An interesting day

My small group (Adam Jared, Jon, and myself) and I decided that we were going to use this Saturday (today, August 14th) to go on a hike. So we left this morning around 8am. We had hiked for quite some time an we weren't quite sure where exactly we were but we knew the direction we needed to go as we had a GPS so we started trailblazing. After awhile we came to a creek which we quickly crossed. Of course I didn't make it across without completely submerging my boots, but such is life.

We crossed the creek and came to a relatively steep slope. Jared was leading and so he started up the hill. After making it the majority of the way up he stopped to make sure Adam and I made it up safely.

The ground on the slope were climbing was,in one major part at least, essentially all gravel and very slippery. I made my way up slowly to a set of large rocks. My intention was to climb them as they seemed to be a solid footing. I took one step on the rock and it broke in half. I was in front of it so I wasn't harmed. Adam, however, was behind me. Now when I say rock I mean boulder. It was about the size of a 27 inch TV. I had told Adam what I was about to do so he knew what to expect and was watching me. As a result he saw the rock break and come right at him NOT a pleasant sight! I highly recommend staying away from watching a large boulder roll toward a good friend (or anyone for that matter). I jumped/slid down the slope to where he had stopped. It looked like it had hit him square and I was concerned that he had broken something or worse. Thank God he was alive! The rock had hit him in the shoulder puncturing a hole in the skin. His hand was also pretty messed up and there was a nice mark on his leg as well. After very slowly getting him down the hill and out to the road we took him to the hospital where they cleaned him up. The skin on his hand looked like white stones were covering it and underneath the skin there was mess of dirt and rocks. They were cleaning his hand for maybe 30 minutes. At one point he started bleeding and the blood was bringing dirt out. When all was said and done he went home with several stitches in his hand, leg and shoulder. Praise God it wasn't worse! I don't know how I would've reacted had that rock killed him or done worse damage then it did. However, all in all it was a fun day.