Leaping errr.. Falling down the Tiger Leaping Gorge
On July 5, 2008 – one year and old day ago – I fell down a cliff in SW China, in Yunnan’s Tiger Leaping Gorge. I fell a good five meters down a sandy, rocky mountain side and was stopped by the roots of a giant plant. Below me, hundreds of meters straight down below me, were the rushing white waters of the gorge. The mountainside grew more and more rocky. I was lucky the plants were there to stop me, but I had fallen so far down that I was out of reach. My friends exclaimed many “Holy $hit”s as they worked quickly to get me back up.
My travel mates formed a human chain to hand me a thick tree branch. I was holding onto plants above my head, afraid to move in case I’d drop down further and be totally out of reach. They pulled up from my frozen perch within minutes, with just a few scratches, a lot of dirt on my clothes and some frayed nerves. I am so grateful to my friends – friends for life! – for acting so fast.
I often think about that day. I was exhausted from the seven hours hike the day before. The red dirt on the trail was loose, after a night of rainfall. I was running, happy to have caught up with the group. Marc was behind me when I got too close to the edge, and fell sideways, twisting, and tumbling down…
Looking at the diary I kept of my travels last summer, I see that beside the entry I wrote about my fall, is a list of classes at Columbia’s Jschool that I was interested in signing up for:
That class, listed as #1, was Howard French’s very first class at Columbia, titled “Foreign Reporting Off the Beaten Path” - an interesting title, given my “off the path” experience at the Gorge. I got into that class and also took his second semester seminar on Reporting in China.
Columbia is over now. Graduation was in May. And here I am, counting my blessings.
July 6th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
hahaha.. even after all these years you still have that messy “boy”-like writing. hahahahaha