Day 1 - Post #1- The Fall

On the afternoon of September 1st, 2008 Devin was with his family hiking in the Central Cascades in Washington State on and near the section of the Iron Horse Trail near I-90's Exit 38 just East of North Bend near Olallie State park.

Devin had just led a climb up a fun 5.7 pitch named "Bottoms Up" one of the many rock climbing routes in the "Exit 38" climbing area. After setting a top rope for his brothers and rappelling down he hiked down below the trestle bridge and beyond the "Substation Wall" climbing routes hiking around and above the "Bottoms Up" route to wave to his brothers who were climbing that route.

A little later when hiking above the "Substation Wall" climbing routes the ground below Devin's feet gave way causing him to slip and he began sliding towards the edge of the cliff... He was unable to stop and went over the edge free falling a significant distance to the hard rocky ground below. Official reports state that the fall was 100 feet. I don't know for sure how high the free fall was, however he was in the air for at least 2 full seconds after I first saw him falling (I'd guess about 2.5 seconds total air time). He was falling at a rate of at least 55 miles per hour when he hit. You can do the math, all I know for sure was that this fall was much more than a person could be expected to survive.

Without making a sound (i.e no hysterical screaming, or even an "oh crap!") Devin fell this entire distance crashing to the earth with bone crushing force. In that instance all of our lives changed forever.