DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF AN AMATEUR DAREDEVIL?

DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF AN AMATEUR DAREDEVIL?

Recently, a free solo rock climber fell to his death. Anyone who is a solo climber, which entails climbing a rock face or a mountain without any ropes, anchors, or safety nets, defies death every time they climb. I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would want to risk death for an adrenaline rush and some limited renown. My diagnosis is that these climbers are insane - placing their life at risk for a kick! This is the dumbest dangerous sport, but there are a lot of others that might qualify as “dangerous and dumb” as well.

Lots of people enjoy swimming and I understand that. I don’t really comprehend why some people feel that swimming with sharks in the wild without the protection of a metal cage is a good idea. Whether you swim in a shark pool or walk into a lion’s den, they are both inhabited by wild animals. You might be able to boast of your feat or share your adventure with a selfie, but you may also end up without any feet and your adventure will be shared in an obituary. I know I would pass on either event.

Another group of adventurers without many brains are heli-skiers. Skiers can drop from a helicopter and ski almost at 90 degrees downhill across the face of an 18,000-foot mountain. There is not a lot of room for error. Similarly, the sport of volcano surfing where a person slides kamikaze down a cold lava slope on a wooden or metal sheet can only lead to a lot of bruises, cuts, and pain.

Base jumping, wingsuit jumping, and bungee jumping are three closely related activities that are also reasons to question the sanity of the participants. To stand on the edge of a sharp precipice and jump off with only a parachute on your back or wearing a wingsuit that you can control slightly are not for the fainthearted nor the intelligent. The potential for injury or possible death is very high for the first two and defies any logic that I can understand. I also wonder if bungee jumpers ever consider the effects of the jump and resulting bounce on their skeletal structure. I don’t believe that the “snap” at the end of the jump has the same positive effects as a chiropractic treatment.

There are many other sports that I find hard to understand. Frozen waterfall climbing seems a totally unnecessary sport. Quit harassing innocent waterfalls that are just taking a winter hiatus from their summer jobs. I have no problem with people who try to ride a bucking horse, but I can’t find any reason anyone would choose to ride a Brahama bull. Is it a kind of cowboy deathwish? Tightrope walkers who feel that a hundred-meter stroll along a sagging wire over a waterfall or between two, hundred story highrises also ranks very low on my list of things to do!

I guess that I never was and never will be considered a daredevil kind of a guy. And the reason is fairly obvious - I am a certified coward when it comes to placing my life into a situation where there is a possibility of bruises, broken bones, blood excretion, bladder malfunction or bodily dismemberment! I consider myself a risk-taker if I hit on 16 playing Blackjack or throwing a five-card into my opponent’s crib in a game of cribbage! That’s as wild and crazy as I get!