The 24 Hour Hike(II)

Camping without a tent not so much fun

Back at the clearing we flipped on our phones. No bars. Not even enough reception to get a text message through. It was probably a good thing. I’m not sure what I would have told whomever we managed to get a hold of. I imagined my end of the conversation going something like this.

“Hey, how's it going? Well, I'm calling because um.. Jean and I lost in the Blue Mountains."

"Really, we are. It's crazy isn't it? But don't worry. Neither us is hurt or anything. I think we'll be okay."

"Yeah, I know, it seems like people get lost in the Blue Mountains all the time. We've become statistic."

"Yeah, I'll tell Jean in a second. I'm sure she'll think that's ironic too. Anyway, we'll be spending the night out here I guess. We should be fine but if you don’t hear from us by midday tomorrow, call the police I guess, alright? Yeah, thanks. Bye. Yep, you too. Bye.”

Turning off the mobiles Jean and I took stock of our supplies. Two apples, some trail mix, a liter of water…

Clothing wise we were in fairly good shape. Throughout the warm, humid day Jean had bemoaned having packed a fleece and wooly hat. She gladly put them on now. We both had rain jackets that would serve well to hold in body heat. The only real downside was that I was wearing shorts. At least my legs are on the furry side.

Jean and I picked a spot in the middle of the clearing to settle in and began removing stray twigs and pushing leaves together to for some cushioning. That activity brought back the memory of another night I had spent in the open in the mountains. I warned Jean that I was about to launch into a Georgia story. She conceded and allowed me to continue.

In the early autumn of my first year in the village of Mukhaestate I had shown an interest in eating trout and to a lesser extent fishing for them. My host father, Olegi, had picked up on the idea and began talking about a fishing trip into the lower Caucasus Mountains. All during the year and into the next he continued to talk about it. I would ask him when we were going and he would tell me that the time was not quite right but it would be soon. He would explain that there was either not enough water in the river or too much or the fish weren’t ready.

Summer came and went and I had written off the trip until one day in early October, Olegi said the time was finally right and we’d be leaving the next day. Never mind that school was supposedly starting in a few days. He would talk to the school director.

Nika, Tamazi and Olegi

The next day, Olegi, his friends Tamazi and Nika and I loaded up in Nika’s beat up sedan. The car’s tires were bald and I guessed that the gas tank had rusted out because a hose had been rigged up running from engine compartment to a Fanta bottle of petrol in the trunk.

Several bumpy hours over unsealed roads brought us to a large wooden house perched on a mountainside. We spent a couple of nights there and then one morning Olegi woke me up early and told me I should get ready. I asked him what the plan was and didn’t understand his explanation but I was able to gather that I needed a fleece, long trousers and perhaps a bottle of water.

Tamazi and Olegi fishing and hiking up the river

After breakfast, Olegi, Tamazi and I headed out. Tamazi wore a satchel slung across his chest and carried a bamboo fishing rod. I wore my backpack stuffed with water, a loaf of  bread, some cucumbers and tomatoes and Olegi just carried an axe. We walked a short distance down the road from the house and then turned off on a path to the river. Then we followed the river upstream fishing along the way. Rather, Tamazi did the fishing. I had had my fishing privileges revoked a day before after losing several lines in the trees.

By evening, Tamazi’s satchel was full of trout and we were far upstream. My companions didn’t seem to be terribly preoccupied with getting back to shelter. We stopped at a wide rocky section beside the river. Tamazi began cleaning the captured fish beside the water. Olegi told me to go find some wood and he began chopping up the larger pieces I brought back.

Returning with a third armful of fallen limbs I found Tamazi finished with the fish and now stripping a large bush bare of leaves. He pushed the fallen leaves into a pile and told me that it was my bed.

Olegi built a fire and as darkness fell he and Tamazi had stoked it into a small conflagration. We dined on the stale bread, tomatoes and cucumbers. After dinner conversation trailed off and I began to doze. It was a cold night and I woke frequently either to relieve some crick or to rotate a numb portion of my body toward the warmth of the fire.

In the Blue Mountains, Jean and I unfortunately didn’t have any matches or a lighter and I’m not mountain man enough to start a fire without those aids. However, It was going to be much warmer then it had been that night in Georgia. Recalling the forecast, over night the temperature was predicted to dip into the neighborhood of 14° C (~55° F). I figured it would be uncomfortable but bearable.

I finished my in the mountains with Olegi and Tamazi narrative, relating how we’d made the hike out the next morning and even how the director had even held off starting school until I got back. I thanked Jean for allowing me interject a Georgia story. She told me that it did make her feel better about our current situation but I have my doubts because Jean is very nice, even in extreme situations.

We soon gave up on the leaves idea and huddled together in our meager pile. The faint sound of a siren caused us to wonder if one of our SOS text messages had gone through. A helicopter buzzed overhead and we toyed with the idea of running out to the creek and trying to signal it. The sounds soon faded and the night was quiet again. Jean suggested that we try to get in some sleep in while it was still relatively warm so she and I curled up together and quickly fell asleep.

There goes my leg modeling career

I woke an hour later with a shooting pain in my hip from laying on the hard ground. Rolling to my other side woke up Jean who also rolled over. This pattern would continue throughout the night with increasing frequency as her hips became less and less happy. Towards midnight my legs began to grow cold. At Jean suggestion’s I balanced my backpack over them, which helped but added complexity to our rotation routine and irritated the numerous cuts and abrasions on my shins.

Creeping into the early hours of my morning my lower body became so numb with the chill that I wasn’t able to drift off to sleep anymore. I spent a while rubbing my legs and wiggling my toes to get the blood flowing. Then Jean and I got up and did a few minutes of jumping jacks. The exercise worked wonders and inspired the telling of another, shorter Georgia story which I’ll save the readers.

We were able to slip off to sleep for a while longer before the basin began to lighten. Taking in our environs in the predawn gloom we were struck by the seeming impassibility of the path we had come. No wonder my legs were so banged up. Jean and I walked down to the sandy beach and tried fording the creek but it soon became too deep to continue without more submersion then we cared for on a cool morning.

We moved downstream weaving our way though the undergrowth. After much searching and still finding no discernible paths or marking we crossed over the creek and doubled back up the waterway on the opposite side.

The elusive trail marker

Jean and I came to a stream feeding into the larger one that we were following. We crossed the small tributary via a fallen log that looked like it could have been purposefully placed. Continuing along the creek we came to a channel heading steeply up the basin wall cutting through the thick vegetation. I scouted ahead scampering up the channel to where it intersected with a trail. From the intersection I followed the trail down as it descended through several switchbacks to the creek bed. There, high up on the trunk of a tree beside the trail was a pink marker. I shouted to Jean who was waiting just a short distance away at the base of the channel.

She hurried over and we followed the trail up as it undulated over the hillside. The path soon came to an intersection listed in our trail notes. After forty-five minutes of twists and turns we emerged into a library car park. At 9:00 Sunday morning we tromped into the Blaxland train station just shy of 24 hours since we left on our little excursion.

Escaped from the Blue Mountains