Fancy Falls and Pirouettes

Many miles of boardwalk await you. Be careful! You might fall.

For several embarassing seconds I feared I would need help getting up. One moment I'd been walking the damp and slimy boardwalk unconcerned, the next, I was airborne like some creative gymnast. My pack went down first so now I found my arms and feet flapping much like an overturned turtle. To make matters worse, my landing spot was soft, spongy moss floating on water. The back of my shorts immediately began to fill. Without dignity, I straightened and rolled over, mashing my front against the sopping greenery. As I braced against the boardwalk to stand, one foot plunged through the moss, wetting my leg almost to the knee. With a very rude, sucking sound I freed the foot and turned to sit on the side of the boardwalk. How long had I been down? Maybe 30 seconds. Oh how life can change. Bits of dripping animal and plant life ran down my leg to settle on the soggy sock. A puddle began to form around my butt. "And some poor bastards are snarled in morning traffic," I thought.

In several places, the trail is a series of mudholes connected by a path.

Sometimes I do fancy but precarious manoeuvers around the edges of the large mudholes in a vain attempt to keep my legs clean. It's the other guys who left hundreds of boot penetrations in mid-mud. Sometimes a pattern seems to tell a story. Is that a boot hole or did a hand go in? Are all those from the same poor sucker trying to reach the edge. Oh man! How do people end up in the middle anyway? They must be Olympic long jumpers.
Dave Foster, 1996.

High on Adrenaline

Adrenaline Creek presents a difficult and dangerous challenge for those who choose to try it. Many accidents have happened and at least one person has been drowned.

Adrenaline Creek is not a body of water of any import or stature until it turns to slime near the ocean's edge. A few gallons of fresh water, seeping over a surface of smooth and sometimes vertical sandstone, has become a slippery, treacherous challenge for hikers. We had an incident the first time I went through there. Our first man was picking his way across the tricky face when a huge wave swelled up the surge channel and sucked him off the rock like a vacuum picking up an insect. With the receding water, he sank almost to stand on the bottom of the channel and then floated back with the next wave, searching wildly for hand holds on the slippery sides, but unable to withstand the pull of the water on his pack and body. In the panic of the moment none of us thought to lift his pack until he yelled out the suggestion. On the next surge, we lifted his pack free as the water took him out again. On his next flush in, we used a coil of rope to bring him in dripping and disgruntled. His camera had gone to the bottom. Spurred by anger, he insisted we play him out at the end of the rope so he could retrieve his camera. Miraculously, on the second dive in the froth and foam, he came up with it but it was well salted and quite useless. That afternoon, during the big drying out, we mulled over the dire consequences of crossing Adrenaline alone. Several years later, a women died attempting to do that very thing.
Dave Foster, 1996.

Ladder, Ladder on the Wall
Which is the highest of them all?

We met a man at the bottom of a ladder who said, "You guys go ahead, I need to wait for my wife and carry her pack up."

"Now you're my kind of guy." I said. "How about I wait and you do mine too."

Dave Foster, 1996.

The Tides They are a'Changing

Be wary of the incoming tide! It can surprise you and trap you!

The sun was down when a large group arrived at the already crowded Camper Creek from Thrasher Cove. They set up on the flat, sandy, comfortable-looking beach close to the creek's edge. In the morning all the tents had migrated to a line along the high tide mark. A few frustrated souls had abandoned their tents late in the night and slept in the open. The quietly flooding tide had formed a small lake at the creek mouth that filled their tents without warning. What a way to begin!

Wayne nudged me awake sometime after 10 pm to urge me to look out the tent door. The water was lapping inches from our tent flap. We had set up on top of the sandbar on the ocean side of Tsusiat Creek in hopes of catching some ocean breezes. Earlier, we'd debated long and hard whether the water would reach its present level. "You whimp! It won't come this high," I said. Now stumbling and mumbling in the dark like a bear with an attitude, I gathered my belongings. Sheepishly, hoping no one would notice, we carried our tent to higher ground. "Your credibility sucks!" Wayne said.
Dave Foster, 1996.