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Article: UNFORGETTABLE FALL.(Sports)
- Article from:
- Albany Times Union (Albany, NY)
- Article date:
- May 28, 2009
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 Albany Times Union. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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When the snow bridge gave way -- like a trap door, Thomas Denham recalled later -- he screamed and plummeted into the abyss.
"It was dark," he remembered. "I just kept falling and falling and falling. It seemed like forever. I had forgotten I was tied in."
Actually, falling into a crevasse while climbing Mt. Rainier is not that uncommon -- it happens more than a half-dozen times each season, guides say.
But that was small consolation to Denham, a 42-year-old career counselor from Delmar who got a taste of the dangers of alpine mountaineering first-hand last week.
Fortunately, solid self-arrest skills that halt falls helped his ...