So I was hiking in the woods here in the south east USA, in 105 degree weather at night by myself to "you know where", for a good 4 hours.... up and down these massive hills. To give you an idea of how steep they were... I had to use a pickaxe to pull myself up them, mountain climbing style. Anyways, all I had was a POS compass that kept giving me wrong readings and a car GPS (hardly ideal for hiking in the woods)... After I finish my "work", I head back... kinda lost but kinda not... eventually I managed to hear a car so I headed that direction... Keep in mind I was EXHAUSTED at this point, out of water (and I'd brought a lot), and having to take a break every five minutes.
Anyways... it was pretty late at night... 10:30PM and this road was not well travelled, so I didn't hear any more traffic at all... I'm walking along, thinking I'm headed back to the road and to my car, when I suddenly slip down a 60 foot slope into a massive river (about 200 yards across I'd say). I was slipping around like a maniac on the sediment and my flashlight immediately fell out of my hand into the water. My glasses fell off too (I wear contacts most of the time but wear glasses to hike because if I get poked in the eye by a branch or something and it takes out my contact I'm basically blind). I'd also dropped my pickaxe. One shoe also fell off and since I had no light at all I couldn't find it... it's probably floating down the river right now. The GPS was soaked and of course destroyed. So all I had was one shoe, and one glove (the other was in my backpack but I was too scared to try to open it because I was holding on for dear life to a tree branch... the river is MUCH deeper just a few feet further in and I was so tired I'm pretty sure I would have drowned even though I can of course swim.
Luckily, the flashlight was waterproof, and I could see it shining about 4 feet from me underwater.... so I try to smoothly transition over to another tree branch closer to it.... but this one happens to be rotten and breaks off. I fall completely into the river, and the only thing that saved me was grabbing a small but tough root on the very edge of the slope. At this point I was calling out to God like a maniac (if you're atheist that's cool, but if you're ever in a situation where you think you're going to die... it might alter your perspective a bit), and yelling HELP as loud as I could. But I was in the middle of
nowhere basically (the road was a side-road and had like one car pass through it every 10 minutes during the DAYTIME. At night more like once an hour.
My arms were utterly exhausted from the earlier hill climbing and I was desperately trying to think about what to do. The flashlight was shining JUST brightly enough underwater that I could make out a few more branches. This time I got a solid one, and got the flashlight, stuck it in my mouth, and tried to decide what to do next. I tried climbing up right where I was, but it was an 80 degree slippery as hell incline and there were so many branches that I couldn't take hold of one without having one stab me in the chest or block me in some way. So I very cautiously move sideways down the river edge (I'm in the water at this point, but on the slippery sediment part, not actually where it drops off and is 30 feet deep), I grab another rotten branch and nearly fall slip in again but grab yet another tough root and pull myself up again. Finally I find what I think is a good spot to get up. It's still steep, probably 70 degrees, but there are several big chunks of wood that I thought I could use to get some leverage (not easy when you're missing a shoe and the other is soaked with mud). All of em turned out to be rotten but one though, and once again I'm hanging on for dear life.
I move further down the river sideways on the sediment, slipping a couple times but always trying to hold a branch while walking. Finally found a nice big tree with huge gnarly roots. Got up, crawled up my stomach. My arms were aching and I just barely pulled myself up. Walked another 30 minutes to the car and got home. Which btw, I got lucky with, cause my backpack had gotten unzipped and my keys were in there. It's pretty amazing they didn't fall out.
So ya, probably craziest experience so far in my life.
Anyways... it was pretty late at night... 10:30PM and this road was not well travelled, so I didn't hear any more traffic at all... I'm walking along, thinking I'm headed back to the road and to my car, when I suddenly slip down a 60 foot slope into a massive river (about 200 yards across I'd say). I was slipping around like a maniac on the sediment and my flashlight immediately fell out of my hand into the water. My glasses fell off too (I wear contacts most of the time but wear glasses to hike because if I get poked in the eye by a branch or something and it takes out my contact I'm basically blind). I'd also dropped my pickaxe. One shoe also fell off and since I had no light at all I couldn't find it... it's probably floating down the river right now. The GPS was soaked and of course destroyed. So all I had was one shoe, and one glove (the other was in my backpack but I was too scared to try to open it because I was holding on for dear life to a tree branch... the river is MUCH deeper just a few feet further in and I was so tired I'm pretty sure I would have drowned even though I can of course swim.
Luckily, the flashlight was waterproof, and I could see it shining about 4 feet from me underwater.... so I try to smoothly transition over to another tree branch closer to it.... but this one happens to be rotten and breaks off. I fall completely into the river, and the only thing that saved me was grabbing a small but tough root on the very edge of the slope. At this point I was calling out to God like a maniac (if you're atheist that's cool, but if you're ever in a situation where you think you're going to die... it might alter your perspective a bit), and yelling HELP as loud as I could. But I was in the middle of
nowhere basically (the road was a side-road and had like one car pass through it every 10 minutes during the DAYTIME. At night more like once an hour.
My arms were utterly exhausted from the earlier hill climbing and I was desperately trying to think about what to do. The flashlight was shining JUST brightly enough underwater that I could make out a few more branches. This time I got a solid one, and got the flashlight, stuck it in my mouth, and tried to decide what to do next. I tried climbing up right where I was, but it was an 80 degree slippery as hell incline and there were so many branches that I couldn't take hold of one without having one stab me in the chest or block me in some way. So I very cautiously move sideways down the river edge (I'm in the water at this point, but on the slippery sediment part, not actually where it drops off and is 30 feet deep), I grab another rotten branch and nearly fall slip in again but grab yet another tough root and pull myself up again. Finally I find what I think is a good spot to get up. It's still steep, probably 70 degrees, but there are several big chunks of wood that I thought I could use to get some leverage (not easy when you're missing a shoe and the other is soaked with mud). All of em turned out to be rotten but one though, and once again I'm hanging on for dear life.
I move further down the river sideways on the sediment, slipping a couple times but always trying to hold a branch while walking. Finally found a nice big tree with huge gnarly roots. Got up, crawled up my stomach. My arms were aching and I just barely pulled myself up. Walked another 30 minutes to the car and got home. Which btw, I got lucky with, cause my backpack had gotten unzipped and my keys were in there. It's pretty amazing they didn't fall out.
So ya, probably craziest experience so far in my life.
.
