Stairway to Heaven

I woke up at 6.20 to get some stuff done before the dawn, which I estimated to be at around 7. However, I finished a bit later, than estimated. Nevertheless, Diane was willing to give me a lift to the beginning of the track.. which was not far, thankfully.

The path was marked with small coloured ribbons tied to trees. However, in most places, it did not ressemble a path. It was just a trail of places that were a bit more easily passed through than everything surrounding it - but not by a large margin. Makes sense, though - the rainforest grows pretty quickly so unless the trail is walked every day by many people, it will stop looking like a trail quite quickly.

Before the trail up the mountain officially began, I had to cross a small creek. Small, but still big enough for me to have to take my boots off and walk through barefoot. Water reached up to my knee at the deepest place.

What followed was 4.5 km of walking uphill and then another 800m walking downhill, all that to reach the height of approximately 1300 m. Each of these 5.3 km took about an hour - and I was climbing nearly as fast as I could, not slacking off and watching the nature.

I did notice a few things though. In the first km, I was constantly pestered by waitawhiles, constantly getting caught in them. The second km was somewhat better and I did not see waitawhiles any more since then until climbing down again. That part had the prettiest ascents of the trail though, at least two of them actually ressembling stairways. Past the 2 km marker, the path changed somewhat. The climb got markedly steeper and past the 2.5 km mark also fairly wet and slippery.

Nevertheless, 3 hours later, I was at the 3.2 km marker - rainforest was briefly replaced by a thick overgrowth of ferns, initially only up to my knees but later as high as to my armpits.

What made that part especially scary though was that you could see clouds over the ferns. From above. They say that on clear days, one can see as far as Cairns from the top of the mountain. It wasn't one of those (on average) two days a year when it is clear there, though. But clouds themselves already gave a pretty good idea of just how high I was and just what exactly accidentally slipping on the wet path would mean.

Also, I discovered a dozen leeches sucking away at my legs, once I stopped to rest and have a drink. (Note to self - next time start with at least two litres of water instead of one - that way, you can drink one on the way up, which is the worst stretch in terms of sweating and exertion.).

The fact that the next part "requires above average fitness and rock climbing skills" was not also very promising - I was in no mood to climb a damp and slippery cliff in conditions where falling meant certain death.

Fortunately, it never came to that. Rock climbing was required, but only for two short stretches, with trees and roots offering quite a bit of support and in places where falling meant falling just a few meters before being stopped by a flat piece of land.. So nothing unreasonable. What made the last 2 km hard was the fact that the path went through fairly thick jungle and was at many places quite easy to lose.

Once I got to the top lookout point, I just verified that I was still indeed above a cloud and could not see anything below me, rested a bit and then started back. Coming down was easier, of course, but again with different stretches presenting different obstacles. first two km was easy to lose the trail, next 1.5 km required constantly reaching for nearby trees in order to not just slip and slide down (the wrong way and into certain death) and the last stretch, although walkable was still infested with waitawhiles - some of which did cut me up in a few places, but thankfully nothing serious.

As I had exhausted my liquid supply by the time I got down, I got a quick drink from the creek I had passed through before. I then crossed it again, walked back to the playhouse. The trip (10.6 km + 500m?) took 9 hours to complete. Considering I had made only 5 short brakes on the way, all of them no longer than 20 minutes, I had been walking on some of the hardest terrain I had seen for nearly 8 hours. Not bad. Not bad at all.

A good thing I started at 7.30 in the morning. It is 18.30 now and looking outside equals looking into complete darkness. If I were still at the trail, I would basically have to sit tight where I was because I would have no chance navigating the trail back. And you do not want to sleep in the jungle at night without any equipment or training. Seriously, you do not.

Hitchiking in pitch black night ought to be fun though.