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This is me in Northern-most California. One of the fun games that JD introduced to me was rolling rocks down a mountain. It is a total blast! We first did this in 1998. The object of the game is to roll a rock as far as possible down the hill. The ultimate goal is to shear off a tree on the way down. In 1998, we used strength alone to roll the rocks down the hill. We would do the best we could with the brawn that we had to give the rock the "kiss-of-gravity". In 1999, however, I procured a pry-bar which we call the Kirok Stick. In this picture, you see me holding the Kirok Stick above my head yelling "I am Kirok!" ( Those of you who have seen the original episodes of Star Trek have an inkling of what I speak. ) The Kirok Stick coupled with proper fulcrum and leverage allowed us to move amazingly large boulders. We selected several of the larger, precariously positioned ones. We pushed and pried to gain an advantage. Let me just point out that even with the Kirok Stick, it is still very difficult to get these boulders to roll. It is relatively easy to move them, and even flip them over, but trickier still to get the momentum of the roll. But we sought success and nothing else would do. We got one enormous boulder weighing in at about half a ton rolling down the hill. It took perhaps two full minutes for it to reach the bottom (big hill!). Never in our wildest dreams did we think that it would go as far as it did. It hit a tree on the way down and sheared off a branch of it. The earth was gouged where the boulder struck. We were able to track its path by looking for torn earth. From the distances between the gouges, it is truly amazing how much time the boulder stayed airborne. At it's final resting place, the boulder was much smaller than when it started. Chunks of raw rock were jettisoned as it careened down the mountain. |