The Chute

“‘Oh, shoot’, my dad muttered for the tenth or fifteenth time in the last five minutes. Then, he burst into exhausted chuckles,” remembers Deron Daugherty. “I looked up the chute that we were trying to march out of: thirty degrees of slope, several hundred feet to go. ‘Shoot,’ I agreed, and laughed, the dark laugh of those initiated to the secrets of redlined exertion. Type 2 fun before I knew its name.”

When Deron’s uncle coerced him and his father on a trip to Vasey’s Paradise, an oasis at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, they had no idea what they’d find down there. They didn’t know about the chute. They also had no idea what truths they would uncover about one another, the bonds that would form between the three of them or how long those bonds would last.

You can find more of Deron’s writing here. Or listen to Deron’s first Dirtbag Diaries episode, “One Last Hike.”

Music: If Walls Could Talk by Jacob Bain & Nis Kotto    •    In the Beginning by woodrowgerber    •    The Biddy Bong Song by Publish the Quest    •    All of Your Love by adcBicycle    •    I Believe by Publish the Quest    •    You Never Know Who You’re Gonna Meet by Publish the Quest

Tracks provided by Free Music Archive and with permission from the artists.