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The expedition followed Grey’s
recommended route as closely as possible.
For the first few days they made good
speed. Most of the route mapped
out by Grey followed high ground and made walking
easy. They were able to avoid
swampy areas and wild tangles of vegetation that would have turned their
trek into a nightmare. Much of
the area through which they traveled was only sparsely
populated. Here and there they
saw signs of human habitation, but villages were few and far between, and
those they encountered were small in
size. The terrain was fairly
rugged and covered with dense forests.
It was difficult to believe that there was anything of significance
in this part of
On the fifth day their route took them into higher
ground. Now the terrain became
very rugged indeed. Their chosen
path took them along the crest of a
ridge. Deep vegetation-filled
canyons ran off from the ridge in all
directions. Larra now saw how
crucial Grey’s information had been.
The natural inclination of most explorers would have been to follow
the valleys into the region, searching for a
pass. That would have led to
months and months of fruitless hacking and slashing though dense
jungle. It appeared to Larra
that the deep canyons were, in fact,
impassable. By taking the high
ground they were able to avoid the worst of the terrain and
vegetation.
They followed the rugged ridges for four more
days. Late on the fourth day
the ridge ended in a sheer wall dissected by four
canyons. Here Grey’s
instructions failed them. He
had not said anything about having to make a choice between four
canyons. With about only an hour
of daylight left the expedition made
camp. The four women explored
the area near the mouth of the canyons.
What struck Larra and the others about the region was that most of
the vegetation was denser than what they had been traveling through, and
that numerous large boulders which had fallen from the cliffs were scattered
about the area.
“It looks,” said Larra, as the four women sat around the evening
campfire, “as if there has been a fairly severe earthquake in this region
quite recently. That would account
for the relatively immature state of the forest and the piles of stone
rubble. The problem that it creates
for us is that we now have to figure out which one of the canyons in front
of us leads to our destination.”
“We could split up,” suggested
Katie. “Each one of us takes
a canyon and explores it for a few hours or so and then comes back to this
camp and reports on what she has
found.”
“That would save time,” agreed Larra, “But it would expose
us to risk. I suggest that we
agree to only go a short distance and then report
back. Otherwise, if any of us
encounters difficulty we will not have anyone to back us
up.”
The four women agreed to Larra’s
plan. Each would select a canyon
and reconnoiter for two hours. Then
all of them would turn back to the camp and report what they had
found. Anyone encountering any
difficulty or danger would immediately turn back and enlist the help of the
others before attempting to proceed.
The next morning their reconnaissance got under
way. Larra chose the canyon farthest
to the south. For the first hour
or so, it was fairly tough going.
Then the canyon opened out.
The sides of the canyon were so high that most of the floor was
continually shaded. As a result
there was less vegetation to impede her
progress. The ground also was
less rugged and so for awhile she made good
progress. Then she came to an
impressive barrier. It was a
deep cleft right across the center of the
canyon. It was about thirty feet
wide and several hundred feet deep.
In addition, the far side of the chasm was about twenty feet higher
than the side she was on. It
was time to turn back. She
would need help to cross such an
obstacle.
Larra glanced at her watch. She
still had about forty-five minutes left before she was supposed to begin
her return. Perhaps there would
be time to find a way across the gap.
The canyon was about two or three hundred feet across at the point
where the chasm intersected it, and as far as Larra could tell the deep cleft
in the ground went right the way across.
Still, she had time to take a good look, so she walked across the
canyon floor, looking for a place where she might cross the chasm
safely.
She found such a place near the north edge of the
canyon. A large tree had fallen
into chasm, but because of its size it had dropped only a few feet before
becoming wedged in the gap. It
provided a natural bridge to the other
side. All Larra had to do was
make her way across the trunk to the far edge of the chasm and then make
a thirty-foot climb to the top. It
should offer little challenge for someone as fit as she
was.
Even as she worked out the details, Larra swung into
action. She clambered onto the
trunk of the fallen tree and then tightrope walked her way across the
trunk. The tree was over a foot
wide at its narrowest point so this should have been fairly easy, except
for one thing. In her eagerness
and overconfidence she had overlooked the fact that the tree might shift
beneath her weight, and that was just what it
did.
She was about two-thirds of the way across when the log rolled beneath her
feet. It caught her totally off-guard
and she almost fell into the chasm.
Only her karate-trained reflexes enabled her to regain her
balance. As the tree trunk rolled
beneath her, she scrambled desperately and managed to get to a narrow ledge
on the far side of the chasm just as the tree broke free and dropped into
the abyss below. She was
trapped. There was no way for
her to return the way she had come.
She was now committed to climbing the wall of the canyon in order
to get to safe ground.
Once again, this should have been as easy task, but she had not reckoned
on a large boulder coming loose at an inopportune
moment. She had climbed about
ten feet up the chasm wall when the chunk of stone broke
free. It just missed her head
as it fell into the chasm, striking her left shoulder a glancing blow as
it passed by. The impact almost
knocked her into the canyon and left her arm hanging uselessly by her
side. It had been a near thing,
but fate had spared her.
And so she
found herself siting on a narrow ledge, perched above a frighteningly deep
chasm with one arm hanging uselessly at her
side.
She debated what she should do.
She could sit here and wait for the other women to show
up. They would come looking for
her when she did not return. She
could also try to climb to the top of the chasm
wall. It was only about 15 feet
higher than her head, and there seemed to be plenty of hand and foot
holds. Perhaps she should chance
it...
She ran the options through her mind.
Climbing up with just one arm would be difficult and
dangerous. On the other hand,
she was not due back for two hours.
Since no one would bother to look for her until it became obvious
that she was late, it would be at least three hours before anyone came to
look for her. It would take a
search party about two hours more to reach her present
location. That meant she would
have to sit on the narrow ledge for a total of at least five hours before
any rescue party showed up. She
frowned. She really didn’t
want to sit for five hours with her legs dangling over the edge of an abyss,
not when a much more secure perch was only a few feet
away.
Slowly she dragged herself to her feet.
As she had observed, there were plenty of
handholds. She should be able
to make her way to the top even with only one good
arm. She took her pack off and
set it beside her. There was
a length of rope in the pack and she could use that to pull the pack up after
her once she gained the top of the cliff
She reached up with her good right arm, hooking her fingers into a solid
handhold. Then she lifted her
left leg and fitted her boot into an indentation in the cliff
face. She pushed up and lifted
herself two feet farther up the cliff.
The slope near the top was less sheer, so that she was able to climb
quite easily. It took her only
about a minute to work her way to within a foot of the
top.
“Almost there,” she thought.
“One more step
up.” He hand closed over
a knob-like rock projection on the rim.
She let her weight shift onto it as she pushed with her legs to pull
herself over the top. Without
warning the rock under her hand gave way.
She began to toppled backwards away from
the cliff face. Reacting quickly,
Larra yanked her feet from their toeholds allowing her body to drop straight
down. As she fell she thrust
her fingers into a small crevice in the
cliff. She swung dizzyingly above
the abyss, her feet dangling above
emptiness. All of her body weight
was on the four fingers of her right
hand. If she lost her grip she
would fall to her death. She
probed with her feet trying to find some sort of support in the cliff wall,
but she could find nothing. Her
feet scrabbled desperately against the smooth cliff face, as her fingers
slowly began to slip from the crevice.
She was going to fall!
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