That Day I Nearly Died

I used to joke that I had used up most of my nine lives, counting off various injuries and situations that could have been fatal, or at least a major hospital visit. Skiing, jumping my bike or body surfing in a remote cove all resulted in injuries or near-death experiences. I even nodded off driving on the highway once, and opened my eyes in the oncoming lane of traffic where the road curved away and I was so close to the car coming towards me I could see the other driver’s face as he freaked out and swerved violently into another lane. I got my car back into its own lane without further incident but someone out there has been telling a story for years about the day they nearly died when a car with a sleeping driver crossed over into their lane and nearly took them out.

But even that did not come close to the July day in 1999 when a falling rock, a granite boulder big enough to cut me in half, skipped off another rock above me and came cartwheeling down onto my head. We were climbing up Garnet Canyon on our way to summit the Grand Teton in Jackson Hole. My father had last done this climb with his brother, the famous Barry Corbet, and their Dad when my grandfather turned 65. So when my Dad turned 65 he figured that was a good excuse to get all of us down there to do some climbing.

Barry Corbet was in a wheelchair in 1999, so he did not join the climb and had to hear all about this after the fact. As we hiked up the trail along the right side of this open, Alpine canyon filled with sharp, angular granite boulders we had left the forest behind and only a few trees dotted the hillside. Coming down towards us we encountered another climbing group that had summited earlier that morning despite an electrical storm swirling about the peak. We could see the angry clouds and the other climbers confirmed they’d had a hairy time of it reaching the peak while lightning struck uncomfortably close. They seemed happy to be on their way down.

It started to rain gently so I paused to pull a rain jacket out of my pack. I was at the back of our group so one of the older guides with us hung back while the others continued on. We were celebrities, or at least related to a celebrity if that counts, so multiple guides were taking us on this climb and any laggards were carefully watched over. Barry Corbet had mapped out many of the routes up the very mountains we were climbing so we passed Corbet Camp and a variety of things named after the famous man. Corbet’s Couloir is the most notable. He was a true legend, so we were treated like royalty.

I got my rain jacket on, put the hood up and continued along the path a few steps when I thought I heard something high up the hillside to my right. It was a steep slope littered with very square looking granite boulders that all appeared as if they had just been chipped off some larger rock. I had no peripheral vision with the hood on so I remember pulling the right side of my hood back as I glanced up the canyon wall. And in just that moment a very large boulder bounced off a much bigger rock just above me and came careening down on me. I always describe that boulder as spinning or skipping off that larger rock as it hurtled towards my head because that is exactly how it looked. Like skipping a rock across the water, this boulder glanced off the larger rock and was left spinning like a stone as it came straight towards me. My reaction was immediate and without thought. I just ducked out of the way at the last second. The last fraction of a second. It was so close the boulder hit the top of my pack and smashed the few items in a pouch that formed the lid. It even cut through the Gortex just under the collar of my rain jacket. Later I held that jacket up to the light and could see right through that scar in the fabric. Whoa, that was far too close.

We continued on and eventually summited the Grand Teton at almost 14,000 feet above sea level but I’ll never forget that day. I still remember hunkered down below the trail convinced a landslide of rocks and boulders was coming down on us when it was literally just that one rock. Another climber behind us came running up the path in shock. Said he saw the whole thing and worried he was going to have to help carry a body off the mountain. He was the one who said it was a lightning strike on one of the few trees higher up the canyon wall that dislodged the rock. Ever since then I feel unsettled if my peripheral vision is blocked. And I rarely put my hood up.