Field Journal

What Running Across Mountains Taught Me About Life
An excerpt from ‘SOLO’, by Jenny Tough

From the forest I stepped out onto a boggy marsh. The path had long since disappeared, and I wondered if anyone had attempted this route yet all year. I spotted the familiar brown and yellow sign of Parks Canada infrastructure, and gleefully speed-walked towards it, my shoes making a sucking sound at every muddy footstep while long grass tickled me up to my chin. The sign indicated the way to the bridge, which led to the trail that I knew would speed me out to a paved parking lot, the modern world and my mother. I saw the wooden support beams on the southern side of the river and rushed towards the bridge, excited to stand on solid ground. I was going to make it out in another hour.

The bridge, made of two thick wooden planks, extended to an island in the middle of the river, and then nothing. It had washed away on the far side. White caps of fast-flowing water licked what remained of the bridge, hinting that the breakage could have happened recently, and the rest was potentially about to be taken out, too. I shrugged – hadn’t I been half- swimming all day? – stepped off the plank at the small island, and assessed the rest of the crossing. The water was moving rapidly, and it was clearly deep. Much deeper than I was tall. It would involve a swim. I dipped one toe in, and it was quickly slapped by the powerful river. I accepted the reality that the water was moving way too fast – I would have no hope whatsoever of swimming against it, and there were perhaps 6 or 7m to go. That may not sound like much, but at the speed the water was flowing at, I would be very far downstream before I made any progress towards shore. Turning my gaze to the east, downstream, I assessed the consequences. Rapids. Huge rapids, and not far enough away. Once I got sucked into those rapids, there would be very little hope for me. My body would either be pulled under enough times until I drowned, or I would be slammed into a rock and pinned down by the crushing force of the current. I knew better than to try, but I had no reason to lose hope yet – there’s always another spot.

I crossed back over the bridge and started picking my way through the deep bog along the shoreline, looking for another place to cross. My eyes flicked between watching my step, as I couldn’t see lower than my knees in the bog and kept sinking in and tripping, and scanning the water, looking for the widest point in the river, where it would be slow and shallow. My heart was racing as I couldn’t help focusing in on the rapids, growing higher and higher in my anxious mind. At a bend, I found a widening of the river and decided to go for it. I slid down the muddy bank, where I needed to drop from the shore directly into the water – no gentle wade out. With my pole, I reached in to check the depth. The entire pole went in, and half my arm. It was deep. Still, the water was slowest in this place, so I decided to swim it. I double- checked that everything that needed to be waterproofed was secure, then sat my bum on the ‘launch’, feet ready to jump. I dipped one foot in the water, and once again it was swept to the side with a slap. The water might be slower, but not that slow. It was no safe bet. I took a deep breath, attempting to slow my heart rate and calm my mind. I counted to three, then I jumped.

Except, I didn’t. I clung to the shore. Only one leg went in, up to my thigh this time, and the water pulled so hard on it that I realized in an instant I couldn’t do it. I yelled out loud at myself. Another deep breath, and another. Then I counted down from five, and this time I really did jump.

Except, I didn’t. This time both legs made it in, but in some instinctive, acrobatic, life-saving reaction, I clung to the shore with both arms and somehow managed to pull myself back to land. There was no way I could swim against that current. I hauled myself back to the shore, and sat facing the river once more, with my knees tucked under my chin, arms pulling my legs in, rocking and crying. I was scared. I was really scared.

With a cry of desperation, I headed back into the bog to look for another crossing point. I checked the map constantly, hoping for something I could have missed. Perhaps a place where the river was wider? Perhaps a bridge by the lake, where the river eventually ended? I found nothing. I assessed the distance to Maligne Lake, wondering if, as a final backup, I could swim that, where a current wouldn’t be an issue. It was hours away, and I knew it was a terrible plan. I fantasized about the tourist boats on the lake, although they a) might not be running due to the pandemic, and b) almost certainly did not travel this far from the dock, and c) almost even more certainly did not pick up maniacal wild women waving from shore.

I considered the only other option: go back. It would take me three days, but I could go back to the next trailhead. Three days. I was already out of food. So that was also a terrible plan.

I lost my ability to stay stoic as I continued searching the shoreline. Perhaps if it hadn’t been so frustrating underfoot, trying to pick through eye-level shrubs and impossible marsh, I could have remained calmer, or taken notice of the blue sky above me or something else to chill me out. But the situation was frustrating and scary. I tried to jump in at a few more spots that seemed sort of hopeful, where the water was darker rather than torrid white, but I whimpered out each time. I hardly noticed when the sky clouded over – in hindsight, I may have genuinely believed the darkness was only inside my mind. It was certainly reflective of my grim mood. There didn’t seem to be a good chance of getting out of here either way. I knew I couldn’t call for evacuation – the three-day trek without any food was still technically a possibility. I felt so desperate as I paced the boggy shoreline, losing my handle on my mood entirely.

I selected a bend in the river where a few boulders were jutting out, at fairly even intervals to the other side. I figured that all I had to do was manage the short distance between each rock, where I could then stop and catch my breath before making the next sprint. The fact that they were jutting out indicated that it might be shallower near them, and the river was at its widest point. I knew it was the best I could hope for, and I had now been tramping through bog for nearly two hours looking for a place to cross. I had to get going.

I didn’t count down this time. I just jumped. In one step, the freezing water was up to my chest. I fluttered my feet along the bottom, desperately trying to maintain contact with the rocky riverbed. I jammed my carbon trekking poles in, and the rushing water made them shudder violently. When I had four points of contact, I dug in both poles and one foot while I shuffled the other foot forwards. I pushed hard on all of my muscles to make myself as strong and sturdy as physically possible, bracing my core right down to my legs. I took conscious, deliberate breaths as I edged further out into the water, the depth increasing until the waves lapped at my face. I hardly noticed the cold – one slip, and I would be quickly moved downstream. Soon, the water became shallower as I reached the first boulder. I steadied myself on it, and allowed myself a few seconds of releasing the panic that was high in my chest. I hated this. This was far too uncomfortable. This was way past my acceptable line of risk.

This was not cool.

I couldn’t stay there long. I was vaguely aware of the piercing cold of the river, most of which had been a glacier only hours previously. I used the same tactic to shuffle across the riverbed, not daring to lift my feet or poles off the solid ground. I approached the centre of the river, and buoyancy took over. Waves hit my face and I let go of my poles, swimming furiously with my arms while trying to dig my shoes into the rocks. With one crashing wave, I was pushed over. In a horrifying moment, I opened my eyes underwater and understood what that meant – I had lost control. The river had won. I kicked hard towards the ground until I hit shallower depths, milliseconds that stretched on for minutes. I clambered up to the second boulder, gasping for air, stunned to have made it without being swept downstream. I permitted myself to look in that direction – I had less than 10m of ‘free flow’ before hitting the next set of rapids. If I hadn’t recovered from that stumble, you probably wouldn’t be reading this.

The final stretch to the opposite bank was thankfully milder than the first two stages, but far from easy. Somehow, the submersion gave me a new confidence, and I let myself believe, for the first time since meeting the river, that I was more capable than it. When I finally hauled myself out , via a tall bank that I had to do a very awkward and exhausted pull-up manoeuvre onto, the gushing adrenaline surged forwards as I realized that I had survived.

I have no idea how long it had been raining for at this point, but it was actually lashing down from the sky, perhaps adding to the drama of the river. I had planned to remove all of my wet clothes and change into whatever dry layers I had to avoid hypothermia, but it seemed pointless given that I was standing outside in a storm. Once I found the trail – a saga that took another hour of wading through infuriating bog – I only had 10km to move, so I kept going, dripping wet and freezing cold. Later that night, I looked at the video I had recorded and had definitely never seen that shade of blue on my lips before.