1-22-20 - Kyle - The Inca Trail gone horribly wrong
/I manage to sleep deeply the night before…at least until 2am. That’s when it started pounding rain resulting in the all too familiar thwack, thwack, thwack on the tent. I snap awake and lie in my sleeping bag terrified listening to the rain. Tomorrow, we have a second pass over the mountain which Robinzon says is a little shorter distance but a steeper ascent. So I’m terrified that I will have to do this pass in the rain. Let’s just say yesterday didn’t go all too well in the rain. Sleep alludes me as a I toss and turn and doze off and on.
Today is supposed to be a longer day than yesterday and so Robinzon has called for a 5:00am wake-up call as he knows I’m going to need every minute of daylight to even have a chance at making it. As opposed to Michael’s sweeting sounding Austrian voice wishing me a beautiful good morning in Antarctica, I wake with dread to Robinzon’s voice telling us to wake up, we need to start hiking soon.
I notice in the darkness and silence that it has stopped raining. Thank the Lord for small miracles. I manage down as much of our Peruvian breakfast as I can knowing I’ll need all the energy I can muster today. We start off on the trail and I have a pit in my stomach and feeling of dread in my bones.
The hike takes on the eerily similar pattern to yesterday. The night’s sleep allows me to hike without leg pain for the first hour or so but I’m still huffing and puffing trying to catch my breath. Then the leg pain starts and ramps up over the course of the next hour. By the third hour, every step is excoriating, the black lines dot my peripheral vision and I become more and more confused.
This time, I can’t figure out where Leanne went. I know she was with us on Dead Women’s Pass yesterday but she’s not with us now. I’m thinking she must have turned around in the middle of the pass and went back yesterday. But I thought Robinson said that there was no option to go back. I grow increasing worried. Why can’t I remember what happened to her?
I’m not sure how I did it but somehow I made it to the top of the second pass. We are sitting on rocks at the top resting and having water when the skies open up and rain that seems black coming pouring down as if it was flowing down from the river Styx. On comes the rain jacket but if affords scant protection against the black rain from hell. The rain makes the downhill even more treacherous creating slip risk on the uneven rocks and steps. This makes me go even slower which is all I need.
I’m not sure how long it took as I’ve lost the concept of time but we reach the bottom of the second pass. The porters set up lunch but I feel like I’m going to vomit so I have to pass on food even though I know in concept that I need food for energy. It is still pouring rain and I’m shivering now.
The last part of the day is a hike up to the highest altitude where the camp is supposed to be. It is supposed to be below freezing at night. Robinzon looks at me shivering with a dazed and confused look and says that he thinks it might be better if don’t camp in the high elevation and cold but rather keep going down the other the side and camp and the bottom in the warmer, lower elevation. Yes, temperatures above freezing and lower altitude sound great until he informs us that it will add 2-3 hours onto day. Justin asks, “Is that is 2-3 hours at the normal pace or 2-3 hours at my dad’s current pace?” Totally valid question. Robinzon responds, “well…maybe 3-4 hours.” I let out and audible groan. “Can we make the decision when we get up there?” I ask.
We start the ascent as the rain shows no signs of letting up. As the altitude get higher, the temperature starts to drop and I start shivering more. Exhaustion, altitude, freezing rain and cold temperatures, the perfect recipe for disaster. Oh and I might as well throw no training on top of that too.
The confusion has come and gone throughout the day but decides it wants to hang out with me now. As I look up ahead, I see Leanne sitting on a rock. “Oh thank God,” I think with a sigh of relief. I trudge up and sit down on the rock next to her. “Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick. I haven’t seen you since Dead Woman’s Pass. I thought you turned around and went back. How did you get ahead of us?” Leanne smiles a faint smile and disappears from the rock. Oh no. No. No. No. This can’t be happening. I’ve just seen her ghost and if I’ve seen her ghost it means she’s dead. She mustn’t have made it through Dead Women’s Pass. I try to get up off the rock but losing Leanne is just too much for me to handle as I give up the ghost of my own and collapse onto the ground and curl up into a ball.
Robinzon has been my cheerleader for the past two and half days but even he knows that I’m done. He springs into action and radios for a team of porters. After some indeterminant period of time, six porters show up with a medical stretcher. There will be no more steps for me as they load me onto the stretcher and strap me in. There is a cover that can be zipped up. But if they zip it up all the way, it is effectively a body bag. They zip it all the way up over my face and head. While I’m generally not a claustrophobic person, this is way too much for me to handle and I start screaming “abierto! Abierto! Abierto ahora!” They unzip it down to my shoulders as I suck in deep breathes.
The problem is that it is still raining hard and so my face is exposed to the rain if it’s not zipped up all the way. Nothing can be done at this point. The stretcher has shoulder harneses that hook over a porter in front and porter in back. Two more porters stay on each side supporting the stretcher while two more walk behind resting up. Every 10-15 minutes, the porters rotate through sharing the burden of carrying me. The porters seem to fly up the hill. They are certainly going much faster than the my snail-sloth pace of the past couple days.
The rain is entering the body bag at my head. When the porters are going uphill, the rain pools and flows downward towards my feet. The porters had to remove my shoes to fit my feet so now my feet in just socks are submerged in freezing rainwater. As the porters continue to ascend, the temperature continues to drop. I am freezing to the bone, shivering non-stop and my feet have gone numb. Just freaking great, I’m not going to die from altitude sickness or exhaustion or slipping and falling down the rocks as I previously thought but I’m going to die from hypothermia.
The porters reach the top at ~14,000 feet and stop to rest. They have been going for about an hour. An hour of pure hell for me although I’m sure it was no picnic for them either. I have Justin ask how much longer. The decision has already been made to get me down to the bottom of the mountain so Robinzon reports back 2-3 more hours as the porters have to go more slowly down the steep descents.
I need to go the bathroom so the porters unstrap me and get me my shoes. I take care of the bathroom and I walk back to where Justin is standing. My clothes are soaking wet and my shivering turns into full blown convulsions. Justin screams out for Robinzon who comes running with a couple porters. I collapse into Robinzon’s arms and he and the porters carry me to the nearest ranger station.
Once inside, they strip me out of my clothes which is no easy task as I’m still violently convulsing. They wrap me in the aluminum blankets like you get after running a marathon, put me in bed, pile water bottles of hot water on me and then wrap me over and over in thick blankets. This begins to work and my convulsions subside to merely shivering and eventually stop. Robinzon clears me for transport and they load me back on the stretcher. I’m in dry clothes now and they have put a tarp over the stretcher so the situation has improved dramatically.
The porters rock and roll down the mountain with me bouncing around on their shoulders. I welcome the warmer temperatures. The rock star porters make it to camp in just under two hours. I fall into my tent in and am fast asleep by the time the others enter camp.
It’s pretty clear to me now why they require everyone to have a guide and team of porters. Alpaca Expeditions really came through with the best guide and porters. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that I’d dead somewhere on the mountain with them. And huge props to Justin and Corey for carrying me, carrying my bag, feeding me water and waiting behind with me. Comrade Yuri didn’t really help but in the end, it turns out he wasn’t really trying to kill me for which I’m thankful.
