Fly'n Brian McCray Memorial

Discussion Topic

Return to Forum List

This thread has been locked

Messages 41 - 43 of total 43 in this topic

<< First | < Previous | Show All | Next > | Last >>

the albatross

Gym climber

Flagstaff

Sep 9, 2014 - 07:49pm PT

Thanks for sharing that wayne, Brian had a way of making a lot of people feel like the luckiest person in the world.

We used to hang out in this huge abandoned mine system which had scores of miles of tunnels, shafts, holes and all kinds of loose, rotten rock, decayed ladders and timbers and supports. It was a dark and dangerous place to plan adventure and we thrived on it. Brian seemed right at home prowling those sketchy places, he loved the unknown. Anyway, we'd walk for what felt like miles and every hole or shaft Brian would check out on rappel or climbing. He used to tell me, "albert if I get hurt really bad or die down here just leave my body. get out of here. don't tell anyone". I used to wonder what I would do if Brian had died on one of those treks.

So there we were having just descended straight down this concrete shaft on a rickety metal ladder, we were 400 or 500' down and I got off at the landing, a sixty year old deck made from 4" thick by 16" wide and 20 feet long old growth wood. Off the ladder and relieved to be away from the exposure I walked across the planks. Suddenly, there is a crash of timber and turning see Brian holding himself up by his elbows on the adjoining timber. He quickly scrambles to safety having narrowly escaped a nasty fall of several hundred feet into a manky pool of water. Later, way down a narrow tunnel, the air was stale and thick and we knew we were headed for a dead end. Brian asks me to turn off my headlamp. In the black he tells the landing collapse was one of the closest times he has come to meet death. I breathe foul air and sit in absolute darkness, eerie silence, mind swirling. After some time we switch on our lamps and race to the relative freedom of that deep shaft for a glimpse of sun far, far above.

We turned our heads away from the light and crawled deeper into the earth.