Neil
Well-known member
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2004
- Messages
- 3,434
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I think Dack TR's are the worthiest of all. Especially those that involve river crossings, bushwhacks, slide climbs and Calamities.
It all started when Doug PM’d me to go for a hike. It had been too long and he had cabin fever. When I asked him what he wanted to do he said, “Calamity by the slide”. Well, why not? If it was too icy or slippery we could bushwhack alongside it.
The group grew from 2 to 4 and after an hour of very pleasant walking along the various roads to Allen we crossed the Opalescent. 4 hikers, 4 strategies. Glen wore bread bags under thick neoprene socks, Doug stepped into 2 garbage bags, ADKJack removed his boots, stepped into a pair of garbage bags and then put crocs on the outside and I stripped naked and crawled on hands and knees. Not true. I wore crocs over bare feet. The water was knee deep at the deepest and it was somewhat chilly.
As we walked under blue skies we had spectacular views of Adams, Calamity, Cliff, Redfield, Allen and the North River Range.
Another hour and we re-crossed the Opalescent without removing footwear and began the bushwhack to the slide. Mavs said, “cross the river, go 100 feet into the woods and head NW, you can’t miss it”. After 20 minutes of side sloping we hit the slide 100 feet from the bottom.
The bottom section was clear of snow and fairly wet but there were dry fingers to ascend. Then the slide flattened considerably and we walked in bright sun on top of a carpet of fresh snow. The views back toward the North River Range were the finest I’ve seen yet of that bushwhacker’s heaven/hell. Then it narrowed completely and we creek whacked, bushwhacked and rock-hopped for a long time until we started getting glimpses of the very intimidating upper section of the slide. It looked very steep, very slippery and very beautiful.
Glen stepped out onto some low-angled, snow-covered rock, slipped, went down and slid for about 10 feet. When he got up he was in a lot of pain. Something in his right shoulder. I put my hand on it and something was missing. Something like the arm bone. (Ie. Where the head of his humerus should have been there was empty space.) This was not good. (major understatement.) Poor Glen stood there moaning in severe pain and said his arm was numb.
Normally the shoulder dislocates forward but Glen seemed to have a rare posterior dislocation. We were 1000 vertical feet of sloppy wet bushwhacking, 2 river crossings and 6 miles of trail from the road. I held his wrist and tractioned his arm downward for a few minutes hoping to fatigue the muscles and then with the other hand I gently pushed his upper arm forward and suddenly there was a palpable clunk as the head of humerus returned to the socket. A wave of relief flooded Glen’s state of being and he was a brand new man. (Ditto for the rest of the group).
Out came the GPS and we took stock of our position. The summit was only 1000 feet away but it was still about 600 feet vertically above us over dubious terrain. However, from the summit to the Calamity Brook trail it was only .5 miles. Glen felt as good as new so we decided our best bet would be to continue. We had an extremely steep section to surmount and I had just gotten up it and had a final little stretch across some steep rock to a flat spot (and wider contour intervals beyond that from the looks of the map) when Glen’s shoulder went out again.
How he got down to flat ground I’ll never know but he did and the shoulder went back in again with the same technique. That did it. We made an about-face and followed our tracks in the snow back down. Slowly and carefully Glen worked his way down, avoiding using his right arm for anything and taking great care not to slip. Following our tracks proved to be a lot easier than anticipated. Our footprints in the snow provided fairly secure footfalls.
Both river crossings went well and we were back in the Allen parking lot at 5pm, 9 hours after heading out.
-PICTURES-
It all started when Doug PM’d me to go for a hike. It had been too long and he had cabin fever. When I asked him what he wanted to do he said, “Calamity by the slide”. Well, why not? If it was too icy or slippery we could bushwhack alongside it.
The group grew from 2 to 4 and after an hour of very pleasant walking along the various roads to Allen we crossed the Opalescent. 4 hikers, 4 strategies. Glen wore bread bags under thick neoprene socks, Doug stepped into 2 garbage bags, ADKJack removed his boots, stepped into a pair of garbage bags and then put crocs on the outside and I stripped naked and crawled on hands and knees. Not true. I wore crocs over bare feet. The water was knee deep at the deepest and it was somewhat chilly.
As we walked under blue skies we had spectacular views of Adams, Calamity, Cliff, Redfield, Allen and the North River Range.
Another hour and we re-crossed the Opalescent without removing footwear and began the bushwhack to the slide. Mavs said, “cross the river, go 100 feet into the woods and head NW, you can’t miss it”. After 20 minutes of side sloping we hit the slide 100 feet from the bottom.
The bottom section was clear of snow and fairly wet but there were dry fingers to ascend. Then the slide flattened considerably and we walked in bright sun on top of a carpet of fresh snow. The views back toward the North River Range were the finest I’ve seen yet of that bushwhacker’s heaven/hell. Then it narrowed completely and we creek whacked, bushwhacked and rock-hopped for a long time until we started getting glimpses of the very intimidating upper section of the slide. It looked very steep, very slippery and very beautiful.
Glen stepped out onto some low-angled, snow-covered rock, slipped, went down and slid for about 10 feet. When he got up he was in a lot of pain. Something in his right shoulder. I put my hand on it and something was missing. Something like the arm bone. (Ie. Where the head of his humerus should have been there was empty space.) This was not good. (major understatement.) Poor Glen stood there moaning in severe pain and said his arm was numb.
Normally the shoulder dislocates forward but Glen seemed to have a rare posterior dislocation. We were 1000 vertical feet of sloppy wet bushwhacking, 2 river crossings and 6 miles of trail from the road. I held his wrist and tractioned his arm downward for a few minutes hoping to fatigue the muscles and then with the other hand I gently pushed his upper arm forward and suddenly there was a palpable clunk as the head of humerus returned to the socket. A wave of relief flooded Glen’s state of being and he was a brand new man. (Ditto for the rest of the group).
Out came the GPS and we took stock of our position. The summit was only 1000 feet away but it was still about 600 feet vertically above us over dubious terrain. However, from the summit to the Calamity Brook trail it was only .5 miles. Glen felt as good as new so we decided our best bet would be to continue. We had an extremely steep section to surmount and I had just gotten up it and had a final little stretch across some steep rock to a flat spot (and wider contour intervals beyond that from the looks of the map) when Glen’s shoulder went out again.
How he got down to flat ground I’ll never know but he did and the shoulder went back in again with the same technique. That did it. We made an about-face and followed our tracks in the snow back down. Slowly and carefully Glen worked his way down, avoiding using his right arm for anything and taking great care not to slip. Following our tracks proved to be a lot easier than anticipated. Our footprints in the snow provided fairly secure footfalls.
Both river crossings went well and we were back in the Allen parking lot at 5pm, 9 hours after heading out.
-PICTURES-
