Ropes... Yes Please - Complete (Sort Of)

With sun shining, we chose to find out where our mysterious hunting trail led to. If the reader remembers, we started this path during an expedition where we helped a film group transport their gear to a lookout, overlooking one of our favorite rivers. Since the Taroko Gorge trip ate my camera batteries, I plugged in my camera to recharge and failed to bring it with us on the hike. So, instead of a picture saturated post, words will have to suffice. Fortunately Dacota brought his camera; unfortunately though, his batteries were also shot resulting in our inability to take more than eight pictures before it also fell victim to a neglected power system.

This hike isn't like the Taroko hike; it is less isolated but has a significantly more vertiginous incline with a jungle that offers an extremely dense variety of flora. This sub-tropic jungle has already caused us confrontation with two gigantic orb weavers, spike covered bushes, rock slides, and thorny trees before reaching the novel portion.


Fast forward, we are now at the last rope system featured in the previous post. We climbed up the wall (for it is a wall and, without rope, I don't know how someone could safely do this. That is, if one  proposes that this rotting rope should be trusted to support our weight for any duration of time) and continued our climb. Additional rope aides were used in the climb, including one Dacota temporarily secured to ensure a safe descent. The path continued to be questionable (in direction) and we busted out the yarn supply and began marking the way. At one point we were faced with a guess and we chose left. Along this ridge we slowly climbed, holding onto anything we could, as our footing kept sliding out and causing dirt and rocks to bombard down the abrupt "ledge". After a while, we realized this path was a bust and returned along the same treacherous path to, once again, make a guess as to where to go. We chose northeast and climbed/bushwacked and eventually found the path once again.

Four rope aides on this upper portion of the trail created a total of eight rope systems used to help one reach the "top". One moment we were hiking up a hill-side, the next we came upon a small clearing. A small camp was situated up here with firewood, a makeshift cooking stove with fencing on top (to be used as a grate), and a poorly constructed "A" shaped pole system obviously meant to support a tarp. Various bottles littered the area containing leaves (used for sprouting roots?) of San Su, a wild fern-like vegetable. There was also a bunch of trash and tarps containing unknown items tucked into the cliff-side.

Dylan at the campsite

We looked around for a minute and found a rope heading down the opposite side of the clearing descending into some sort of ravine, or as I will call it, "the Grotto" (although it is not a true Grotto). It was about a forty foot height difference and we came into this area primarily composed of stone. Regrettably, I didn't get a good picture of the cool ground effects. This place could easily be used as a stage by which one could entertain a group of neanderthals for a evening drama in the light of campfire.

The Grotto

We continued our hike on the other side of the Grotto, up the embankment and along a significantly less traversed path. We hiked around for a half hour or so and were required to turn back so Dacota could get to work on-time. This is not altogether a bad thing as these paths could have easily contained a trap waiting for something to trigger its torturous intent. Beyond anything natural that needs to be feared when hiking in this jungle, traps are the most nefarious and my greatest concern.  With luck, my ankle will never feel its biting, deadly, grip.

I imagine this area as a jump-off point, where we can use the existing infrastructure and create paths designed for our purposes instead of the someone else's. So much potential exists and I hope more stories will surface from this area.

Back up at the camp, and with all 10x zoom camera capability, we took a picture from our new, ocean-view, apartment.

10x zoomed image of the ocean from our new home