|
On Saturday we went to the lake but the town nearby (where we'd planned on sightseeing and grabbing lunch on the waterfront)...well, it sucked. So we went to Lava Hot Springs instead. The springs themselves were packed and we ended up just walking around the town for a few hours, but it was a lot of fun. It's a cute little town with a lot of cool old buildings, and they were having a classic car show, too. :)
Sunday was the big day. We'd planned on doing a four mile hike up a mountain, rated at moderate difficulty (a lot of steep uphill stuff, a little climbing). Four miles on winding mountain paths is a lot more strenuous than four miles in town, even if town is all uphill, but we knew we could handle it. We got directions from the internet.
That was our first mistake.
We followed the trails we were supposed to take, but it just seemed to keep going forever. Mind you, we had a snake bite kit, a first aid kit, a compass, water bottles, sunblock, a lighter, a hunting knife, a flashlight just in case...all the normal hiking stuff, but not much for a real emergency. Not quite enough supplies to fill my backpack.
We went to 5 stores for a topographical map of the area but couldn't find one anywhere (even at sports and outdoor supply stores), so we figured we'd be alright with just the internet directions. We don't need no stinkin' map!
Mistake numero dos.
We were wearing shorts, light sweatshirts, and boots, and didn't bring any food because it was only supposed to take a couple hours, according to the directions. We had sandwiches before we left, and expected to be home with plenty of time for dinner, a little driving practice for moi, showers, maybe a bad cable movie and bed.
Do I really need to mention that we might have made a few mistakes during the planning process here?
It definitely didn't work out as planned. We had to cross creeks over a dozen times just to stay on the trails, which went right through the water because there was a lot of rain last month. I'm not sure how we overlooked that possibility, seeing as how we've spent a good portion of the past six weeks whining about not getting enough sun. Anyway, the creeks were a little annoying and a wee bit dangerous, but not too bad, except for the fact that our supposedly waterproof boots were soaked through within 20 minutes and stayed that way the whole time even if we stopped to wring out our socks.
At mile ten, around the time when we started to realize that something might be wrong with our directions, we ran out of water. I tried to call out and text someone, since we were pretty sure we'd messed up somewhere along the line, but we had no reception.
At mile fifteen, we got charged by a wild bull and had to fire a pistol to scare it off (I originally told Nick not to bring it, but he insisted...luckily). By this time, the dog was finally starting to look fatigued. But we had daylight to burn, and still, for some reason, thought that the trail just HAD to lead back to camp eventually. The directions said so.
At mile twenty we realized we were really screwed. The trail DEFINITELY didn't go back to camp, because we were climbing mountain ridges that we hadn't even seen before. This is also around the time that the sun went down, and it got really, really cold. It had been in the nineties all afternoon. Our boots and clothes were still wet and were on their way to freezing, and that side of the mountain was mostly steep hills, cliffs and brush so it wasn't safe enough to tromp around trying to access firewood.
That's when the lightning strikes started touching down on other peaks nearby.
We had considered just hunkering down and going back the way we came the next day, but by this time Nick's ankle was so swollen that he couldn't keep his balance on the steeper hills and rocky areas (he has a nerve problem in his leg), so that wasn't a great option. I finally managed to get a tiny bit of cell reception at the top of a ridge, and we called for help but the police couldn't hear me. We called and then texted Nick's parents, and told them to contact the forest service or the police for help, and to give the police my cell phone number. I got voicemail from a deputy named Peterson asking if we were alright, but calls out were just as muddled as before. He couldn't hear me through the static, so I texted to give him some basic descriptions of where we had been and what we could see, what trail we THOUGHT we were on and what cardinal direction it was headed...and that's when the phone battery died.
Whether or not we could get help, we couldn't keep going in the dark. Besides, people were supposed to be looking for us, and we didn't want to leave that behind when we didn't know what might be ahead.
We were at an elevation of around 6000 feet at this point and we had long since passed the water, so at least the mosquitoes and horseflies were slightly less horrible than they had been. It was pitch black (we had that flashlight, but it's tiny, and lightning doesn't really help you see in the dark) and we started hearing small animals in the brush. Including rattlesnakes. They see heat (like I said, it was cold, so body heat is very attractive to them), which meant we couldn't try to sleep or we might wake up surrounded by them. We sat side by side for a few minutes, or curled up next to each other to stay warm, and then stood up and tried to move around a little. A huge-antlered buck kept inching closer along the ridge and making threatening noises, but we only saw him once even though we could only hear him for about two hours, and Thor kept barking and growling in his direction in the dark. The buck eventually lost interest when we shouted at him to leave...for a while.
But, it didn't actually rain, so that's something.
A little after midnight, a kindly local rancher and a K-9 officer found us, by bringing ATV's up the trails and trying to piece together our location based on my instructions. It took over an hour going quite fast (with me holding on with one hand so I could clutch Thor, who was zipped up inside my sweatshirt) just to get down the mountain, whipping along the tops of cliffs. We weren't even supposed to sit straddling the seats because the drivers told us we had to "jump off toward the mountain" if they went off a cliff. It took another hour and a half by regular vehicle to get back to the car, but Deputy Peterson let us pick the music in the squad's K-9 truck. :)
It would probably have taken us 2 days just to get to a dirt road miles outside of town if we'd kept going the way we were headed, and much longer than that to get back to the car, especially after we really started to get slowed down by extreme temperatures, exertion, dehydration and hunger.
As it turned out, we were climbing various mountains and trying to circle aaaalllll the way back around their bases at the same time. If we had been able to leave the trails that might have been fine since we could have just headed back due west, but the paths themselves were so treacherous and winding that we knew leaving the trail could be a recipe for disaster. Going 10 miles along them might not get you even a mile in your desired direction as the crow flies, but at least you have less of a chance of falling to your death. We surmounted so many peaks and went into so many incredibly steep valleys that I lost track. We only saw two trail signs in the first 8 hours and followed them as we thought was necessary. If our directions had been correct, we were on precisely the right trail to arrive smack dab in the center of camp, right by our car. But, they weren't.
Many people who get stuck in the wilderness out here for several days without overnight gear and food have a good chance of not getting out alive.
I was obviously never a Girl Scout, but I've definitely learned my lesson. Basically what I'm saying here is that it's important to be waaaaaay more prepared than you think you need to be when you're dealing with the outdoors. Bring changes of clothes and more than "enough" food and water, even for a day trip. And always, always bring a map when you go hiking in a genuinely wild area, even if you're pretty sure you know where you're going. Don't trust ANY directions unless you get them from multiple sources. If it feels like you've been walking too long, you probably have, and your best bet is to go back exactly the same way that you came. We had no idea that we'd gone as far as we did until the police told us, but we sure knew it had been well over four miles.
The rescue party looked at me like I was crazy, because when we got to the bottom of the mountain I shouted, "That was AWESOME!" But it really, really was.
I have a very mild sunburn (something a person as pale as I am has a hard time avoiding even with adequate sunscreen and an act of god), dozens of bug bites, scrapes and scratches galore, and fingernails that won't seem to come clean, but I also have a lot of amazing memories. I experienced some wonderful alone-time with Nick, lots of astonishing scenery and wildlife, great exercise and a sky full of so many stars it looked like they'd been sprinkled there with a salt shaker...not to mention a few brushes with death.
I think I can handle that.
Diet Calendar Entries for 13 July 2009:
|
1029 kcal
|
Fat: 27.04g | Prot: 37.97g | Carb: 164.50g.
Breakfast: Basic 4 Fruit & Almond Cereal. Lunch: BBQ Baked Beans, Grilled Chicken Leg. Dinner: Asian Vegetables, Teriyaki Sauce. Snacks/Other: Saltines, Peanut Butter, Apple. more...
|
|
1436 kcal
|
Activities & Exercise:
Resting - 16 hours, Sleeping - 8 hours. more...
|
|