Hank's Place

No, wait, that's not it.

One of the rivers on which I did the Guide thing was the Rogue River in Southern Oregon. It's great, you should go see it. Somewhere in the latter half of the trip, in the middle of a really big, really deep pool there is a huge rock outcrop next the river. It's almost 40 feet straight down from the top into water that is at least 20 feet deep. And there is an easy climb around the back that takes you up to the top of the rock. If we thought we had sufficient time and cool enough people on the trip we would stop and let those who wished climb up to the top and jump into the water.

It took a me a couple of trips up to the top of the rock before I jumped off it. 40 feet doesn't look very far from water but is really really high when your on the rock. But I did it. You're in the air long enough to think to yourself that it was a really dumb idea to step out into the void and that you're not having any fun.

Every trip after the one where I did the jump I would trek up to the top of the rock to see if I wanted to jump again. Here's the thing: I never did.

But almost invariably there'd be some college kid on the trip with Mom 'n' Dad who'd be itching to jump and we'd have a conversation something like:

CK - Are you going to jump?
H - Nope.
CK - I'm going to do it.
H - That's great.
CK - Why aren't you going to jump?
H - I come up here every week to see if I want to and I don't want to jump today.
CK - What, are you afraid?
H - Yup. Now go jump off the rock and I'll row you through a few more rapids.