Short Stories

The TRUE Story of How I Almost Died

Sometimes in life, it would be inappropriate - and even deadly - to freak out. This was one of those.

This story takes place in Arches National Park, specifically at Delicate Arch. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this arch, that would be the one that is seen on the covers of books, as the iconic symbol for Moab, Utah - or Utah in general. Unbeknownst to anyone who hasn't been there before, there is a bit of a bowl shape on one side of the arch. In the bottom of this bowl, there are trees and little pond things where rainwater collects. It was Mallory's idea to go down to the bottom. Unfortunately, there was only one side from which it was possible to get down there - the rest of the sides were much too steep. After scouting the area, I decided that it would be easier to get to that one side from the arch. I even saw other people getting over that way.

Let me just take responsibility for the rest of what happened right now, because it was my brilliant idea to go the way we did.

We made our way to the arch. It was the easiest part of the whole hike, and it was promising. The ease with which we made it to the arch seemed to promise an easy passage to the other side of it. It turned out to be an empty promise.

After taking pictures in front of the arch, we decided to make our way to the other side of it. After brief observations, I figured that it would be easier to go around the back of the arch than the front. I don't know if I was right, but we lived, so I guess I wasn't too wrong. I scouted out the path we would take - both up and down the steep dropoff on the backside of the arch - and we were off. Going down, about halfway, our friends who were back in the safety of level ground began protesting, telling us they were leaving. We kept going. The wind picked up, and Mallory started wondering out loud whether we were crazy. I told her that were, and that that was why it would work. We kept going.

We did not make it into the bowl, because our families were leaving as soon as we got back. That was okay. I was satisfied with knowing I could have made it if I really wanted to. We got a good look at our progress, and started to turn back when Mallory noticed a couple of Korean girls who were in the same predicament we were: getting back would be very challenging. These girls didn't know how to get back, and, after Mallory brought them to my attention, I figured that I knew a way that was reasonably safe. I offered to guide them back the way we had come. I quickly realized that there was a major language barrier. The only word I recognized them saying, for virtually the whole time, was the sh word. Mallory recognized more of them, but I guess my brain doesn't work quite as fast as hers.

Anyway, now I found myself feeling responsible for four lives, instead of the previous two. And it was much harder to get back up than it had been to get down. In fact, I found myself racking my brain for the trail I had scouted before, and I almost resorted to making it up a few times. Almost.

I cannot express to you with these words how real and terrifying the heart-in-the-throat thing became within the next ten minutes. But, as I said before, it would have been entirely worse at this point to be afraid. First, being afraid would have clouded my judgement, and then I would have made up parts of the previously scouted trail, and I'm not sure if that would have ended very pretty. Second, showing fear would have made everyone else infinitely more terrified than they already were. I had to keep a calm, relaxed, happy attitude, or else the people I was guiding would have lost it. As it was, it felt more like a fun story to tell people someday when we got to the top than the terrifying, death-defying experience that it was.

Mallory, of course, was better at communicating through the language barrier than I was, and so I led her, and she did most of the leading for the other two. I walked across the beginning of our journey. She made sure I was slowing down enough for the others. I crabwalked up the side of the steep side of the rock, she showed them how. I outlined the entire path for her, and she outlined it - mostly with hand gestures - for our companions. I still don't know entirely how she did it.

We got to one of the harder (or more impossible) parts, and Mallory took their water bottles and selfie sticks. I took their hands and they pulled themselves up. Again, these words don't nearly describe how utterly panic-inducing and freaky this was. We were perched, thanks only to the traction of our shoes, on the side of what felt like a cliff, but was actually just a steep hill. If we stepped wrong, we were dead. If there was too much sand on the rock, we were dead. If I led us in the wrong direction, more likely than not, we were dead. But, again, we didn't have time to be scared. We were busy staying alive. We were busy climbing.

Somehow, the order got all switched up. Mallory got ahead of me, and I directed her footing to the top. Thankfully, the Korean girls' friends were at the top, and they helped Mallory up. Then they helped their two friends up. (I insisted that they go up before me. I figured that if there was already someone helping at the top, I needed to be helping at the bottom.) Then it was my turn.

I had successfully held off being afraid the entire time, despite everything. Only now did that fail. I wedged my toe up into the foothold that we had all used, and began to push off. For the first time in the entire climb, my back was to the open air, and my front was to the rock. I suddenly wished I didn't have a water bottle on my hip. It kept me from hugging the rock properly. I crawled up the side of the rock - Spider-man style - all the while aware of the Korean girl with her hand extended just to the left of me. Fingertips against the rock, one foot planted, I suddenly felt myself lose my balance. I almost fell backward to a very painful end, but I retained my balance long enough to reach out and grab the Korean girl's hand. She pulled me up, and I became aware of applause. Our families were on the other side of the bowl, cheering for us, having been worried without even knowing how very close we came to dying oh so many times.

The Korean girls insisted on a selfie, but we didn't get one of our own.

We were also too flustered to get their names, and as such will forever remember them as "those Korean girls we saved."