Day 20 – Adventure extreme

Yesterday there was no adventure to be had. Today we had to much adventure and I might not recover from this one for a few days.

First let’s start with the happy rainbow of the morning.

Mike said let’s hike Trafalgar Falls today. You all know how this is going to end right?

He tells me we will need to hire a guide when we get there, because climbing up to the base of the waterfall can be tricky. Ok that is a level of safety I like.

These falls are famous, cruise ship people are brought here to see them, maybe some adventurous souls even do the hike. I see the pictures. I’ve climbed over boulders before, no problem. These are what Father and Mother falls should look like.

See those rocks at the base of the left falls? Not a problem to climb up. I can do that.

We get there the falls (known as Mother and Father) are raging. The falls are fed by the Fresh Water Lake that the hydro electric company diverts some for power. However they stopped diverting some of the water and it came to the falls. Guide says we can go up to the pool and hot springs at the base. It might be a little tricky, but we can do it.

Well there aren’t many bare rocks to scramble on, but ok.

The rocks are so slippery but Ashton the guide is strong as anything, pulls me up in spots while Mike shoves me up from behind. My short legs are stretched to the max. And let’s be real my legs are shaking as I was a bit scared.

We get to a point where Ashton looks at me and said sit here, you are not going any further. He takes Mike up to the hot springs. They don’t stay long as Ashton notices more water is pouring out from the top.

When the guys came down, Ashton snapped a photo of us.

It was time to head down. We basically have to slide on our butts down, no more stepping because the water is getting more powerful.

3/4 of the way down, another guide standing on the viewing platform, starts waving his arms telling us to get up higher and move fast. Ashton kept yelling move, faster, faster, come, come. We had to climb up on the side of the muddy bank bushwhacking to make it back to the platform.

The guide that was watching said the only thing that saved us was the fact no one panicked and we all hustled.

I cried when we made it back. A local woman was there and dragged me into a hug, she watched it all and prayed for us to live.

The dam had sent a burst out and none of them had ever seen anything like it.

Here are the falls. The photo on the left is when we started the hike, the photo on the right is how the falls were going when we came down. The rocks are covered with powerful water.