Still no signal, so I'm writing this today before I forget to write, and I'll send it whenever I can.
Lets do this in sections: the drive in, and each of the first 3 days' hikes I'll see if I can send pics from each, but who knows what the data status will be.
The drive in.
We piled gear and people into a LandCruiser. Me and my guide, plus the company owner and driver, and our three porters. The owner and driver were just coming along the drive to see us off. Anyway, the road up was fairly rugged. With good knobbies like I have on the Xterra, I think it would have been fairly doable. But as the rain forest lived up to its name, the torrent came down and turned the road into a river, and... The Toyota was on its original tires fom the 80s, it seemed, and they were balder than racing slicks.
You can guess what happened, trying to drive up a deeply rutted, mud river path, with that quality of tire... So we all piled out and played slip-n-slide in the mud, trying to rotate the truck to get it faced uphill. Shoes didn't really grip better than those tires, so it was pretty funny. And then we did it again. And we pushed it to get through steep sections. And we covered the road with leaves and branches (my suggestion) to get some traction. But then, we got *stuck*. Rolling back, using speed, pushing, covering the road, etc, would not get the truck moving. I was a little frustrated at their level of prep... They didn't even have rope for pulling, not to mention a winch or anything really useful. While we tried a few tricks, another truck came down the hill. As he approached, he got too close, so he went into reverse... Ahahahaha.... I watched the rear wheels rotate in the correct direction, as the fronts went backwards (er rolled towards us). And the noise of big gravel in a tumbler came from the tranny. They were coming down after blowing their transmission.
The decision was made to abandon the truck and let the driver and company owner head down from there. It was only a few miles to the trailhead. And the flood of rain had tapered to a drizzle. So James (guide) and I were off while the porters sorted gear.
How the heck do you manage to write this much on the mountain? I guess you have a lot of spare time :)
ReplyDeleteYou are probably not their preferred clientel because you don't hire nearly as many porters. Not stimulating their economy that's for sure.