Petzal: It Could Be a Baaaaaaad Fall

This picture (which, as far as I know, has not been Photoshopped) was supposedly taken at Buffalo Bill Dam near Cody, Wyoming, and shows a flock of wild sheep out for a leisurely stroll across the dam face. This is actually a dam in Italy, but all the same, traversing its face, freehoof, as it were, would make Spiderman’s guts churn in terror.

Thirty years ago, a friend of mine who was hunting wild sheep along an almost-nonexistent trail on a rockface thousands of feet in the air came to a spot so perilous that he stopped and took a photo of it because he wanted his wife to have a record of the place where he died. As it was he didn’t, but the experience made a lasting impression on him and he switched to other kinds of game.