The Decision to Bail (Day 48)

Day 48 was an adventure, to say the very least. I had no idea what I was in for when I woke up that morning, all excited for the day’s hike, still innocent, believing that now I ‘got the hang of’ big mountains, having faced my fears in the Beauforts and even hiked one of the highest mountains on the island (Albert Edward). But on this day, the mountains were about to seriously humble me.

The Approach

Bushwhacking from the cabin back out to the road didn’t take very long, since I knew I could just follow the river out, keeping outside of the cutblock boundary to avoid climbing the slash. From there I followed roads up winding valleys, getting ever closer to Mt Adrian, which I would be ascending. Each time I was heading towards a peak, I would think that was Adrian, only for the road to twist and leave it to the side, changing its aim. Really, I only saw the top of Adrian when I was almost there, as the geography was so jagged. And – it was so high up, it was obscured til the last minute by lesser peaks, from the perspective of looking up from below.

When the roads took me as high as they could, I was faced with the steep, steep base of Adrian. I put my trust in the flags to lead me safely around and over the rocky bluffs that could suddenly appear in the trees, presenting formidable obstacles to my ascent. At one point, I think I unnecessarily rock-climbed a bluff – a nerve-wracking moment, that could have been avoided, because I saw later that the flags led around it. However, it would not be my last rock climb of the day.

Adrian

I edged up a rock ledge to find a ridge with a more gradual incline. Thinking the lump ahead of me was the top, I eased into an amble, looking forward to when the ordeal would be over. The bluffs and the sight of the rest of the world so far below had already gotten to me a little, and I had to concentrate to not let fear completely consume me.

The rest of what I remember from Adrian was a lot of climbing in trees. There was no marked trail across the ridge and summit itself, so I was making my own best judgments on the safest way across. There were two especially exposed scree slopes which I could not imagine walking across for fear of slipping, so I jumped into the trees and held on to them for dear life, moving from green patch to green patch to safely clear the hazard. They were so dense, I couldn’t see how close I was to jumping into the views, and I counted that as a good thing.

More Ridges

Finally clearing Adrian, after what felt like an age, I passed onto a ridge that looked like a slanted stack of flat rock slabs. Though I had a little more clearance from the edges on either side of me, compared to when I was dancing in the trees up above, I was still wary. The shaken-up feeling wouldn’t leave, and all I wanted was to get to a more protected place. By this point, I had been saying out loud to myself: “I am cool, I am calm, I am collected, I am protected”, over and over again, for the last hour. I didn’t stop my mantra until my whole ordeal was over, which was to be many hours later. It kept me focused on the practicalities of the present, and away from the abyss of fear that I felt on all sides, waiting for me to slip and fall into.

 

I knew it wasn’t a good idea to look back on what I had just crossed. But I did anyway, and felt a stab of anxiety. The other side of Adrian was a straight up cliff. As usual, the photos never do justice to what it felt like to witness that rock face in person. I tried not to imagine what that unforgiving stone could do to a human body.

Continuing on unsure footing, I followed the ridge to its end. Here, there was a discontinuity, some impassable cliffs that had to be bypassed. Supposedly there was a trail going steeply down the west side of the mountains and then back up to the north. I didn’t see any cairns or flag, so I guessed with some help of my GPS as to where to start my descent. But again, surprise bluffs and the fact that the steepness prohibited me from seeing very far below me to plan out a safe route made me nervous.

Finally, Flags

And then, a flash of orange appeared – thank God! The relief I felt at the sight of that color was immeasurable. A flag means another human came up and down here and survived. I began to follow the markers, being careful to find the next one before I left the last, to avoid any wrong turns that could turn quickly ugly, given the surprise bluffs.

And Then, Disaster

But, despite my care, the dreaded wrong turn occurred. I couldn’t see the next flag at a bluff I could not see the bottom of, and went left where I should have gone right. It got scary quick – I started having to lower myself down an increasingly steep and narrow ravine through the alder trees growing out of the crack between the two walls of rock. Then, for a stretch of about a storey and a half, the alders disappeared, and the ravine curved inward at a greater-than-90-degree angle.

Trying to say calm, I decided to throw my bag down. Though I didn’t know how far it would fall, I would have a much better chance of getting down in one piece without 25 lbs on my back. I unclipped and let go – to my surprise, it was caught by the trees and landed within my sight. Then I had to somehow get down to meet it.

I ended up bracing myself between the two faces and shimmying down, my back on one side, my hands on the other. I got down, strapped my pack back on, and tried not to freak out, for the umpteenth time.

The Decision to Bail

I realized by that point I had lost the trail – no more markers, and surely no hiker was expected to rock climb like I had just done. I was tired, hot, dehydrated, and running out of steam. As soon as the idea to bail came to my mind, I realized it was probably the safest thing to do. Being alone up there, and not having a lot of experience with big steep mountains, I realized my limits. I decided to continue downhill, hoping to eventually hit a logging road to take me down to Buttle Lake, the vast blueness directly below me.

But bailing still took me hours. Hours of carefully tiptoeing from tree to tree, hanging on to branches while I slipped in the loose dirt, and hoping that my blind wandering wouldn’t lead me to an impassable bluff or crevice. The sun blasted the dry face of the mountain and I started to feel woozy. Having run out of water, my throat was parched.

Finally, I started to see some stumps, signalling that I was now in a cutblock. That meant that the logging road I was looking for wasn’t far. And, if people somehow got up here to cut these trees, I could somehow get down, right?

At 4pm, I collapsed onto the overgrown road. Glad to at last be on level ground, I let my guard down, after a long and demanding day.

It still took me another hour to get down to the main road along Buttle Lake. And within five minutes, I had hitched a ride to Upper Campbell Reservoir Campground, about fifteen minutes’ drive north.

Reflections

That night, all the fear I had suppressed during the day resurfaced, and the resulting jitters made it take a long time for me to get to sleep.

I didn’t regret my decision to bail at all. It was the safest thing for me to do, given my aloneness and waning confidence in my ability to handle what the slopes were throwing at me.

Perhaps a more experienced hiker, scrambler, or mountaineer would have found the terrain I encountered to be no big deal. But for me, it was, and I didn’t feel any shame in admitting that. Maybe someone reading this has hiked Mt Adrian and its ridge, and thinks that I exaggerate. But the fear I felt was real, as I was so out of my depth. I definitely would have felt way different if I had been with another more experienced person, navigating the cliffs. If/when I went up there again, I thought, I wouldn’t want to go alone.

What then? I was off trail, surrounded by car campers. I left that decision for future me to deal with, and just tried to rest and be grateful that I made it down safely.

Signed,

Carly