The Cliff

The adults gathered near the edge of the cliff. Of the thirty boys and ten adults that had camped on the mountaintop, ten of the older boys and four of the leaders were rappelling down the face. It was a hundred and fifty-foot rappel, and they had been practicing for months. Aside from the mental challenge of stepping off a cliff, they had to deal with the logistical challenge of getting fourteen backpacks down the cliff face. The boys had redistributed a lot of their stuff to other boys in their patrols, so they weren’t carrying tents, but they did have sleeping bags, clothes and other essentials. The packs were mostly about twenty pounds or so.

Gunny oversaw the rigging of a system to tie a couple of packs together and lower them down. They had to do it four times to get all fourteen packs down, and it was tough work. The adults went first, lowering their packs and showing the boys the system. It took over an hour to get all the bags down.

Then it was time for them to start going down. Two of the adults led off and rappelled down the face. When they got to the bottom, they signaled for the first of the boys to come down. Jack was in the second to last pair of boys to go down, and he was starting to get nervous. He’d been to all the training rappels, but none had been this high. As he stood looking out over the scene in front of him, he could see for miles and miles. Off in the distance, he could even see the patchwork of farm fields. In another situation, he would have marveled at the incredible view. But at this moment the only thought that occupied his mind was that he was standing near a cliff… hundreds of feet from the landing below… and he was preparing to step off.

“Jack, look at me,” Gunny said to him as he held Jack’s shoulders. He walked Jack backwards toward the cliff, the rope already set up on his carabiner. Gunny was tied off to a tree, so he backed Jack right to the edge. “You can do this Jack. You’re out over the edge now. Lean back… just the way you did in training.”

“Yes, Sir,” Jack said quietly.

Gunny made sure, for at least the fifth time, that Jack was holding the ropes correctly and knew the procedure.

“Just lean back and walk backwards down the face. Look up here to me until you get comfortable.”

Jack stepped off the cliff and started walking slowly backwards down the cliff face. After a few feet, he came to a little shelf, and he had to jump to get over it. It took three tries to get the timing right, but he jumped and let out rope at the same time and easily slid down about ten feet. Getting the hang of it, he got more comfortable.

Gunny stepped over to the other boy that had yet to go. His name was Randy, and he was new to the troop. He was almost fearless as he went over to the edge and started working his way down the cliff. Soon he was lower than Jack. But as Jack got down to about fifty feet from the bottom, he caught back up to Randy.

“I’m stuck, can you help me?” Randy asked.

“What is it?” Jack asked.

“It’s like there’s a knot in my rope. It’s jammed.”

“Can you pull yourself up and undo it with the other hand?”

“No… I tried. But I can’t hold myself up with one hand.”

“What’s goin’ on down there, guys?” Gunny yelled from above.

“Randy’s stuck, Sir,” Jack yelled back up.

Gunny yelled down the same instruction, and Randy yelled back up that he couldn’t.

At the top of the cliff, Gunny let out a sigh. “It was all too smooth,” he said to Jim Davis and Charlie Jackson. “There has to be one.”

Gunny walked back over to the cliff edge, “Jack, keep going down. Mr. Jackson is going to come down your rope and see if he can get it undone,” he yelled down.

“Yes, Sir,” Jack yelled back as he continued down the mountain. A few minutes later his feet were on solid, almost horizontal ground. He unhooked his rope and waved his arms to let them know at the top he was off the rope.

Partway up the mountain, Randy was starting to get nervous. He was yanking on the rope to try to dislodge the snag and it wasn’t working. A few times, while he was struggling with the rope, he lost his footing and smacked into the cliff face.

“It’s ok, Randy,” Charlie Jackson said as he started down, “I’ll be there in a little bit. Just hang out and enjoy the view.”

Charlie kept making his way down the face, knowing that hurrying would be more dangerous than taking his time. But as the moments clicked by, Randy became more and more panicked.

“Ok, Randy, can you pull yourself up to take pressure off the part of the rope that is snagged,” Mr. Jackson asked him.

He tried, but he couldn’t hold himself up enough for Mr. Jackson to do much of anything, but he tried for ten solid minutes to untangle the boy’s rope.

“Charlie, hang out there for a minute. I’m going to bring him up,” Gunny yelled down. “Randy, when you feel me start to pull you, just walk up the mountain… like Batman, got it?”

“Yes, Sir, Gunny,” he responded, though still not sure how this was going to work out.

Gunny told Jim to wrap the rope around the stump between the two men. “Keep pressure on the wrap. If I slip, you have to hold up Randy. That kid probably weighs one-fifty, but with the wraps, it shouldn’t be too bad.”

Gunny double checked his safety line, then walked back over to the cliff. He picked up the rope and started hauling it in, hand under hand. “Keep walking, Randy,” he said as he brought the boy back up the cliff.

After about fifteen minutes of pulling, including a couple of short rest breaks, Randy scrambled over the side at the top of the cliff. He looked up at the Assistant Scoutmaster that had hauled him a hundred feet up the side of the mountain. He was sweating and flexing his hands, but he barely looked winded.

“What now, Gunny?” Randy asked.

Gunny picked the rope back up and undid the tangle. “I don’t know how you managed that one,” he said to the Scout. “Are you ready to head back down the side?”

“Do I have to?” Randy asked, looking rather nervous.

“That or make the run with Mr. Davis. And he runs fast. I’d rather go over the side.

Gunny checked over the rope and tossed it back over to allow Randy to try it again. He rigged the youth and sent him back over the side. This time he made it all the way to the bottom without incident.

“After I get to the bottom, Jim, you can drop the ropes and head down the path. We’ll wait for you.”

“Ha, I’ll wait for the hikers. I’ll catch them before they make it to the trailhead. It’s only ten miles and almost all downhill,” he laughed.

Gunny shook his head at his friend and fellow scout leader. Then, he walked over to the side, checked his rigging again and stepped backwards off the cliff. He made it down the hundred and fifty-foot face in just a couple of minutes, bouncing down twenty or thirty feet on each leap.

Just after he unhooked from them, the ropes dropped to the bottom and Jim Davis took off on his run. The boys picked up their packs and started the rest of their hike. The cliff had cut six miles off their ten-mile hike down.

***

That was some story last night at the campfire, Gunny,” Ed said as the two men drove back to Hampton in Gunny’s truck.

“Like that one?”

“Lots of details left out, but quite a story.”

“Think how fun it would be to tell the real one, Ed.”

“Jack wouldn’t believe it. Heck, I barely believe it and I was there.”

“I know what you mean.”

***

Gunny’s pick-up truck pulled into the church parking lot that evening after their long ride back. The van was already there. The boys unloaded and were talking excitedly about the trip with their parents. Randy’s mother walked over to the truck before Gunny could get out.

“Mr. Grafton, I’m Elise Roberts, Randy’s Mom. He told me what happened.”

“Please, Ma’am, call me Gunny, everyone does.”

“Well, be that as it may, I’m still a little concerned that a child could have been stuck on the side of the mountain,” she continued, with a bit of exasperation.

“Ms. Roberts, my name is Ed Dixon. I’m a parent, like you. I was at the bottom, watching, when it happened. The rope tangle was a freak thing. Gunny and I, and a few of the other adults there, have done this for decades and never had a rope tangle like that. But I can tell you that in no way was Randy endangered because of that. We had several options to handle the situation.”

“Mom,” Randy said from behind her in an almost whiny voice, “it’s not their fault. I think it was mine. I was whipping the rope around behind me and I think I made the tangle with my foot. And while I was stuck, I was scared, but Mr. Grafton and Mr. Jackson got me down. They weren’t going to leave me,” he said, stretching out the word “leave” to three extra syllables.

“This is a dangerous activity. Is it really appropriate for these children?” she asked.

“Ma’am, it absolutely is dangerous. Your sixteen-year-old son stepped off a hundred and fifty-foot cliff and rappelled down it. Almost twice. His harness and rigging were checked multiple times and by multiple people. The young men that were allowed to rappel were all over fourteen and, like your son, not small guys. I have been rappelling since I was a Scout, and I’ve NEVER had a person in my care, or with me, that had a serious injury from the activity,” Gunny said, flashing his best smile. “Please excuse me for a minute, I need to unload the packs from my truck.”

Gunny turned and walked to the back of his pick-up truck to help get the packs distributed. He reached in and grabbed several of the packs in each arm and pulled them out for the boys to grab and distribute. A few moments later the back of the truck was clear, and parents were starting to leave with their sons.

“Mrs. Roberts, did you have any other questions,” Gunny asked.

“It’s Miss Roberts, but please call me… Elise. I would like to talk about this sometime, though.”

“I’m here every Monday. I can usually break away to talk unless Mr. Holloway isn’t around, and then I might have some Scoutmaster duties. Otherwise, I’m pretty easy to catch.”

She thanked him and turned to head back to her car.

“I think she was flirting with you, Gunny,” Ed said, smiling. “At the end, anyway.”

“Ya really think?” he responded.

“Yep- ‘but please call me-’ dramatic pause- ’Elise’,” Ed said back in a falsetto voice, “but whatever. She is pretty, though.”

“I will admit that she is quite attractive. But flirting… I don’t know.”

Ed shook his head and laughed a little as he gathered up his son to head back home. Jack had a few finals to study for before bedtime. And it was already dinnertime.

This is part of a larger story, which is part of a series. Jack Dixon, Ed Dixon and Gunny Grafton are major characters in the Dixon-Prince series of books. This story is part of a novella called Storytime with Gunny, in a collection called Who, What, When, Why? available on Amazon.

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