Sometimes, falls are a good thing...

I had once lived in Utah County for almost 10 years and never heard of the Alpine Sliding Rock. But over the last 6 months (now living over 100 miles away, of course!), I had read about it and seen pictures and even video of people sliding down it. And due to a friend’s birthday party in Provo, I was able to finally see it for myself. What a beautiful little treasure hidden up a nondescript canyon east of Alpine UT.

My friend Beth shared her 40^th birthday with her husband and friends and I was not going to miss any party where I was actually given an invitation! (I usually hear about events after the fact, though I’m almost positive I am just accidentally left off the invitee lists) So a Friday trip from Smithfield to Orem was in order for the birthday party. I figured I might as well find something fun to do the next day so I contacted Benet, and adventurer who always had good ideas. Out of this discussion came the idea to go to the sliding rock and Saturday afternoon found Benet, Saint (an adventuring friend I had not met before) and me walking past the “No Trespassing” sign that indicated the start of the trail… Friends who break laws together have the most fun!! For the sake of clarity, I had previously read that the sign is posted to keep people on the road/trail and as long as visitors are respectful and stay on the correct path, they will continue to be welcome to visit the sliding rock. We’ll have to be civilly disobedient another time…

After a short walk up a paved trail and then about 100 feet up a dirt trail, the falls came into sight. This is a beautiful section of stream with several cascading waterfalls visible and surrounded by smooth granite carved by centuries of spring runoff inviting playful feet to splash around. This is a popular place with groups of families and friends coming and going regularly the whole time we were there. Though there were lots of places to play in the water and explore upstream, the crown jewel was the waterfall with the natural water slide that was framed by the surprising beauty of this lush hidden canyon. 

After watching a few sliders go speedily into the pool at the bottom of the falls, I knew I had to get up there and take my turn. I scrambled up the trail that led to the top and as I was preparing to go down the last steep gravel trail section leading to the stream, a small child offered to help me down by pointing out the places to step… I told him I was a capable grown-up and I could make it down all by myself! He said he was a scout and he was supposed to help old people. I’d had enough and proved to him that I was capable by sliding down the dirt trail on my behind, right past the little tyke! I looked back up and told him I beat him down which makes me better!! He just stood there slowly shaking his head back and forth. Kids!

So, there I was at the top of the falls. There was quite a good sized place to sit and scoot toward the gentle slope that marked the beginning of the death-defying drop into the water far below. OK, so it was only 15 feet or so, but in dog feet, that’s over 100!! A little girl behind me sweetly asked if I was scared. I told her I was definitely NOT scared. She started to tell me she was a girl scout and was supposed to help old… I pushed off and plunged down the slope…  Woohoo!! I bounced from one smooth rock to another and felt totally out of control as I finally plunged into the pool of water at the bottom… COLD!!! There was an electric shock as I was engulfed in the cold water and I jumped up as fast as I could! Though after only about 3 seconds, the cool wetness felt great in the heat of the sun. What a rush! That was the best waterslide I have been on, and definitely the longest natural slide.  

I made my way past mostly happy and smiling people (there were a couple who were complaining that my splash was too big – I say, if you see a big guy coming at you, get outta the way!) and made my way back up the access trail… Over the course of the next 90 minutes, my partners and I took turns sliding down the waterfall and we all did some exploring up the stream and we saw lots of people put aside any hesitations and just go for it! I expected to have a fun time, but this turned out to be a pretty special little place and I had a really great time. Just a step off the beaten path and an open door to a new vista of adventure, close enough for a quick afternoon trip. This is a highly recommended play spot for kids of ALL ages!

Oh, and please teach your kids to differentiate Huffyman from old people by noticing the gray hair on old people’s heads… Hmmm, forget that. OK, they can recognize old people by the wrinkles on their faces…Hmmm, that won’t work either. Forget it; just keep teaching your children to be nice to old people!

Play along wis me

Adventure, to me, is the reaching outside the bounds of our comfort zones to touch a moment of joy. Adventure can be found in almost any activity if we are stretching past the familiar and seeking new vistas. Yesterday was not a day of climbing mountains or rafting a raging river but Huffyman was part of the first steps of an adventure that will forever touch many lives. All it took is for a free spirited girl to assert her independence in choosing the man to walk beside her on the path of their shared adventure to open treasured windows that allowed views of an exultant heart …

I looked on her sweet face, all aglow in her smile, and felt lost as to how I should feel. I loved that I couldn’t keep her from climbing the tree in the back yard when she was 4. I loved that after falling on the rough sidewalk and getting the many scrapes cleaned and bandaged, she went running again, just as crazily as before. I cringed and I worried, but I cheered inside. When 5 or 6 years old and in the midst of some drama where reality mixed with play, the musical words spilled from that child’s lips that would define our relationship, “Play along wis me!” I’ll never forget the realization that this child was bright and playful and aware to an extent I have spent the last 15 years discovering. She reached out for me, the little girl with the bandaged knees, and I wrapped my arms around the beautiful daughter in the wedding dress… Tears streaming and heart singing and scared to let her go.

We all sat waiting, family, back at the house. Dave stepped out to applause, followed by Erin in her casual, after-wedding clothes. A couple. Married. Surrounded by smiling strangers who are now family. In another time, she is on a high school stage, alone. The spotlight accuses this girl who bows her head at just the right moment as the narrator reveals the end of the production and the crowd erupts in standing praise for the students who have just given their all and for the last girl in the spotlight who tied up the entire package with the most elegant ribbon and delivered it to all of us in poised fashion. I saw my daughter through new eyes that night. I was amazed at the power of this independent spirit in eliciting reaction from those viewing, and I was amazed at the talent I was viewing for the first time. I was seeing that this beautiful girl was so much more than my daughter. With radiant smile and a bouncy step, she looked at her new husband and her happiness was shared with this new audience. We cheered and I felt like the dad at the high school play… amazed at the love of this girl, at her capacity to give to others and to once again have us on our feet, cheering with all our hearts for her choice and her strength and that smile. Only this time the stage is shared. The beautiful couple.

Asked to pose with my married daughter, who was once again adorned in her wedding dress for the reception, I looked deep... I looked and saw a grown-up Erin. I looked and saw love in her eyes for me. I looked in my heart and saw nothing but mush.  And in her, all poise.  Time to let go. Time for another hug, wanting to hold on but needing to allow her to go. I love you. The words and the tears said the same thing and I walked quickly away… It was time to enjoy the girl and watch the path unwind from a distance. And just as you sweetly sang your request so many years ago, I will always be ready to “play along wis you”, Erin.

Nothing to fear...

I am a pretty cautious guy - an injurious history will do that to you. Of course, sometimes I forget how cautious I am and push some limits that allow me to find even more reasons why I should be cautious… These experiences have created a healthy respect for rocks that make my bike fall down and rapids that make my kayak flip and so forth. When it comes to heights, I’m not terribly fearful though very respectful. Heights can normally be controlled, in that we can choose to be extremely careful near a 3000 foot cliff by crawling on our belly to the edge so we can get a close look. Because of the choice involved, I do not usually feel fear in the face of heights. Unless the goal is to jump off the cliff. Then the fear just makes itself at home.

Tyler asked me to come with him and Mike and Steve, my mountain biking buddies, to go cliff jumping into a little out of the way lake here at the south of Cache Valley. I told him I would bring my kayak out to watch, but I did my cliff jumping back in college and it was scary enough back then! He sent me a YouTube video of people jumping from the cliff at Porcupine Reservoir, our destination, and it changed my mind. The cliff is steeply angled so you can jump from almost any height, from 6 feet to around 50 or so feet. The 6 foot cliff looked pretty good!

For the next few days, as I thought about the cliffs, I imagined jumping from 20 feet up and would go into an instant cold sweat! Tyler would visit me in my cubicle and talk about jumping and I would go into cold sweats. I woke up the night before and was thinking about the day ahead and went into a cold sweat. There was definitely some fear having fun with me. The time finally came and when I first saw the cliffs, I thought that this didn’t look so bad… Then as I got closer, the cold sweats were pretty steady. This was nuts!! I couldn’t help think that only an insane idiot would voluntarily jump off a perfectly solid rock through the air into the angry water below. I started climbing up to the cliffs…

It’s amazing how much higher distance is when you are looking down. I got to where the majority were jumping from, a series of heights we estimated to be between 15 and 35 feet above the water. Seemed like forever above the water! Ty, who, due to an unfortunate birth defect, was born without fear glands, announced he was heading to the highest point to jump. This was a small spot 15 or 20 feet higher than the next highest spot and reachable by a small treacherous trail. I followed Ty up just to see what it looked like. As I looked cautiously over the edge, I held tightly to a gnarled tree that was standing guard, trying to warn would-be thrill-seekers of their impending doom. The swimmers far below looked like tiny multi-colored soda cans floating in the water. Except that the soda cans were yelling for Ty to jump. He didn’t wait long before taking a giant leap forward and plunging downward… and downward… and MORE downward… and splash!

I carefully climbed down from the death-defying point to rejoin the rest of the jumpers-to-be. There were 20 or so people on the cliffs and in the water, most of whom I did not know. Peer pressure is a powerful force that we spend many years teaching our kids to avoid and overcome… So when I heard the comments from my buddies, “Huffyman’s gonna jump from the kiddie cliff!” and “Huffyman’s a CHICKEN!”, I was easily able to withstand the pressuring jeers. I only went higher up on the cliff because my equilibrium was off and I lost my sense of direction… NOT because I was being made fun of! I stood at the edge looking down at the water 1000 feet (just estimating) below, surrounded by other encouraging adventurers (“He’s gonna biff it”) and at the same time, totally alone on that precipice. A lot of thoughts go through the mind at a time like this… Mostly thoughts telling me to turn around and go home. But other thoughts crept in as well. Others people were jumping and they were still alive. I was told the survival rate was well above 84%, but I had checked the guest book and saw I was the 85^th jumper of the day with no deaths reported as yet… I had jumped like this before, though 26 years had passed, which was longer than most of those jumping around me had even been alive. I made it out alive then, so surely I could repeat that success. I had lived a good life, and had fought a good fight. I didn’t have a will. Dang! Finally, I quelled the thoughts and said out loud, “I have to do this.” Someone behind me said, ”Actually, you don’t have to do this.” I realized that was true. I didn’t HAVE to. But I WANTED to get past this barrier of fear so I did the only thing that could do that. I leaned forward and jumped through common-sense and the cold-sweats and into thin air… I don’t remember anything from that moment till I hit the water. I’m pretty sure I passed out and the water revived me. Anyway, I pushed to the surface to receive the cheers and adulation I obviously deserved. What a wonderful feeling to break the surface into the life-giving air! From high above me, I heard those wonderful words, “Get out of the way, others want to jump!”

Over the next little while, I jumped 2 more times, passing out each time and being revived by the water upon splashdown. I found that technique worked really well for me. One thing I learned in the couple of hours spent on the cliffs – almost everyone has a healthy fear of jumping off a sturdy comfortable cliff into open space. As far as I could tell, everyone who came to jump succeeded, though not in the same time-frame. Some took a few minutes to get ‘er done, and others took a couple of hours to get the nerve up. Small groups of friends became a larger group of conspirators, and counselors, helping each other find their own place of comfort. There was lots of laughter and encouragement in this group environment where, unlike most of life, it was impossible to hide your fear. There were several partner jumps with complete strangers that helped the fearful find their way past their own barriers. We cheered loudly when the hesitant finally took the plunge, always surfacing with a huge smile of victory.

It was a great day of overcoming fear and sharing the experience with a bunch of friends and strangers. Since moving past this cliff jumping fright that I was held down by before, now when I think about leaping into water from the rocks, I… break into a crazy cold sweat! 

Man vs. Mud

Man vs. Mud was the name of the event. Sounded a little foreboding, as if the mud was gonna morph itself out of the soggy dirt and thrown you down. I would soon come to realize how true that was! It was also billed as a 5k, but other than the course distance, which was liberally spaced with obstacles or slides and mud, there was no real racing and not a lot of running. Just a whole lot of people having a whole lot of fun!

There’s nothing like playing in the mud to bring out the child that has been covered up with experiences and responsibility and work and so many other grown-up problems… The playfulness may be stifled at first, but after the first 150 foot long slip-n-slide, it’s clear that the child within is invited out to play! The slip-n-slide was the start line and really got things off to a fast start. Couldn’t help but laugh, bouncing down the hill uncontrollably! After collecting my senses at the end of the slide, Arilyn (the only adventurer I could talk into this goopy event) and I headed up the trail only to find ourselves in a 50 yard barrage of water cannons wielded by vicious spectators, most of them under the age of 12. Successfully navigating those enemy forces, we were feeling pretty clean until we came to the BOG…

Not sure how to describe this – It was a freshly dug 50 yard long pit, about 8 to 10 feet wide and filled with anywhere from 2 to 4 feet of water. You never knew where your next step would take you, or if your shoes would be sucked off by the deep mud at the bottom of the slippery and uneven pit. With no handholds to speak of, there was a lot of whoops and hollers and mud-slinging and laughing. At one point, I decided that swimming might be the best way to go. I dove forward and tried a little muck freestyle, then the slimy backstroke, and when it was clear I was still being passed, I started slinging mud to slow everyone else down. Now I didn’t start the mud-slinging, but I certainly didn’t do anything to slow it down either! Before getting out of the Mud Bog of Death of Death (legend has it that only about 2/3 of the sloggers made it out alive. It’s a legend I started but that certainly does not mean it’s not valid!), we were covered head to toe with mud from the bog as well as mud flying through the air. And that was just the FIRST mud obstacle!

We crawled, we swam, we laughed, we cried (Arilyn got a blister – I cried for her. She called me a baby)… One obstacle was about 50 feet of muddy water that was shallow for the first few feet, then dropped in surprise fashion to 3 or 4 feet deep! Halfway through, you crawled up to a shallow depth again but stepped gingerly because you didn’t know if there was another hole hidden under the murky water…  The best water slide was another 150-footer halfway through the course that ended in a mud pit. I hit the slide head first on my belly and splashed into the mud pit enough to roll a couple of times in the mud! This was livin’!!

After crossing a pond, there was a very slippery, boggy area to traverse. It was so slippery and uneven it was almost impossible to even walk on, so this was naturally where my partner decided to sneak attack and tried to throw me to the muddy floor. I put up a valiant battle but in the end decided to boost her ego by pretending to fall in an awkward fashion into the slimy mud. It’s just the kinda guy I am… It was fun to watch the group behind us battle it out in like manner for the king of the mud pit. My face was sore from laughing so much!

And just in case the slogging, crawling, sliding and falling hadn’t got you muddy enough, the finish was a 25 foot crawl through some of the most wonderful, sloppiest mud on God’s green earth! What fun to take some time and just revel in mud and let the inner child come out and play. It was an amazing event with a beautiful course and I definitely will be back next year. It would be a blast to get a group together to do this as a team. That is a blatant hint and invitation to anyone reading this! Let the mud fly!!