[b]Les and Jeff's (and Murph and Maddie's) Excellent Adventure - Part 3[/b]

After a quick perusal of my injuries, a lil’ blood, scraps and bruises <hummmm… does leaving a trail of blood on the rock constitute a departure from Leave No Trace theory?>, I’m off hunting the next challenge. I lead us to a section of rock where you can climb down into a crevice. We could easily walk around this and continue on down the nice open expanse of rock, but never one to choose the easy way down, I quickly discard this choice and make a beeline for the crevice. One has to wonder at this point why on earth Jeff and Murph are still allowing me lead. We slide down about an 8ft incline to the first ledge. Once there we realize we’ll never be able to get back up from where we just came, so the only way out is down.

We’re now in a narrow crevice about 3 ft wide, with about a 6ft drop to the path below. Still leading I jump down to the path. Jeff starts and stops several times, doing somewhat of a jitter step, afraid he’ll hurt himself, if he jumps. Murph’s already leaped into my arms, so we’re all patiently waiting for Jeff. I finally decide he’s not going to jump, so I encourage him to put his back on one rock and his feet across on the other rock, and inch his way down the rock, which thankfully he does. His elation at successfully maneuvering the rock is short lived, however, when we realize that the path we saw from above leads to a 20 ft drop to the rock below.

He starts to panic then, thinking we’re trapped, ”What’d we gonna do?!?!? What’d we gonna do?!?!?”. I have a brief flash to Carol Burnett’s Scarlett slapping Vicki Lawrence’s Prissy in the Gone With the Wind sketch, as I contemplate how to handle a panicked person. I dismiss the slapping option and decide instead on giving him something to do. I suggest that he scout the thin crevice off in the other direction to see if we can fit through it and if it’s going to lead out to freedom or to a dead end. The timid “Shoeshine Boy”, who leaves to explore on his own, is soon replaced with confident “UnderDog”, upon his return to jubilantly announce that he made it through. <hummmmm... he must have consumed the super energy pill stashed in the secret compartment of his ring, somewhere along the way>

(ending coming up next)