Tales Of Adversity

[arm]

June 14, 1985 - Flag Day ( living on borrowed time )

Twenty years ago today, I set out for a ride I'd never forget.

I had recently dropped out of college, wanted to take a break until september, and had no serious plans until then.

My Father called me around Thanksgiving 1984 and told me he was gearing up to sail the Bahamas for a while, and he was looking for crew.

I grew up sailing the Northeast with my Family, mostly off the coast of New England, between Block Island and the coast of Maine ... many summer weekends were spent driving to Salem or Beverly and sailing the sea.

Summers in the Northeast run too short for most sailors, so my Father moved to Florida in the 1980's, extending his sailing seasons out of Stuart, w*rking as a boat builder to build up the sailing kitty for extended trips.

Sailing the Bahamas for a few months seemed appealing when I was 18, so I decided to join the trip.

We departed West Palm in April 1985, setting our course for Grand Bahama Island, watching the Florida coast disappear as we sailed away from the World ... this first trip was only sixty miles, but five miles from shore we felt like Christopher Columbus, with that unsure feeling that we might be sailing off the edge of the World.

We arrived safely in the Bahamas the next day, and spent the next few months island hopping ... we had a windsurfer onboard, and many times one of us would sail the boat while the other would "race" to the next island, keeping our eyes peeled on the shallow ocean floor.

Sections of the Bahamas' northern island chain, the Abacos, are connected by a plateau that doesn't get much deeper than twenty feet, and the warm water is so clear you could read a book on the ocean floor - we'd sometimes take windsurfer journeys to seek conch crawling along the ocean floor, swim down and grab a few, tie them to the windsurfer's mast for that night's dinner.

We settled in an Abacos harbor of Man-O-War Cay for over a month, making friends with locals and loving life every day!


June 14, 1985 began as a sunny morning - my schedule was wide open, so I decided I'd try to windsurf around the two-mile-long island.

Setting out, I left the tiny harbor, sailing along schools of dolphin, wearing a mile wide smile and enjoying what looked like a perfect day.

When I spotted a large ship anchored about a mile away from Man-O-War Cay, I decided to postpone my trip around the island, to take a closer look at the ship - that decision most likely saved my life.

After circling around the large ship, I headed towards the southern end of Man-O-War Cay, aiming for the mile-wide opening between Man-O-War and a small rock off the shore of Abaco Island.

The winds died, and I was going nowhere fast - I looked over my shoulder and spotted dark ominous clouds on the horizon, which reached me much quicker than I expected.

Soon the wind went from zero to sixty, and I was literally flying on the windsurfer - it took everything I had to stay upright, until the winds picked me and the windsurfer up in the air, out of the water, then slammed me back into the ocean.

The skies opened, down pouring like I've never seen - rain and hail pelted me like an army of paintball soldiers were mad at the World, and taking their anger out on me.

Lightning struck from every direction - non-stop electric fingers everywhere, lighting up dark skies as if it would never stop.

When I could see, it seemed like I was surrounded in a cage of lightning, with dozens of large bolts of lightning getting closer every second.

Enormous waves lifted me as I clung to the windsurfer, hanging on for dear life, slamming me time and again against merciless waves - I tried to hide underwater whenever possible to escape the wind, hail, lightning, and whatever else was in store for me - it felt like "hell on earth"

Some time later - an hour ? much more ? too busy trying to survive to comprehend time - I realized that I was going to die - I was sure of it, knew that I couldn't last much longer, and accepted the fact that my life would soon be over - it's tough to find words to describe that feeling.

Oddly, I was okay with that - thinking about how friends and family would react when they found out that I drowned windsurfing felt worse than thinking that I'd never see another day, never get to experience many of the best things life has to offer.

Visibility sunk to zero - I could not see anything, looking downwind, with my hands cupped around my eyes to shelter them from the hail - I clung to that windsurfer as long as I could, blindly rolling many times while I guzzled gallons of salt water against my will.

Some time later, a very brief pause in the hail gave me the chance to look around and spot something in the distance - I pulled the sail about a foot out of the water, all I could muster with my strength fading, against the still aggressive winds, and it was enough to guide me towards whatever I might have seen in that brief moment.

The hail kicked in again, but I held the sail up as best I could, trying to guide my board towards what I found was that rock sticking out of the water.

If I hadn't spotted that rock and guided my board towards it, I was heading straight out off the Abacos plateau, where waves were over 30 feet high - as tired as I was, I doubt I would have survived.

Waves slammed me against the rock, but I was grateful to be out of the water.

I quickly tied the ropes on the mast and boom to some scrub brush on that tiny rock, slid the board under the sail, and climbed under the sail, collapsing on the board, more exhausted than I've ever been.

Sleep filled my eyes - I drifted off, unsure if I'd ever wake up again, but happy that I wouldn't spend my last moments alive fighting angry weather anymore.


I didn't realize that there were many small boats out searching for me, on the other side of Man-O-War Cay, after my Father had sent out an emergency distress signal on his VHF radio - locals had jumped into action, and risked their lives fighting the storm on a chance that they could rescue me.

Many said it was the worst storm they'd seen, that they feared for their lives in their boats, and that they watched their anemometers peg out at over 100 MPH

When I woke some time later, I crawled out from beneath my sail and found myself surrounded by a gorgeous sunny day, not a cloud to be seen for miles.

A small boat approached my rock and offered me a ride back to the harbor.

I thanked them for the offer but refused, intending to sail the mile or so back into the harbor - when I tried to stand up and collapsed, with zero energy left, the captain of the small boat laughed and told me to get in the boat.

He dropped me off at my Father's boat, the Endurance, and I was happy to be "home" ... I called my Father on the VHF, poured myself a stiff rum drink, then retired to bed for some well-earned rest.

We found out that day why they call it the "Devil's Triangle"
http://skepdic.com/bermuda.html


It's been twenty years since that wicked storm almost claimed my life.

I call my Father every year on june 14 and we chat about the good times we've shared, remembering that day and many others - it's a tradition that helps us each appreciate life.

No calendar required to let me know when it's time to celebrate Father's Day or Mother's Day - I love my Parents and I'm grateful for everything they've done to help me grow into who I am today!

 

[arm]

i considered starting a "tales of adversity" type thread to post stories related to outdoors adventures that helped me learn from mistakes, thinking folks might read up and learn something before they might make similar mistakes

feel free to post here if you've got interesting tales that might help friends who visit here awhile

the flag day windsurf episode might not have much to do with hiking, but it shows how Mother Nature could catch you by surprise, especially when you're near water - the sea can be a wicked beast

a couple more tales of misadventure:

-----

August 1991 - North Moat Mountain

in my early hiking days, i spent a weekend in the White Mountains with two friends from college - we stopped at an outdoors store in N*rth C*nway and asked folks there for local hiking recommendations

a clerk there recommended the North Moat Mountain loop, from Diana's Bath up Moat Mountain Trail, over North Moat and down Red Ridge Trail - he suggested that this eight-mile loop was very scenic, and that elderly hikers or small children could complete this loop in about an hour or two - we had no concept of how long it would take us to hike eight miles, but an hour or two sounded like what we were looking for

we threw three apples, a sleeve of crackers and one quart of water in my pack and headed up the trail - all of these supplies were gone before we began climbing up North Moat

by the time we reached the scenic summit of North Moat Mountain the only supplies we had were three cigars which Maria had brought - so we smoked the cigars on the summit and admired the views

we should have hiked back, but figured we'd be alright, remembering the clerk's suggestion that we'd wrap up this hike within an hour or two

we treked around and down Red Ridge Trail, then lost the trail as it grew dark - we stumbled our way through thick forest without headlamps, finally reaching the road and returning to the car

none of us have ever been that hungry - as soon as Maria opened her car, Joe tossed her out of the way and invaded the food cooler like a rabid bear

we felt like strangling that clerk for suggesting that most elderly folks could do that eight-mile loop hike in an hour !

-----

a rude awakening

one summer we planned an overnight canoe trip on the Saco River, putting in at Swans Falls in Fryeburg Maine and canoeing eleven miles to Walkers Bridge

late in the summer, we were used to low water, which usually meant having to portage by brief sections - there would be no need to portage this time

as we geared up and entered the river, the skies opened up and POURED all day, drenching us with more rain than mere mortals deserve

it rained so hard, that most of our 20-person crew failed to notice that half of us bailed at the first bridge, hitch-hiked back to the cars, and scored hotel rooms for the night

the rest of us assumed we'd tough it out and continued through pouring rain, passing the first camping area we sometimes camped at, then passing our second option, eventually reaching Walkers Bridge

dumbfounded (or maybe just dumb), we decided to canoe back upstream to what seemed like a reasonable camping area - on our way back i spotted a foot marker, where the water was just under the "zero" mark - the foot marker went up to about ten feet, and this was the first time i'd ever seen it

we set up camp on a beach along the river, pitching tents next to the grassy area near the forest, about thirty feet from the river's edge - some folks left their gear out "to dry" (yaright) next to the canoes - i dragged our canoe up close to our tent, away from the river

we were water-logged and didn't spend much time outside before we settled in for the night

around 3:00AM, one of our friends was whining that he needed help - he sounded drunk, and it sounded like a pathetic groan that got on our nerves

i had brought chaise lounge chairs to sleep on inside our tent, and when i got up to find out what our friend's problem was, i stepped into a few inches of water inside my tent - WTF?

i opened the tent door to discover that the river had risen, swallowing the beach, and washing away everything but the canoe i had dragged up

we jumped in my canoe and paddled down the river for over a mile, until we found our other canoes, tied them together and paddled back upstream in the pouring rain - very close to the bottom of the list of "things i feel like doing when i wake up at 3:00AM"

we returned to our site and dragged our drenched tents up onto the grassy hill, extremely buzzkilled, but oddly enough, laughing as we tried to recover, or make the best of it - what else could we do ? strange how you can shrug off adverse conditions and keep your sense of humour sometimes (like when SherpaKroto and i battled thick spruce bushwhacking Elephant!)

we had canoed the Saco many times, but had never noticed the sign near Swans Falls that warns you to exit the river if you hear the horn sound, which beacons to warn folks that they're opening the dam

we could not sleep, so packed up gear, and dug into a hearty breakfast featuring whatever-was-left (beer and pop tarts)

we hung out by the riverside, gathering camping gear as it floated by, playing a bartering game with folks as they canoed by, bringing cases of beer home and giving away many more, before we began our escape

we passed that foot marker and noticed that the river had risen over seven feet

we gained respect for how heavy rain can unexpectedly cause rivers to rise that weekend - and we keep our ears peeled for that dam horn !

 

[mavs00]

Arm,

Great stories, all of them........... Particularly that first one, it reminded me of stories I've read from the Adrenaline Books Series (like Epic and Rough Water, etc.).

Even cooler cuz we've met before and you that you tied it to particular occasion ( like today's date & its 20 year anniversary). Congrats on your extra 20 years and to fact you learned young to appreciate and enjoy life on your terms. Good luck on the next 20

Thanks for sharing

 

[Neil]

I think I've got one...
25 odd years ago I worked in Lake Louise, Alberta which is in the heart of the CDN Rockies. One day I finished work at 1 pm and decided to hike Mt Temple which is the highest summmit in Banff Park and involves a 5500 foot vertical climb. After 2000 vert feet there is no trail but I knew the way real well. Normally, people use a full day off to do this mountain and they start up nice and early so everyone was kind of surprised that I was heading off so late. It was a beautiful day and I was sure I'd make the sumit in 4 1/2 hours so off I drove to the trailhead at Morraine Lake. I made the summit in precisely 4 1/2 hours and was enjoying the stupendous views solo when my ice axe started to make a zinging sound and my hair stood up on end. Just then a party of 4 reached the summit. It was obvious to me that they had never been on the mountain before. Gazing across the mountain ranges to the west I saw to my consternation a bank of ugly black clouds spitting lightning and heading our way. I told the group of four to stay with me and took off down that mountain like my life depended on it. The first 1500 feet or so of vertical was a steep snow slope that I glissaded at breakneck speed. I had done lots of glissading before but never had I shot down a slope so fast. I'm sure I was going more than 30 mph. Then, I traversed, running as fast as possible to the top of a huge bowl and glissaded down to the key to the entire descent which was a rock band. Thanks to the snow still present at this time of year you could jump off the edge of the rock band and land on a steep slope and keep glissading. It wasn't all that crazy of a leap but was enough to make a person hesitate. The foursome were right with me and because of the thunder fully realized both the seriousness of our situation and their incredible luck to have me as their guide off the mountain.

Anyway, we got to tree line in what has to be world record time when the storm caught us. I was as glad to have the company of those strangers as they were to have me. The violence and the proximity of the lightning strikes and peals of thunder was totally awe inspiring. The rain was immaterial, we just hoped like hell not to get hit. Quite quickly, the storm passed and the skies cleared and we hiked back to our cars. I drove into Lake Louise Village in a total blackout. The strom had knocked out the power. What was kind of weird was that everyone was absolutely certain that I was dead, killed by the storm. So for the next day or two I kept getting the same reaction from everybody, "Oh! Your alive! I'm so happy to see you!"

 

[bigmoose]

March, 1965. This reporter and his high school chum Fred were given parental okay to spend a weekend in Dad's Big Moose hunting camp in West-Central Adirondacks. We were eighteen. New York drinking age was eighteen. Fred supplied the bourbon. I had Mom's wheels. Racing north on Friday night, got stopped by Trooper north of Utica, 65 in a 50 zone, got off with a lecture. Picking up where we left off, we swilled the bourbon as we plowed through deserted Adirondack towns. Took an hour and a half to make the final leg, the last mile of road to the camp, as the dirt road beneath a half foot of wet snow was a quagmire. We bottomed the car out to the axle twice, having to jack it up and shore up the quicksand below with wood and logs. Once we finally got to the camp, I worried how we'd ever get the car back out. But the bourbon flowed, and we'd worry about that later.
Saturday was a deep blue sky day, temps near 40. I introduced Fred to snowshoes, and we planned a bushwhack north after crossing Twitchell Creek at the end of the Snake Pond trail. We packed for the day and headed out, gliding over 3-4 feet of consolidated snow.
Twitchell Creek, to my surprise, was open water. But a fisherman was known to leave a boat, and I found it beneath a heap of snow. With one splintered oar and a long pole, we navigated upstream until we hit an ice patch. We portaged and continued. We had to repeat this several times, finally reaching the small bridge where our dirt road crossed Twitchell Creek. We poled under the bridge and I saw a landing spot on the other side, a nice spot to beach our craft and have lunch.
"Ramming speed!" I yelled, and we jammed the boat forward at top speed. Unfortunately, a submerged log stymied my plan. I was in the "bow", standing up, poling furiously. When we caught that log, I went straight over into the freezing water, much to Fred's delight.
I scrambled up onto the snowbank, heaving, trying to catch my breath. Fred, sitting in the boat, was in hysterics. "Last thing I saw was your ass goin' over the edge, Thompson!" he howled. I didn't quite see the humor.
I was wet and cold, but I knew I was in no danger. Hell, it was 40 degrees...8 degrees above freezing. You couldn't freeze to death if it was above freezing....
Had I been clearheaded, I would have gone up the road with Fred, walking back to camp only a mile up the hill. But I wanted to return the boat, and our snowshoes were still at the end of the trail. Dad would kill me if I came back without 'em. So we ate our sandwiches and headed downstream, back toward the snowshoes. This was more than double the distance of walking the road.
By the time we hit the second portage, I was in serious trouble. My feet were numb. My hands had lost all feeling. I was shaking. I had to ask Fred to get my boots off and rub my feet to try to get some circulation going. Fred, new to this kind of thing, had a field day at my expense. He jokingly questioned my manhood.
When we finally got to the snowshoes, Fred the neophyte had to strap me in.
I hoped he'd put the boat back okay, and hoped to hell he could snowshoe back up to camp without problems. He was my responsibility.
I hurried up that trail nonstop, something I'd never done on snowshoes before. I figured if I'd stopped, I'd keel over and become one with the snow.
Back at camp, I fumbled with the door lock, but couldn't make my hands work. Luckily I had the car keys with me and somehow managed to start the car, waiting an eternity for the heater to come on. Damn wimp 6 cylinder '64 Chevy.
As the heat finally began to trickle on, here came Fred in the snowshoes.
'Shoeing over to the car, he was laughing. "Last thing I saw, Thompson, was your ass goin' over the side!"
We ran out of bourbon that night, but couldn't chance driving down the road to get more. Fortunately, temperatures dropped overnight, the road firmed up by morning, and we made our escape. We hit the quarter car wash in Utica, bought a few beers, and concluded we'd had a pretty entertaining weekend.
Next day in the high school library I researched hypothermia...and learned just how ignorant I'd been.
To this day I have a real problem with cold...attributable, I'm sure, to my ill-advised swim in Twitchell Creek in March, 1965.

 

[Rick]

July 1982. Niagara Falls Gorge, Canadian side, about 3/4 mile N of the Whirlpool. My buddy and I (then 22 and invinceable) decided to go for a hike in the canyon and climb out via the cliff walls. For rope we had 75' we swiped from his father's road construction crew (We knew nothing back then).

We started out at about 11 AM and followed the trail to the bottom of the gorge around noon and headed upstream where we found a spot and started working our way up the talus slope - It was pretty easy, but extremely steep heading up, until we hit the headwall about halfway up and realized it was too steep to go back down.

We were terrified. We spent easily an hour just standing in one spot trying to figure out what to do. We ended up spending the afternoon traversing the head of the talus (up and down and around stuff) until we finally got back ot the trail near the top of the gorge. It was still daylight but fading fast when we made it out. I can still see the shocked look on the faces of tourists as we clambored onto the wooden platform from the opposite side of the steps - Filthy, sweaty and shaking!!!

 

[Rick]

Fast Forward 11 years to November 20th, 1993. Hiking in the Niagara Gorge alone, I was on the American Side heading down the herd path from Devils Hole State Park.
(It is a cool trail - much to the astonishment of tourists you hop over the metal barrier and just disappear over what seems to be a cliff, but is a bit gentler).

There is a spot where there is an 8' headwall. I grabbed a root and jumped over it, planning to land on a small ledge and turn facing inward as I landed.
It happened almost like that - I felt a big snap in my knee and a huge amount of pain as I twisted in. I immediately let go of the tree root and bent down and grabbed my knee, falling backward. I landed a few feet below with my back against a tree (with my daypack on) .

I laid there for afew minutes in disbeleif and trying to figure out if I broke my leg (I tore my ACL), not really knowing. I realized I had to get out and go to a hospital. When I tried to get up I couldn't bend my leg due to the huge amnount of swelling, so I decided roll over backwards and stand up. I started to roll, but stopped first and looked over my shoulder - Terrifying. It was about a 50-60 foot drop under the tree. The tree was sticking out from the slope at a 40 degree angle. It would have easily killed me if I rolled over and fell.

Shaking and sweating heavily now (and absolutely terrified) I worked myself forward into a standing position and finally made my way back up the cliff and to the park, triyng not to cry or limp as I passed tourists.
I drove myself to the hospital and finally broke down in tears (mostly from releif of being OK) when a nurse finally looked at me.

That was a huge changing point in my life when I realized how very easy it is to get yourself in a predicament that you cannot get out of.
I am a very lucky man!!!

 

[SherpaKroto]

Tales of the Young and Foolish

November 24, 1978: Home for the Thanksgiving Holiday I had decided with a few friends and my brother that we would climb Mt Adams via the King Ravine trail. Although I had done a lot of hiking, my winter weather above treeline experience was sorely lacking. Since I did not have VFTT to guide me, I made a quick call to the Mt Washington Obs and heard the forecast which said partly cloudy, winds in the 20's-30's. Sounded pretty good to me. We had discussed gear, and had agreed that we needed 2 sets of gloves, extra socks, insulated boots, and a warm jacket. These were more the times of red and black wool hunting coats than TNF Nuptse's, so we made do with what we had.

The weather was just as predicted as we left. We had no problems up through the Subway and Elevated and were soon headed up the headwall. As we neared the large rock slab we noticed that it had started to snow - hard. In a matter of minutes, our 20 mph winds had increased to 60 or more. The storm was coming right up the ravine and winds above us were headed in the opposite direction. We felt like we were in a vortex! Climbing down was impossible due to the fast falling snow (we tried, but it felt too dangerous). I knew from previous trips that we were about 150 vertical below the ravine's lip, and we decided to head up to cut over to the Airline Trail. Yes, rather foolish, but we felt we had no choice. As we crested, the winds wer strong enough to knock us over again and again. I had foolishly thought that my glasses would be all the eye protection that I needed. The combination of wind, moisture, and clouds iced over my lenses in seconds, rendering them useless. So here I was, basically blind, and the only one who knew the territory well enough to get us off. I took out my map and compass, took a bearing, handed it to my brother and said to make sure we stayed on a roughly NE bearing until we hit the Airline Trail. At about this time I noticed tha one of our group was struggling with his pants. His zipper had broken, and while he was fumbling with it he lost a glove. He had kept this to himself as he had not brought a spare pair. At this point he was completely disoriented and just wanted to sit down and rest. Fortunately, my friend Don and I knew he was in deep trouble. I gave him a glove (had to put it on his hand) and we each grabbed an arm and pulled him slowly toward the Airline trail. The weather continued to get worse, and it seemed that no progress was being made as we were being pounded - at times not being able to stand for 30 seconds or more! I have no idea how long it took us, but eventually we made it to the Airline, and down off the ridge. Once of fthe ridge, it felt peaceful and calm. We got fluids into GB, and he kept telling us we had saved his life, something he still tells me whan I see him. He ended up nearly losing 2 toes to frostbite, but other than that, we were all fine. When I got home, I immediately claled the Obs to see what the weather had been like. They told me that they had sustained winds of 90 mph with gusts of 115 while we were on Adams. Pretty darn scary to a bunch of newbies. A few months later, Don and I, better prepared and a lot smarter summitted Adams on January 6th, 1979 for my first winter 4K.

 

[dr_wu002]

Young but not foolish

When I was an undergrad at Clarkson in Potsdam NY, one of my physics professors (29, first year teaching -- physical fluid dynamics) took our small class out to a rather large waterfalls on a nice spring day. The waterfalls was actually still frozen so naturally, I took off, like a psycho-maniac out onto the ice, slipping and sliding, screaming -- I managed to grab a tree and hang on. Well, I think my prof aged about 70 years when he saw me do that! I think he even gave me a "stern talking to" when I finally made it back onto solid, dry ground. That wasn't the first or last stunt I pulled with him (we were good friends) either. I think I even tried to dive out the 3rd story window on the first day of class...

Hi Dr. Wick, if you're out there. I sent you those e-mails recently claiming to be a lawyer and asking for money: Lawyer 1, Lawyer 2, Lawyer 3. Sorry!

-Dr. Wu

 

[Gris]

Another Devil's Triangle Sailing Story

One fine March day in the late 70s my brother and i took off from Gainesville FL for our annual spring break sailing adventure rendezvous with my stepdad aboard his little (35') sloop. usually it was the Florida Keys but this time we hooked up in West Palm and were just bringing the boat up to St. Augustine. Anyhoo, we had some small relatively uneventful but fun adventures the first few days, then we arrived at Cape Canaveral. It had been clear and calm the past couple of days and we didnt feel like going through the intracoastal lock system and the appropariately named "mosquito lagoon." So, we listened carefully to NOAA weather radio and after hearing the completely benign forecast opted to sail around the cape. It was a beautiful scene as we sailed into the glassy dead calm purple sunset, so calm in fact we had to motor. A giant manta leaping over our bow might have been an omen of things to come had we believed in that sort of thing. But we were naive and did not respect mother nature enough, apparently... We dranlk a little too much then drew straws to see who would take what shift, thinking our biggest concerns would be staying awake and maybe watching for cargo ships. A little after dark we were still heading out to round the cape (there are very sandabrs with breakers as far as 8-10 miles out). An hour later a gentle breeze came up much to our delight and we hoisted the sails and put on some music. Another hour later we were riding up over some good sized swells, but we wrote it off to the bottom topography. Another hour later the breeze had stiffened to a fresh 25 knots and as we reefed the main, as the swells were easily 10 ft. Round about midnight all hands were on deck after the first knockdown. The seas had risen to about 12-15 ft. and some were breaking hard right over us! At this point my stepdad, a relatively inexperienced captain, opted to drop all sail including jib and motor on. However, it seemed our prop was out of the water more than in, and I think we actually lost ground the next two hours. By now the waves were even bigger and breaking all over us. Facing certain peril if no action was taken, I convinced my stepdad to let me put up a reefed jib to assist with steering. Together with motor power this seemed to allow us to make some headway or at least point into and over the biggest waves. The next few hours before dawn were a nightmare with some freeze-frame postcards of the mind I'll never ever forget. Here's just a few. Watching a tremendous lightening bolt strike the mast directly, illuminating everything and seeing my elderly stepdad taking the jolt while standing at a 45 angle and holding the wheel. Falling asleep amidst the driving rain and lightening after lashing myself to the inflatable dingy on top of the cabin, only to wake up due to a ringing in my ears which turned out to be a buoy hidden by the waves and just barely being able to unfasten myself from the dingy and jump down into the cockpit in time to wrest the wheel from my brother to avoid the thing (he couldnt hear me above the waves breaking over us). And most harrowingly of all, getting beaten closer and closer to a football field of strange lights all the while having a sinking feeling that we were being driven onto the cape space complex shore, only to be adrenalized awake when a very large submarine finally appeared just off the port bow before diving under us! Well, the next day dawned clear and beautiful albeit, with very large mountainous surf up and down the coast. When we hit port at the "Conch House" in St. Augustine no one could believe we had rounded the cape during what was at that time being called the worst spontaneous freak storm ever to pop up out of nowhere.

 

[beverly]

Allen Mountain

I like this thread. Man/Woman v. nature.

The second time I climbed Allen in 2001, the trail was still officially closed because of the blowdown from Hurricane Floyd. My friend and I "led" two brothers that we didn't know, but were recommended by a friend.

One of the guys was a columnist for an out of state newspaper - here is his column about our adventure.

I've been back to Allen a number of times since then, but never had so much "fun."

June 15, 2001 - Tim XXXXXXX

Climbing the Adirondack's Allen Mountain is great if you can get there. More than two decades ago, an Associated Press writer mused that a climber on the Adirondack's Allen Mountain is probably "the most isolated New Yorker at the moment, miles from the nearest person and a day away from the nearest road." Guides frequently became lost. Experts made wrong turns. Climbing Allen was less a challenge than finding it in the first place, so sequestered is the peak in a nearly impenetrable wilderness.


Conditions have changed in 20 years, of course. Today it's much worse. This, courtesy of Hurricane Floyd in the fall of 1999, which leveled vast tracts of forest, wiping out landmarks and creating a high blanket of criss-crossed logs all fiercely knitted together with stiff, needle-sheathed boughs of balsam fir and stubby, brittle spears left by snapped-off branches of red pine. Taken altogether, it's something only Br'er Rabbit could enter with any degree of comfort.

The guidebooks - written before this devastating blowdown occurred - warned that a clean run of Allen would take 12 to 14 hours. These guidebooks are always helpful. They say things like "Go to the site of the former Twin Brook lean-to and turn north and follow a logging road that no longer exists to a large boulder that was there when the earth cooled but isn't anymore, then take the left bank of an unnamed tributary to a river that hasn't yet been formed to where it ends and follow that ending 3.2 miles to the summit ridge from which it's a simple traverse across a 60-foot granite cliff to the summit."

But Allen is one of the 46 peaks in the 'dacks topping 4,000 feet, so it must be climbed. Somehow. My friend Thea in Albany put my brother Bruce and I in contact with a 46er and experienced climber named Beverly, who in turn called on her friend and compass savant Holly, a 46er (in both summer and winter), to round out the foursome. I briefly thought it odd Thea herself was not going, but she mentioned something about having to "grout her tub" and subsequently went underground.

Starting shortly after daybreak, the first leg of the climb was to take us to the surging Opalescent River "to where a bridge no longer exists." We forded the icy river and pressed on into a phantasmal world of slash, blowdown and black muck with little visibility beyond each increasingly frequent tangle of deadfall. I suppose I should mention in passing that it was intermittently pouring rain and the thermometer seemed to possess little interest in poking its way out of the 50s.

Thanks to the brilliance of Beverly and Holly, we found the summit, but conditions placed us dangerously behind schedule. We didn't summit until 3 p.m., nine hours into the climb. Dark would occur at 9 p.m., six hours hence. My math is imperfect, but I was beginning to deduce a problem. We ran and scrambled with our packs through the woods as best we could, losing our way every few hundred feet as a general thing - only Holly's repeated compass shots and Bev's and Bruce's memory for landmarks kept us in some semblance of order.

I personally brought nothing to the table; I just followed stupidly, aware at some animal level of intelligence that our only chance was to recross the Opalescent before dark and find a logging road that paralleled the river for two miles - two miles out of about a zillion miles of wilderness. We found and crossed the river just as darkness hit - and discovered ourselves not on this sliver of road, but in an unspeakably horrible expanse of savage blowdown that made every rainforest I've ever been in look like a putting green.

Pelted by rain, in the pitch black with only our headlamps for light, we crawled under downed trees in the black muck. We inched over logs piled 15 feet high, their broken branches reduced to painful-looking spears. Up, down, through, around - for three hours between 9 and midnight, we progressed only a few hundred yards and I was starting to get really annoyed. We tried to sleep under a huge, uprooted balsam; of course that didn't work, because a drip kept plugging me between the eyeballs and the only mosquito in the entire state of New York still awake at 1 a.m. was conducting drilling experiments on my ears.

At 2 a.m., shivering, we knew we had to start moving to ward off a happy little case of hypothermia. We picked our way back down to the riverbank. The blowdown began to ease and to "lighten the mood" I suggested that wouldn't it be funny if we were struggling here through the brush when the road was just 20 feet up the bank. Suddenly we all stopped and looked startled - not much use in that light. Holly bolted up the bank and 20 seconds later announced calmly "It's the road."

At 4 a.m. the clouds broke and the full moon shimmered on the river. We picnicked there, eating the lunches we'd had no time for the day before. We still had three or four miles and a couple of missteps to go to get to our cars, but we knew we'd finally won the war. I've left out a lot, and if anything, lowballed the conditions. Every so often nature amuses itself by clubbing you in the head to remind a hiker who's boss. So that's why the three most special little words to me in the English language are not "I love you," but "it's the road."

 

[jjmcgo]

Fast-moving snowstorm

Four of us climbed the east side of Mt. Washington in late October or early November 1970 or 1971. Three of us had climbed to the top before, one hadn't. We had beautiful fall weather and a forecast of clear weather.
We were near Lion's Head when I looked up and saw clouds starting to whip over Tuckerman's Ravine from the West. Then they started coming really fast, like a scene in a Gus Van Sant movie.
I said we should turn back. The other three said no. Five minutes later, the vote was 3-1 for turning back. We had to drag the guy who had never summitted back down for a few minutes, until the snow started flying.
We ran off that mountain and by the time we got to Pinkham Notch it was above our knees.
We'd all heard the stories about how fast the weather can change on Mt. Washington. It really fixed in my mind the idea that the mountain will always be there and doesn't care what you do. It's inanimate. The only thing being challenged is you -- to do the right thing at all times. The important thing is to bring back everyone alive.

 

[fog]

Never cross a river in the afternoon

I joined VFT just to post to this thread - Arm and I have "hiked" together before, and his recountings inspired me. The most amazing thing to me as I read through all these postings is that we all, more or less, continue to put ourselves in harms way. some of us get smart, but the allure is still there - otherwise, we certainly wouldn't be lurking around in forums like these...

In 1978, I was part of a group out of Boston that summited Denali. As you probably know, lots of folks die up there - good folks, not goofers like me. Nobody in our group died that year but each and every one of us shook hands with it at least once on that rock. Indeed, there was plenty of it going on around us. A Japanese party that preceded us up the Northwest Buttress lost some climbers and a party that followed us lost one too. Death on Denali typically comes when the snow gives way to a bottomless pit that sucks you in along with everyone who happens to be at the other end of a 10MM perlon rope that is waterknotted to your waist.

But my story isn't about the death I shook hands with on Denali. It was what happened way way down in the valley after we were all safely off the mountain. Back then, it was common practice for McKinley expeditions to take on some sort of scientific research in order get permission to land glacier planes inside the park boundaries. The only safe place to land a glacier plane on the south side of Denali was the southeast fork of the Kahiltna glacier. At that time, the southeast fork was just inside the park boundary.

In essence, all southwest buttress expeditions performed some scientific work in those days. Before our trip, we met in Boston with Bradford and Barbara Washburn to cook up our "scientific purpose". Meeting these folks was one of the highlights of the whole trip, since Brad had pioneered the West Buttress route and Barbara was the first woman to summit Denali. One of our tripmates, Madeline, would be the youngest women (17) to ever summit Denali.

We spent the entire evening at the Washburn’s Lexington, MA home pouring over his amazing aerial photos. In 1973, he published his polyconic projection map of McKinley, a truly breakthrough bit of cartography which was only possible through his extensive photographs of Denali from just about every angle possible. We agreed that our "scientific purpose" was to perform a ground survey of a footpath approach to a common set northern Denali summit routes via the Muldrow Glacier. This data was to be used in the next edition of map. While our expedition was using a southern-based approach to Denali, we were convinced by the Washburns to do this important survey work on the north side, which would mean a 300 mile detour from our Talkeetna-based expedition plans. No problem - we decided this could be taken care of after our climb.

Our specific task was to determine the distance from Wonder Lake to McGonagal pass, and our high tech scientific survey equipment was a bicycle wheel with a handle with a counter calibrated to click off distance covered in feet. This small survey task was, without a doubt the least challenging section of all the northern approaches to Denali; routes which are notorious for their unpredictable glacier conditions, steep icefalls, and highly exposed upper camps. The section we were surveying was the only part of these routes that wasn’t on glacier or permanently frozen rock. Terra Firma.

While our original expedition was a group of eight, seven of whom successfully summited, I was the only one beside our trip leader, Phil, who had the time or the inclination to carry out our scientific purpose. Actually, Phil didn’t have much of an inclination either, and set an aggressive schedule for getting the survey work done. Phil was in a hurry, as we had gotten bogged down on Denali for an extra 8 days due to bad weather, but that is another story.

I was not in a hurry at all. I had a back country permit and another ten days before my flight home. I had planned the whole summer is Alaska, and had my mind set on soloing around some spots near Wonder Lake that had great views of the mountain for much of that - glorying in my accomplishments so to speak. This is an important tidbit in that I was carrying a weeks worth of provisions for this short survey trip - my pack was pretty loaded.

The 100+ mile dirt road from Park HQ was notoriously finicky on a good day and this was certainly a below average day, mostly because it was a warm and overcast day, with temps hovering around 65. This meant the road was particularly soft and sections of the road had to be shored up to allow the bus to pass through. It was early afternoon by the time we actually got started out from Wonder Lake. The route to McGonagal pass took was virtually flat: a quick descent of only a couple hundred feet over two miles from Wonder Lake to the McKinley River, then only around 500 feet of ascent over 4 or 5 miles to the pass.

We made quick time to down to the bar of the McKinley river, which is a very wide many-braided stream. It was well over a mile from bank to bank, but no individual river stream was more than 50 feet wide. At first, the individual stream crossings were shallow and easy, and it looked like it would be no problem as we looked out across the bar.

Very quickly, though, the streams got deeper. When the water depth was just below the knee, footing became a lot less steady because there were rocks rolling along the bottom, hitting our feet. When the streams were this deep, we couldn’t roll the survey wheel through, because the force of the water was too strong against the wheel. When this happened, we estimated the distance covered and spun it off on the wheel as we went along.

We both had our ice axes out and were leaning on them pretty hard as the streams seemed to get progressively deeper and the going got progressively harder. We eventually made it to the last stream, and we could see that this stream was deeper and faster than any we had crossed before. The whole river meandered over a very large alluvial plain, and we could see that the river very much wanted to go the same direction we were: south. This last streamlet was cutting into the bar so that there was a three or four foot bank that marked the inside edge of the whole river.

We could see the river’s action in very real time. The four foot bank at the far edge was sloughing off everywhere, sending rocks and sand into the fray. Did I mention that the water was cold? Oh yeah, the water was cold. The river’s source, the Muldrow glacier, terminated only eight miles upstream. All this water was very fresh glacial melt. Our feet were too numb to even feel from the very first moment we pludged in above our boot tops.

At this point, Phil and I wandered about, going a bit upstream and a bit downstream looking for more shallow places to ford the final streamlet. We crossed more minor streamlets here and there and finally found a place we thought was the path of least treacherousness.

I had the wheel as we started across, and I had also racheted up my pack straps on my shoulders, as I was worried that if the water hit the lower part of it, it would pull me down. This was a big mistake – packs should always be loosened so should you fall in, you can get out from under it.

Soon enough, the water was waste deep and there was no bottom – by this I mean there was nothing stable to stand on – the stream bed was literally a traffic jam of rocks – every one of which was in motion. Rocks the size of bowling balls were moving around down there.

I lost my footing and was in. Phil went in at about the same time, too. The wheel pulled me down into the water and my pack, tight around my shoulders, floated nicely and held me under water. I was flotsam and I couldn't breath – no control. My feet flailed around seeking terra firma but it was simply not there. I let go of the wheel. Actually, it was more likely some rocks grabbed it from me and ripped it out of my hands. Letting go of the wheel was not an option. For some reason, our "scientific purpose" seemed more important that any other at that point, even though I couldn’t find air and I was totally submersed in 34 degree Fahrenheit water.

<more to follow>

 

[fog]

Never cross a river in the afternoon II

With the wheel gone I focused on getting a breath of air. I rounded on my pack and I could see that Phil was several dozens of yards upstream from me, bobbing along as well. Both of us had the same idea: get to the far shore and ground ourselves against it. I pushed against all hope towards the riverbank, and sometimes I would make it there only to be swept back into the main flow of the stream by the current.

I would grasp at the vertical wall of the river bank and chunks of rock and sand would crash down on me. Every thing was movement – there was nothing solid anywhere – even the sky was in motion as visions of roiling clouds gave way to murky waters as the buoyancy of my pack pushed my head towards the roiling waters and the cacophony of stones and moving sand.

Eventually, as is the way with all braided streams, the strongest stream becomes the weakest, and the river’s heaviest torrents shifted back toward the middle. The south bank became a shallower and friendlier place and I beached myself. Phil also was able to beach himself nearby. Before I was able to hoist my weary frame up onto the bank, Phil was there – and he balled me out for losing the Boston Museum of Science’s survey wheel.

My guess is that we were submerged for about a minute a fifteen seconds. I also guessed we had probably traveled three quarters of a mile. A light rain settled on the plain. There was no doubt I was hypothermic, and I’m sure Phil must have been too, but he acted quickly and decisively. Per his instructions, we immediately stripped off all our wet clothes. Before getting our packs open, he did this little exercise that I’m totally convinced saved our lives.

He had me stand facing him and had me put my arms out with my palms facing up. He grabbed my forearms from above with his palms facing down and told me to tighten my hands around his forearms. With our arms locked in this way, he started to shake my arms back and forth, which got the blood flowing in both of us. We traded off shaking each other for many minutes as we stood there naked on the open river plain. The Dahl Sheep, Black Bear, and Caribou must have thought us quite the spectacle.

Still, naked, we went right for the sleeping bags. Our expedition mummies were too tight for us to share, but they were also warm enough to stave the loss of body heat, even in the drizzle. Both of us had manageed to pack fairly water tight after all the heating and freezing cycles of the previous 30 days of expeditioning.

Phil quickly went to work getting some hot fluids going. When I took in the tea, I could clearly feel my mind coming back from oblivion. The rain subsided and we stayed in our bags not 20 feet from where we had pulled ourselves out of the river. I slept the deepest sleep I have ever known – far deeper than the deepest of sleeps I had experienced just a few days prior in the wake of the Herculean effort of ascending a gargantuan like Denali.

We woke to a bright crisp and cold morning, but we were not cold, nor would we ever be cold again – not like that. More tea and some hot oatmeal. We kept our dry socks in our packs and put on our wet ones, knowing the dry ones will be waiting for us on the other side of the river. We were shocked when we looked out over the river bed: it had died completely back. The torrential streams were dry, there was only one running stream for every five we had crossed the day before.

The terrible mistake we had made hit us: the sun and warm temps melt the glacier during the day, releasing the torrents; then the cold descends from the hall of the mountain king at night to quell the fury of the treacherous Alaskan braided river. Never cross such a river in the afternoon.

We spent some time walking downstream to look for the lost wheel, but to no avail. We were back at Wonder Lake by 11:00 a.m. and Phil was on his way to Anchorage post haste. After Phil left me, I repaired to the mellow taiga to embark on my much anticipated solo in the wilds of the DNP outback.


I had the unfortunate privilege to use the shaking arm-lock again a few years ago while winter camping in the northern presidential range of New Hampshire. Our good friend Da ve would have most likely been a gonner without it and the very same MSR XG stove that saved my life in Alaska. Same tea, too – Celestial Seasonings Morning Thunder. That nearly 30-year old stove is amazing, and I've affectionally renamed it the U.S.S Whoosh-a-lot.