Two weekends ago a friend and I hiked to a wondrous section of the Johns Brook, a boulder strewn Adirondack mountain brook that flows into the Ausable River in the Keene Valley. Our destination was a section known as the “Devil Slides,” a run of waterfalls, pools, and flumes about three hundred yards long culminating in a chute similar to a log flume. The river lines up east-west and the smooth and beautifully undulating rock surfaces heat up nicely so that by lunch time you can begin to explore the different sections of the water course by jumping in the icy water, knowing that there is a warmed stone surface awaiting you that matches the curvature of your body. Dive, swim, lie down, warm up, and repeat.
I had not hiked the South Trail of the Brook in several years, evidently since the devastating Tropical Storm Irene of August, 2011. At the beginning of the trailhead was a sign announcing the trail was officially closed and not maintained. Twenty minutes in we arrived at a crossing spot and were amazed to see erosion along the banks rising up perhaps one hundred feet from water level. Huge boulders had been thrust that high. It truly appeared as if bombs had been dropped. It is illegal now to maintain the original ADK markers placed on the bark of trees. The land has been designated a “forever wild” status.
There is enough regular use of the trail by hikers (some have built rock cairns at key points), that you can make your way fairly easily. There are, however, numerous places where you have to find your way the best you can. Gone are the small log steps and bridges because soils were either scoured away or the hillside completely reshaped.
There had been heavy morning rain and the footing was difficult. We took our time and in about an hour and fifteen minutes arrived at the slides and noticed, with great relief, no significant storm damage. It was a spectacularly beautiful summer day and we took full advantage.
We departed after about four hours of fun. Thunderstorms were in the afternoon forecast which we hoped to avoid.
Ten minutes out we came to a bushwack section of steep hillside. I was relying often on tree branches and exposed roots to get me by where the dripping moss underfoot could be treacherous. I grabbed hold of a root and felt it release from the soil and then…
My hiking buddy, Joe, several steps behind, didn’t see me at the moment I fell. He glanced over to where he expected me to be and instead heard two lethal sounding thuds.
My drop was about twenty two feet onto a rock that jutted from the water’s edge. At the moment of impact I experienced crepitus as four ribs broke and my right lung was punctured, a sensation described as feeling like rice krispies in the chest. At the same time my iliac crest was fractured (the curved superior border of the ilium, the largest of the three bones that merge to form the os coxa, or hip bone“), my left big toe broken, and right wrist and fingers sprained.
(The photo, taken days later in the hospital, shows the chest tube that passed through my ribs to help reinflate the lung.)
The next impact on a lower rock lacerated the top of my head.
Then I landed in the brook a few feet from shore.
I rose from the shallow water in shock, aware that my life probably depended on being able to climb up to a flat surface beyond the irregular stones in front of me, to a place where I could lie and await help. Blood streamed into my eyes and sprayed my hands as I clambered upward for about twenty feet to a good sized flat rock with a gentle slope. I positioned my body with my head on the upward slope and lay on my back.
Joe’s calm and deliberate voice followed immediately and we discussed the situation. We were out of cell phone range and he needed to hike back for help. He bunched a towel and pressed it against the top of my head and placed a rain parka over my chest. I asked him to snap a picture before he left.
We both understood that it would be two hours or more before he would return.
Those two hours were a constant struggle to stay conscious and to focus my mental energies to keep my core warm. Four separate thunderstorms rolled through and soaked me to the bone. What I dreaded was succumbing to hypothermia. I called upon the love and support of family and friends. Little by little my digits and limbs began to tremble, and then shake, but I kept a fire going inside.
Joe hiked back to the “garden”, an area with multiple trail heads where we’d parked. He was still out of cell phone range but found that in the ticket collector’s booth there was a land line made available for just such situations as ours. He called 911 and they transferred him to the Department of Environmental Conservation who put him in touch with a park ranger living near by. Jim (I forget the names of the many great folks involved in my rescue) made calls to several people and arranged for two ATVs, and he and Joe hiked back. You’d better believe their voices sounded angelic to me! Jim had with him a heavy coat to place over me as well as a shot he administered to ward off nausea. It was very fortunate that there is a road that parallels the South Trail by which atvs in the summer and snowmobiles in the winter take supplies to the Adirondak Loj several miles past the slides. After a time the crews appeared. I was strapped to a board and carried by hand for twenty five minutes and then tied to an atv. It was a long crawl out of the woods until joining an ambulance around 10 p.m. Then to an emergency room in nearby Elizabethtown where I had ct scans and my head stitched up. Finally, the ambulance delivered me to the trauma unit at Albany Medical Center at 4 a.m.
I am truly lucky to have survived my fall in the woods. A few inches or angles either way could have killed me outright or paralyzed and maimed me. I am luckier still to live in a world with people who devote their lives to the rescue and care of others. Thanks to all.
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