|
|
|
It was 3:30 pm and we
had another three hours of daylight. Our first hour of hiking was straight
up, sweat was pouring off of us, while our legs and shoulders burning
from exertion. We were maybe above the cliff walls. Unfortunately we were
actually traversing slightly upstream since there was no apparent way
to keep moving downstream yet. Chris suggested that we begin moving downstream.
I was quite thirsty and it became apparent that water could become an
issue if we don’t get to the river soon. Chris, Danny, and Jessie
all still had some water on them. Every ten feet of was an effort. The
vegetation was so thick that no way seemed like a good one. Then I discovered
a trail! It was a small footpath. Small enough that you had to really
pay attention or you would lose it. A periodic footprint here or there,
a broken branch, sometimes even a mark made in a tree could be found.
One thing for sure was that every trail goes somewhere. At this point
we figured that this was made by kayakers to get around the canyon and
back to the river. I wanted to follow it but it was going up more than
downstream. Chris didn’t want to go too high and get cliffed out.
We climbed the trail, which was no easy going, but at least our kayaks
weren’t getting tangled up in the jungle plants every couple of
minutes. Jessie was getting behind and could hold the pace. We had our
first discussion about the fact that we only had two more hours of light
left. Two hours seemed like more than enough to walk a quarter of a mile
downstream and get into the water and paddle out. We all decided that
the trail was the way to go as long as it was heading down stream. It
seemed that we were about 1,000 feet above the river. We couldn’t
see the river but could see the other side of the river through the periodic
holes in the jungle canopy. The scary thing was that the other side of
the river was so close and we were so high. Certainly the only way that
was possible was for a cliff to be below, a big one. At 4:30 pm we crossed
a little creek. We all cooled off in it. The thought of drinking it was
there but we didn’t have filters and nobody wanted to get sick.
So we kept on going. At 5pm the trail turned to straight up the mountainside.
At this point we were no longer working our way downstream. Chris decided
that we should break from the trail and go for the river before it got
dark. All of us were tired and super thirsty. Everyone with water was
smart enough to ration it. Jessie was practically drinking nothing just
in case. We decided to take a 5-minute break after 2 hours of slow agonizing
climbing. I climbed ahead on the trail to see if it would perhaps get
on a ridge and then go straight downstream. It did break back downstream
but was definitely going more up than anything. When I returned, everyone
definitely had second thoughts about heading back down the mountain. It
was so much work to get where we were. We decided that we would go down
and downstream as well, looking for a ravine that we could get down to
the river with. It only took us about 45 minutes of downhill climbing
to discover a ravine. We only had to follow that for 10 minutes before
it ended in a 500-foot cliff. The river was directly below us. I climbed
out on a fallen tree to see if I could get a look down river for a possible
way in. About ½ of a mile downstream I could make out another much
larger ravine that would certainly have a creek in it. It looked like
there was a rock beach at the base of it so perhaps there wouldn’t
be any cliffs to prevent us from getting down the ravine into the river.
Chris also scaled out on the tree, which was a sketchy exercise at best,
at 1000+ feet over the whitewater below, to make his judgment. We decided
that it was our best bet. It was now 5:30pm. We had one more hour of daylight.
It was at that point that it hit us. We would have to get used to the
idea of spending the night in the jungle. I said this out loud and Jessie
was already thinking along those lines. Danny had no comment. Now we looked
back up the mountain. We had gone for broke on our last quest to get to
the river and brought our boats back down the mountain. We would have
to go back up with them. We were all exhausted and dehydrated. I couldn’t
spit and was getting quite dizzy at times. None of us were the least bit
hungry. Not even Danny who eats more than any human being I have ever
seen. Danny normally has serious blood sugar problems, along with being
allergic to any kind of grain, except corn and rice. He was doing as well
as the rest of us with no food, to the point that I told him his blood
sugar problem was obviously psycho somatic, he didn’t really want
to get into that discussion, and dismissed my comment.
Given that we had only one hour to do anything,
I put up three options for a vote. Stay where we were and rest until dark,
then sleep until morning, or head for the ravine and stop when it gets
dark, or lastly retreat back to the creek we found that was probably about
an hour back so we would have water for the night. Everyone decided to
push forward and hope we found water ahead. Within 30 minutes we found
the trail we were previously on. It was depressing to be struggling up
the same steep section of trail we were on an hour and a half ago, but
comforting to have found the trail again. I was making trips back to help
Jessie carry her boat much more regularly now and my strength and condition
was going down fast. Chris hit the wall and wasn’t going anywhere.
He needed to rest and decided that that was what he was going to do. We
dropped our boats against trees on a 45-degree slope (the flattest section
we could find). Daylight waned and then dark came so fast that we suddenly
couldn’t see the trail. I climbed ahead to see if there was a flatter
section, instead it turned vertical again, some serious climbing, and
it was dark. We were in the best spot we would find tonight. Chris and
Jessie set their boats up together to make a chair I found another spot
for my kayak but Danny couldn’t find a good place. It was nearly
black out as Danny and I rushed to find a way to position our boats to
make a semi-comfortable place to rest. We got out all rations of water,
and food. There was about 1 cup of water available as well as two cans
of tuna fish in oil, some chocolate, and a half of a bag of Doritos. It
was totally black out within five minutes. I have major hearing loss and
didn’t have my hearing aids with me, so I read lips. You can pretty
much say that I don’t hear in the dark. We all decided to have one
sip of water now, and then one more before we went to sleep. This was
one group of people who, no matter how bad it got, would never need to
worry about somebody taking more than their fair share. That was a comfortable
feeling, amid feeling quite uncomfortable. That one sip of water wet the
inside of my mouth and throat as I gargled it and swished it around before
swallowing. I have never been this thirsty in my life. It was far from
refreshing though and within a couple of minutes my mouth was dry again.
Somebody opened a can of tuna and nobody had any luck eating it. I tried
some but it just sat in my mouth and I couldn’t swallow it. I kept
it under my gums like chewing tobacco just in case I suddenly felt hungry.
Danny then offered me a Doritos. I must have been out of my mind to accept
it. I chewed the cheesy salty chip for five minutes, never getting it
wet enough to swallow it or rinse my mouth out. I spit it out in a powder,
the cheese barely wet. The only thing that was wet was all of our clothes
from sweating. We were soaked from head to foot in sweat and mud. Within
30 minutes we were all cold.
Page: [ 1
| 2 | 3 | 4
| 5 ]
Back to Top
|
