So since my last post July 7th- I went on a couple more backpacking trips. one i just got back from this monday. This past trip was with my sister and we spent 3 nights in Denali National Park backpacking. We planned on just kiding far enough off the road to be out of view from the park road. it was about 59 miles into the park. We then just wanted to relax for a couple days, day hiking, reading, napping nad playing skip-bo. we ended up having a very traumatice experience on the second day. an easy day hike turned into a very very scary climb and hear helicopter rescue. We found ourselves in a spot where we couldn't go back the way we came and we coudln't keep going down the river we were following. instead of staying where we were and waiting for my mom to call the park to tell them we didnt' make it home which would have been the smartest and safest thing to do. instead we decided to try to climb up a 700 ft elevation change ina quarter mil. it was the most terrifiing experience of my life. we literally clawed our way up this crumbly almost veritcal cliff side. we were crawling using our hands, knees, feet, arms and every muscle we had. i made it to a safe spot and was waiting for Riana to follow. she was about 20 feet below me but i coudln't see her. i heard a really big rock slide. about 5 min. later i hear her yell my name only it didn't sounds 20 ft below me it sounded really far below me so i thought she had fallen in that rock slide. i started to scream her name over and over and she didn't answer back. at that moment i thought she had fallen and was probably dead or really close to it as it would have been a miracle to survive a fall from what we were climbing. I got up the rest of the mountain and made my way down the other side in about 20 min. i then was headed for the road which was about a mile along a really rocky river bed. i had made it to the ri ver bed and had taken off running. then i heard riana yelling again. i coudn't hear what she was saying and didn't know if she was hurt or not. we were yelling bakc and fort for a little bit and i was really torn between trying to figure out if she was hurt or just go and getting help. Then i happened to look up at the top of the mountain and i saw her. i was really confused. After she made it to the bottom we were both really happy to see each other. She did not fall after all. when she was 20 ft below me she couldn't climb the same way i had so she ahd to go around this rocky thing and so when she was yelling my name it was sounding far away . and then she could hear me yelling her name and yelling for help but i coudln't hear her because of the wind. she thought that i had fallen because i was screaming help over and over. so luckily neither of us fell and we made it to the bottom again. we were very very lucky. we should not have made t up that steep climb. we were pretty much in shock the rest of the night and had nightmares all night and so we got up as early as we could and walked to the road and waited for the first but. the bust ride was about 3 1/2 hours to get out of the park. it wasn't until we got to fairbanks that i started to feel better. i have still been having nightmares. i have also never been so sore in my life. i have been more sore the last couple days than i have ever been from running.
well that wasn't a very cheery post but it's all that's been on my mind lately. the trip before that, i went backpacking with my friend Jessica again and it went really well. I didn't feel like taking pictures from that trip so jessica has them all.
