Stupid stuff I'm proud of doing

1980 While on the north eastern side of the Greek Island of Corfu we noticed that there was a land mass on the other side of the straight. A quick look at the map told us it was Communist Albania. There was only one thing two California Surfer guys with a couple of shots of Ouzo in them could do

Invade

The straight is about 2 miles wide. We were excellent ocean swimmers so off we went. An hour later we stormed the beach at Albania. Whooped it up for a minute or two then got our butts back into the water.

We were about a half mile offshore when the Albanian Patrol Boat rounded the point to the north of us. We quickly switched to a very low profile side stroke to stay inconspicuous as possible. They passed between us and the Albanian shore then rounded the next point and were out of sight. We picked up our swim pace to get us past mid channel after that.

We had a good laugh once we walked up onto the Greek Beach. it was fun two hour swim. As I remember we got pretty hammered partying at a club celebrating that night. Hate to think what would have happened if the Patrol Boat had spotted us

I don't know if it was stupid or not but you must have been in the hell of a good shape. But that doesn't surprise me being the bike riding Iron Man that you are

I smuggled myself INTO Mexico once.

And a bandit jump into a park where my friends were celebrating a birthday.

I don't like to admit it but I'm not real proud of the stupid stuff I did :down::whyme:

Dave there is plenty of really stupid stuff that I did that I'm not proud of, trust me on that one except for the fact that by pure luck I did survive them.

I would guess most of us have.

I have to admit to saying: "hold my beer and watch this" far more often than was prudent :down:

Nope, Na, Not a chance.

Since I'm not familiar with all the statutes of limitations, I'll stay out of this thread...:nono:...Ben

I'm fortunate to have survived the stupid stuff I've done.

Hunter

Another close call. Weather forecast was for light snow showers in Yosemite. Ranger Chis Knauer and I decided to take our backcountry skis and ski from Crane Flat to Toulumne Meadows on a 3 day ski trip mid winter. For some stupid reason we took a 3+ season tent instead of my heavy 4 season Mountaineering tent. We got about 5 miles in and the storm started to hit so we made camp in a spot clear of any potential deadfall or avalanche cooked dinner and crawled into the tent for the night.

Some hours later I woke up, the air in the tent was bad. I went to sit up,nope. The snowfall had not only buried the tent it had collapsed onto us from the weight. I woke Chris up, we were both groggy from the CO2 build up. It was bad, the only thing I could think to do was roll onto our stomachs and push upwards on hands and knees with our backs to the tent roof to give us some working space. It took 3 tries but we made some room.

I unzipped the tent door and tried to punch an arm up to fresh air. Crap we were buried way to deep for that. Our ski poles were under the fly and they screw together end to end to make an avalanche probe that is 7 feet long. We used that to punch an air hole. Man the first blast of fresh air was simply amazing, total life saver.

We geared up and started digging a tunnel to the surface packing the snow on the side or the rain flys vestibule. Close to 8 feet of snow had fallen. That light snow fall had blossomed into a full on Winter Sierra Blizzard. It took us an hour to clear the tent and it was still dumping. We decided to set our alarms to go off each hour and take turns clearing the tent. Believe me it sucked getting up every two hours gearing up and shoveling for 15 minutes

The storm let up at 9am with close to 12 feet of squeaky powder having fallen. Telemark skiers delight. We stuck to heavily treed slopes to avoid triggering and avalanche and had a blast with waist deep untracked powder for hours. Then it started to snow again. A quick check of the weather radio indicated that it was time to bug out as another blast was going to hit and last for days.

It was snowing heavily when we reached my truck and it took two hours to dig it out then make it two hundred feet to the plowed road and drive back into Yosemite and check in and the back country permit station. Ranger La Cass was there to greet us. We were high school buddies. She just looked at us shook her head then asked "So how bad was it up there last night ( we were at 9000'). Chris just said "Bad enough that we are back here at 3000 feet tonight".

In 1971/72 three of us drove a 1951 Ford step van from Arlington Virginia to Kingston Rhode Island and back.. only planning involved was to put two lawn chairs inside the truck and remove the outside doolie wheels, for cheaper toll.. 45 mph.. right through the streets if NYC and the Bronx.. burned a lot of gas, drank more beer than gas.. there was a battery access door in the truck floor, open to the ground below, . come to find out that there was a recycle bin and men’s room in with the battery

Nothing like Eric’s excitement..