Previous :: Next Topic |
Author |
Message |
GranolaGirl Member
Joined: 15 Oct 2007 Posts: 159 | TRs | Pics Location: Forest |
It was dark out, salty, midnight at Kalaloch Lodge. My friend and I decided to go for a night hike along the sandy unicorn shores of the ocean because we’re bad ass raging female beasts. The stars were burning into our souls and the wind blew thru our hair and made us look like we were models- as long as you didn’t look at my face.
I backpack and hike on the ocean all the time. More times than I can count. To say I was complacent was an under statement. But this was an easy walk... We hiked probably 3/4-1 mile along the beach. I was wearing my huge red hunter rain boots (it was a short hike and I was feelin fly). I was jumping in puddles like a 5 year old and singing the little mermaid letting the frothy white waves rush and swirl around my boots (ok whiskey may have been involved).
By the time we turned around, the tide had eaten up the beach all the way to the piles of abused logs the ocean had thrown up and forgotten along the sides. A wave was coming, I could hear it! “I’m not gonna get wet cause I have my f*ckin awesome boots, mother f YEAH!” I’m thinking. We couldn’t see the beast because it was so dark. In fact you couldn’t see where the dark sky and the ocean ended and began- but I braced myself in my hipster boots for a small wave to swirl around them and I could again sing my mermaid tunes and wait for prince Erik. But prince Erik didn’t come. Instead- A large very powerful wave slammed into us picking up a big KILLER BEACH LOG and throwing it into me. Before I knew what was happening I was flying threw the air over the log into the dark salty swirling ocean. I threw my arms out (Did I mention that I was hiking with a healing broken collar bone? 😂) and into the churning waters of death I was thrown.
I pulled my head up as the water pulled me out to create another wave. I tried digging my hands into the sand below but I couldn’t fight the pull. This wave had been working out. My friend couldn’t find me in the water. The swell was so hard I couldn’t stand, I looked up as a big wave 3 feet above my head raced toward me planning on destroying my perfect makeup. Important.
I swirled around in the water in horror to see the KILLER BEACH LOG being drug out toward the sea behind me headed right toward me, preparing to pin me to my watery grave. It was as if I was being flushed along side of a big turd in the toilet of life. I tried to stand, my puffy, boots and pants full of water. It was either the wave or the log and I wasn’t having either-
Not today Satan.
I pulled myself up with my female hairy chested beast strength on my good and bad arms with all my might and was able to stand up in the churning water and logs of fury. I pulled against the tide and was able to half drag my body out of the ocean onto the beach. All my layers full of water and sand I looked like a beached haggered starfish. With red rain boots. Full of water. I was able to get back to the lodge and not freeze to death (apparently starfish are pretty resilient). Lesson learned, every hike is the first hike, no matter how frik’n easy, NEVER be complacent because you might die and...oh yeah-water proof mascara doesn’t work.
#grownasswoman
|
Back to top |
|
|
Gregory Member
Joined: 08 Mar 2014 Posts: 386 | TRs | Pics
|
|
Gregory
Member
|
Tue Jan 23, 2018 7:52 am
|
|
|
I was expecting to hear you were ducking behind a beach log to take a quick pee...happy you made it out all right!
|
Back to top |
|
|
DIYSteve seeking hygge
Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 12655 | TRs | Pics Location: here now |
|
DIYSteve
seeking hygge
|
Tue Jan 23, 2018 8:29 am
|
|
|
nicely played
|
Back to top |
|
|
Jim Dockery Member
Joined: 12 Sep 2007 Posts: 3092 | TRs | Pics Location: Lake Stevens |
Yowzers! Glad you're here to tell the hilarious/terrifying tale
|
Back to top |
|
|
Stefan Member
Joined: 17 Dec 2001 Posts: 5093 | TRs | Pics
|
|
Stefan
Member
|
Tue Jan 23, 2018 10:32 am
|
|
|
GranolaGirl wrote: | toward me planning on destroying my perfect makeup. Important. |
You go girl. Glam it up!
Take that Maybeline!
|
Back to top |
|
|
lookout bob WTA proponent.....
Joined: 12 Apr 2005 Posts: 3047 | TRs | Pics Location: wta work while in between lookouts |
|
lookout bob
WTA proponent.....
|
Tue Jan 23, 2018 10:43 am
|
|
|
thankfully, you still have your bitchin' boots......
"Altitude is its own reward"
John Jerome ( from "On Mountains")
"Altitude is its own reward"
John Jerome ( from "On Mountains")
|
Back to top |
|
|
Pyrites Member
Joined: 16 Sep 2014 Posts: 1884 | TRs | Pics Location: South Sound |
|
Pyrites
Member
|
Tue Jan 23, 2018 10:51 am
|
|
|
Yipes!
Keep Calm and Carry On?
Heck No.
Stay Excited and Get Outside!
Keep Calm and Carry On?
Heck No.
Stay Excited and Get Outside!
|
Back to top |
|
|
Nancyann Member
Joined: 28 Jul 2013 Posts: 2322 | TRs | Pics Location: Sultan Basin |
|
Nancyann
Member
|
Tue Jan 23, 2018 11:52 am
|
|
|
Glad you made it through ok, GG!
|
Back to top |
|
|
Schroder Member
Joined: 26 Oct 2007 Posts: 6723 | TRs | Pics Location: on the beach |
|
Schroder
Member
|
Tue Jan 23, 2018 11:57 am
|
|
|
Wow! Lesson learned. Glad to hear you're okay.
|
Back to top |
|
|
Ancient Ambler Member
Joined: 15 May 2007 Posts: 1092 | TRs | Pics Location: Bainbridge Island |
So glad to read how you defeated Satan and his nefarious attempts to do you in with a rogue wave and a Killer Beach Log at Kalaloch beach. Not only did you prevail over the Forces of Evil, you also broke through your TR-writer's block and gifted us with a long-awaited and superbly witty TR on your outdoor adventures. Hope there's lots more to come.
|
Back to top |
|
|
Hiker Mama Member
Joined: 25 Jun 2006 Posts: 3451 | TRs | Pics Location: Lynnwood |
That sounds totally terrifying. I'm really glad you came out of it OK. How in the world did you manage to hang onto those boots?
|
Back to top |
|
|
DigitalJanitor Dirt hippie
Joined: 20 May 2012 Posts: 792 | TRs | Pics
|
Rock on, my semi-aquatic red booted sister. Rock on.
|
Back to top |
|
|
Sculpin Member
Joined: 23 Apr 2015 Posts: 1377 | TRs | Pics
|
|
Sculpin
Member
|
Tue Jan 23, 2018 6:20 pm
|
|
|
The mind boggles at the incomprehensible odds against three major perturbations in the space-time continuum - a rogue wave, a killer beach log, and granola girl - co-existing at the same time in the same location.
Between every two pines is a doorway to the new world. - John Muir
Between every two pines is a doorway to the new world. - John Muir
|
Back to top |
|
|
puzzlr Mid Fork Rocks
Joined: 13 Feb 2007 Posts: 7220 | TRs | Pics Location: Stuck in the middle |
|
puzzlr
Mid Fork Rocks
|
Tue Jan 23, 2018 9:27 pm
|
|
|
That's scary. There are important things to learn about the beach and waves, which I did not learn until much later in life than you are now. Here is a photo that makes me shudder. We let our young children play behind a beach log on Rialto Beach and they loved it when a big wave would splash over the log on them. Parents -- do not do this!!! One slightly larger wave could have lifted that log and dropped it right on one of them.
1995 Rialto Beach
|
Back to top |
|
|
Malachai Constant Member
Joined: 13 Jan 2002 Posts: 16098 | TRs | Pics Location: Back Again Like A Bad Penny |
My sister in law was almost finished off by a beach log just like the sceen in Sometimes a Great Notion.
"You do not laugh when you look at the mountains, or when you look at the sea." Lafcadio Hearn
"You do not laugh when you look at the mountains, or when you look at the sea." Lafcadio Hearn
|
Back to top |
|
|
|