described below
To try to help ensure that at least nathan and i go hiking in virginia a week from tomorrow, some tales of the last shenandoah adventures (previously relayed in gmail form, but always intended to end up here one day anyway)
haha, you're right about the cowboy cool names. i forget what adam's was, but i'm brad riker, always am, always have been. i gather you recognize the surname, or whichever part of the name that means the part with the name riker in it.
and i forgot. i wore some kind of boot the first time and nearly had my feet amputated. but the second time i just wore sneakers and was fine. so...
quick story. the guide led us across some wadable rivers, or so she thought. day one brought the first river alongside a rocky cliff waterfall of death-causing proportions. this was when adam hiked down the cliff alongside the raging river to try to find an easier way across than the felled tree bridge. after 20 minutes or so i went down after him. i went as far as i dared (the cliff got sheer steep and realized i had no idea where he could have been. i began to realize it was at least a 50-50 that he'd fallen down the cliff and was injured or dead. i headed back to where i started thinking that there was nothing else to do. it had been a very dangerous trip down for me as at the very beginning i slipped and began sliding down through the deep woods towards the water but my foot slammed into a sturdy rock. i'd only slid a few feet and still had not completely given in to fear - thinking i was still in control of my slide, but it was close. and so it was a long hard trip back up from where i'd begun searching for adam. i had to jump from giant rock structures up to other ones to avoid my legs falling down in between the rocks to the dark, damp forest floor, where no one knows what kind of bitter reptiles called home. managing not slip into those cracks i still had to creep past dense spider webs and avoid losing my balance when surprised by the slithering speed of thick, spooked centipede. amazingly, however, adam was back where we'd started, almost unbelievably we must have passed each other along the narrow area near the waterfall. but anyway, we ended up carefully walking across the fallen tree, giant packs swaying us from side to side as we picked our way around large obtrusive branches situated dangerously in the middle of the 'bridge'.
as we relaxed on the other side, reveling in our dangerous feat, the only other human contact we were to run into over the next 4 four days, materialized itself as a gang of teens, lightly burdened, who, without hesitation, darted lithefully over the tree, across the river and past us up the hill we sat at the base of. hmm..
the other noteworthy crossing was a muddy river that reached our waist as we, choosing not to wait for any indian assistance, forded the river with gusto. the peril here presented itself as a raging current, which quite nearly tipped me and my large pack over several times. death would have probably been the result. that or at best i'd have had to struggle my shoulders out from under my pack, abandoning it, and hope that i'd resurface before gulping too much water. i had a walking stick i carried throughout the trip and trusted it with almost all my weight many times during this crossing. earlier rivers, i'd waded barefoot, but the surprising unknown textures below caused me to use my flip-flops this time. they worked well. adam however, waited till i finally made it to the other side before he started his trek because he'd lost his flip-flops somehow, or something, and so after i crossed, i loaded up the flip-flops into each other and gave them a toss across stream to his eagerly stretching hands. well, one of them detached from the other, hit the water with a plop, and raced off down stream and deep into the woods, never again to be worn by my foot.
so, don't lose your flip-flops, because anything can happen when one throws them across a river..
WATERFALLS, RAPIDS AND DISPOSABLE SHOES
haha, you're right about the cowboy cool names. i forget what adam's was, but i'm brad riker, always am, always have been. i gather you recognize the surname, or whichever part of the name that means the part with the name riker in it.
and i forgot. i wore some kind of boot the first time and nearly had my feet amputated. but the second time i just wore sneakers and was fine. so...
quick story. the guide led us across some wadable rivers, or so she thought. day one brought the first river alongside a rocky cliff waterfall of death-causing proportions. this was when adam hiked down the cliff alongside the raging river to try to find an easier way across than the felled tree bridge. after 20 minutes or so i went down after him. i went as far as i dared (the cliff got sheer steep and realized i had no idea where he could have been. i began to realize it was at least a 50-50 that he'd fallen down the cliff and was injured or dead. i headed back to where i started thinking that there was nothing else to do. it had been a very dangerous trip down for me as at the very beginning i slipped and began sliding down through the deep woods towards the water but my foot slammed into a sturdy rock. i'd only slid a few feet and still had not completely given in to fear - thinking i was still in control of my slide, but it was close. and so it was a long hard trip back up from where i'd begun searching for adam. i had to jump from giant rock structures up to other ones to avoid my legs falling down in between the rocks to the dark, damp forest floor, where no one knows what kind of bitter reptiles called home. managing not slip into those cracks i still had to creep past dense spider webs and avoid losing my balance when surprised by the slithering speed of thick, spooked centipede. amazingly, however, adam was back where we'd started, almost unbelievably we must have passed each other along the narrow area near the waterfall. but anyway, we ended up carefully walking across the fallen tree, giant packs swaying us from side to side as we picked our way around large obtrusive branches situated dangerously in the middle of the 'bridge'.
as we relaxed on the other side, reveling in our dangerous feat, the only other human contact we were to run into over the next 4 four days, materialized itself as a gang of teens, lightly burdened, who, without hesitation, darted lithefully over the tree, across the river and past us up the hill we sat at the base of. hmm..
the other noteworthy crossing was a muddy river that reached our waist as we, choosing not to wait for any indian assistance, forded the river with gusto. the peril here presented itself as a raging current, which quite nearly tipped me and my large pack over several times. death would have probably been the result. that or at best i'd have had to struggle my shoulders out from under my pack, abandoning it, and hope that i'd resurface before gulping too much water. i had a walking stick i carried throughout the trip and trusted it with almost all my weight many times during this crossing. earlier rivers, i'd waded barefoot, but the surprising unknown textures below caused me to use my flip-flops this time. they worked well. adam however, waited till i finally made it to the other side before he started his trek because he'd lost his flip-flops somehow, or something, and so after i crossed, i loaded up the flip-flops into each other and gave them a toss across stream to his eagerly stretching hands. well, one of them detached from the other, hit the water with a plop, and raced off down stream and deep into the woods, never again to be worn by my foot.
so, don't lose your flip-flops, because anything can happen when one throws them across a river..
on a whim, chad was marco @ 12:42 PM
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