OCTOBER 15, 2009 –I’m geared up. A harness jingling with metal carabiners is pinching my buttocks. There’s a Flip camera Velcro-ed to the back of my helmet. The descender device is in my left hand. Blue rope snakes through it, and hangs down the length of 33 floors.
I’m about to rappel down an outside wall of the Manchester Grand Hyatt.
Welcome to Media Day. Tomorrow (Saturday, October 16), folks who’ve collected more than $1,000 in donations to charity group Kids Included Together will get to do this rappel. But I think the organizers decided it might be safer if the ropes were tested out on the media. Only the bravest local journalists were chosen...Oh, wait. Riviera’s Troy Johnson is here. Sweet Jesus. Must have been a lottery.
Here I am now with both feet planted on the side of the 33rd floor balcony—Yes, outside the rail. I’m getting last-second instruction from a team of experts from the Over The Edge special events company.
[TO SEE A VIDEO OF RON'S DESCENT, GO TO: RAPPEL ON SANDIEGO.COM. SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE.]
The descender makes rappelling happen when you squeeze its red handle. With your right hand, you keep hold if the slack rope. Both feet go on the side of the wall (but so as to not leave footprints, we were issued surgical booties). And unlike any decent S.W.A.T. action on TV, we’re not to supposed to make big, swooping jumps.
Baby steps it is. I lean backward and put my left foot on the wall. Then the right. Then, I look over at an Over The Edge instructor and say: “You’re sure the elevator is out, and this is the only way down?”
Nobody laughs.
Then, there is nowhere else to go but down.
I enjoy the 5-6 minute descent. There is a view of the bay, and the back-from-the-fire Kansas City Barbecue eatery. I can see CityFront Terrace, an all-brick condominium where I lived when I first moved to San Diego. I also look in as many Hyatt windows as I could. Alas, no sight of Megan Fox just stepping out of the shower.
Rapelling is a bit more work than I’d anticipated. Your hands get a little tired. And there’s a tendency to want to squeeze the descender like a brake when you speed up too much. That’s the opposite of what you’re supposed to do. A small dramatic moment occurs over this. Luckily, no undies are soiled due to this minor mishap.
If I look like a cool cuke on the way down, that is all lost when I get to terra firma, and the adrenaline surge kicks in. I start babbling like a bad date. It feel as if I just drank back-to-back-to-back cans of Red Bulls.
But yes, if I had $1,000, I’d go do it again.
(Kids Included Together is a San Diego nonprofit that strives to create youth programs that help include children with and without disabilities. For more information, go to kitonline.org.)