Friday, June 24, 2005
mccloud at night
So Cameron called me for an ultimate game last night at 6:30, pretty typical for a thursday night. When we got there, only 4 people showed up, not nearly enough for a game, so we decided to find something else to do. Well, we have this new hobby of sorts, waterfall jumping I guess you could call it. In norther CA, there are countless rivers and streams and such, many of which have waterfalls, and most waterfalls are right at cliffs. I went with Cameron to sneaky falls by Lake Shasta last week where we jumped off into the base of the falls, which was rpetty fun. He tells me it is 37 ft. from the top to the water.
Well, last night, Cameron told me about a guy he worked with who had been jumping off this waterfall in McCloud since he was 8, and a vague idea of how to get there. So Cameron, Jack and I left to go at around 7:35 or so, pleny of time for the 1 hour drive up I-5, or so we thought. An hour turned into an hour and a half, and we got pretty confused in the backwoods, and by the time we finally found the trailhead to get to the falls, the sun was down. McCloud, or wherever we were, has an elevation of over 3000 feet, a lot higher than Redding's own 500, and it was much colder. When we made the 20-minute hike back to the falls, we had only the feeble light of my keychain light and Jack's cell phone. As we approached, we were awestruck. The waterfall is about 50 feet tall, and 100 feet wide; all we could see in the dark was the raging white water. We could make out a cliff off to the side, so we started climbing. When we finally came to the end of the ledge we were on, there was only one way down as far as we were concerned: into the pitch blackness known as the water. From 40+ feet up, all we could distinguish was where the white water from the falls ended, and where the inky black, freezing cold water began. After deliberating for several minutes about our plan of action and how we were probably going to kill ourselves, Jack suprised us when he screamed out "F_k It!" and jumped. From above, it looked like he was just suspended for a while, getting smaller until he disappeared altogether. When he surfaced, he didn't make a sound, he just started swimming like his life depended on it, which it probably did. We had our exit point all planned out, it was about 120 or so feet from the base of the falls. When he got out, he started yelling something back at Cameron and myself, but we could only make out one word over the roar of the falls: cold.
After another few minutes of deliberating, I made the free-fall. I was suprisingly scared up until the point my feet left the ground; during the fall, I was completely calm. When I hit the water what seemed like an hour later, I lost a contact lens on impact, but like Jack, I had one thing on my mind: swimming away from current to the safety of the rocks on shore. When I stood up with me feet on solid ground again, I turned around just in time to see Cameron hold his breath and make the glorious jump. After going back up the cliff to retrieve Jacks cell phone and my keys from the top - barefoot and in the darkness of night mind you - we hiked back to the car.
Finally, on the way back at around 11:30 or so, the nearly full moon was just rising in the distance. Although the solstice was 2 days before, I think that was the first day of summer for all of us. And funny, amidst the dark night, freezing cold water, and the adrenaline, not one of us complained about being cold.
♥♥