SIX HOURS ON A HIKE WITH NO WAY OUT

Keli H on a hiking adventure

Part 1 - The Decision

It had rained the night before.

Dawn came as a solid grey blanket, lightening shade by shade, without a gash of orange light in sight. We weren't deterred. I let my mother know I was still on my way. 

The green stretch of N2 from Ballito to Durban was empty, except for my car. The toll attendant wanted to know where I was heading this early - it was only after 5:00 am.

"I'm going on a hike," I said. She seemed not to understand the appeal of this. At one point in life, I wouldn't have either. I'm mostly a city girl, and my primary form of walking involves 6 inch heels and the length of a shopping mall. 

There were still intermittent splashes of rain when I pulled up at my mother's home in Durban. The shower must have been moving south along the coast. It would have been easy, then, to quit on our planned adventure. But we looked up at the overcast sky and decided it was the perfect weather in which to go on an outdoor adventure.

My mother drove us. We've settled into a rhythm - I always handle the directions, she always handles the car. It gave me opportunity to get a good look at Kloof as we drove through the town. Some of my award-winning novel, The Four Hundred Club, is set here. I describe it as ballooning with trees. That morning, the town - it was just after 6:30 am by the time we reached it - was brushed by a hovering mist. The translucent white film hung a few meters off the floor, around the midsections of the buildings, like a drop of curtain that would rise to bring the facebrick and forest suburb into view. How very like a storybook, I thought. I've often been tempted to move there. I couldn't hope for a more quintessential base for a writer. Ballito has been lovely, but is fast becoming too metropolitan. The new Umhlanga, I call it. 

The Krantzkloof Nature Reserve was already reasonably full by the time we reached it just before 7:00 am. It looked like a hiking group - they were all wearing the same luminous green shirts. I worried it wouldn't be a peaceful trip through the reserve - but it would turn out that the pace at which my mother and I hiked would hold us far back from everyone else, leaving us almost alone in the forest. 

The entry house was a wooden cabin just small enough to fit a chair. No monitors with game cam feeds, no medical equipment. When we paid the reserve entry fee, nobody checked that we'd filled in the visitor log properly, that we understood the risk of continuing, or that we knew which trail to follow. I suppose the onus was on us to get ourselves back safely. 

And so we set off. 

About twenty minutes into the thicket of trees, my mother gasped. She pointed at the stretch of leg below her shorts. A horde of mosquitoes had alighted there. Their bites were forming raised bumps that looked like a sea of bubbles on her skin. I looked down at my own shorts-clad legs. Not a mosquito in sight. We took a moment to wonder why. 

"It's probably because I'm flexitarian," I joked. "My blood is not as tasty."

But a day later, I would find a splattering of pink spots on my legs. I would count 36 mosquito bites. 

We trudged on. 

Because the rain, the mist, the busy car park, the loud hiking group, the absent help facilities, and the mosquitoes hadn't been enough - the day offered us another opportunity to turn back. I slipped dangerously on a carpet of wet, muddy leaves. Thankfully, I was agile enough not to fall. But we paused again, then, in the middle of the trail for a quick recon. The options were: go back to our warm and dry homes, return all the way to the car park and start afresh on the easy walking trail, or complete what we started. 

The first time I heard of the sunk cost fallacy was in a business book. It's the human tendency to continue an endeavour because of all the time and effort we've already invested into it. 

Part 2 - The Descent 

We arrived at a viewpoint. It was a great sheaf of rock jutting out over the ledge of the cliff, to hover above the valley below. Amazing to think we would be hiking all the way down the cliff to the river at the bottom, follow it upstream to the waterfall that was the pinnacle of the trip, and then all the way back. Later, on the journey back, I would spot a team of girls sitting right on the edge, legs dangling into the nothingness, for a photo. 

There is a concept called high place phenomenon - the fleeting, involuntary thought to fling oneself off the precipice on which they're standing; building, cliff, or ledge. It's also known as the call of the void. 

The trail crossed over a small stream with tiered rocks forming its own mini waterfall. A tiny taster of what was to come. The only way across was through. The insides of our shoes welled with water. We would go through the next strenuous hours with uncomfortably wet shoes and slippery socks. 

Some minutes beyond the stream was an engraved wooden sign board: the route was splitting into the Molweni trail that immediately descended to the river, and the longer 10km Beacon trail that burrowed further into the woods before going downhill to a point way downstream. Or, as the pathway markers identify it - the blue trail and the yellow trail. We chose to descend immediately. At that point, despite it all, we were still wildly optimistic that one day we could make the yellow trail. I've got to love the way my mother and I sometimes share delusions. 

The descent down the mountain into the valley was rough and dangerous. While we might have been able to overlook the challenges of the path so far, this terrain was properly treacherous. There were no small embankments forming steps, or no footholds. It was a steep, muddy gradient without solid ground for footing - and any rocks sporadically found were so large they had to be scrambled over with hands and feet, like wild children. At points of the descent I had to sit and let myself slide down over the ground. Much of the way, I found myself suddenly grappling for any branches and reeds as gravity propelled me down, stumbling. 

And the worst part was the realization that this was the only way in and out of the valley. 

Should anyone have a fatal tumble over the unguarded edge, or slip severely enough to break a bone, the only way to be retrieved would be the good will of other hikers having the strength to haul another body back up the mountain. Even a helicopter couldn't pass through the foliage jutting out into narrow valley, between two mountains encroaching on each other. Something as simple as an ankle sprain would be detrimental in returning safely. 

There was, quite frankly, no way out, once started. 

It took us a terribly long time to reach the bottom. With the stubbornly grey day not always visible through the tops of the trees, the world in the reserve took on a warped, indeterminate quality. We were suspended in time and place. 

By the time we reached the river, the cell phone signal had disappeared. 

The river stretch was my favourite section of the hike. My mother is a mountain and trees kind of person. I'm a water and open skies person. Here, all coalesced magically. Even through the creeping exhaustion and growing bruises on my palms from rock scrambling, the world felt like I was walking through an adventure. 

When I was younger, one of my favourite Playstation games was Tomb Raider - an open world where anything could happen. 

The only problem with the river segment was that the route was not marked very well. There wasn't a path alongside the flow of water. The river bed was non-existent in many places, there were trees blocking the way, and giant boulders jutting out of the ground. There were places where blue tags nailed to the trees indicated to climb atop shelves of rock, and even to cross over to the other side of the river. Sometimes the tags didn't appear for a long time in between and we could only hope we were still on the right track. 

At a point where the route ahead seemed walled off by a crop of great rocks, we looked around fruitlessly for a blue tag. 

"Through the river," I suggested. 

And our shoes and socks got wet anew as we waded perilously through the running river for a few minutes, making slow work of it. If either of us should fall into the water, the other would have a hard time reaching any help. 

When a small muddy bank opened up on the side of the river, we lumbered up. A family of four adults rounded the bushy corner and looked at us in surprise. 

"Wrong turn?" one of them asked. 

It seemed so. We had a good laugh and they sped on, seeming to alight over the rocks and mud and foliage with the ease of birds. 

With most of the river stretch being flat, my mother and I had breath enough to chat as we laboured on. She was telling me about how banana peels, when rubbed on the face, act as natural botox. I can't confirm this myself, but I can confirm my mother looks not much older than me. 

We turned around at a sudden voice. 

"Hello, Aunty," a young man said, appearing out of the bush with earpods and a FitBit. 

Well, maybe we need to re-evaluate the botox thing after all. 

"Are you doing this trail alone?" he asked. 

He sped off without an answer, running over the terrain like a man on a schedule. 

I was certain he asked it in surprise at the two of us city lasses, discussing botox, trudging our way through the wild. 

But I couldn't help but think of the debate going around on social media:

If you had a daughter who was alone in the woods, would you rather she encounter a man or a bear. 

Part 3 - The Waterfall

At two and a half hours in, we weren't at the waterfall yet. The river path continued endlessly. We hadn't even done walkathons this strenuous. We were growing tired and progress was slowing down. At every bend around the trees, we hoped to see the great cascade. At one point we thought we spotted it in the distance, but when we arrived it was just more river, and a blue tag pointed us up an impossibly sheer piece of rock. 

We started seeing familiar faces passing back our way - the family of four, the fitness man - already on their return journeys. In the time we were trundling along, others had sped to the destination and started coming back. 

It was hard not to feel like everyone was overtaking us and that we needed to walk faster, push harder - that we were not making the progress we should have been. I've felt this way in other parts of life too. 

And then, just when we weren't expecting it, it found us. As if it had been waiting for us to give up, and when we didn't, it deemed us worthy of revealing itself. 

The two sheer mountains created an enclave. The tall, cascading water formed the third wall. The waterfall, robust from the rain the night before, tumbled down several tiers of rock, so that the final drop was short. The pool at the foot of the waterfall was surprisingly shallow. It was brown with pillows of sand. But we welcomed it. We gratefully peeled off the wet socks and shoes and dipped in. We waded right into the middle. It was humbling to stand between the two towering faces of earth, in knee-deep water, like we were in the pool at the centre of the world. When the large hiking group came in, even the mass of us were dwarved by it all. Nature can make you feel you feel so breathtakingly small. 

We sat on a dirty rock and looked up into the distant sky, so far and high between the tops of the cliffs. It was nearly impossible to believe that we'd made it all the way down from the top we could hardly see. And now we'd need to tackle our way back up, a journey more demanding and perilous than descending. The destination hadn't been the waterfall. The destination would be the greater, more enduring version of ourselves we'd need to be to reach the top again. 

When we were ready, we put our wet things back on and turned to the river once more. 

Part 4 - The Return 

I'd made a terrible mistake. 

That morning, I'd put on secret socks because it matched the rest of my outfit - an all black ensemble of shoes, fitness shorts, and a sleeveless tank, topped by a cap with a large gold 'K'. The wild is not my natural habitat, as much as the urban jungle is.

The fabric of my shoes had become ingrained with gritty sand and debris. With every step, the back of my shoes chaffed my ankles painfully. And there were still three hours of the return journey to go.

Going back was not a simple retracing of our steps. Experiencing the journey from the other way was like a whole new adventure. There were different views, different challenges. Nature is not symmetry. The river stretch had been my favourite on the way, but now it was the painful prelude to the mountain. We went slowly. With my ankles burning savagely, every obstacle seemed a far more impossible task than earlier. There were points at which I had to heave my body over boulders and trees. My arms and legs were slicked with scrapes and mud top to down.

Finally, at the junction between the river and the start of the ascent we took a break. It would be the first of many. I examined my ankles, to find two angry welts at the back of them.

The first of the hiking group were returning from the waterfall. After they started up the hill, so did we.

The journey up was taxing. My mother found a superb stick to use as leverage. I continued to use my hands to scramble and create holds. We stopped to sit down often. Drips of the hiking group continued to pass us sitting semi-defeated in the mud. It didn't matter to us. By this time we'd lost all sense of comparison of our journeys. We were single-tracked about just finishing no matter how long it took us.

There were parts of the ascent where I thought I wouldn't make it. My thighs were wobbling and I swore my legs would buckle under me at any moment. I wanted to lay down in the mud and just give up. But that wasn't really an option because the singular way out of this forest was up. Nobody was coming to get me. There wasn't another choice but to continue, to keep moving the legs and arms, otherwise I would never get out. And when you have no other options, you summon dregs of strength you didn't know you had. And somehow your body keeps going. 

I believe every business person needs to go hiking. It's a lesson in endurance and battling the limitations of your own mind.

The Molweni/Beacon split sign board came into view like a welcome miracle. I thought we'd never reach it. 

Shortly behind it, we encountered a group of men. They looked young, perhaps in their early twenties. They clearly didn't know it yet from the way they were swaggering over the ground in jeans and loud T-shirts and neck chains, that they had terribly mistaken expectations of what the waterfall trail would be like. They were using colourful swear words that seemed to brighten in intensity when they passed us two lone ladies. One of them was carrying a tan leather duffel bag swinging loosely in his hand. I heard the clink of glass of glass bottles from within it. 

I thought again of the analogy about the man or the bear. 

Part 5 - The Point

We arrived back at the place where the trail crosses over a small stream with tiered rocks to form it's own mini waterfall. 

Our clothes - especially the backs of our shorts, where we'd sat straight down in the mud several times up the hill, were woven intricately with dirt. Using my palms to dust my shorts only smeared the dirt around. My hands were caked with earth. So were my arms and legs. I felt thoroughly feral. 

You couldn't have convinced me in the week before - all corporate outfits and Teams meetings - that I would be washing myself up in a stream, using the water splashing over the rock like a running faucet, during the weekend. 

Sufficiently clean, except for a few dried swirls of dirt that would require a proper shower, soap, and loofah when I got back home, we set off on the final stretch, a flat terrain back to the car part. 

We emerged through the trees into the dusty parking lot like survivors. We let out delirious laughs like we'd just escaped an ordeal. Six hours after we entered what felt like an entirely different universe - where time could not be told, and trees and rocks were the only architecture, and winding paths of water were the roads to follow - we stumbled back into the world. 

Then we drove off to Macdonalds and ordered cheeseburgers and strawberry milkshakes, and everything felt normal again. 

Sipping on my shake, I wondered - why do we humans choose to do hard, challenging things? Seriously, it would have been easier to stay home, buried in blankets, and watch a movie. We could have had Macdonalds motorbiked to us with barely the click of an app. If the strawberry milkshake was the reward we wanted at the end of it all, we could have skipped straight to it. 

But the point hadn't been the end. The point had been to experience all the journey in the middle.

Written by Keli H, author and literary artist. Quintessentially Keli is her personal editorial archive on style, authorship, art, and inspired living. More articles at keli-h.com