(Via Eric at Classical Values, who has a few more details about this walkway in Spain; hop over there for a bit of background, but please mind your footing.)

I'm the caves/enclosed places/feeling of entrapment or engulfment -phobic person. Not heights; not generally. (I was afraid for a moment that the person with the "helmet cam" was going to go into the passageway within the mountain, and that might have upset me. But she or he didn't, and all was well.)

Still, I don't quite get this. If we can maintain the paths that go up to Yosemite Falls or Half Dome, why can't the Spaniards just fix this?

I mean, I hate to sound like a Gringo—and I hate to upset Jonah Goldberg and go all fascist/CCC—but just fix it. I mean, well-maintained hiking trails are a goddamned human right. Sort of.

(Sorry. My brain isn't functioning well. I might be having a statist moment; I get that way in Tijuana, when I see the gaping, dangerous holes in the sidewalk, and wonder why they can't just charge some taxes to the people who sell me my cappuccino, cigars, and tortilla soup, and fix the fucking sidewalks with it. I mean, how many stupid college kids go down there for spring break, get loaded, and bust their freakin' ankles? Fix the sidewalks! Fix the walkways! Fix the trails! Just fix it!

Sorry. I think I'm done.)

Of course, it's easy to die in Yosemite; the code words are granite, water, and wildlife. Ultimately, one has to have some respect for Mother Nature. For gravity. For slippery surfaces. For human fragility. And for oneself.

I climbed those same cables up to Half Dome as a child. But it was hard. And I was concentrating; not laughing.

I don't want to blame the victim, but that's part of the secret, I think.

But Spain should fix their fucking trail; did I say that?

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:21 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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