Darwin's Quest: The Search for the Ultimate Survivor (4 page)

I was unnerved enough to stay out of the ensuing discussion on how best to get down the cliff. Josh was all for just climbing down freehand. I think some of that was posturing for the cams. Josh probably could do it, and a few others, but not everyone could. He certainly had to have realized that, but with Hamlin slowly taking over, maybe he thought he needed to get our there and start to gain his own viewer following.

When Mike pointed out that the rope might be useful after we got to the bottom, we compromised and decided that Josh, and Yash, who now also insisted on climbing, would assist the third-to-last of us to descend the cliff, then drop the rope before climbing down freehand.

We tied one end of the rope off on the bridge support. I wasn’t sure how much good that would do if someone fell. With the standing end secure, if someone fell, they would crash on the rocks below before the running end could arrest their fall. Well, at least we wouldn’t lose the rope, I guessed. The cliff face dropped back under us for about 15 or 20 feet, so when someone started to descend, he or she would be hanging in the air until he or she could get a purchase on the rocks further below and start climbing.

To my surprise, Gabriel, the kid who had frozen on the bridge, quickly volunteered to be the first one down. Without any way to put together a rappel rig, we decided to tie the running end around his chest and under his armpits, then we would lower him down with Hamlin, Josh, Yash, and me on the rope. After he could start climbing on his own, we would feed out slack as he got further down. That way, we could catch him if he fell. Hamlin, surprise, surprise, took off his shirt, folded it, and put it on the cliff edge, so the rope would be against it and not the rough rocks.

Yes, Hamlin, we all know you’ve got a great body
, I thought with exasperation, despite the fact that the move made sense.

Gabriel looked terrified, but he dutifully let Bernie tie the rope under his arms. He sat on the edge of the cliff, and looking back at us, he started to slide over. He didn’t weigh much, so there was no problem between the four of us holding him.

With Josh in the back calling out a cadence, we started to lower him in unison. He had gone down maybe five or ten feet when Lindadawn yelled out.

“Stop, stop!” she screamed. “Hamlin, hold fast!” She rushed over to push her way between Hamlin and Yash. Hamlin didn’t ask question; he just dug in.

She took the rope in her hands, examining it. Looking over Yash’s shoulder, I saw what she had spotted, and my heart dropped.

“Bring him back up, Hamlin. Don’t let go—you’ve got all his weight for a moment.”

Muscles bulging, Hamlin started to arm-over-arm Gabriel back up. Lindadawn put her hand over the spot on the rope, then moved Yash’s hands over hers, so he was back on the sound section rope. It took only a few seconds to bring the confused Gabriel back over the cliff edge. We gathered around , looking at the spot in the rope. Very clearly, the vine had been cut almost through. Gabriel was pretty light, but there was no way the vine could have held him. Once the cut had gone past Hamlin, Gabriel would have fallen to the river below, bouncing off the rocks.

Sabotage! But we caught them this time. Well, Lindadawn had caught them. The cut had gone through my hands, and I’d never noticed it. The field staff must have realized we would use the vines as a rope, and they had carefully made the cut hoping we wouldn’t notice it. Like I never noticed it. Like most of us hadn’t noticed it. They wanted a dramatic death to start off the challenge.

Gabriel sat there, pale as a ghost as the rest of us checked over the rest of the vine rope. It was solid. Yash made a sort of bow around the cut, isolating it and making sure it never took any of the strain. He pulled on it, testing it before nodding to Hamlin. Without a word Hamlin got back into position on the rope. We joined him, and he motioned for Gabriel to slide over the edge again. For a moment, I thought Gabriel would refuse, but he crossed himself and slid off. We lowered him until he got to the rock face below. We could feel the weight come off the rope. Bernie positioned himself on the rope bridge where he could watch, and he kept giving us an update of Gabriel’s descent, telling us to give or take up slack. Gabriel made it down and untied the rope, and we hauled it back up. A feeling of relief swept over us.

One by one, the others made the descent. Ratt had it the easiest. She weighed only 35 kg, so with laugh, Hamlin lowered her basically alone to the bottom, her feet kicking to keep her off the rocks. Heck, at 35 kilos, I probably could have taken care of her myself, but it was fun hearing her shriek with laughter as she was lowered to the bottom.

Julie had a little harder time. She fell a number of times as she climbed down. But we were able to hold her up each time. Alfhid fell once, too, but no damage done.

Finally, the four of us were left. We decided that since Hamlin was bigger, I would help with him and then go third-to-last. Hamlin was a rather large load. Add that to the fact that we no longer had him helping, it was much harder to take up his weight and lower him. My arms were shaking by the time he made it down to where he could get on the rock face. Without Bernie to guide us, we kept it too tight, not giving him enough slack to go down, and he had to shout up for more. He finally made it down, and we hauled up the rope. Now it was my turn.

The rope felt uncomfortable tied around my chest and under my arms. It was a vine, after all, stiff and somewhat unyielding. But I sat down, feet over the edge, and slowly slid off. My butt dragged Hamlin’s shirt, knocking it off and sending it down the cliff. I watched it fall. Someone reached out to grab it, but it was too far out, and it fell into the water to be washed downstream. Well, if anyone was going to be without a shirt, I guess Hamlin wouldn’t mind.

I swung back and forth as I was jerkily lowered. My feet eventually touched the rocks, and I turned myself back to grab them. The climb down from there wasn’t too hard. The rough cliff face offered plenty of hand holds. The rope around my chest was cumbersome, but I rather thought I would keep it tied around me.

The rocks were a little rough on my hands, but sooner than I expected, I could feel hands touch my legs and help me to the small trail running alongside the water. Spray from the water soaked the trail, making it slick.

I untied the rope. My weight on the knot made it a little tight and difficult to untie, but it was off in short order and Bernie called up for Yash and Josh to drop the rope while we gathered to catch it. Nothing happened for a moment, and then, instead of the rope coming down, it started back up. We wondered what was happening.

All of us were stretched along the narrow trail on the edge of the water. The same spray that was making the trail slick was covering us, too. While the air temperature was at the normal, comfortable level, Ratt was shivering and being held by Alfhid. Ratt was probably too small to conserve much body heat while wet, but the sight still looked a little humorous to me. Alfhid was tall, almost 2 meters, and a very voluptuous 65 kilos or so. Ratt couldn’t have been more than 150 cm tall. Alfhid enveloped Ratt rather than just embracing her.

“Here he comes,” murmured Hamlin.

I looked up to see Yash, tied to the rope, start to get lowered over the side. I guess he had second thoughts about climbing down freehand. Josh was taking the strain, but Yash came down in a series of bounces. His feet finally touched the rock face, and he scrambled to get a hold of it. Then slowly, make that very slowly, he began to inch his way down.

“Anytime now, Yash,” Mike said under his breath, obviously agreeing with me that perhaps Yash was being a little too cautious.

It took awhile, but Yash made it down without mishap. He was all smiles.

“Josh thought he could support me, so discretion being the better part of valor and all….”

I didn’t really blame him. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to do those first fifteen feet free climbing. Josh hauled up the rope, and a few minutes later, it came tumbling down the cliff. I reached out to grab part of it, and a hunk of the rope smacked me up against the side of my face, almost knocking me down. Uh, gravity and a heavy object equals pain. It shouldn’t take a genius to figure that out!

We all craned our necks to watch for Josh, and shortly, his legs swung over the side. They edged down, followed by the rest of him. With a swing, he came to full extension, holding on with only his hands on the cliff edge. He swung his legs in until his feet reached the cliff wall. This was the tricky part. He had his feet touching the wall, and his hands on the cliff edge. His body was canted, his back facing us on the ground. If he couldn’t get his hands over to the cliff face, he was going to fall, and athlete or not, he couldn’t hang there forever. We could see him rock back and forth, and accompanied by gasps from us below him, he gave his body a pull, basically throwing his body a foot or so towards the wall. The force of the thrust knocked his feet loose, but as he started to fall, his hands caught on a small protuberance. Feet flailing for a moment, he was able to gain purchase and gather himself.

From there, it was a little anticlimactic. His climb down the face was easily accomplished, and before we knew it, he stepped off on the trail to join us. His smile was huge, and those of next to him clapped him on the shoulder. I had to admit, that was pretty impressive.

Mike had done an analysis of previous shows, and according to him, 80% of previous river challenges occurred downstream, so we had already decided that that was the direction we would go. It was a smart choice. After our slow conga line made its way less than 500 meters downstream, we came to a small cove, sheltered from the rushing water in the main current. And in the cove were shadowy torpedo shapes of trout.

I have seen nature documentaries on Earther wildlife, and I saw
The River’s Gift
when it came out ten or so years ago, so I knew what a trout was. But these were huge! I was hard to tell from the shore, but they looked to be well over a meter long.

“They’re taimen.” I looked back to Joda, who was next our column after me. “We’ve got some big trout in Canada, but those there are the monster trout. From Mongolia. A very primitive breed. They’re called taimen.” She had an eager look in her eyes. “My daddy went there to fish them when he was young, and we’ve got one mounted in our condo. He’s going to love it when he sees this.”

Now that we made it to cove, we weren’t quite sure how to proceed. Like the rest of us, I had taken a crash course in survival skills once I’d found out that I was selected, and while I knew you could tickle a fish with your hands to catch them, somehow, I didn’t think that was going to work with these monsters. But with
Darwin’s Quest
, there was always a method to the madness.

“Up there,” shouted Paul, who was at the head of our column. I looked up to a small flat shelf a little more than two meters up on the cliff face where bamboo had taken root. Well, it looked like spears would be our weapon of choice.

Paul boosted Ratt up to the ledge easily enough. But the bamboo was pretty tough, and she couldn’t break any of the stalks. So Hamlin eased his way forward along the narrow path, each of us trying to push aside enough not to crowd him. Paul held his hands down stirrup-style to boost him up, but Hamlin ignored the offer and jumped, grabbing the edge of the ledge, then hauling himself up. He easily pulled enough bamboo stalks to arm all of us, clumps of dirt still sticking to the root balls. We passed each one down the line until we each had ours, then using the rocks as whetstones, we put sharp points on one edge of them with varying degrees of success. Mine, for example, was more of a blunted inverse “V” rather than a real sharp point. And I won’t even begin to describe Gabriel’s. Joda, on the other hand, and managed to make hers with two points surrounding the hollow center, like a tong. She caught me looking at hers and merely smiled.

“Ok, what do we do now?” asked Paul, maybe the first words I had heard him utter. We were all standing on our own little pieces of trail real estate, looking down the three feet to the water level.

Yash, in the middle of our column, hoisted his bamboo spear and threw his into the water. The spear barely pierced the surface of the water. The fish beneath didn’t even have the courtesy to act frightened. The spear floated slowly away until one edge of it caught the current and it was pulled into the torrent.

“Well, that was special,” intoned Julie, and the rest of us broke out into laughter. I think Yash took that wrong, but he was able to control himself and not snap back.