Intere-sting Afternoon

It started out innocent enough...
Nicki and I went down to Lake Whatcom to spend the afternoon playing in the water. We played Frisbee in the water, very fun by the way, swam around, sat in the sun and ate dinner out in the water on a log. Pretty docile few hours. We then spent a few min. climbing around up the rocks at the waterfall, ran into, Elliott there and headed back to the parking lot to meet up with Kristi and her brother. Elliott, as usual, had every waking minute booked so he had to leave but we changed clothes and waited for the others. So far so good.

For a complete description of everyone involved in this ill-fated adventure please see Kristi's blog.

Kristi, Kelsey, Josiah and Ethan showed up and we started off down the trail back to the waterfall area where Nicki, Elliott and I had already been. The trail was up the side of the hill climbing roots, vertical dirt banks clinging onto branches and roots, etc. Once we got to the top of the hill we went off the trail and climbed over the edge onto the rocks at the top of the waterfall. Now you must understand these are not just normal rocks but rather steep rock faces such as this one:


My shoes were pretty good and gripped well so I had no problems but not everyone was so lucky. Several people spent much of their time at this point on their behinds but no pants were ripped so all was well. At this point it became clear that Ethan and I were going to be vital to holding this group together. Ethan was often in front while I brought up the rear offering encouragement and giving needed pushes from behind. Both of us went on reconnaissance missions as well to see what was coming next.

We forged on until we came to a beautiful pool with only two ways of proceeding beyond...up the log or across a slippery rock face.



Kristi led by example and up the log we went. Once we got up the log we did some more climbing around but the options past that for this group were limited so we turned back and were then faced with climbing the log again. I stood in the water at about the half way point of the log, checking regularly for leeches that Kristi had suggested might be present, to help the others down especially as they reached the bottom of the log which was very slippery. I am happy to report that no one fell in though I wondered if we would have a prefect track record as Kristi teatered on the log laughing hysterically after Ethan threw a large rock in the pool in an atempt to get Josiah wet and made her loose her concentration. Between Kelsey and I we able to hold her on the log and get her down without incident. She was preserved for even more dramatic events soon to unfold.

Dusk was starting to fall so we hurried on and it was decided to take a slightly different way out. Since this was Kristi's special place, somewhere she had been on many previous occasions by herself we all trusted her to lead us out quickly and easily. Was this a mistake???? You judge for yourself.

The plan was to scramble across this rock face, and climb back up to the trail at the base of the tree in the top middle of the picture.


Everything was going according to plan. Kristi led the way and had just assended the base of the tree when the calm evening air was shattered with the sounds of hysterical screaming and the sight that met our eyes defies descriptions in words. Kristi was screaching about something in her hair, she was grabbing her head and flinging her hair around wildly. Ethan offered her a comb and I tried to get her to stop and use the comb. She calmed down and we all suggested it might be one of those bitting flies that we had been encountering the entire evening. Just when we thought it was over, she started again. After the second or third time she flung the comb and a hair clip at Ethan, said something about them being after her and took off down the trail. Ethan went next and was fine, then Josiah went as was also fine but when Kelsey went she said something about getting bit and took off too. She was rather anti climactic compared to Kristi I must say. That left Nicki and I. I still wasn't sure what was going on...it was all happening so fast. Nicki got over the tree roots and then cried out when something bit her finger and began to loose her focus. Ethan was in front of her helping her and I came behind trying to get her to refocus and see that she needed to adjust her course a little to get out of the area. At that moment I realized what the problem was!

There was a nest of wild bees and I was actually hanging over it while I tried to helped Nicki. I was so busy swating them away from her that I failed to be fast enough to save myself from recieveing a sting on the ankle. Poor thing, I was swating, shoving her from behind and try and to get her to listen to me and not panic all at the same time while Ethan was trying to help pull her up from the front. We managed to get out in short order and then regrouped farther down the trail. A couple of minutes later Nicki started to cry and grab at her underarm. I flng her shirt up and grabbed one out of there that had flown up her shirt sometime during the mayhem of the previous minutes. In the aftermath we compared our wounds:
Kristi - a sting on her head somewhere and one on her hand.
Kelsey - one on her upper arm.
Crystal - one on my ankle.
Nicki - one on her finger and under her arm.
The boys - Zero! They escaped with nothing...what is up with that??? In this case I will cry unfair discrimination!
The walk back to the car was filled with much laughter and assessment of the recent events. I am afraid that at times we were rather loud and I must work on my voice volume when I find myself in such an uproarious mood but the images of Kristi, the wild woman of the woods, were too vivid and fresh to not cause some reaction!

This was the first time Nicki has ever been out with me on such an adventure with my friends and I must say she made me proud. She was such a trooper and never gave up. She scrambled, climbed and slid along with everyone and in fact enouraged us all along the way to view our challenges as blessings in disguise and to pretend we were like Christian in Pilgrim's Progress, climbing the hill difficulty. She didn't even scream when she had the bee up her shirt...that was impressive. At one point when Kristi complimented her on some advice that she had just shared she told Kristi that it was advice I had given her and I was very wise and full of good advice that Kristi should listen to. That seriously made me laugh.

We put charcoal on our stings when we got home and took some panothenic acid and by Saturday morning Nicki's stings were pretty much all better. I am not sure about Kristi and Kelsey but saddly I was not so lucky. I had some strange reactions, like my sense of smell being effected and my poor foot and ankle. My left foot, that I generally consider kind of cute, as far as feet go, is no longer cute. It instead sort of resembles a large Polish sausage and it is very stiff and sore.

Today my plans include time on the couch watching movies with my foot up and iced!

So do I have regrets??? Am I sorry I went??? My regret is that I didn't catch on to the situation sooner so as to put everyone in reverse and find another way out. I also feel a little bad that we stood there trying to convince Kristi that she was getting bit by flies and laughing at her wild eyed behavior when we should have been a little more preceptive and understanding.
Am I sorry I went? Definetly not. The memories are priceless, the adventure was fun and I hope we can go back again soon with a rope that will allow us to go up the hill even farther, we just won't be taking quite the same route! Who wants to come with us???