Lost in the Forest

January, 2005:
Yesterday I got lost in the forest. Jay and I decided to hike the borders all around Finca El Tigre. The workers and topographer had just finally finished clearing and putting in orange stakes, so we figured the trail was clear and we wouldn’t get lost. The 2 kilometer hike down the road was no problem. Then we followed the fence-line into the western border of the forest and began hiking down the mountain. Eventually, the mountain ended at a stream and we hiked along it, awestruck at the massive old trees. That part of the old growth forest is one of the most magical places I’ve ever experienced. Too bad it’s such an ordeal getting there!

After scrambling along the stream for a while, we lost sight of the surveyor’s stakes and began backtracking and searching both sides of the canyon for any sign of the trail. Finally, when we realized that the trail had definitely gone cold (we missed the spot where the border stretched back up into the forest), we headed northeast back to the stable, straight through the forest and back up the mountain. We found out later that we should have scaled the left side of the canyon instead of heading up the right side.

Hiking through open forest was high adventure and, I thank God I was hiking with an experienced hiker and navigator. We didn’t even need to use a compass. Jay could tell direction by knowing the time and looking at the sun. He also gave me a few pointers on moving through the forest, which I shall pass on to those who might be tempted:

Look before you grab onto something! Only grab onto strong, live roots and saplings without thorns. At one point, as we climbed down a precipitous 50 foot drop, Jay advised me to hold firmly onto a particular root before taking the ‘real’ drop. It was good he warned me else the sudden fall might have dislocated my shoulder. Even so, I got an impressive elbow scrape.

2. Use chimney technique climbing up narrow gorges. You get your footing, choose your spot, and then use gravity to fall onto the opposite boulder with both hands and then swing legs up to parallel boulder. Repeat and up you go! It’s not scary so much as hard work.
Follow contour of the mountain rather than climbing up and down in a straight line. It was still rough going, using roots as hand-holds and slashing through bamboo groves, but it was faster and not as exhausting as dealing with the boulders down at the stream.

When you need to climb up a very steep slope, choose your objective at the top and scramble up very fast on all fours – like a monkey - to keep forward momentum.

When going down a steep slope and you lose your footing (like when a sapling snaps away), sit down and keep your feet in front of you and above the ground. The idea is to slide down on your butt. This technique is scary but I never got hurt doing it. The most important thing is not to panic and grab blindly onto something – it could be a snake or a thorny palm.
Don’t step where you can’t see. This is obvious when all is calm and easy but is especially important when the going gets rough. I found that out the hard way.

With all these techniques, Jay only had to lend me assistance one time when I lost my grip and nearly slid off a very big boulder. Otherwise, we hiked quite companionably, under the circumstances, and only hoped to find our way out of the forest before 2PM, at which time the finca employees would come out looking for us. And that would be very embarrassing.

At one point, we saw a clearing up at the top of a canyon and thought we’d reached one of the pastures. We climbed up there only to discover that a massive tree had fallen and left a sunny gap in the canopy. Yep- it was still sunny and very hot outside of the forest. It was almost a relief to go back into it – even though we were lost!

Finally, we could see another open area and climbed up to one of the more distant pastures from the house. We collapsed for a while in the meadow and looked back at the dense forest we’d just walked out of. We got back to the stables- just after 2PM – like apparitions out of a coalmine – totally filthy, scratched up and walking on wobbly legs. What a couple of wussies! The finca employees hike and work all over that forest with perfect ease. The foreman, Armando (who knows the forest like the back of his hand), suggested that we make the building of forest trails a priority. Guess he figured that if he couldn’t stop us from going in there alone, he’d better sort out some easy trails.

Thus, the trail building will begin straightaway and will be carried out concurrently with another high priority project: setting up worm composting. The local ‘worm man’, who works at Univ. of Peace, insisted that we meet a series of requirement in order for the delicate worms to survive. At one point during his litany of requests, I began to wonder if there was anything else I could do for his worms– a telephone…radio??? Armando thinks we can do worm compost simply by piling up manure and putting in the worms. He certainly demonstrated the truth of that by showing me what they do already. The worms seem perfectly happy just living in a pile of manure and being left alone. Jay, however, feels we can speed up the process by building a wooden enclosure for them and keeping them covered. Thus, the great worm debate continues.