The De-Tour: Day 5 — They survived only by killer instinct
September 21, 2017.
For those of us that awoke to the pitter-patter of rain at 1:30am, our weather-contentment from the night before was short-lived. For everyone else…ok, there was no one else.
We waited for the rain to slow before getting up the next morning — even Ben and I getting up a couple hours later than usual, at 9:30. But, eventually we realized that it wasn’t going to stop, so we tumbled down our ladders and got to breaking camp. Oh, and Mike started the only real “breakfast” of the morning, …which was warm by lunch.
It was at this point that we were all eying Ben and Kristen’s tent. The new-fangled pop-up variety, it looked a bit goofy on the truck, but it put away quickly, and stayed a whole lot drier than the rest of our RTTs.
Still not sure any of us would have traded though. Hahaha!
As we headed back up the Pryor’s, the going was nothing like the previous day. Dry, dusty trails had turned to mud, and warnings of slick sections were frequent. In fact, as we entered the tree line, Monte popped out of his truck to tell each of us in person to be careful — “This part gets off camber and if you slip into the trees I don’t think we’re getting you out.”
Right, “Thanks Monte!” At that point we were are all careful, and we didn’t lose anyone. At that point.
We continued on for a bit, only to hear Monte — over the radio this time — with two phrases that just didn’t seem to go together…
Monte — 11:33 — “That was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done in my life!” Group -
Monte — 11:34 — “The edge is about to give out, but you guys should follow, I’m going to go get my Muck Boots on.”
Right.
Most of us got out of our trucks. But not Zane. Zane started to follow. And then, he lost traction in the mud and started to slide off the edge. Or rather, the edge started to slide down the hill. He stopped.
We realized pretty quickly…
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Originally published at adventuretaco.com.
