Monologue

Imagine this: if you lose your footing you are dead.  That is reality on some of the more extreme polish hiking trails.

I visit Poland during the summer roughly every year, and this visit usually encompasses trekking on some mountain trails.  My mom and aunt usually take me on some trails which are more or less just a steep path winding around a mountain.  But because of my lack of interest in these non-exciting trails, my cousin (whose name also happens to be Jack) promised to take me on a path that’s more… engaging.

So a month into summer we get up nice and early and drive over to a mountain my cousin promised would not be boring for me.  The approach to the mountain and the beginning of the trail were nothing more than what I was used to, a steep trail in the wilderness.  But as we continued on, I realized that this trail would be exciting.  A lot of narrow ledges and big gaps in the trail started showing up.  Now this excited me.  And as usual I would challenge myself by leaping over the gaps and traversing the ledges unsupported by the chains that are anchored to the mountainside that you are supposed to use.

This was fine until I lost my footing near one of the gaps in the trail.  Now this wasn’t any ordinary three foot hole in the trail or anything.  It was a narrow ledge that literally had a three foot section missing.  If you were to fall in that section there would be nothing that you could grab onto to prevent you from tumbling down the mountainside.  Trees don’t even grow at the altitude we had reached.  And instead of taking it slowly I jumped the gap, but there were loose rocks were I had taken my final step and launched into my jump, so I came up short on the other side.  My first leg slid just short off of the edge of the other side, but thankfully I was able to catch myself in this awkward position where I was half squatting on the edge of the gap with my other leg.  Needless to say I began to make use of the chains provided and generally took dangerous areas slower for the rest of the day.  I don’t know if I would have died if I had fallen, but that drop did not look pleasant at all.  My cousin just looked at me with an “I told you so” look on his face, but it was funny because on our way down from the summit he got himself into a similar situation when descending too fast.