Rappelling

As some of you may know, a couple of us went rappelling this weekend. It might have been one of the coolest things ever. It was my first time going. Anyway, I could go on forever about how it went, but there are few things of importance that ought to be mentioned here.

Dan and Simon were both there. We had to split up the groups to work in more manageable sizes, so I didn't actually witness the stories, but this is what I hear happened.

They were going along just fine for the hikes and the rappels. Things were going really well for them. They and their group were having a lot of fun and really enjoying themselves. The equipment working just fine too.

They were on their last cliff—it was almost 100 feet. They sort of established a routine of how they got things working. Dan and Simon both set the rope up at the top of the cliff, Simon goes down to belay for the rest of the group and Dan stays up top to make sure everyone is secured before they go, and then Dan goes last.

This one was no different. The rope was attached, and Simon went over. He got to the bottom safely and (though it was hard to understand because of the echoes) he was raving about how great of a rappel this one was going to be for everyone.

Katie was next and was ready to go. Once Dan helped her get secured, she yelled the cool rappelling code, "Belay on!"


Through the echoes, they heard Simon confirm, "On belay!"


Perfect. She starting walking backwards, and there she went over the cliff. Katie was experienced, so even though Simon was on belay for safely, she was under control and handled everything herself.

She got to the bottom and unhooked herself. That was great cliff! Once she was on the ground, Simon asked her if she could belay so he could go take pictures. No prob.

She heard the next person yell out "Belay on!" and she took over. This person wasn't as confident, and Katie needed to pull the rope once or twice to stop the person from falling. Nothing to worry about, the person just lost grip with their right hand. Just as she was doing so though, Katie heard Simon crying for help a little ways away. Katie had to stay there though to help the person and so she helplessly heard the cries continue.

As soon as the person got down, she ran towards where the sound came from. To her horror, she discovered the remains of Simon, clearly attacked by werewolves. Werewolves around here? Really? What the heck!

The others came down as quickly as possible so that they could gather and call for help. Dan was the last one. He tied the appropriate knots so that they could get the rope down once he was down. He was safely over the ledge of the cliff and was jumping down as quickly as he could. But the next thing he knew, the rope that his life depended on disappeared into thin air. There wasn't even time to react—he just started falling. The last thing he heard before landing to his death below was the cackle of a witch, echoing and reverberating around the cliffs.

Hopefully our next trip won't be quite so bad…

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I apologize for not being able to post yesterday. The trip was awesome though (and there were no accidents). The game will continue to run now. Just pretend that yesterday was a break. Today (Sunday) is now a voting day, and tomorrow we will continue with the next nighttime phase. Enjoy, everyone!