It was on my first fifty when the mountain tried to kill me. Mt. Lassen, located in northeastern California, is volcanic in origin, making the overall terrain resemble a giant funnel. On the first day, during a 2500' vertical climb, I thought for sure that the terrain would kill me then, but oh no. That was just the very beginning, and it wouldn't be nearly so simply. Nothing on the trip went quite as expected. Before we departed, we were informed that we'd have to camp over a mile away from one of the lakes we were supposed to stay at, as it was a drive-up destination. On the second day, we were making exceptional time and got to our final destination for the day early, only to find that the lake that we were depending on for water had gone dry. We made extra mileage that day, and would skew the rest of the trip.

By then, we were pretty much playing by ear. The next day we tried to get back on schedule, only to reach our final destination that day. We doubled our hike that day and shaved off a whole day from the hike. Our leader, Mr. Haley, was looking at the maps and trying to determine the route we needed to take to make us eligible for 65-mile awards. He came up with some bad news: we would have to hike the cinder cone.

The original plan had been to hike the summit (without packs), come back down, and camp at the lake at the summit's base. Since that lake was unavailable to us, we'd had to shave that elevation and distance off our route and were going to have to make it up. The cinder cone was supposed to be a day trip for us after the hike was done, but since it would make our required distance, we'd have to do it full-pack.

Now, when you are out hiking for a week, you aren't traveling with a little pack, oh no. The average start weight on the packs was 50 lbs, most of which was food. Having a large protrudance on your back tends to do things to your balance, and this was no exception. Getting up to the summit of the cinder cone was quite an ordeal. We were coming up the side of the cone that had been formed of harder cinder: golf-ball sized roundish rocks that would shift under each step. With every forward step, you'd slide back half a step, just like the old algebra problem with the snail in the well. This was compounded by the fact that nothing grew in the rocky surface, and that we'd hiked across two miles of black sand to get to the cone. It was, in hiking parlance, a puffer.

Lunch at the top was spectacular. We were right in the center of some of the more recent volcanic activity, and the bleak moonscape was wondrous. Somehow life managed to eke out an existence on top. We took shelter in the shade of stunted trees and low bushes. We looked forward to getting off the cone and back down to our starting and ending camp, with vehicles and supplies that we hadn't wanted to pack along on the 50, but would be extremely nice luxuries on our return.

It was with this mindset that we headed down the opposite side of the cone. This side was black gravel, no bigger than peas, mixed in with sand. Coming down was much like going up, but this time gravity was on our side. Each step moved us huge distances, given our stride, the downhill slope, and the sliding surface. Pretty soon, this became a classical physics problem: we weren't stopping fully with each step, and our rate of speed was increasing. To compound this, our packs were driving us downhill, shifting our centers of gravity forwards.

It wasn't long before we had pretty much a full jog going. We were three abreast on a fairly narrow trail, and what with the shifting and sliding and the added size of our packs, we were pretty much using the entire trail. Soon, we were up to a full run, and that is when the mountain tried to kill me.

Perhaps it was the classical fatal flaw of hubris that got me: "hey, I can run down a hella steep mountain with this pack on my back and ignore the 45 degree dropoff next to me!" We came around the side of the cone to see some bozo, sitting in the middle of the trail. He hadn't moved, even though three or four waves of backpacked teenagers had come scorching past him on the trail. The three of us had no room to move out of the way to avoid him: we were on a collision course. I, being in the middle and the one most likely to take this poor fool out, tried to slow down and take a step that would angle me to the right. In the loose soil, however, my planted left foot became an immovable object, causing my right leg to crash into my left, and sending me crashing down head-first.

People sometimes talk about that utter calm and quickness of thought that overcomes them in high-stress situations, and this was the case with me. I thought, "great, I'm going to hit this mountain at 15MPH, and skid on this very sharp, frictionless surface until I have no face." As the surface approached, a kind of miracle happened. Rather than landing on my head, I landed on the top of my backpack frame. The frame extended out a good foot or so above my head, and was meant to be that way to enable the user to lash extra junk down on it. The frame acted as a lever and flipped my strapped-in body end for end.

So now, I was heading down the hill, just as quickly, but now on my back. And, as I could now see, I was still heading for the fool in the middle of the trail. Now, as I've mentioned, this surface is pretty slick. Riding it on a giant nylon luge sled which weighed an additional fifty pounds just made the experience that much quicker. It was at this point that I realized that I had only two final fates: crashing into the fool in the trail, or careening off the side of the mountain, rocketing down the steep slope and into the field of broken lava below.

Another, more pleasant thought entered my head at that moment. I would not hit the guy at first, but head up the uphill side of the slope, arcing back into the guy and caroming off him and down the hillside into the broken lava below. Faced with certain injury, I began laughing my fool head off.

I'm not certain what it is that is in me which snaps in these physically threatening situations. When I was a kid once, my family went horseback riding. I was encouraged to let my horse wait for a minute or so and get it up to a full run. In the nightmare ride that resulted, I was sure that I was going to fly off the horse and to my death. Completely unknown and unbidden to me, a blue streak of profanity came coursing from my mouth and down to the rest of the awaiting group. I don't remember saying anything at the time. The same thing happens with the laughing: completely unconscious and unbidden.

So, there I was laughing at God's cruel joke. Apparently, He values a sense of humor about one's own mortality, because I was suddenly back up on my feet and running again, as if nothing had happened. I was still, of course, headed right at the fool, who despite watching this entire spectacle had not moved one iota. I managed to pass by him (no doubt cursing a blue streak) and down the trail to my waiting companions.

As shocking as the whole experience had been to me, it was nearly as much so for my companions who had watched it from above and below. They'd seen the whole situation run in normal time, not under the influence from loads of adrenaline. They'd seen me flip and also had thought that I'd end up on the jagged rocks below. Amazingly, the worst injury I had sustained was a small gash on my knee, which quit bleeding fairly quickly. My pack was also in remarkably good shape: the top part had that rough orangepeel texture that metal gets when it hits rock, and the straps were all stressed (and later would break in the wilds of Maui), but all in all everything came out all right.

I'm not a religious person, and have never put much stock in an all-seeing, all-controlling entity. This event however, nearly made me a believer.