Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls

Originally posted in August of 2008.

Another fun story from our pal Cory, who you may remember from "Black Underwear." Cory has no shortage of adventure tales to share. This one, she shared with me on the EL in Chicago. She stayed with me for a night as she moved from Minnesota to southern Illinois to attend grad school.

This is the story of when I fell off of a waterfall. I'm from Duluth, Minnesota, and my best friends and I like to go skinny-dipping, but we like to go when it's dark out at this awesome little place called the Deeps. The Deeps isn't a very big swimming hole, by any means, but it is really really deeps, so people will like jump out of trees into it and do all sorts of stupid stuff that I would never do.

We did like to kind of crawl up along side this waterfall at the Deeps, which I did once or twice. My friend, Ann, actually fell off it, and it was kind of awesome because it was like the moonlight, and I saw this beautiful like white flash coming down the waterfall, and I said, "Whoa, what is it?!" and then a heard a splash, and this naked Ann plummeted into the water below. But she didn't fall from very high, and she was fine, and it was really funny.

Anywho, we also went there during the day, at which point we would not be naked swimming. And my best friend, Megan, and I use to work at a place called Camp Vermilion, and every so often we would bring friends home for the weekend. So, we had a bunch of friends from camp. Actually, I hadn't started working there yet, but she'd brought a bunch of friends home from camp, and we went to the swimming hole. It was her, Lindsay, Connie, Paul, Neal, my brother, and myself.

And for whatever reason, I get it in my head that I want to climb up along side this waterfall. This is a stupid idea because I normally have terrible balance and to not be good at climbing things. So I was like whatever, I’m going to climb this waterfall. Stupid.

So, I started climbing it; a little proud of myself because I'm almost to the top. This is maybe... I don't know, twenty, twenty-five feet. That could be a lie, but I think that's what somebody said they thought it was. So, I'm almost at the top, and I'm really proud because I've never climbed anything higher than stairs and not fallen down. And my friends, Connie and Lindsay, are behind me. Megan is at the very bottom, and she yells for Connie and Lindsay to turn around so she can take a picture of us climbing. And I'm maybe, I don't know, I'm maybe five or ten feet above them, and she's about to yell at me to turn around to smile as well. But at that moment, I start to fall. Now, from here, I have to divide the story into my point of view and Megan's point of view, cause she saw it happen.

But all of a sudden, I just like lost my grip, and all I remember is WHOOSH! Like just falling down; sliding down. I was climbing up on slippery mossy rocks. What the hell was I thinking? And so, I remember like, you know, as I'm falling down the waterfall, sliding off the rocks, I must have like Tasmanian Devil spinning in a circle down. So I’m like spiraling down, and I hear my friend Paul, who... We joke how we're soul mates. I just hear him go, "Soul mate! Noooooooo!" And I hear this as I'm plummeting down the waterfall, in front of... it was a really hot day, so there are tons of people at the Deeps, and it's not a big place.

And so, I get to the bottom of the waterfall, and the rocks kind of made like this little ski-jump. And as I go off it, my thought was, "This is either going to be awesome or I’m going to fucking die." I got like WOOP! Off into the air, and I slam into the water and I start to sink, which is awesome cause that means I've missed the jagged rocks below. But I feel them grazing my back as I'm sinking, so it means I just missed the jagged rocks below. But I'm just really happy that I'm sinking because it means that I'm still alive and conscious.

So I kind of like kick off and I surface, and I'm like immediately elated. I was like, "Yeeeaaahhh!" You know? Because I lived. And I like I come up to the surface, take a huge breath, and I look around, and I was like, "Yeah!" and it's just like... cricket cricket... cricket. Dead silence. Every single person at the Deeps was just like staring and like pointing with their mouths open. And after a second, all I hear is like Megan, who hardly ever swears, "What the fuck is your problem?! Don't you ever fucking do that again! You scared the shit out of me, Cory!" She is laying into me.

I don't remember this, but Megan said, as I was coming down, I almost took out Connie and Lindsay as well, who were below me. And she said that Connie like barrel rolled over Lindsay to get out of my way. And she also said, which I don't remember, that as I was like falling down, I would kept like grabbing all the little mossies trying to hang on, but I couldn't get a grip on anything, which just shows that like your basic physical instincts... I don't even remember doing that, but I just... basic instinct was trying to grab the moss.

And Megan like pulls me out of the water, and she's like, "Your life just flashed before my eyes! YOUR life flashed before MY eyes! I was there when you were adopted from Ecuador! I was there when you graduated from Cottey! I was there through it all!" And she was just freaking out.

And my little brother was just standing there, smoking a cigarette. He was like, "Dude," was like his only response. And my response was to be like, "I hate it when you smoke." And I mean, I survived. I had some really sweet bruises all over my body, but I survived.

I'm sure it will surprise no one to find out that Cory currently works for a company that specializes in outdoor adventures for families. She is a certified canoe guide, and is currently working on her Masters Degree in Outdoor Recreation.