[pct-l] Greetings All

[calliger@infolane.com (R.J.Calliger)]

Great story! I heard the same voice when I was in training!

Rich


At 9:03 PM -0800 4/3/01, Christine Kudija wrote:
>Kevin...wherever you heard "practice at home" they probably didn't mean
>practice self-arrest on your roof! <VBG>
>
>Seriously, I've had one major self-arrest episode in 20+ years of hiking,
>backpacking & climbing in the Sierra.  And THAT happened when I was
>(carefully!!!) stepping from dry trail to snowbank-covered trail -
>fortunately, at the time I was using my ice axe as a walking stick; my
>husband & I were descending the South Fork Big Pine Creek trail after having
>climbed Middle Palisade (one of the fourteeners in the Palisades).  The snow
>broke through, I lost my balance and turtled downslope - head down, belly
>up, heavy pack contributing to the momentum...  From somewhere, I heard a
>loud voice yell "ARREST" - I heaved over & got the ice axe into the
>snow...probably about 20 feet above some really pointy rocks.    The funny
>thing ... my husband didn't know I had fallen (this was an isolated
>north-facing snowslope with dry trail above and below it) and no one else
>was around.  The voice sounded just like the instructors in the Sierra Club
>mountaineering class who drilled me & a bunch of others on a long, wet,
>January day in the San Gabriels.  Either my guardian angel was working
>overtime or my overactive imagination kicked in.  I'm glad I made it into
>the 50th percentile...  This occurred in 1978.  These days I use a pair of
>Leki poles, which would have worked for the balance aspect (not to mention
>prodding the snow for stability) but would not have worked at all for self
>arrest.
>fwiw...
>Christine
>
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