(DECEMBER 1993–AUGUST 1995)
Jim and I couldn’t go back to our romantic, innocent, fledgling relationship. So much had happened in a very short time; such strong experiences. Jim confided, “I think maybe the intensity of me climbing K2 pushed our relationship to a higher level too quickly.” He settled in at Eric’s place in Squamish and spent a lot of time at my condo in Kitsilano. We began again, but from a place of pain and love.
After his slideshow at John Oliver, several people suggested to Jim that he write a book. He wrote an article for the Canadian Alpine Journal and called it “Dan, K2.” The CAJ awarded it best climbing article of the year. Jim began writing in earnest. After 11 weeks, he had completed a rough draft of his story. Together, we went to a desktop publishing company and they laid out the text and photos. Jim’s parents put up a bond as collateral for a $30,000 loan Jim received from the bank to finance the project.
Jim and I decided to do a big trip together beginning January 1995, so I requested a leave of absence from teaching for six months. Before we left, we both wanted to finish up projects: Jim’s goal was to finish his book, and mine was to finish my thesis. In August 1994 Jim and my friend Marla watched as I defended my thesis, and on December 31, 1994, I submitted the final bound copy to the University of British Columbia library.
In October 1994 Jim’s first self-published book, K2: Dreams and Reality, was on bookstore shelves. Between October and December Jim promoted his book by presenting a slideshow to over 20,000 people in British Columbia, Calgary, Ottawa and Toronto, and at the same time raised over $25,000 for different charities. His book became a Canadian bestseller. I attended one of the shows and, as the audience filed out, I heard one woman lament, “They just don’t make men like that anymore.” My chest puffed out with pride, and I quelled the urge to tap her on the shoulder and say, “That’s my guy.”
In January Jim and I boarded a plane to East Africa. As we navigated the small dusty airport in Nairobi, burdened with skis, climbing equipment, camping equipment and clothes for six months, a local tugged my sleeve gently and breathlessly pleaded, his eyebrows raised, “Please, where will you ski?”
I stopped, “In India, in the Himalaya.”
“Ah,” he nodded.
We travelled for two months in East Africa, went on safari, snorkelled in the blue waters off Zanzibar, ate fresh seafood and climbed Mounts Kenya and Kilimanjaro.
Mount Kilimanjaro is the highest peak in Africa and the highest freestanding mountain in the world, exploding from the muted plains of Tanzania like an exquisite blemish. On each side of the mountain, vast calderas, Shira and Mawenzi, step up to the main massif, Kibo. Sparkling glaciers tumble from this broad cone Hemingway described as “wide as all the world, great, high and unbelievably white.” The magic of ice and snow in a crackly brown land mesmerizes.
At the trailhead, Jim and I shouldered our 20-kilogram packs while our local guides, Dismas and Meddi, balanced their bundles on their heads. We climbed “the hard way,” meaning we carried our own gear and cooked our own food. With each step, our hiking boots smoked fine volcanic dust. I tongued grit against my teeth. Women wrapped in flowing, bright-orange, blue, yellow and green kangas craned their necks under their loads to get a look at us, followed by children holding hands who giggled when we said “Jambo.” A flash of black and white high up in the green canopy caught my eye. I stopped and gazed upward, mouth gaping. There it was again, a flowing mass of black and white hair sailing from tree to tree.
“Colobus monkey,” Dismas said and waited as we watched.
Jim and I rushed from one discovery to the next.
“Look at this beautiful orange-red flower.” I lifted the delicate trunk-like appendage of a species of impatiens found only on Kilimanjaro.
“And this one.” Jim focused on a mass of orange and yellow tube-like petals called lion’s paw.
Kilimanjaro represents eight climatic zones ranging from desert to alpine. The lush montane forest zone, where bananas, coffee and corn grow in the fertile soil, reminds me of coastal British Columbia. Water runs from pipes connected to the main streams draining the glaciers. Higher up, the towering green vines and pine trees morph into giant heather trees up to 30 metres tall. Fissures run through the earth, and chunky black volcanic rocks are strewn everywhere as water becomes scarcer in the heath chaparral zone. Four glaciers jostle and crack their way over the crater rim of the summit.
In spite of our loads, we made good time. At altitude it is important to go slowly – pole, pole (pronounced “polay”), as the Tanzanians say. The body then has time to acclimatize to the lack of pressure in the air by exchanging oxygen in the lungs and getting rid of waste products more efficiently. If you go up too quickly, waste products build up in the body and the pH balance of the blood changes, causing nausea and vomiting. Fluid accumulates in the lungs, causing shortness of breath, and in the brain, causing disorientation. The body reacts like a car that is given high viscosity oil in the winter. Bodily fluids move like sludge.
Jim and I climbed as if we were in North America at sea level. I didn’t know any better, and I wanted to keep up my first time at altitude because I am competitive and because I wanted to impress Jim. I tried to be perfect, to always succeed, so that I would be worthy of his love.
He asked me how I was doing at each rest stop, and I assured him that I was doing great. I felt great. Later I would learn the Swahili phrase haraka haraka haina baraka, meaning “great haste has no blessing.”
After five hours of ascending through tropical forest, we reached our first “special” campsite at 3000 metres, a small clearing dominated by an aluminum hut with a round dirt floor: Machame Hut. All campsites off the main route were considered “special.” Encased by forest, we strained to glimpse Kilimanjaro’s majestic snowy summit. I thought of the first woman who climbed Kilimanjaro.
In 1927, when Shelagh MacDonald, an Australian, stepped off the train in the village of Moshi, her climbing partner remarked, “Oh, you can see the summit.” Shelagh could only see cloud.
“You’re not looking high enough.” Her partner motioned to the sky with his hand.
Shelagh said she very nearly passed out. Kilimanjaro was tremendous, rising nearly 6000 metres from the plains. She was terrified. If there was a way to get out of climbing the mountain, she said, she would have done it, but it was too late.
Italians, Danes and Austrians arrived at our camp later that evening. I was the only female. Silently, I vowed to make it to the top.
In the dark, I crept to Dismas’s and Meddi’s shelter to say goodnight.
“Jambo,” I warned of my arrival.
“Jambo,” echoed a symphony of voices. I took a step back. When I did poke my head inside, at least ten bodies lay like matchsticks on the dirt floor and wide white smiles broke the darkness.
“Lala salama.”
“Lala salama,” they chorused.
During the night, I stepped gingerly several times through the outdoor latrine area, a minefield, to relieve my churning gut. It’s just a bug, I told myself. Nothing to worry about. But my immune system struggled at altitude.
The next day, I leaned into the long steep ridge ahead with enthusiastic strides and ignored the occasional cramp in my stomach. I pulled my hat down against the sun as the giant heather trees gave way to sage bushes jammed between the black volcanic craggy rocks. Hairy groundsel plants opened their arms in welcome. Heat wafted like smoke through the thin dry air. In this place, plants and animals must endure summer every day and winter every night.
After two hours of climbing, I sat on a rock to catch my breath. I had to push up hard to get going again. A tingly feeling sank down through my stomach and into my legs. I felt thin like the air, transparent. By early afternoon, I wobbled into camp on the Shira Plateau at 3840 metres. After filtering drinking water, I collapsed inside the tent. I wondered if I would make it to the top.
Jim prodded, “Let’s go for a walk. You’ll feel better.” I forced myself up, and after 20 minutes of ambling around camp my lethargy and nausea eased. I spent the late afternoon reading, writing and talking to the Italian group. When the sun settled below the plains, we pulled on woollen hats and gloves. I ogled the Southern Cross blinking in the sky and felt the power of nature lift my spirits.
The next morning, we climbed into the tropical alpine zone, home to many wildflowers. Papery white everlasting fluttered on scraggly branches: happy faces in a desert scattered with shiny black rock and giant grass tussocks. Before certificates were awarded for reaching the summit, the park warden crowned successful trekkers with the hardy flowers of everlasting. We sped up the meandering trail. Above us, the 1400-metre rock wall of the Western Breach led to the crater rim of Kilimanjaro.
At 4300 metres, nausea overcame me and I sat down on a rock. Our next campsite, Lava Tower, also known as Shark’s Tooth, pierced the sky in front of me. I fixed my eyes on the monolith and forced myself up the final steep slope. My body shivered and ached as if I had the flu. I looked down at my blue hands and stopped to put on gloves. What was wrong? Why did I feel so feeble? I didn’t want to be the weak link and I didn’t want to ask for help. Jim would know I wasn’t perfect then, and he might not love me.
I plodded into camp behind Jim. “It looks like there’s too much ice and snow on the breach.” Jim remarked. We had planned to climb the Western Breach, the most difficult non-technical route on the mountain.
“So, now what?” I tried to sound disappointed.
“I don’t know. We could go around the south side.” Jim lowered his pack to the ground.
As soon as I stopped moving, I leaned over to curb the nausea. I groaned from the pressure in my skull and gagged from the scratching deep in my throat. Helpless, hopeless and miserable, I crawled inside our tent. I had never felt worse. But if I admitted that I was sick I would have to descend.
Jim snuggled in beside me with a bowl of tomato soup. I managed one mouthful before I retched.
“What hurts?” Jim was gentle.
“I dunno. I think I ate something or maybe it was the water.”
“Do you have a headache?”
“Yes, and my stomach hurts, and I’m so cold. What the hell is going on?” I let go and cried.
“Let’s try to get you warm.” We walked around camp, but I could not generate enough heat to reverse the effects of the altitude. I shook violently as I leaned on Jim’s arm. Haraka haraka haina baraka. Dismas sidled up, his belongings packed on his back, “We must go down, Mr. Jim.” Meddi looked at his shoes.
I followed mutely, leaning on Jim like a drunken teenager, while Dismas carried my pack and Meddi ran ahead to set up camp.
Within 15 minutes I was walking upright. Within 20 minutes I slurred a chuckle and felt foolish for causing such a fuss. After just 300 metres of descent, my nausea and headache faded to half their intensity. We made camp at Barranco Hut, perched on the shoulder of Kilimanjaro, and watched the orange glow of the setting sun set fire to the breach wall. The acute pain had subsided, but my body felt like a sack of dirt: sucked dry. I sank onto my sleeping pad.
The next morning, we decided to contour around the south side of the mountain and take an extra day to summit. Meddi and I switched loads for a laugh. He put my pack on his back while I balanced his bag on my head. With my pack on, Meddi swayed backward as if someone pulled him from behind, and my neck ached. Neither of us made it more than 10 minutes.
For seven hours we climbed over lava flows and up steep, rocky cliffs until we reached Barafu Hut at 4600 metres, the same height as Lava Tower. I braced for the onslaught, but nothing happened. I felt fine. By 3:30 p.m. we were in our sleeping bags so that we could get some rest before our start for the summit at midnight.
“Why do we start at midnight, Dismas?” I’d asked earlier in the day.
“You must be on the summit very early to get the views before the clouds rise up from the plains. And also, maybe if you saw the way, you would not go.”
For several hours, I squirmed in my down cocoon, scrunched my eyes closed, listened to Jim’s irregular breathing and entertained every one of my fears. The pressure in my chest began to build. The nylon roof of the tent seemed to droop closer to my face. Breathe. In. Out. Don’t panic. You’re fine. I shot upright and zipped open the door.
“Are you okay?” Jim rubbed his eyes.
“I don’t know. I don’t feel like I can breathe and my head hurts again.”
“I think you should take a Decadron.” Dexamethasone, branded Decadron, is a drug used for cerebral edema – fluid build-up in the brain. I pulled the sleeping bag around me and shivered.
“Don’t I have to go down then?”
“No, not if you don’t get any worse. And it will help you sleep, which will make you feel better.”
“I don’t know. What about side effects?” How many brain cells would I kill? Maybe the medication would mask my symptoms and I’d die because I didn’t descend in time. As a rule, I avoided medication.
“You’ll be fine. I think 90 per cent of altitude symptoms are psychological.” Jim rummaged in the first aid kit. I shot him a hard look and clenched my fists in my lap.
“What do you mean?”
“Headaches are headaches. Nausea is nausea. If you overreact, I think it makes the symptoms worse. Emotion has its place, but it must not interfere with taking the appropriate action.” Jim handed me the small white pill. I tried to swallow my frustration with it. My inner dialogue raged. This pain is real. I’m not imagining it. Psychological? Right.
Now, 17 years later, after I have guided people from all walks of life up and down Kilimanjaro 14 times, I understand what Jim was saying. Life is 10 per cent what happens to you and 90 per cent how you react to it. There is a point, of course, when you must have the sense to turn back.
The dexamethasone eased the pressure in my head, and I slept for one hour before the alarm went at 11:30 p.m. Jim had managed to sleep six hours. I fumbled for my clothes. Five layers on top and four on the bottom. Winter every night. With the wind chill, the temperature could plummet to –30°C.
The moon burned through the clouds to light the rubble–scree path, so we didn’t need to use headlamps. For the first couple of hours, we fell into a meditative step and chatted. Then it got cold, and my legs dragged. Our pace slowed and I was breathing as if a fat cat were sitting on my chest. In my head I had conversations with my good friends Andrea and Marla back home and further occupied my mind by planning a travel language course. The words slurred and tripped in my head until I could focus only on putting one foot in front of the other. After 5.5 hours of slogging, we reached Stella’s Point on the crater rim, 5800 metres. Dismas and Meddi smiled and shook my limp hand.
“Congratulations,” they shouted over the wind. “You were very fast.”
Jim led me to a large black boulder, where we huddled.
“Do you want to go on?” Jim yelled over the wind.
Uhuru Peak, the top, was 45 minutes away; 150 metres in elevation gain and one kilometre. My whole body screamed, “Turn back now, you’ve done enough!”
“I think you’ll regret it if you don’t go to the true summit.” Jim stared at me. I wondered if he wanted me to make it more than I did. If Jim had said, “Let’s go down,” I’d have gone down.
“Okay,” I replied meekly. He grasped my right arm as I fumbled over the rocky terrain in the dark toward the summit. At 6 a.m. we stood on the top of the highest mountain in Africa, 5895 metres, arm in arm. It is the highest I have ever been.
“Welcome to my office.” Dismas beamed and swept his arms 360 degrees. Blues, yellows and oranges formed on the horizon as Kilimanjaro came to life. Below, the plains of Tanzania and Kenya stretched and curved away like the soft mound of a woman’s belly. We were high enough to see the curvature of Earth. I barely moved. Great walls, several metres high, of blue ice and white snow, ran the rim of the crater and stopped us from toppling off the mountain. Nothing green. Just rock, snow and ice. I felt so small and barely tolerated.
On the way down, Jim snapped photos. My orange jacket glowed in the rising sun. I walked on the moon, an orange moon. No smile. Arms dangling at my sides.
I gripped my stomach and forced my legs to go faster. Get down. Every 10 minutes I slumped onto a boulder, head hung low, swaying. The head lolls, I called them. Jim chatted and took photos while I phased in and out of consciousness. I thought, “I could lay down here and sleep, right here, forever.” I had never been more tired or out of it. I’ll have brain damage for sure and maybe just die right here, I thought.
In three hours we were back at Barafu. Meddi and Dismas sat down with their packs on. I slumped to the ground. “I can’t go any farther. I need to sleep.” Jim set up the tent and I collapsed fully clothed onto my sleeping bag. Dismas woke me up after two hours. I peeled my tongue away from the roof of my mouth and downed a litre of water. During the three-hour hike down to low camp, where we could sleep without worrying about succumbing further to the effects of altitude, my gait quickened and Jim and I chatted about the future: his book, finding a place to live in the mountains together. I wanted to hold that feeling of certainty forever. Jim and Sue.
Walking through the village the next day, people passed us and said, “Poleni.”
“What does poleni mean, Dismas?” I asked.
“They are sorry for your tiredness.” I grinned at Jim. He was right. I was proud I’d gone to the summit. But more than anything, sharing this experience with Jim, my senses alive with the sounds, smells and tastes of this gigantic mountain, made my heart feel connected to him in a way that grounded me to the centre of Earth.
After Kilimanjaro we flew to India and braved an 18-hour overnight bus ride from Delhi to Manali in the north. Jim and I ski toured on our own to acclimatize and then hooked up with another Canadian guide, Rob, to do a seven-day ski traverse. On day three we were tent-bound on a glacier at 5000 metres for 48 hours while a storm deposited over a metre of snow on us. We took turns during the night digging out the tents. The new snow was so overwhelming that it was too hazardous to attempt our planned climb of Hanuman Tibba. Instead, we built a snow cave and snuggled in.
A whiteout greeted us the next day, and Jim led blindly up a bowl as snow cascaded from the steep cliffs around us. He chose a place to set up camp, and I asked him if we were safe from avalanches. “I think so.” I slept lightly, poised to abandon camp if the roar of the falling snow came too close. In the morning, the sun hit the tent and after we dug ourselves out, we saw that we were camped on the only raised knoll in the whole basin, somewhat protected from the avalanches.
The 600-vertical-metre ski down the Beas Kund, our only ski run of the trip, was heavy with new snow. With a rope, Jim lowered Rob down the steep gully entrance to check the stability, and we followed. There was so much snow and so many hazards above us that we traversed back and forth across the slope all the way to the bottom.
From Manali we travelled south and visited the Taj Mahal and rode elephants in Corbet Park looking for tigers. In Nepal we trekked in the beautiful Langtang Valley, home of the monster rhododendrons. Jagged snow-covered peaks speared the sky. Before heading back to Canada, we rafted Nepal’s Karnali River.
Neither of us were water experts, so we decided to hire a company. A 20-hour bus ride and two days of trekking later, we arrived at the put-in for the Karnali River. The lead raft guide took one look at the river level and said, “Holy shit, I’ve never seen the water so high. It’s really pushy.”
As the guides worked to prepare the rafts, they noticed we were short one life jacket. The Nepalese fellow who would steer the gear raft drew the short straw, and the rest of the crew wrapped him in a foam sleeping pad and some duct tape, hoping that would keep him afloat if an accident occurred.
The guides piled the gear in the middle of the rafts. Seven clients sank into the sponsons around the edge of each boat, toes hooked under a rope to keep from falling backwards. There was only room for six people, but we crammed in.
We began the trip with three strikes against us: heavy boats, one man without a life jacket and an abnormally high, fast-flowing river. We would be on the river for 10 days and navigate 20 rapids, some as difficult as Class IV plus. The international scale of river difficulty describes Class IV using words such as “dangerous,” “boiling” and “violent.” Ignorance was bliss for me. It didn’t occur to me that an established rafting company recommended by a North American guide would put its clients at risk. At the time, I did not know that liability is less stringent in Nepal than in Canada and that companies do not rely on return clientele.
On the first day, we stopped at the only village we would see for the next several days. The guides bought a live chicken and strapped it face down, clucking, to the front of the gear raft.
The Karnali ripped 20 of us from our rafts that day. Some people floundered in the pumping, grey-brown river for more than three kilometres before a guide caught up to them and pulled them out. The metallic taste of the silt water lingered in my mouth until after dinner.
On our second day on the river, the group crouched around the sandy campsite listening to the lead guide.
“The river is down 1.5 metres this morning, so it won’t be as pushy or as fast. We are going to stay closer together today and be more careful.”
People murmured. We knew what lay ahead: a snaking canyon four kilometres long whose vertical rock walls blocked the sun and strangled the river into frothing whitewater areas called God’s House, Flip ’n’ Strip, and Juicer.
“I know there is talk going around. People are scared about what happened yesterday. But we’ve got everything under control. Today will be better.”
People spoke in hushed voices as we boarded the rafts and pushed off into the current. Downriver we heard what sounded like the roar of a waterfall. Rounding a corner, the water picked up speed. Our raft plunged first into the boiling rapids and a wave higher than the length of our five-metre boat reared up in front of us.
“Paddle!” the guide yelled as we hit a wall of water. The wave pushed our raft vertical to the sky and we stalled. In that second, I saw the cavernous black hole on the backside of the wave. I groped at air with my paddle. And then I plummeted.
Our raft went end over end. All I could see were bubbles and black. When I surfaced and opened my mouth for air, another wave slammed me back under. I thrashed. My life jacket fought against the sucking action of the river and pulled me to the surface in what seemed like slow motion. I remembered the instructions the guides gave us in case we tipped: “Hold on to your paddle. Try to grab hold of the side of the boat and then try to get on top of the boat to help the guide flip it back over.” I grabbed the side of our overturned raft and the guide pulled me on top, along with one other rafter. Water streamed from his face and hair as he shouted, “Reach down and hold onto the cord alongside the boat!” We mimicked his actions and squatted to grab the elastic cord. “Okay, now on the count of three, pull up and lean back hard!” he commanded. We obeyed, and by the time I realized what was going on, it was too late. We catapulted back into the river. I squeezed my paddle and lunged for the side of the raft again. The guide was already inside and hauled me up by the life jacket. Instinctively, I scanned the waves for others who needed rescue. Within five minutes we had the whole team aboard and were plunging our paddles into the water.
A dozen strokes later our guide pushed his whole weight into the rudder and shouted for the people on the left to paddle hard. The raft was too heavy for a last-minute change in direction. The river swept us toward a “hole,” a “keeper,” a whirlpool that sucks things in and swirls them around underwater like a washing machine and spits them out or, sometimes, keeps circulating them.
The hole vacuumed the left side of our raft and dragged me underwater. Kicking with my legs and beating my arms, I surfaced underneath the raft. I gulped some air and forced myself underwater again and groped my way out. I hung on to the cord on the side of the raft and tried to catch my breath as water crashed against my face. There were two people beside me and three across from me. One woman’s face was ashen. “It’s going to be okay!” I yelled at her but she barely nodded.
A wave tore at our cold, tightly curled fingers. I clung to the stretched cord as the water bent me backward, gushed over my closed mouth and eyes and pulled at my hair before releasing me back to the side of the boat. When I opened my eyes, I was the only one left clinging to the raft. I gasped for air through chattering teeth as water bottles, Teva sandals and paddles cruised by. Two rafters marooned on a log mid-river called for help. I surveyed the angry water. One, two, three, four, five overturned rafts. Even the gear boat was stuck on the rocks.
Our guide’s arms cut through the frothy water. He manteled himself onto the raft in one swift motion, told me to look out, righted the raft by himself and climbed back in within seconds. He hauled me in along with four others. We had three paddles for six people. I paddled as hard as I could to shore. Just before we landed, I peppered the guide, “Did you see Jim?”
He looked everywhere but at me and mumbled, “He went in the hole.” My mouth went dry.
As the rest of the boats limped in one by one, I asked if anyone had seen Jim. I craned my neck and saw him slumped in the last raft. Jim’s features were blank, as if he had seen a ghost. I hugged him but his body moved away restlessly, and he muttered something about a warm jacket. I draped my fleece over his shoulders as he sat down and started to whittle a piece of driftwood. I sat beside him.
“Are you okay?” I whispered.
He focused on the piece of wood as he spoke in almost a childlike voice, “Yeah, yeah, um, I went into the hole.”
I leaned closer so that we were touching and asked, “What happened?”
He pushed the knife rhythmically down the driftwood and explained, “At first I tried to fight to the surface but that seemed to plunge me deeper, so I made myself go limp. The river played with me, swirled me around and around for what seemed like at least five minutes. Just when I felt my lungs would burst, that I couldn’t hold on any longer, the river let me go and I floated to the surface.”
Jim turned his head slowly to look into my eyes and shuddered. “It’s the closest I’ve ever felt to dying.” I bit my lip and squeezed him closer to me. My body sagged. We were not safe. I had almost lost him.
Over the next five days we flipped five more times. On the final day, as the river widened into a lazy flow with not a ripple in sight, we splashed each other to ease the intense heat and the tension of the trip. Several people dove in and when one woman was inadvertently jostled overboard, she began to shake and scream. Her husband bent quickly to haul her out. Jim would later submit an article about the trip to an outdoor magazine, but they responded that the story was not believable.
After five months on the road, we touched down on Canadian soil and heaved a sigh. Clean air, mountains that beckoned and a language our brains could compute effortlessly. But we weren’t home long before we headed off on another adventure. Two months remained before my teaching term began.
We drove 22 hours north in our own province of British Columbia to the Spatsizi River. We rented a canoe and drove to the put-in where we began our 10-day trip. The most difficult rapid we ran was Class III, but the consequences of an accident were severe given the remoteness of our location. Our only link to the outside world was a hunters’ lodge halfway down the river, but it was early in the season and we did not expect anyone to be there. The sun shone every day and a chill in the air kept the bugs at bay. Each morning we loaded the canoe and covered our gear with a green tarp to protect it from waves. The first few days were mellow and we dipped our paddles lazily. Caribou wandered close to the shore to drink, and we marvelled at their fuzzy antlers. We camped on sandbars to avoid the bears and wolves. In the evenings, we sat on our fold-up chairs and watched the sunset. I was exactly where I wanted to be with exactly the right person.
One afternoon we stopped to have lunch and I disappeared into the tangled alder to go to the bathroom. Jim’s yell pierced the silence: “Sue! Sue! Bear!” I waddled as quickly as I could back into the open, pulling up my pants as I went, and met Jim, who was backing away from the brush toward the river.
“What happened?” I panted. Jim’s face was a chalky white. He kept his eyes riveted to the same spot in the trees, directly behind our picnic area.
“I heard this rustle right behind me and at first I thought it was you, so I didn’t do anything. But then the sound was getting closer and I thought that it was weird that you would go to the bathroom right behind me, so I turned around. And he was right there, this black bear. He raised his big furry head, and we were almost nose-to-nose. That’s when I leaped up and called to you. The bear turned tail and ran. I think he was pretty scared too!” The bear must have swum over from the mainland. We made a mental note to be on the lookout for animals, even on the sandbars.
Our guidebook indicated we would encounter a Class II plus rapid on day three. As we navigated a bubbly rocky section, we saw up ahead that the river widened and turned a 90° bend. The waves stood up at this point and a wall of striated rock blocked the river’s course. I spread my knees wide on the scratchy floor of the fibreglass canoe to balance against the roll of the waves, and I raised my voice to compete with the roaring water.
“Rock river right!” I yelled.
“Got it,” Jim replied. Faster and faster the river pulled us toward the rock wall, where it rushed up the sides before heading right. We fought the current to avoid being sucked against the wall. “Draw,” Jim commanded. “Draw!” Jim yelled more insistently.
“I am!” I yelled back as the water splashed over the gunwales of the canoe.
“I mean cross-bow draw,” Jim corrected himself. We drew closer to the wall. “Paddle harder, Sue!” We both dug in, but the boat seemed to stall for a few very long seconds before edging forward away from the wall. My shoulders relaxed. If something happened to Jim and me out here, it would be days before anyone even thought to look for us.
The river widened and meandered through marsh, sandbars and forested banks. I leaned back against the mound of gear and dangled my legs over either side of the canoe, dipping my paddle with one hand. Jim chuckled behind me, “I guess that’s why they call it the divorce boat!”
On the contrary, my relationship with Jim matured when we faced discomfort and fear together. I learned that I could depend on him under pressure. I learned that he loved me when I was not at my best; when I was scared and withdrew and put the responsibility on others. When I was not perfect. I had felt so vulnerable and imperfect on Kilimanjaro, trying to keep up with Jim. I knew now that being vulnerable allowed our love to grow.
After our river trip, we ate and slept for 24 hours at our bed and breakfast before boarding a floatplane to the foothills of Mount Edziza.
Rainwater funnelled down the sleeve of my jacket as I pushed through the dense salal, head lowered and doing my best to ignore the wet squelching sound of my socks inside my leather hiking boots. Under my breath I counted out 30-second intervals punctuated by a shocking toot of my air horn. Around each corner, my steps faltered and my head whipped from side to side in search of dark masses among the thick, shoulder-high brush. I stopped short in front of a steaming pile of bear scat and crinkled my nose at the acrid smell of wet fur and urine hanging in the air. If we surprised a grizzly on this narrow trail, hugged on both sides by tangled brush, there would be no escape.
After six hours of trudging uphill in a downpour, we broke out above treeline onto a moonscape of volcanic rock decorated with intermittent tufts of dry grasses. The black, grey and green striations flowed upward to the striking white snow of Mount Edziza. Brown fuzzy caribou shapes dotted the snow-covered gullies. We set up the tent and cooked dinner over the gas stove, mesmerized by the gentle movements of the caribou in the soft orange glow of the setting sun. Before bed I poked a needle into the bases of two bulging blisters on my heels.
The rain eased, and for nine days we crossed swollen glacier-fed streams, wandered over crushed black rock, and crunched on snow to the summit of Mount Edziza. We did not see another person. At our first water crossing, Jim crouched momentarily before leaping a metre over rushing water, fully loaded under a 27-kilogram pack. I edged forward on the wet, slanted, launching spot, knees bent, one arm ready to swing, puffing madly, gaze alternating between the muddy landing on the opposite bank and the bubbling water below. Breathe, bend the knees, swing the arms and jump! But my feet stayed firmly planted. What if I fall? Get wet? Twist my ankle? Come on! Get it together! Breathe, bend the knees, swing the arms and jump! But the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t move. What if? My heart sped up with the ever-increasing list of things that could go wrong. I could take off my shoes and socks and wade through, but the rocks would cut my feet, it was freezing cold and the current still might pull me over. And my blisters would get waterlogged.
“Come on, Sue, you can do it,” Jim coached from the other side.
“I know. Okay, okay!” I barked. I didn’t like to be left behind. I blew two short breaths through my nose, inhaled deeply, swung my arms back and then threw them forward with my leading leg. Airborne. I watched my foot sink into the mud many inches from the edge of the water and exhaled. Once I readjusted my pack, I grinned at Jim. For me, having to be self-reliant was part of the appeal of these wilderness adventures. I ventured out of my comfort zone to learn about courage, my strengths and my weaknesses, to trust myself.
The next morning, I winced as I pushed my feet into my hiking boots. The open blisters on my heels burned in spite of the padded dressing surrounding them. I tied my boots to my pack and wore woollen socks and Tevas for the rest of the trip.
The next stream crossing was too wide to jump. Water pushed against Jim’s knees as he ferried our packs across. Jim returned for a third time and piggybacked me so that my blisters would stay dry.
On the final day, bugs of all shapes and sizes assaulted us as we descended through the forest. We walked briskly, at least four kilometres per hour, so that the biters were hard pressed to land. Sweat plastered the tightly woven cotton of our bug shirts to our skin. The mesh in front of my face drew strands of hair like a magnet, forcing me to continually blow at the clammy mess. At lunchtime we walked on the spot to discuss our options, slapping at miniature enemies on our hands.
“They’ll eat us alive if we unzip our bug shirts to eat.”
“Right. We could set up the tent,” Jim offered.
“Let’s do it.”
As we yanked the tent from my pack, spread the pieces on the ground and fumbled to put them together, I growled, “Now I know what people mean when they say ‘she went crazy and ran screaming from the woods.’ Argh! It’s too much!” My hands were covered in red welts, and anywhere the mesh of my bug shirt stuck to my skin, black flies had left little bloody craters. We dived into the nylon asylum, boots and all, zipped up and thrashed about killing any bugs unlucky enough to have made it in. Satisfied we were safe, we unzipped our mesh hoods and breathed new air.
“I like how if there is something that needs to get done, you do it, even if it’s uncomfortable,” Jim said.
“Thanks. That’s nice of you to say.” I stored the compliment for safekeeping. I watched Jim eating happily, covered in welts and stinky bug repellent and thought, he just doesn’t get riled. He’s so steady. “You’re great. I love you.” I returned his compliment although he didn’t need reassurance like I did.
Jim urged us to get going again. We lurched along for the last two hours, half walking, half running under our hefty packs. At the side of our pickup lake, we heaved our loads to the ground but remained standing to avoid contact with our clammy rain gear. The floatplane pilot loaded us in with a cheery, “Pretty wet, hey?” Jim and I laughed.