Back in 2017, two of my high school friends and I reconnected and took a trip to the cabin for a 10 year high school reunion of sorts. Riley joined us on our girls weekend away and we ventured out into the forest to chase a waterfall!
Riley was 10 years old when we did this adventure and was still chasing squirrels and rabbits all over the mountainside! He was not however, scaling waterfalls with us as the falls were too steep and too loose for him to do safely.
There are times in our lives where we think “Where did the time go? What am I doing? I should be doing more than this!”. Then there are times when we see things in front of us and think “There’s no way in HELL I can do this!!!”. Two weeks prior to this particular weekend, my husband and I went for an adventure around the back of Maka falls (up and over the falls!). The Incline to get to the top of the falls is pretty straight up and high! I knew I could make it up, but coming down I was very tempted to say screw it and jump off the falls to swim instead of go down that damn hill. This was my “there’s no way” moment.
Photo by: Yumi Imai
This reunion weekend with my two high school buddies and Riley, we went to these same falls. We started our journey with a steep and rocky descent down to the creek/falls. We wrapped around a few trees, scrambled down a few rocks and slipped around a few exposed roots to make our way down. Once we got down, we walked over towards the pool at the base of the waterfall for a drink and some splashing around. There are some seriously BIG fish in that pool!
These are Maka-Falls. We have been going to these falls since I was a little girl and I have to tell you, glacier fed streams are seriously COLD! This water fall is fed from the snow run off. We went towards the end of the season so the falls were not at spectacular as they are in the spring. When you go in the spring time, these falls just pump water through that wide opening at the top. You see that big bowl shape at the top? That is filled with gushing water in springtime and you can’t cross the creek bed to climb up the back, the current is too powerful through it. In fall though, these falls are beautiful to explore and that is just what we did!
One of my partners is crime scaled the cliff with me while our get away driver stayed below with Riley. We crossed the stream, it was low water so only a few inches deep at the time. And then we began our ascent! We pulled ourselves up sliding dirt and gravel with our hands and boots. We even grabbed onto a few trees to help us get up to the top. It was a good 60 degree incline and about 30 feet up to flat ground. Quite challenging for us! But we made it up and got to trample around a bit at the top. Riley was very concerned down below and barked the whole time.
Now this picture doesn’t do the incline justice! Its about a 65-70 degree angle the whole way up, and with loose rock to deal with. It was an interesting climb to say the least but so worth it when we got to the top!
At the top we decided to explore behind the falls a bit since it was low enough water.
We played around up top and explored some of the stream that leads to the falls. We climbed around the rocks on the edge where we could look down to the pool and Riley below us.
And then we came down…on my butt. I slipped and slid a good 4 or 5 feet. My poor pants were so dusty afterwards. Scrapped up a bit of my palm when I tried to grab the ground to slow myself down and oh my did Riley start to Ki-Yi when that happened! But we made it, slow and steady, sliding back around rocks and trees to the bottom where we splashed around with Riley in the stream beneath the falls. And we celebrated our win.
This experience was the first time in years that I have felt like I can take on the world! That I haven’t felt there was something more I should be doing. That I haven’t thought I can’t do this. That I haven’t allowed life to get in my way and shove me aside. This was the first time that I truly have wanted to do MORE than just climb the top.
This is no new-years resolution, this is no sudden awakening. This is the knowledge that whatever you have in front of you, you got this! No matter how scared or terrifying going down those cliffs are (and I will go UP anything….don’t ask me to go down a cliff…down is scary as hell!), you got this.
I got to experience this with 2 wonderful women and my beloved fur-baby. I can’t wait for the next adventure.
Where were you when you felt you could concur the world?
Experiences shape our lives. We can chose to have more experiences and that’s what I chose when I started this blog, to do more, often. I hope that more people here will join me and do the same. I think these experiences will only be made better with some company from time to time! Hey, YI and CK, lets do it again soon! It’s been too long already since our last adventure together.
ASR Adventures 