The first few miles were all smiles. We were tromping along a dirt path that I could have hiked in my sleep. After a while, we entered Orderville Canyon.
Orderville is a slot canyon, which according to Wikipedia, "is a narrow canyon, formed by the wear of water rushing through rock."
The first part of the canyon floor was all mud because a flash flood had torn through the night before. Despite collecting several inches of mud on the bottom of our feet, we were all still in high spirits.
Here's where I want to get back to the stupidity thing I addressed in Part 1. It's not that we weren't prepared--we certainly had everything we needed for the hike, we just didn't bother to bring what we had.
The first thing I'd like to address is our rations. While some had plenty to eat and drink in their packs, others had very little. Actually, Neanderthal #5 didn't even bring a pack. He carried a re-filled Gatorade bottle in his hand and a PBJ his back pocket. Neanderthal #10 went with two cans of Mountain Dew and a small bottle of water.
Also, as I mentioned earlier, we decided to leave the wetsuits behind. Well, about the time we got to the water section of the hike, where we had to start wading and swimming, a cold front came in.
The wind picked up and rain clouds covered the sun. Nonetheless, our jovial nature managed to carry us through the first few swims. But after an hour or so of plowing through 55-degree water in the bottom of a chilly canyon, it got really old really fast.
With everyone being hungry, dehydrated, and soaked in freezing water, it was every man for himself. If anger is a symptom of hypothermia, we all had it.
Funny movie quotes and jokes were replaced with death threats and grumblings. If someone biffed it in the water, their call for everyone to hold up was ignored. I'm pretty sure I remember someone asking for a handgun.
I remember thinking that if I fell in the water one more time it would definitely be my last fall. I was ready to give myself up as a sacrifice to Orderville.
Just as we were all reaching our limits, we came to the end of the hike. Orderville Canyon terminates at a visitor's point of Zion National Park. Thus, families with little kids and Chinese tourist watched ten men, on the brink of death, climb out of the river one by one.
It didn't help that many of us had our shirts off (some hiker we passed earlier on suggested we'd be warmer without them). Like zombies, we each stumbled onto the riverbed and fell down shivering.
Some of us looked dead and some looked incoherent. Some of us looked like we still had some evolution to go through.
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2 comments:
Holy crap. What hike were you on? I loved every bit of that thing, and I'm glad we didn't bring the wetsuits. The water wasn't even that cold.
Of course, I wasn't wearing a cotton hooded sweatshirt (read: a giant sponge for cold river water), like a certain bonehead in our group.
But I did enjoy being in the first group to reach the end. It was very satisfying to watch each of the hikers come in, broken and defeated.
Hilarious. I'm laughing out loud at the image in my mind of you all!
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