Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Most dangerous thing/sport you ever did?

Jumped out of a few airplanes, rock climbing, mountaineering, skiing, caving, travel to exotic locations, African safari, regularly ride a motorcycle too fast (laid one or two down in the process), was in a 85 MPH head-on collision in a car, raced cars as a kid, dated a fat chick once, and one beautiful woman who's dad was in the mob. Used to be a loud mouthed drunk which led to LOTS of bar fights. Been in more than a few knife fights, fist fights, blunt object fights, been run over a time or two.

None of that seemed too dangerous.

Dodged incoming fire in Iraq.

Felt dangerous then, and feels dangerous in hindsight.

Mountain goat hunting. Took a slide for about 150ft down the mountain side. I was lucky. The year after that my buddy took a slide in the same area and didn't survive.

Got married

Played senior level Rugby Union as a fullback, nothing like "catching a bomb" & having a ton of opposing forwards try to grind you into the mud with their boots.

Played state level Australian Rules football, no padding or head gear back then, lots of deep tissue bruising, flesh n bone on flesh n bone.

Played grade level cricket, into my 40's. That 15oz piece of leather can hurt. As a wicket keeper, lots of finger injuries

Skied & snowboarded lots of serious terrain, didn't used to, but do wear a helmet now !

Sport(s) have taken a toll on my 53 year old body, but I'm still fairly active.

Tried sky diving - tore the interior MCL in my left knee on my first solo jump. My wife made me give that up. Survived two prison riots (on the ERT) unscathed. Negotiated one prison hostage taking incident..No danger to me but the Officer who was taken was at serious risk. Fortunately it ended well. That was about 25 years ago and to this day she still refers to me as “The man who saved my life.”
Had a heart attack in 1993 while moose hunting. Was about 3 miles from the truck and laid out in -25C temperature for about 5 hours while my hunting partner went for help. Got a free helicopter ride out of that.
Did a number of stupid things as a teenager. Something that stands out was “roof riding”. Climbing out of the passenger side of the car at about 60 mph on to the roof then laying there spread-eagle gripping the eaves while the driver thundered down the graveled Saskatchewan backroad. Miraculously, none of us ever got hurt. Of course we were young, strong, agile and had half testosterone and half high test coursing through our veins.

MOUT in the real world. OIF1
Ah Najaf.
Karbala.
Al Hilla.
Baghdad.
Mosul.
360 schitt.

Desert storm open desert warfare you knew where the dikheads were at most of the time.

2 totally different ballgames......

Forgot slalom water skiing !

Riding a bicycle home at bar time.....no helmet or seat belt.......

Small world. I had a Quicksilver too. That was a nice ultralight.
Before that I was flying hang gliders. Here I am launching at Lookout Mountain.

motocross and drag racing.

Not unprotected sex?

Mountain climbing.
Hunting game that could shoot back

2 mill miles on a long distance truck all 48 states , 3 provinces and some in mexico out of El Paso Tx. A whole lot of stupid stuff with guns,girls,swamps,and farm equip while trying to survive growing up.

Used to ski pretty hard and ride rice rockets both on back roads and for a while at Sears Point. But the scariest stuff was working red-iron construction in Colorado, not usually shaky scared but definitely, totally focused on the work. Worst was being hung out on a beam in an elevator shaft needing to do a back-hand stick weld with a sea of rebar at the bottom of the shaft. Only guy small enough to do it. I was rigged but still scared, the shakes actually helped me make a good weld.

Taking an unplanned dip in the Arctic Ocean back when I worked for a marine freighting company hauling oil stuff to Prudhoe, and one of our barges broke loose in a storm and washed up near Wainwright. As the owners rep I had to be on the barge or it was free salvage. Millions in cargo. I was to go by Zodiac, from the Salvage Chief, through the surf line and try to board the barge for legal purposes and to be there to attach a messenger line and block to eventually attach winch lines. This was 24 hrs after the event and the surf was running stupid high. They took me (the dummy) and a swimmer in, watched for 20 minutes or so, swimmer says, "let's do it". So the boat handler, a master of his trade, timed it just right, we jumped, the swimmer made it in his wetsuit, my life jacket (actually what they call a work vest) caught on the deck/side corner. Receding wave just about tore my arms out of their sockets, adrenaline holding on though, but I lost to the strength of the receding wave. Water temp beyond cold, near paralyzing. Next wave picks me up over the side, rips off the remaining shreds of life jacket, deposits me on the deck. That wave recedes, but I am not washing back into the sea...what the hell? The suspenders back on my HellyHanson bibs caught on a welded cable clip on the deck, probably saving my life...and quick action by the swimmer to cut me loose and help me up higher on the tilted deck. I was so cold, some nasty cuts wouldn't even bleed. Swimmer says later, "Paul, you ever think about doin' movie stunts for a living"?
There is a you tube clip called 'Savior of ships' or something like that, featuring the old Salvage Chief, with a brief glimpse of the barge about 3 minutes in. Days later, we got her off, a lot worse for wear, from big seas and weather, hull stove in, camp units caved in, crane boom trashed. Lloyds of London had to pay.

I made this climb in July of 1981. It was the closest that I have come to dieing while climbing.

In 1986, Mike Levine disappeared while on a Climb of Ellingwood Point. The circumstances of Mike’s last climb and my climb were so similar that I wrote this article, which was published in the Trail & Timberline magazine of the Colorado Mountain Club, in March of 1987.


Mistakes Made & Lessons Learned

On a long weekend in July 1981, three other climbers and I decided to climb Maroon Peak via its’ west ridge. On Saturday we backpacked up Snowmass Creek and camped at Snowmass Lake. On Sunday, after climbing Snowmass Mountain, we wandered up the South Fork of Snowmass Creek, crossed the ridge to Fravert Basin and camped at 12,400’, near the base of Maroon Peak’s west face.

At first light on Monday, we headed for a gully that leads to the lowest point on the west ridge close to the peak. We scrambled up the tallus and scree to the top of the ridge, which is a series of steps. Each step contains a vertical wall, a small flat top and a sloping section leading to the next step. We traversed around the first vertical wall on a ledge to the bottom of a chimney that leads to the ridge top. I climbed the chimney and waited for the others. They decided to turn back. Then I made my first critical error. I decided to go on alone.

I continued up the ridge, traversing vertical walls via ledges and climbing chimneys to regain the ridge top. Near the top, the ridge narrows to a flat catwalk with vertical walls dropping off several hundred feet on each side. After negotiating the maximum exposure, I continued to pick my way to the summit.

I reached the top by 9:00 AM and signed in on the summit log. After spending a few minutes exploring and a few more minutes just looking around, I began my descent down the south ridge standard route.

About five hundred feet below the summit there is a small saddle with a scree-covered gully leading steeply down to the west. There I made my second mistake. I decided that the gully would be a nice scree run to the bottom even though I couldn’t see all the way down. I began my descent into the unknown by hopping and plowing through the loose scree, like a man walking down an escalator.

The gully was getting steeper and the vertical walls getting higher. The scree was moving faster until the bottom dropped out. I lost my footing and went sliding down the gully. I began clawing with hands and feet for something firm as I moved down the gully on an avalanche of liquid marbles. I felt something cold and hard under the rocks and came to a halt. I listened as pebbles went crashing over a waterfall. I heard a tink-tinkle echoing up from below as water trickling from the ice hit the rocks.

I was about a foot from the edge, on hard smooth ice that had not yet melted in the shadows. My fingernails were clawed into the hard snow and the blood trail that they had left there was irrelevant. Every time I tried to move a finger for a better hold, my boots began to slip. I looked over the edge and all I could see was darkness. My knees began to shake and I was sweating. That black hole at the bottom of the waterfall was the jaws of death. I knew that if I went over the edge, I was a goner. My heart was pumping like an engine.

I surveyed the ice for some irregularity to hold onto. The only thing I could see was a rock about the size of a golf ball that had half melted its’ way into the ice; it was just out of my reach. I started to stretch for it and my boots let go. I grabbed the rock as I was sliding down and it came out of the hole. I grabbed for the hole and I stopped. I listened as it crashed and broke on the rocks below.

That hole was my first solid hold since coming to a halt. I moved my left hand to it and could only get two fingers in. But that was enough. I kicked holes into the hard snow with boots. I pulled a folding Buck knife out of my belt holster and stabbed it into the ice. I cut holes in the ice for my hands and began working my way to the side.

Once there I began climbing the vertical wall. Without protection, I knew that if I fell I would hit the ice and slide over the edge of the waterfall. I made it to the top of the wall, climbed over the rim and stopped to rest. I was fully aware of what I had just escaped and my body was racing with adrenalin. I sat there for a long time and vowed that I would never again make the same mistakes that I had made that day.

Mike Levine left his team to climb alone. He made the top of Ellingwood Point and signed in on the register. He then tried to descend a steep colouir on the east face. His body was discovered at the bottom of that colouir. Mike Levine and I may have made the same mistakes. I was lucky. Mike’s luck ran out and he paid for his mistakes with his life. We should all be able to learn from our mistakes and profit from the experience of others.

Most dangerous stuff was done in cars. But I read this and figured out I’m a lot smarter than some of you guys. Ed k

Redneck: I lost track of the number of times I chased criminals at night that were armed and wearing dark hoodies and flat black pants and shoes!
Chasing these negro youth through dimly lit ghettos and unlit alleys AT NIGHT - I mean you just can't see said welfare spawn.
And they have/had absolutely NO respect for life! Theirs nor mine!
Yeah that will get your pucker factor topped out!
Kill't a huge Black Bear that was charging and it died at my feet once - but that was not planned and something I had no choice in participating in.
Danger, in my current position in life (older, wealthy, lots to live for and more intelligent now!), is to be AVOIDED, COMPLETELY.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Seems like we have some experiences in common.