Day 4
the day we almost died on
the day we almost had to quit on
the fantastic day of "oh fuck what the hell"

Day 4 started well. Two mountain walks up, two mountain walks down, campsite. Seemed easy in concept.
This day's entire path was, unlike everything else on the island, marked as a "Black" trail, meaning "Very challenging"

In addition to "Very Challenging" it was also marked as, "Unmarked". The length to walk that day was 6.7 miles, or 10.7 kilometers. It took 11 hours and 2 minutes of walking. The previous days generally took 4-5 hours of walking, and were longer in distance on the map.

oh boy

The start was easy, some 6 smaller river crossings. Got wet from one, but i was already dripped out anyway so who cares.

Then a little mountain climb, then another little mountain climb, then another little one, then some snow crossings, and it keeps getting progressively worse.

The snow is melting from the mountain and it's just all mud-slosh and gravel. We're quite literally crawling up the mountain with our stomachs to the mudgravel. Any less friction, and we're slop-sliding downwards. Its roughly alternating between 20 degree and 60 degree angle terrain. Everything has a ultra thin layer of water running down it. And it's all mud-moss-gravel garbage. Lots and lots and LOTS of scrambling (climbing term), sliding, snow, wet, moss, mud. The amount of times we slid down a meter worth at a time, was in the hundreds.

My friend had a boulder land on his finger while we climbed, quite painfully.

After some time, a plateau in the middle of the climb appeared. it turned more into snow and rocks, until eventually turning into mostly dry boulders and snow. We reached the top - rather, 10 meters from the top - and had to go up a near vertical wall of snow. My hiking partner refused, even though i repeatedly attempted to convince him, to come up the 80 degree wall of snow. Got really pissed off. I said i'd take all the equipment on multiple trips and he can do it with no equipment, but he still refused. He wanted something safer, or to cancel. And so we did a 1.5 km detour sideways, along the rim of the mountain top, hoping to find a bit safer path up. Eventually we did find one. At this point we had traversed about 3km in about 5 hours, with a strong 40% of the time being on our stomachs, legs and hands, with our very heavy backpacks. In the end, after many an hour, We got up.

Sidenote: days later, at the ranger station, I asked the ranger if that route is just completely retardedly difficult and insane. He said that the snow conditions this year are whack, and there is way too much snow and meltwater this year in comparison to the previous years at this time of the year.



Afterwards, it was quite easy. The next mountain was not insane, and had quite a casual scrambling climb in comparison, with much less slippery mud on and under every single surface.

The campsite was nice, flat, and comfy.

The weather, the terrain, the excruciating effort, the knowledge that the rest of the trails are marked trails and not "Very Challenging", made this day really feel like the peak of everything. At that time, atleast.

And thats how we travelled less than 11 km in over 11 hours.