Outdoorsmanship
Out of context: Reply #32
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- bogue0
@ Canoe : It was just weather that got the best of me. I had read plenty about how bad the weather off the southern ocean could get and how drastically things could change... but i still wasn't prepared. The only real mountain day i had in my trek (around a 3000 Meter elevation gain) the weather rolled in on me while I was 2/3rds of the way up the mountain and it just kicked my ass. 120km/h winds that would litterally knock me over every couple of minutes... terrential rain like i've never seen before. It was an 18km day that day and i just got absolutely soaked to the bone... all of my gear got absolutely soaked (tent, sleeping bag all dripping wet). I finally got to my stopping point at around 6pm at which point it started snowing. I was shaking and shivering so badly... i tried to sing some songs that i knew to test my speech to see if I was hypothermic... and i couldn't even speak.... slurring like a drunk. 30 minutes later this Aussie couple who had also got pounded by weather arrived in the same spot from a different direction and they wrapped me up in the reflective blanket, made me tea.. and got me going again.
Other than that the hike was amazing. Remote beaches that stretched for 40km's.. dense rainforest, buttongrass plains with mud up to your thighs for 10km stretches. And every day had some ridiculous challenge that was completely un-necessary after a 20km hike. Intense river crossing, Rowboats across an open stretch of ocean, having to climb up a waterfall, and my favourite: a rivulet crossing where you couldn't see the depth and had these raging tidal surges that shot back up the river and would suck you out to sea.
Not sure if i would ever try and pull something like that off alone again.... that was definitely a bad decision. But it was rewarding to complete.