this.
“Oh! Left, oops, I thought we had all right handed people here.” He unhooks me and rehooks me up for a southpaw. He then looks down behind me to the girl who is being lead up to the group of people who have already gone down. “You’re not a pussy are you?” I glance behind me at the nearly 300 foot drop.
“Let me get back to you on that.” He laughs and then tells me to just lean back. I start to lean back and I feel what the girl in front of me felt, the fact that the rope has about three feet of give to it before it catches me. “This is a trust fall.” I muse. He just looks at me and tells me to lean back. This motherfucker wants me to do a trust fall off the side of a 100 meter cliff. I don’t do trust falls into the arms of my best friends and family much less over a fall that will kill me and trusting a total stranger to catch me. After a moment of hesitation I mentally think ‘Fuck it, what the hell is death gonna complicate’ and I fall backwards. The rope catches me and before I know it I am walking down the side of the cliff trying hard to forget how far down the ground it below me. The cliff slopes away and soon I am dangling in mid air trying hard not to think about the few seconds it would take me to hit the ground if this rope snapped.
This is when I learn why all of those people before me screamed when they were going down. The guy at the top lets through a couple feet of rope more than I let through. Now he controlled the harness on my chest, I controlled the harness on my groin. Being that my groin is below my chest I immediately flip over and I find myself high in the air looking down at the ground below me as I begging to struggle and spin. Holy fucking hell it is a long way down when you’re dangling upside down by a rope. To my credit I don’t scream but really it is because I’m too fucking scared. Quickly I let enough rope out of my harness to compensate and I right myself almost immediately.
I start counting my breath trying to force my mind back to the present and away from the knowledge that I was just dangling upside down nearly 150- 200 feet above the ground. After a few minutes of lowering myself I ease me death grip on the rope I am holding and after a small complication right before I hit the ground the rest of the rappel goes smoothly.
After I unhook myself I find a shady spot and plop down to find that I am out of water again. I go to Mike and bum water from him hoping that we would be back at the bus and the air conditioning soon as I am feeling horrible now that I no longer have the rappel to worry about. After what seems like hours the last person goes down and after some chatting and laughing we pack up to leave. As soon as I hit the sun my heart rate quadruples and the bottom drops out of my stomach. I focus all of my energy on my next step and try to keep walking. We are climbing up again back towards the bus, which we are now below. I recognize where we are as the riverbed we walked beside when we first got to the cliff side at the beginning of the hike. I don’t even bother looking up I just keep walking and I find myself passing other people on the thin trail and being to sick to even acknowledge them. Finally I walk into a patch of shade and I find I need to take a break.
The group passes me and Izzy comes to sit next to me. After a brief talk in which I apologize, again, for being so useless and we ascertain that I am not dehydrated I begin to walk again with Izzy, Helaine, and the third guide. By the time we crest the hill and I see the tiny speck of the bus off in the distance I am feeling like someone has grabbed me and wrung me out like a rag. At this point I am focusing all of my concentration of remaining conscious and walking. I remember talking to Izzy about Ohio and how the heat is nothing like here, I’m not sure if I am even making sense at this point as I reach the bus and stagger past the people who are putting their stuff away. I then stagger back out of the bus to drop off my harness and helmet and then back on the try to enjoy the air conditioning. Our next stop was the Dead Sea but I was sure that I was done for the day.