The Land of Shadow

The deafening silence of the forest as I sped down through it pounded in my ears. It was almost painful; silence can be golden, but it can also be menacing. I was going at such a rapid pace when I reached the
steep portion--the largest bit of the climb-- that in the wetness I began slipping, sliding, falling, tumbling, rolling and banging myself after every three steps. I literally could not remain upright. I smirked and thought Val and Katie at least would be proud-slash-jealous of the bruises I was getting. I'd lose the trail every now and again, and have to retrace my steps in the bewildering density of tangles back to the last orange triangle I'd seen. Pressure, pressure-- I couldn't keep getting lost and having to back-track. I was not making good enough time. I had to face that fact. But neither was I prepared to spend the night on the mountain, though I might have managed it with my winter coat tied to my backpack, the liter of water and food. But I was also soaked to the bone. I had to get down, tonight.

For a while I went on in this way, with the anxiety increasing to more alarming heights than I'd felt before. It was growing very dark under the rain forest canopy, I was very alone, and very far away from the edge of the forest. And I didn't have a blasted flashlight. Maldita maldita maldita. My glow-in-the-dark compass proved itself quite useful in those terrifying moments when I'd realized I couldn't remember last seeing an orange triangle. But soon I could no longer make them out amongst the trees until my hand was touching one. I realized it was going to take hours to get out. And then I became really terrified.

I thought maybe I should start singing, to cheer me up. But the only song that came to mind, for some inexplicable reason, was Kayne West's "Homecoming", which I didn't remember all the words to and is a
rap song anyway...completely inappropriate. Stupid brain. I couldn't get the song unstuck, either. It was more torturous than the silence that fell like a heavy curtain all around me.

After what felt like many days of endless and repetitive scenery, I came at last to the inevitable, the terrible-- the river. I don't think I'd ever been faced with a path that I wanted to take less than this. At least the density of the forest let up around the river, and the moon was desperately trying to make its presence known through the clouds. Those clouds-- they took my last hour of light away from me; I now understood why my calculations about the waning light had been off. I now faced the slimy rocks. But I was so wet at this point I figured the focus of my balancing should rather be on not breaking an ankle, which I'd already nearly done several times, and which would really put me in a serious spot. Instead, I opted to get even more wet and take a safer, less-rocky path through the river. It was horrible crossing, and when I came to the other side all that adrenaline got the best of me and I started to cry in a small, pathetic voice. I had so much... so much left to climb. And I could no longer see the orange markers at all. It was hopeless. I stopped there on the other side of the river, and leaned against a large boulder and prayed a desperate prayer. I've never felt so swallowed up and alone. So suffocated by the night.

I opened my eyes to see a bright white light shining on my left leg. At first I thought the moon had managed to peek through, but far above it was just as cloudy as before. It took me, in my stupor and
tiredness, a few moments to realize that somehow my camera, which I'd put in my fleece pocket instead of in my pack, had somehow turned itself on and was running through a stunningly bright picture show of all my images to date. "AHA!!!" I laughed with tears still streaming down my face. I still to this day don't understand how it turned itself on, and much less, how it turned itself on to a slideshow of brightly colored pictures from the Sydney Zoo, instead of the normal mode it usually turns on in, which would have displayed only the darkness of the inside of my pocket coming through the lens. I have no doubt it was a miracle.

With my camera to guide the way-- and I couldn't help but laugh, because the white light it gave off was the exact bluish-whitish piercing light that the Star of Earendil gives to Frodo and Samwise in Shelob's
layer. I was very much relieved, and felt that I could pick myself up and go on again. However, I soon discovered that the orange markers were not light-reflective. I guess they didn't imagine anyone would
be so stupid as to try this tramp at nighttime. So it was still a long and arduous process of stopping at each marker, walking a few precarious steps away in some guessed direction (as the markers were far enough apart that you cannot see them from one to the next-- I'd even had trouble doing that in daylight. You have to guess at the direction of the path, walk for a bit, and THEN try to spot the next marker), So I'd wander in a desperately guessed direction for a few paces, then shining my camera in a generous arc, try to spot the next marker. I got in the habit of kissing each of the markers when I found them after frantic and sometimes overly long sweepings of light.

I also started singing at this point. Humming, really, but it kept me from feeling so desperately alone. I was still falling every few steps and whacking my knee, my shin, my arm, my face cruelly on various mean plants or rocks. It was even more complicated now climbing down, as I had to devote one entire arm to holding the light out in front of me (again, much in manner of Frodo), and trying not to destroy my precious, life-saving little Canon Powershot as I fell every few steps, which I inevitably did.

Every few minutes the camera slideshow would shut itself off, and I'd have to pause, fumble around in the dark, and start it going again. At one point while trying to turn the camera back on, I happened to see in my peripheral vision something glowing greenish-yellow a few paces away. I gasped and about wet myself-- there, in a nearby hill or tree stump, I knew not what, were several pairs of unblinking eyes-- looking straight at me. Glowing in this eerie green-yellow glow. I was too scared to turn my camera back on, so I just started singing much louder-- some nonsensical song much in the manner of Elf ("I'm in a FOREST...and I'm SING-ING!") but even Elf couldn't ease my mind at this point. I had no idea what sort of animal it...they were, but I couldn't scare them away. Any of them. They were everywhere-- eyes on both sides of the path, and way off in the distance. I thought maybe my eyes were playing games with me. And then... I fell.

Down, down, down I fell, tumbling with my backpack up over my head (which probably saved me from getting a nasty knock) and my limbs flailing in every direction, managing to catch on every sharp vine and branch and rock. At last I came to a stop in the middle of a muddy little stream. After I'd paused to take a few deep breaths, pray a prayer of thanksgiving that I'd still managed to remain unbroken and pulled my gear back in place, I realized my nose was only inches from a wall of glowing eyes. "Eee!" I yelled, but then I decided to solve the thing once and for all-- if these things, whatever they were, weren't afraid of my singing OR my flailing, then maybe they weren't such bad little critters after all. I pointed my index finger at the wall of mud, and slowly began to poke. Nothing moved. The glowing didn't fade or move or anything, and then I realized.. it must be some sort of glowing fungi. Hahaha! I'd been terrified it was some sort of evil cat or bird (eeee, birds)...or...or scary rain forest possums or giant rats or some such thing. And all the while, it was an innocent fungus. I sighed a sigh, and noticing that miracle-upon-miracle my dear camera was still unharmed, turned it on and headed off again.

Problem was, I was pretty badly hurt from this fall-- I'd banged my left shin so hard I'm amazed it did not break. And I was completely off the trail. I panicked, climbing back up the muddy slope for what felt like hours, more wasted time, more back-tracking... trying desperately to find the point at which I'd fallen, and the last orange marker. No luck. No sign to be seen.

At this point I made a very terrifying decision to forsake the trail completely and just try to get out of the forest as quickly as possible. By now I was out of drinking water, aching in every imaginable (and some unimaginable) ways, very wet and very cold-- the wet being equal parts rain forest precipitation and cold-sweat from the terror of those hours. I cannot describe to you how absolutely alone I felt, and how absolutely enclosed by the pitch-black, breathing forest. I myself felt I was gulping for air constantly, and not in that pleasantly sharp way you do at the top of a Colorado peak, but in a suffocating, thick, dark way. I couldn't see the sky-- couldn't remember the last time I'd seen it, and my shin was throbbing in slow, steady throbs. I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears, louder than even the Kayne West had been. But I had to keep going. I knew that I needed to head generally 25-ish degrees west of North by my compass-- that would land me somewhere in the farmlands between Karamea and the mountain. And I knew that I had to keep the river... the distant lurking black river...on my right. I just had to follow that sound--how could it sound so happy?-- and I'd eventually make it out.

Again, my inexperience with rain forest terrain did great harm to my calculations. I was hacking my way, with one hand, through the thickest bits of forest I'd encountered yet, and still falling. Always falling. I was whimpering at this point, like a small child with no hope of getting out. I didn't think I was going to die-- it wasn't that that made me afraid. It was the being lost, so utterly lost, and not knowing my way home. The uncertainty of it, and the forest feeling like a beast that had swallowed me up and no one on the outside knew. My teeth were chattering from the cold, and after a while I was so hopeless, and so lost, and so very weary from hacking and hacking, always with one hand, and falling, and having to pick myself up again- something that took increasing effort-- that I knew I had to make another decision. I was making such slow progress I couldn't bear it, and the amount of energy I had to expend to do it was not comparable. And I was so scared. I couldn't go on in this way. I was going to have to make my way back to the bank of the black river, and stumble along the slimy rocks until I was out of the forest.

I had to be very slow, and very careful, making my way back to the river. I had no idea where the steep and rocky bank began, and I'd already fallen enough times to make me unwilling to pick myself up again. It was one of the hardest things, always picking myself up again. My legs could hardly take my own weight anymore, and all of my body was begging to lay down, lay down. After a tortuously slow hack to the river, during which I entangled myself in too many vines to count, I was happy at last to find the river opening up to a lighter sky (the sky! I could see the sky!) I took a deep breath of air that had *not* been trapped under trees for months, and put away my camera, whose light I didn't need as much now, and who I was not willing to sacrifice to the murky water. I tied my pack around me as close as possible to keep the weight from shifting, causing me to lose balance and fall into the river. I crawled literally on hands and knees, very painfully and excruciatingly slowly, with the water beside me and the slippery rocks beneath me. I felt like gollum. I probably looked like gollum too, I thought. But I didn't have enough energy to be amused.

Each tick of my wristwatch felt like a moment completely suspended in space, and nothing seemed to move forward but the black water on my right. After a while the sound of it started to comfort me. At least, I thought, the water is getting somewhere fast. I think I got over my fear of rivers at night at that point. I still get the heebie-geebies by lakes and oceans. But the river was going to take me home. After another hour of days crawling slowly, so slowly onward, I stopped and stood for a moment, rolling my cramped neck and stretching my legs, which had been crouched for so long. I happened to glance over my left shoulder, and there I saw it-- away above me at the top of a steep, muddy bank, the dense foliage had completely ceased, and all I could see was grass, and the lovely, cloudy sky. I had made it out of the forest! I can't possibly explain the feeling. The complete and utter relief of having gotten out of it. I
knew I still have over three kilometers to go through pasture before I reached the farmhouse, and then another seven kilometers to Karamea, and another two to my hostel...which meant I somehow had to put one foot in front of the other foot and wobble along for another 12k, which on a good day would still probably take just over two hours. But it mattered not-- I was out of that forest. That terrible, horrible confined and angry place that had torn my flesh and hair and covered every inch of me with mud and slime and moss, and the smell-- always that smell. Of so much life and decay, but I could only smell the stench of decay now.

I don't know how I found the energy for it, but I was so happy that I bounded straight up that muddy bank, a sheer slope about eight feet high, just digging my fingers deep into the earth for a handhold like a crazed animal, and pulled myself to the top. The moon appeared at that moment, and I stood there, gasping in deep breaths of cool, fresh air between sobs. All of me was shaking, but I knew if I stopped to sit it would be harder to get up again, so I pushed on down through the hilly green pasture under the cloudy night, and towards the twinkling farmhouse below. I could hear the cows mooing lazily below me, and a few ducks having an evening spat on the other side of the road. But I fixed my eyes, bleary with tears and soil, directly on the light of that farmhouse. I have never, ever seen anything so beautiful as those lights.

I was walking much like a zombie at this point, my legs so sore they could not bend as the downward gravel path demanded. After a while I was more fully restored to my senses, breathing in the first truly fresh air I'd had in many hours, and recalled that on my journey up (which by now seemed a careless lifetime ago) I'd had to navigate more than one electric fence. This time I did laugh-- after all this, I still had to scale a few electric fences. Go figure. I slowed up a bit for the remainder of my farm wandering, wary of encountering any sort of electrical adventure that, given my state of wetness, would probably be less than amusing.

Eventually I reached level ground. I forced myself to look back up at Mount Stormy, here from the base of it, and I felt literally ill: there it was, still shrouded in mist, and haunting me-- this giant, black, living mass of earth. I'm not trying to wax dramatic, but I felt ill looking at it, and turned away. Soon I'd found
the barn, and I heard two male voices within. I was so happy to hear voices that I tried to run to the barn, shouting "Hello? Hello, who's there? Is someone in there?!!" No one answered, and I grew quite frustrated, until the talking stopped, and from the darkness of the barn I heard the first few measures of Sarah Bareilles' "Love Song", which is wildly popular over here and played constantly on the radio.
I was more disappointed than I would have imagined to realize I'd been trying to talk to a bunch of DJs who were no doubt on the other side of the island, in Christchurch. At least the cows inside the barn felt comforted by their voices.

After hopping a few more fences and giving up on trying to avoid cow poo in the darkness, I made it to the farmhouse front door and pounded as loud as I could. It was about 8:00, I could finally read off my
watch: four hours lost on the mountain. Four hours. It had felt like so much longer. A lifetime. I knocked again, but no one answered... yet there were lights on inside. I thought it most cruel that I was going to have to walk the remaining kilometers back into town, and wouldn't be able to hitch a ride from the farmer (Phil had said the lady who owned the farm was a very kind woman) or call a taxi. There was nothing for it but to get back on the dirt road and keep pushing onward. I've never been so tired in my life that I had to purposefully direct one foot in front of the other, but I was still so immensely grateful to be on a wide, empty road under diffused moonlight, with sea breezes wafting over from the distant Tasman, that I didn't care too much. Besides, it gave my mind something to do.

Although I got bored of thinking about my feet after a while, and started to plan what I'd do once I made it into Karamea. I recalled driving through with Phil earlier that day seeing a single pub, and telling Phil that that would be where I'd go to have a nice New Zealand ale after I'd conquered the mountain. My plan was different now. I decided that, as it was most likely the sole pub for a 20-km radius, the pub would be warm, well-lit and rowdy with locals (I had a guess that this pub was in fact where the farmer was at this very moment, enjoying a nice, cold glass herself)-- I decided that I would fling open the front doors of that pub and stand there, in stance much like Peter Pan, covered in the refuse of the mountain (and probably a bit from the cows as well), and make a little speech:

"Everyone, can I have your attention!" [I'd pause dramatically while all the patrons swivel to look at me and gasp at my shocking appearance, then continue:] " I just spent the last four hours LOST, and very much ALONE, on THAT mountain." [I'd point dramatically in the direction of the mountains]. "WHO will be so kind as to buy me a drink?" and then I'd collapse [as dramatically as possible] onto a nearby bar stool. I chuckled to think of what a ridiculous sight I'd be, and wondered if anyone would actually buy me a beer (though I think they'd be inclined to believe my story, looking as desperate as I knew I did).

I occupied my mind rehearsing this little speech for who know how long, until I heard a car approaching behind me. I was taken by surprise, as it was a middle of nowhere, isolated back-country dirt road. Who on earth would be driving it? I didn't care-- whoever it was was going to take me the last bit into town. I stepped directly into the middle of the road and waved my arms frantically above my head. It was a jeep, and it couldn't stop fast enough so I had to hop towrad the ditch while it slid to halt, and waited for the cloud of gravel following it to sweep past. The headlights had blinded me, after having been in darkness for a good while now, and I opened the door in my blindness and said "I don't suppose you all could give me a ride into Karamea? I'm staying at a hostel just beyond." After a minute my eyes adjusted enough to make out the shape of three shadowy persons sitting there, and just as I finished speaking, I noticed the name of my hostel, Rongo, was painted on the side of the jeep. "We're from that hostel," I small female voice said, and I knew it was the girl from earlier that day who'd I perceived as regarding me coldly when she warned me that the mountain was "cloudy up there." Now I realized her wisdom. She explained, "We're a little rescue party. When you didn't come back earlier this evening we decided to come and have a look for you. We were quite worried." She was sitting up front with Jack, who was driving. I hopped in and found myself seated next to the British boy, to whom I apologized because I knew I must smell like the vomit of the earth. It doesn't matter, he said. You're safe. We'll take you back, we have a fire going and we've just finished making some fresh bread.

I hadn't realized how hungry I was until then; I just hadn't had the mental space to think about the fact that I hadn't eaten anything proper since breakfast at Gibby's that morning, besides one scrawny muesli bar I'd forced myself to eat during the way up the mountain. I'd been too frightened and too anxious to stop and eat on the way down. The thought of a fire, a shower, and fresh bread revived me some, as did the pleasant company I now found myself in. I had completely misjudged them, and my spirits rose as we drove back through town. I told them about how I'd planned to burst into the bar and make a speech. They laughed heartily at that one. Hippies are great.

When we got back, I took a cold shower (for the hippies had only two minutes or so of warm water there in the middle of nowhere), but I didn't mind so much about the cold as much as getting the smell of the
forest, of that mountain, off me. I was stained with it, though, and realized nothing but a serious, hot scrub would get that stench--which I recalled at one point having found pleasant, but now made me feel sick to my stomach-- out of my clothes and hair and backpack and shoes. But for now I was too tired, and was satisfied with just getting off the slime, leaves and mud. I changed into the only remaining clean clothes I possessed, took a blanket off my bunk and sat myself in front of the warmest fire I have ever enjoyed, sipping on hot soup, fresh bread, the juiciest raw carrot I've ever had and a small piece of rum-and-raisin chocolate, which tasted more sweet to me than anything I'd ever known.

I chatted with the girl and the British boy for a while as Jack cleaned up dishes in the kitchen. They were sweet people, and I regretted that I had to leave so early in the morning, before I'd have a chance to get to know them more. I found a hot-water bottle in my very cold room, and heated it up in the kitchen. I said good night, and without even changing clothes (I had no others at this point), I laid myself down on the child-sized bottom bunk and curled up with my hot water-baby until I fell into a deep and most peaceful sleep.

Up the Mountain

The last time I hiked a trail this poorly marked was the Estes Cone along Highway 7 in Colorado. I climbed it with two guy friends who'd worked at a camp with me all summer. We left at midnight-- a night climb. And it was a literal team effort to fan out from one cairn until we spotted the next. Great fun-- and I'll never forget the stars from the top of the Cone at 2:30 in the morning, or whatever time it was when we finally reached the summit.

But Colorado is not a rain forest. I was unused to finding the little orange triangles nailed to trees, quite far apart and not brightly painted. It was very literally at times like finding a needle in a haystack, with that density of undergrowth and vines, trees, rocks, etc. No one must have gone up the trail in weeks, I thought-- I couldn't follow the path on the ground, as the foliage had overgrown it to the point that the actual trail was indistinguishable from small rivulets of water trickling down from on high after the recent rainy weather. And since it was winter, I was (I safely assumed) the only person on the mountain. I was having a lot of fun, actually. It all seemed very adventurous and grand to me, and it was physically hard because of the time constraint. I was in ok shape, but not tip-top (I miss playing the frizz and b-ball with the gang every week...). I had to cross a large river twice. Now luckily I'd had lots of practice scrambling over wet rocks after my brothers when we were kids (mom always called us little monkeys), so that went fairly smoothly. I didn't like the prospect of having to cross this river, twice, in the darkness on the way down. I'm terrified of water at night. I don't know why-- maybe it's the unsearchable depths and the power whose bounds I can't ascertain in the darkness. Water is like a living thing, and that gets to me in the night. Even more cause to push ahead more quickly now...

The trail was very steep for the last 1/3rd. My face was literally inches from the forest floor, covered in layer upon layer of moss, slime, and mud filled with so much life and decay that it filled my nostrils in a way I won't soon forget. It was very dense, and very dark, and eerily still. I knew there must be plenty of life going on all around me-- but I couldn't see it; I just sensed the forest as a breathing thing. Which was also eerie. But neat. I'd wished I had my biology/ecology friends with me to describe all the plants and slime and moss to me. I'd never been so dirty in my life, and it was good.

The last bit of the climb was difficult. It was wetter up there, and I slipped on the mud and was saved by a dangling vine more times than I can count. And I was growing so very tired. It was lightly raining this high up, and my view of the sea was strained, but I could make out the massive grey stretching out in the distance. More than three times I thought I'd finally made it to the top, and made that final extra push one makes before the finish line, only to come to a clearing and realize I had much more to go. Time was getting on. In fact, it was now almost 3:45 o'clock; well past time to turn round. The sun (which wasn't to be seen) would be setting in an hour, and I had two hours back down, at sprint speed. I started to get quite nervous. I thought maybe I should turn around. But I just.. I just couldn't. I had pushed myself so long and so hard, and to not make it to the top? I knew the view wouldn't be there, as it was dusk and still mist-cloaked at the top anyway. But still, I just had to do it, or I'd never forgive myself.

Then, at about 4:00, the "trail" flattened out. The trees grew more scraggly and eventually disappeared, giving over to tall reeds and ponds of mud. The top!!! I literally ran through the reeds, sharp as knives and unyielding, until I reached a rather unceremonious little wooden X nailed into the ground, with a final, large orange triangle nailed to it. The top. I wandered around a bit and caught my breath. I was in the midst of cloud, so unfortunately there was no grand sight to behold. I was bummed, but I also was getting rather nervous; it was very dark already. And, I don't think I mentioned this before, but I didn't have a flashlight, either. Idiot. I'd reasoned everything out, and somehow I calculated I'd be able to get out to the last few kilometers of farmland by the time it was really dark. And then, without the forest canopy and vines and sinkholes and whatnot, and with the moon at first quarter, I'd find my way back just fine.

Right.

But, from my vantage point on top of Mount Stormy, the adrenaline got the better of me and I felt overly optimistic about how fast the climb in the opposite direction would be. I took one last look out and over the valley below, shrouded in droplets, and shouted to no one in particular, "Welp... see ya later!"
I turned, and headed back down into the growing darkness.