Nestled in the base of the southernmost Taconic Mountain is the Indian Mountain School, and the home base for the challenge course construction/inspection/facilitation empire, Indian Mountain Adventure, founded and directed by IMA president Steve Werntz.
The climbing tower pictured above is the rock of his high elements: a sturdy construction with plenty of redundant safety elements, like guy wires extending from all three telephone poles that are the foundation of the tower.
Unfortunately, a construction backhoe violated the 14 foot standard and ruptured the guy wire, wreaking havoc on the seemingly impenetrable climbing tower (see top plank on photo). Werntz and trusty sidekick (yours truly) spent the beautiful pre-Irene Friday morning scrambling up the tower and sawing and prying lumber, but were unable to budge the damaged upper platform.
Fast forward to Friday afternoon and Werntz is hoisting the platform with his truck via rope and pulley, with yours truly trying to surf the platform like a fool while clipped into upper belay cables. No broken bones, (sheer luck), but the platform only went about a third of the way down. Quitting time rolled around and I abandoned the job with a beautiful case of lip salad (thanks to an errant twist of the lineman's tool which flew into my mush) but no satisfaction because the job was as much of a mess as my face: a 200 pound triangular platform wedged into the inner walls, 15 feet above the ground. Sorry, but I wasn't going to hang under it with a chainsaw when I needed to be dashing home for dinner with my lads.
I found out later from the founder that his dutiful brother gave one of those ropes a yank while the fearless leader had the other rope coiled on his arm. Gravity won out, as the platform crashed down within feet of dutiful bro. Super Steve got yanked like a ragdoll, landing with a skid on his nose. Werntz has cancelled a month's worth of work as a body double for Jamie Farr due to his crash landing. But it could have been worse: the platform came down on schedule, and no paperwork was submitted to insurance bureaucrats. Gotta love happy endings for the aptly name Indian Mountain ADVENTURE.
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