In the early spring of 1959,
Anderson and I were standing on a large Douglas Fir stump, we both
reached up, and took hold of the two-inch cable and climbed into a
large wooden box. On a dare, Anderson and I were going to cross the
raging Skykomish River in a homemade gondola.
The person that owned the cabin on the other side of the river
had stung the two-inch cable from a large Douglas fir tree about 15
feet above the ground to a Douglas fir on the other side of the river.
There was a pulley about shoulder height that the cable went through,
Anderson and I were going to pull ourselves across the raging river.
We unhooked the chain; we were ready to go, but we could not
get the gondola to move. We yelled at our buddies on the ground to
come up and give us a push. With a lot of effort the gondola was on
the edge of the stump, and with one last push we were on our way.
The gondola hit the water, went back up into the air, hit the
water again, we must of looked like rock skipping across the water.
When we hit the third time the gondola almost went under, we took on a
lot of water then stopped.
The cable was in a big loop, we were half way across the river
in a gondola that was tilted, the top edge was only 6 inches above the
water and our knees were getting wet. Anderson and I climbed up and
out of the gondola, we stood on the rim and took hold of the top cable
and started pulling.
It took everything we had just to get the gondola moving, we
had a 1000 pounds of water beneath our feet trapped in the box. As we
got close to the bank the gondola started to rise up, when we gained a
inch or two in height, we would pause and let some water run out, then
start pulling again.
Our buddies came up with a rope, they threw it to us, I tied it off on
the gondola and then they pulled us up to the bank. On the count of
three, Anderson and I, jumped off the gondola.
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