At The Top of a Cliff Getting a Sweet Selfie? Make Sure Someone Else Is Recording!

Do the rest of us a solid and document your plunge to doom.

The great outdoors is great. Where else can you go to watch silly people risk their lives walking right up to edges of cliffs and climbing over safety barriers to get to the tops of waterfalls?

I get it. I’ve gone to the edge as close as I dared and snapped a few photos. I might have even turned around and taken a few quick pics of me in front of that chasm or waterfall. I’m probably overconfident too, since I’ve been hiking for years. I think I’m an expert, just like every other hiker. But my Instagram was hungry so I fed it some wild places. Insta people love that stuff.

A lot of people bite the green wiener in the great outdoors. They don’t come back in one piece. The leading cause of death in U.S. national parks is driving accidents. The number two cause? Falling. Some of these people might have been suicides. But I bet the majority of them were just cocky, overconfident and taking extra risks.

I’ve seen teenagers climbing over the little safety railing and jumping around like mountain goats. The only difference, other than clothes and physiology, is that these goats are leaving empty beer cans behind. Alcohol and cliffs are one of those all time great combinations. It’s just like gasoline and matches, or tinfoil and alien telepathy.

My favorite wildlife picture is a silly person who went past the sign that says “Danger! Go No Farther Or You Will Die!”

I have a few of these photos in my collection. Once I took one of some hikers climbing a glacier. The sign clearly stated that there were collapsing sections of ice which will dump you into caves full of freezing water. Sounds like a lot of fun. These geniuses made it out alive, but only through sheer luck.

Amateurs Acting Like Mountain Climbers

Leaving the trail to get a better look at a river, cliff, pool or set of rapids means scrambling on rocks, sliding down narrow trails or pushing through foliage. Many of us think we are experienced scramblers, able to climb around on boulders and trails with loose gravel with almost no risk. We are overconfident. Exactly how much practice do we get? Once every few months, in the summer.

But mostly we spend tons of time practicing sitting around at desks and in our homes. We might not be as experienced and prepared as we think.

A fall on rocks can be devastating. Even just a 3 foot drop could severely injure you with broken bones. A fall of 20 feet onto rocks will do some major damage or kill you. You need to be careful, you need to have the right footwear, and you need to be in great physical shape to pull off scrambling safely.

You also have to take into account the excitement of the moment that will make it hard to focus on your foot placement and your grip. As you look at your phone and try to get a good shot, you run the risk of losing your balance.

For this reason, always record video instead of still shots when near edges.

Then you can keep recording on the way down and document the fall to your doom. Make sure you scream a lot, especially near running water, to make sure your last noises are captured. As you plummet, hold your phone above you to ensure that your body breaks its fall. That way your hiking partners can immediately upload the footage to the internet. It will get a ton of hits and you will be famous!

Even better: if you can, let someone else do the recording. That way, when you bite it they will capture the whole thing. With any luck they will be close enough they can film the entire plummet. If you just slip and vanish from the picture, it won’t be nearly as exciting to the rest of us. The internet wants to see the splat. Don’t cheat us out of it!

Or, we could all do our best to remain safe and not take extra risks. How about we all make it off the trail alive?

Got any good trail stories? I would love to hear them!