Posted by: Genevieve | November 12, 2014

Alutom Falls and Sigua Falls: Two Falls, One Cop Car

This is about a hike we went on about three weeks ago–we have done two repeat hikes since this one and I did not take pictures. Before I get into Alutom and Sigua, a brief re-cap:

Ben’s Falls: 25 October!  Hard,hard, hard. The same as last year, but, I must admit, it felt easier, and I was more comfortable on the calcite falls. I was an assistant leader, but there were so many other leaders on this hike, it didn’t much matter. Basically, we trekked through the jungle, up some rivers, with a lot of short waterfalls to scramble up and over. There were three main falls we climbed, each progressively harder. The final falls was a two-parter. I was up front, and made it easily up the first half of the fall. There was a large-ish flat area, where we were able to wait as the others went one by one up the larger, longer, steeper fall. It was completely made of calcite, which I’m told means “you can just walk up it.” Not quite. It was not very slick, but had a few slick spots. I gasped with fear a few times, but went slowly, and mostly relied on my upper body strength and the rope to pull myself up. I recall needing help last year to make it all the way up, and I did not need help at all this year. We’ll call that a win. I skipped the “extension” hike, which was another 2.5 hours of hiking. I think the other assigned leader was a little ticked, but frankly? My quadriceps were on fire and I was struggling. I did not want to tap out in the middle of the jungle, so I took the short cut with the others back to the cars. There were three leaders going on the extension and only one on the short cut back, so really, I was doing the right thing. Hey, I made the lemonade that day, so buzz off!

Shark’s Hole: 18 October!. We were supposed to do an on base hike, but the hiking area was closed off. I was supposed to lead the base hike solo, so I had to pick a replacement. I talked to the folks who were there to hike, and realized that they were all there to snorkel. So I picked a simple, yet beautiful hike down Tanguisson Beach to Shark’s Hole (which is basically a deep hole surrounded by coral, and has nice, but not Spanish Steps level amazing snorkeling). I led the hike all by myself, and, while people were disappointed about the base thing, realized it was not our fault and were glad to have a back up plan. My underwater camera was insufficiently charged, or I’d have pictures. I’ve been to this beach and posted about it before, so no great loss.

San Carlos Falls: 1 November! I have a few pictures and a post to do, even though this was a repeat. Stand by. Frankly, I kicked that hike’s ass. I rocked that hike.

OK.

Alutom and Lower (? Or upper? I have no idea) Sigua Falls! I quite enjoyed this hike, although it did not start off well.There was some drama about who was supposed to lead it. The assigned leader wimped out at the last minute, and the other leader was “sick,”although he slowly did the hike. They tried to make me lead, but I had never been there before, so I and another family (the husband and wife had been leaders in the past) basically figured it out as we went along.

But that is not why the hike did not start off well.

After a recent earthquake here on Guam, the main road that leads to several hiking trailheads was closed–only “local traffic” was, and still is, permitted. The road, a one way narrow twist of a thing, is quite unsafe, between the earth-quake induced landslide, and the lack of guardrails–important on a road a-top a mountain!

Most of the hikers knew this, and parked their cars in the driveway of a hiker-friendly homeowner. Some people were idiots and kept going up to the trailhead, instead of walking on the road like the rest of us. A woman who lives at the top of the trailhead, who is very hiker UN friendly, decided to call the cops. Those idiots decided to yell at her. She called the cops again. No tickets were given, but they did have to take their cars back down, resulting in them starting the hike late.

Anyways, the rest of  us got going. After a lot of steep up and downs, we ran down a dirt hill, past an abandoned cable TV tower, and across a grassy field. Eventually, we got to a small creek, which we carefully crossed. Going to the left led to Alutom Falls; the right turn led to Upper/Lower Sigua.

We went to Alutom Falls first. It was really nice–no ropes, nothing too dangerous. We arrived at the of the falls, approaching from the “pool” side–as opposed to from behind where the water was actually falling. Some people jumped, but I do not like doing that, because it is hard to see without my glasses, and kind of scary, as a result (also, I don’t trust that there are not rocks, fishes, or other bad things in there!). However, I did go and sit underneath the water fall for a while, and it was very relaxing, hearing nothing but the rush of water, blinded by the water streaming down my baseball cap brim into my eyes, and feeling the rush of the cold falling water pounding on my back and shoulders. I could have sat there all day.

But alas, that was not to be. Instead, we got a little confused and disorganized. Some people were arriving quite late to Alutom Falls, because they had had the police called on them. Another group had left before my group, and was leaving Alutom when we got there. It was a mess! But whatever, the early group knew what they were doing, and the late group had their own leader, so the leaders, Joe and Sarah, and I, wrangled our little group together, pulled ourselves up the slippery, muddy, slick, steep hill we’d slid down, butt first, to get to the falls, caught our breath, and marched on to Upper Sigua Falls.

The trail to Upper Sigua was quite simple, although difficult to spot at first. It had rained some while we were hiking, so the trail was rather slick. I did not fall down this time, though. We walked down a fern lined trail,reaching the rope down to the falls. This was not fun, although an infinitely easier and shorter rope climb than Lower Sigua Falls (where I broke my nose). I grabbed the rope, and carefully climbed down, reaching the pool side of the falls. There was some short exploring to be done down the river, away from the falls, but not much to actually see. The falls were very nice. They are quite high, so no jumping can be done. But, they extend out sufficiently far from the rocky mountain face itself, that a small cave has formed behind the falling water. The brave can dash through the pounding water, and dunk themselves in a secret pool behind teh falls, which is quite fun to do.

After that, there was more dissent. One leader insisted on taking some other, random way, that added several hours to the hike for no real reason. I’d been told by two trusted leaders that we were ABSOLUTELY supposed to go back EXACTLY the way we had come from. After some discussion, I grew tired of this other leader. My friend Laura, her husband, sister-in-law, and I announced that we were going back the way we had come, and anyone who wanted to join us was welcome. Three others did. The rest decided to go the longer way. (Of our small group, it should be noted. By this point, the hikers were in approximately four groups–the very early group, who were god only knows where; my group; the group gonig the long way; and a group who had stayed at teh junction of Alutom and Sigua Falls, declining to go all the way down to Sigua–it turnedo ut that they just went back to the cars, instead of waiting for us to return from Sigua).

OK. So. That hike back SUCKED. The climb up from Upper Sigua Falls was very difficult, even with the rope. I have learned the secret, though, to climbing up with a rope (I still don’t know how to go down safely with a rope, unless that rope has big knots on it!). It’s all upper body. Forget your legs. They are there only to steady you. Put no weight on your legs, lean backwards, and put everything you have into your arms. It also helps to make faces, and perhaps to make small sounds from exertion. “GRRRR!” usually works, if you are also grimacing. Seriously, that’s how I got myself up. I was the first one on the rope, and did an excellent job, if I do say so myself.

After that, we were still not done with the hard parts! We carefully stepped our way across some minor hills and ridges, keeping an eye out for the Cable TV tower we had stopped at when we first set out on our adventure. It was pretty easy to find. The hiking? Not so much. Our little group was going relatively slowly, and stopped three times just to sprawl out in the dirt from exhaustion. Literally. The hike that was so simple and nice going slowly and gently downhill turned into a steep, slow, quadricep burning, ascent from hell. Or into hell? I don’t know. We kept going up.

There was one final dirt hill at the very end of the hard part. It was rough. The ground was dry, but there was not much to hang onto. It was a matter of just taking giant steps and pushing yourself up with whatever strength was left in your legs. Whew. When we were done, and finally by the tower, we collapsed in celebration.

Premature celebration.

See, that was not the end of the hike. We had about another ten minutes of hiking on a flat trail to get to the trailhead–where we would have parked, were the road not closed. Once we got there, we realized that we then had to walk about twenty, twenty-five minutes, to where three of our cars were parked, which is where the lemonate was.

Now, none of the hikers in our group owned any of those three cars. Those were the three we had carpooled in from where everyone parked, since the homeowner only had room for three cars in her driveway.

We did not feel too despondent though, and enjoyed walking down the road. It was a good group of people, and my friend Laura’s last hike before she moved back to Seoul, so we tried to make it last longer than we would have normally, chatting about any and everything. Once we made it to the lemonade, we perched in the homeowners driveway, sipping contentedly at cold lemonade. We waited about twenty minutes, then realized that no one else was coming. The one leader who had returned early wanted to wait by the lemonade, to ensure people were safe as they completed the hike. We decided to walk the remaining twenty minutes down the road, to our waiting cars.

Once there, I unlocked my car, cranked the air conditioning, and drove home. I then spent the remainder of the afternoon snuggled up on my couch, wondering why I hate my quadriceps so much, that I work them so hard every weekend. Owie.

Here are some pictures! A few are from the official group page, and I have credited accordingly.

 

This next gallery is from the official photographer. I’m not sure who all the people are sitting with me, Laura, Laura’s husband (I believe the young lady in yellow is his sister though) and Roger…they kind of just followed us out of the jungle, disappeared, then re-appeared later on. I quickly abandoned them to walk to my car.

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