A mountain climber escaped a harrowing torrential muddy waterfall by cooly rappelling down the cliffside mere feet from the raging waterfall of detritus, video shared with Storyful (via The New York Post) shows. The footage was captured last Friday by a 16-year-old onlooker at Utah’s Morning Glory Arch within Grandstaff Canyon, outside Moab.
Adventurer Tyler Erickson was rappelling down a sandstone cliff face adjacent to a torrential waterfall of mud which “spontaneously developed” following a “once-in-150-years” storm which brought four inches of rain in just 20 minutes.
Erickson is a skilled and experienced outdoorsman, but nothing prepared him for last week’s white-knuckle episode, which he called “an unexpected and humbling adventure.”
“We were well prepared, equipped with headlamps, sufficient food and water,” Erickson explained. “The storm was described by search and rescue as a once-in-150-years event, catching even experienced guides off guard.”
Erickson continued: "It was a testament to the resilience and teamwork of our group, and a reminder that nature can be unpredictable."
The young adventurer’s display of heroism sent many knees buckling. “Oh wow, is he single?” one woman queried in the comments.
Erickson fared better than most. While he was calmly traversing the mountainside, the Grandstaff Canyon rescue response crew were rescuing 20 hikers who had become stranded in flood waters, KUTV reported.
Though harrowing for all involved, no injuries were reported from last Friday’s flash storm. The Grand County Search and Rescue recommends that all visitors “check the weather forecast before your adventure. If there is rain, especially thunderstorms, in the forecast, do not enter canyons, washes or stream beds. Flash floods frequently occur during thunderstorms in our area. They can originate many miles away. Water levels rise extremely fast.”
