My Inbox: Do You Take Risks?

I received an email today from my mother-in-law who lives in Arizona. It brought back memories of my trip to the Grand Canyon last year. While I was browsing the gift shop, I noticed a 408 page book about all the people who had lost their lives by falling "over the edge" into the canyon.

The book was arranged by category: falls, dehydration, floods, the Colorado River, air crashes, freak accidents, suicides, and murder. At the end of each chapter is a chronological list with names, descriptions, and causes of the accidents. The authors show that most of the deaths, whether of tourists, prospectors, or experienced adventurers, occurred when people failed to pay attention to warning signs or did not use common sense.

Common Sense? Let me get back to the email from my mother in law.





The email explains the pictures further:

This is a case of photographer photographs photographer. The following photographs were taken by photographer Hans van de Vorst at the Grand Canyon, Arizona. The descriptions are his own. The identity of the photographer IN the photos is unknown.

I was simply stunned seeing this guy standing on this solitary rock in the Grand Canyon. Watching this guy on his thong sandals, with a camera and a tripod. I asked myself 3 questions:

1. How did he climb that rock?
2. Why not taking that sunset picture on that rock to the right, which is perfectly safe?
3. How will he get back?

This is the point of no return.

After the sun set behind the canyon's horizon he packed his things (having only one hand available) and prepared himself for the jump. This took about 2 minutes.

At that point he had the full attention of the crowd.

After that, he jumped on his thong sandals... The canyon's depth is 900 meters here.

Now you can see that the adjacent rock is higher so he tried to land lower, which is quite steep and tried to use his one hand to grab the rock.

We've come to the end of this little story. Look carefully at the photographer. He has a camera, a tripod and also a plastic bag, all on his shoulder or in his left hand. Only his right hand is available to grab the rock and the weight of his stuff is a problem.

He lands low on this flip flops both his right hand and right foot slips away... At that moment I take this shot.

He pushes his body against the rock. He waits for a few seconds, throws his stuff on the rock, climbs and walks away.

Luckily, he won't be in the next version of the book.