An Early Morning Hike: I survive a boulder attack

This past week our good friend David O'Donnell visited us from Maine. When he left Maine the morning of his flight it was 15 deg. F and when he stepped off the plane in San Pedro Sula it was upper 90s and humid. Talk about culture shock! Even Siguatepeque, normally 10 degrees cooler than SPS and without the humidity, was experiencing a heat wave.

On Wednesday, the day before David returned to the US, we went hiking with Kike Vega, owner of Ascenso, (I'm going to do a full blog article on these guys soon).


Left to right. Kike, David and Thomas

Fortunately, that night a cold front had moved in across Honduras and the temperature had dropped 20 deg. from the previous day and when we got up at 4 am it was almost cold. After a breakfast of pancakes provided by Barbe, we jumped in the back of Kike's old Toyota 4 by 4 pickup and headed up into the mountains just as the sun was rising.

The hike Kike arranged for us was actually a descent down into a canyon. At first the trail descended steeply and was a bit tricky trying to keep my footing on the loose shale and sand. Pretty quickly though, the trail began a long gradual descent following the face of the canyon. At the bottom of the canyon runs a beautiful mountain stream. We turned and began following the trail alongside the stream as it headed deeper into the canyon.

From my small camera on telephoto (the rock is on the far left)

At one point, David and Kike were looking up the side of the slope and saw a cave with a very large boulder in it. Out of curiosity as to how it got inside the cave, everyone except me decided to climb the steep slope to check it out. I sat on a boulder and watched them climbing higher and higher until they were almost out of sight. Working up an appetite just watching them climb, I dug into the backpack for the apple Kike had brought each of us.

Then the most interesting thing happened. David, from far, far up the mountain and off to my right decided to roll a boulder down the hill towards me. (not the one in the cave) He laughingly hollers down to me that he's coming for me and I shout back bravely, "Come and get me" rising from my rock seat and taking a stand beside it. Now at first, this may seem a rather dangerous thing to do, but to put it in perspective David was a good 400 ft above me and off to my right. The slope itself was dotted with clumps of trees, dug in rocks and had a slight level spot before reaching the creek below, all of which should have been enough to stop any rolling rock, as well as the fact that it would also need to change it's direct downhill course drastically to the right in order to reach me.

This is what happened instead.

From far up the hill I see David tip the 200 lb boulder off it's perch. I calmly watch the boulder begin it's bumping descent as it gathers speed, lurching and leaping off of rocks and trees. It's oblong shape and the roughness of the slope gives it no particular direction and at one point it almost comes to a stop. It was then that I lose sight of it, but I can still hear it coming, crashing and bouncing through the undergrowth. Above me is an embankment rising about 15 ft above the sandy creek bed where I am standing. Suddenly I am becoming nervous. I can hear it coming, it's direction constantly changing and I still can't see it. I begin to move left and then right, trying to anticipate exactly where it will suddenly launch itself over the bank at me. And here it comes, sailing into view! I dodge right and the boulder flies over the bank, lands on the ground and rolls to a stop EXACTLY  in the spot where moments before I had so bravely hollered back "come and get me". Not in a million years!

And here's the proof!

 

Before

After!



 

Because I knew we were going to be near water, I decided to pack light and only bring enough drinking water to get us started. Bringing with me the new Sawyer "mini", I decided to use this opportunity as a promotional photo opp for Inversiones Wolfe Honduras, authorized distributor and retailer of Sawyer Products in Honduras. I had with me on the hike two of my most handsome "Sawyer filter male models" and we quickly set the scene for the photo shoot.

 

Ben, filling the provided squeeze pack.

Squeezing the stream water through the mini and into my bottle

 

One of the things I love about Sawyer filters is that they are so lightweight and portable. Knowing that any water filtered through the Sawyer filter is 99.99999 % pure gives me full confidence to drink from any water source.

 

We ended up the morning with a little 4 wheeling to reach another spot with a great overlook.

 

David, standing overlooking the valley below 

 

A group photo, left to right. Ben, David, Kike (kneeling) Luis, Thomas, myself, Adria 

 

It was a great morning. I survived a boulder attack, drank purified water from a mountain stream, loved being out in God's creation and entirely enjoyed every minute of the time David spent us.