Sunday May 30, 2010

Camp 29: old trail along the river (not the CDT)

I'm laying here a little shaken up as Eric just fell in the river as he tried to cross on a slippery rock.  He banged his kneecap directly on a rock as his entire body plunged into the cold, swift stream.  I watched as it took his breath away and he fumbled to get out.  It happened so fast, I stood, watching helplessly unable to get to him.  He crawled to the bank and I met him with a million questions as I did a full body scan looking for gashes, cuts, blood and bones sticking out.  He simply held up a hand to silence me for a minute to gather himself.  Luckily he didn't hit his head and there were no broken bones but he hit his kneecap and shoulder hard during the fall.  It was already 7pm and he was cold and shivering.  We found a makeshift camping spot to set up and Eric changed into dry clothes.  We aren't even on the CDT, there is nobody for miles that we know of, the trail we are on is pretty much nonexistent.  How did we stumble upon it you ask?  We were trying to take a CDT alternate route that didn't go as planned and we ended up on a road heading North. As we all know, Canada is North so why not go with it?  The road eventually ended and we found this old trail along the river.  Once upon a time it had been maintained as we saw chainsaw work, markings and names carved in the trees.  We had to cross the river several times and our feet were pretty much numb.  On the last crossing we were trying to let our feet dry out a bit and that's when Eric took the bath.  We'll see what tomorrow brings.