Janderson

It started out as a list of the ways I nearly died while mountain climbing in Greece, then I got bored, altered some events and made one a little story. Enjoy.

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We had come the wrong way again. We could see our goal taunting us from across the chasm. The path to our salvation. The road to glory. Were we on a flat plain, it would be but three hundred meters away and footsore, tired and thirsty as we were we could have - would have - sprinted to that wonderous dirt road's embrace. Unfortunately mountains aren't flat and a seemingly bottomless pit lay between us and Poolside Action. On the edge of that cliff, staring into that abyss I felt like a man looking into an abyss, which ironically, was what I was doing at the time. Then our minibus appeared, tooting merrily, mockingly, kicking up dust on the trail we desperately sought to reach.

Our leader, defeated by the trail and broken by the sight of our ride home, announced that we were going to climb down into the abyss and back out, taking it: "as the crow flys." From the deranged glint in his eye we could tell that there would be no reasoning with this man. To this day some believe his soul still walks the correct trail looking for his wayward body.

The young mountaineers resignedly began tying, knoting and doing other ropey things, each one fearing a callous boot from our leader and a cry of "THIS - IS - BUTTER!" or something equally insane. One lad, a wirey youth with curly locks and the blood of Hercules himself a-flow within his veins, was plucked from the group, tied up and cast to the depths by our despicable leader. "Sort that out, VH!" He roared, foaming at the mouth. He himself followed shortly after, leaping into the ether like a homeward bound salmon. We only knew he had survived by the maniacal laughter coming from beneath the canopy of foliage. Then the dread cry: "First man, down!" he whooped.

The first man just happened to be me. Being slow on the up-take I failed to join my comrades as they clamoured to escape the horrors of the edge, leaving me alone and vulnerable and a little bit chilly. I turned to Compo, the closet albino and my long time buddy from way back (few months ago), mouthed 'bollocks' and made to follow our challenged leader, who, at this point, was crying and banging sticks together.

Three points of contact; leg over hand; chest out, arse in; I fell off the rock face, tripped on the guide rope, half-rolled half-clambered, kicking loose many stones and rocks, which I found, as I broke the canopy, our leader was devouring like french bon-bons. I slid to a halt a mere ten meters above the formerly human mountain leader. He awarded me nine points for style and beckoned me with a waggle of his finger and a flick of his... ... ... tail. Then it happened.

Time seemed to slow. Compo above me screams "BELOW!" The leader pulls out a banana. At that moment a large rock blurs past my head, crashing down upon a rock mere inches from my skull. The leader bends into an impossible shape narrowly avoiding life as a vegetable The rock catches the banana which explodes everywhere. Time resumes. I scream "FUCK!"

As I completed my trip to the bottom, to meet a living, breathing VH. I thought about what had just happened. I had no idea what the leader was planning to do with that banana, but thanks to Compo's quick thinking we were spared the - most likely - grisly results.

When the rest of the team reached the bottom safely, our recomposed leader uttered "Bollocks. The sides are too steep. We'll have to follow the ravine." Then he ate his eyes.

~fin~

I went snowboarding for a month in Austria. Was fackin hardcore.

I'm a first timer, so at first I was a bit frustrated that all my mates were freestyling while I was doing falling leaf and J turns. But after a while I came to terms with the fact that snowboarding is not the same as skateboarding and my instructer was hot.

The first week was spent at Zel am See on the Glacier near Kaprun, and the Kitsteinhorn near Zel. We just learned the basics. Plenty of spills, plenty of pain, plenty of fun. The best thing about it were the T-bars though. T shaped bars you grab to get dragged back up the mountain. For skiers probably simple. For a novice snowboarder extremely difficult as you have to steer keeping clear of ruts made be the many who have gone before you and keeping your balance in general. What a ball-ache, but it's better than walking! The first week I just gave up and hooked my free leg over the T so I could be dragged up by my feet catching all the snow loose snow in my jacket as I went... yay.

The next three weeks were spent racing down at Nuestift against the other novices but since the weather was shitty for a bit all we did was freeboard. I never won any of the races I attended but did manage to overtake somebody on the (single) Slalem. The food was excellent down there and there wasn't I night I came home sober. And the best part was getting paid to skive my actual job to go on a winter holiday for a month.

As a bonus I got air, learned a couple of tricks and mastered the T bar(I was doing that bad boy one legged and everything.)

So anyway any snowboarders on here? Can you recomend any places to go on a snowboarding holiday? Anybody who's interested want any info on it? Btw if you're looking for tuition I suggest the Ripstar team.

Heh. I am shitting my pants. So I ain't sleeping tonight. Here's why;

Yesternight I had a dream. In it there were black dogs (hellhounds, black shucks, whatever!) walking through a city in broad daylight. Everybody was ignoring them despite the fact they were massive black dogs just wandering around. My dream self would not look at them directly and when I got close I grew intensly frightened and tried to ignore them like everybody else. It wasn't so much the dogs themselves at first, it was how they made everybody act including authorities and experts.

These dogs were the size of doberman but shaped like alsations with thick black hair and large red eyes, with huge black pupils, set real close together. Their eyebrows hanging over caveman style to give them a permanently malevolant glare. They seemed to ignore all the people, content in their own wanderings. They didn't seem to have pups and the streets were free of defecation.

In my dream there were news paper clippings about people found ripped to shreds in their homes by these things. At some point I think all this shit is ridiculous and make to shoo one away. The second I set eyes on this thing it snarls and I'm rooted with fear. It's making some kind of noise like a deep chuckle with a dog's growl overlayed. I avert my eyes and the dog gets back to wondering. Its face when scrunched into a snarl with it's narrow set eyes fucks me right up!

So after I wake up I think I shall record this because that is what I do when I have vivid dreams. Of course I waited 'til night to do this so my memory was a bit hazy. So I'm looking at descriptions and google images trying to get it back in my head so I could write a more artistic description and I come across this:

Wandering Black Dogs
Wandering black dogs may be encountered in almost any rural area, normally at night. The dog is usually encountered by a lone traveler or, at the most, a group of two or three. It is heading in the opposite direction to the traveler(s), and is content to ignore and be ignored. However, if anyone should speak to it, try to strike it or take any other action, the dog will use a supernatural power to strike the offender blind, dumb, mad or worse. It can do this simply by stopping and fixing the victim with its fiery eyes, although it does not even need to do this; the effect seems to be spell-like rather than a gaze weapon.

And all of a sudden it felt for a moment like I was back in the dream and it all came flooding back. I know the location and modus operandi of the dog is different in this description but makes it worse somehow.

Still, don't think I got the description of the dogs down right but it's a start.

So basically, I scared the shit out of myself. What do you think?