San Carlos Falls

Ah, good old San Carlos Falls…a hike that I remembered as being WAY WAY WAY A LOT easier than it actually was. Turns out, I was confusing San Carlos with some other hike.

Or maybe it was just that we got lost.

Maybe that.

I wasn’t leading.

Just…putting that out there.

Ok. SO. This hike was the last Saturday in October, and was pretty good. Minus the whole “getting lost while on a paved road” part.

What happened was, the start of this hike is actually on a paved road. We got that part right. It’s pretty easy, except that you must know where to turn off to get to the actual hike part. The two assigned leaders were so busy gossiping, that they missed the turn. Once they realized we were lost (because we got to the edge of a mountain and ran out of places to go), the leaders gave us two options. We could go with Ed on a path he thought he could cut out or push through, or we could go with Mark, and just hoof it down the road back to the turn off. I opted to hoof it, which was maybe a mistake. The trail blazers got to the turn off before us, AND, even worse, our twenty minute (yeah, I know) detour was about 30 minutes back–because it was all uphill, on blazing hot asphalt. Ooof.

There was no excuse for being lost, honestly. Once we got to the turn-off point, we noticed that it was marked with a neon pink trail blaze. Hiss, hiss.

After that bit of pleasantness, we started the actual hike. It wasn’t so bad….ok, well, there was a lot of uphill climbing, and, even worse, RIVER WALKING. Oh, how I hate river walking. River walking is the worst. Slogging through knee high water that only gets murkier as more people pass through it, uneven rocks paving the river bed… moss everywhere. Gross.

There was a big steep drop before we got to San Carlos Falls itself. I jumped in the water, but you cannot jump off San Carlos Falls. Fine by me. I did most excellently on the ropes, so I didn’t much care. After cooling down, we did that dreaded river walking… and arrived at a second swim hole and smaller falls.

Last year, I actually jumped off that falls. It was OK, but nothing I needed to do again. I instead perched on the edge, dangling my feet in the falling water, and petting someone’s dog who had come along and was afraid of the waterfall’s edge. (the dog owner was swimming, having jumped off the water fall–the dog was understandably concerned by this!). I really like this fall–the water is a beautiful turquoise, cold, and easy to get into and out of.

After some time, the assigned leaders announced that there were, yet again, two options. People could go up the Lonfit River, and visit yet another swim hole, or just take a short cut out and be done. Even though I was not a leader, for reasons beyond me, I was conscripted into leading the short cut out (there were two leaders assigned already to do that part…but they both tend to stick to the back of the pack when leading, so maybe the other two main leaders wanted someone up front? I do not know.). I did not know the short cut. Here are the directions I got from Ed:

“Go up that steep hill right there (Ed. Note: It was not steep. It was sheer.). Stay to the right and follow the trail. You’ll find a point where you want to go to the left. But don’t give in! Go to the right. The trail will re-appear. You’ll see the antennas at that point, which is where you want to go, because that’s where the paved road starts. Easy.”

Um. Sure. If you say so. After yanking a few people up that sheer, dusty, dirty, ropeless hill, it was actually pretty easy to see the trail. I pushed/bullied the assigned leader for this short cut to come up front for once, and help me scout the trail. We got everyone back safely, no injuries. So I’ll call that a win. It was rough hiking out, as it was all uphill, in relentless heat, but once we saw the antenna, we felt a lot better. I guess “stay to the right” is valuable advice.

I skipped the hike the following weekend, as it was rated “triple difficult.” I heard it was quite a doozy, but even were it not, I’m glad I did not go. Someone broke their ankle doing something stupid–a back flip off a water fall. They then had to be carried out of the jungle. Rumor on the street (well, from Ed) is that the leaders did not get home until 6pm that day. I think I’m glad I spent the day snorkeling at the beach!

Although, I did get attacked by a trigger fish…but that’s another blog post…

I thought I took pictures, but it turns out my waterproof camera ran out of space…so I don’t have any of the pictures I thought I was taking. Here are a few I stole from the official website; I posted them earlier and I didn’t label them clearly as San Carlos Falls photos. The falls haven’t changed from last year.