Sundays are always limited in what we can get out and do. Since Samoans close most beaches and activities close to villages, us heathens are forced to find the few activities that are still open to us or go to the same bar that we always do. This weekend we opted to try a new hike. It shows up as two trails that appear to link together on the map of Tutuila I inherited from an Aussie wildlife biologist who left island a few months ago. The one hitch is that when paths sit unused for more than a few weeks here, they grow over and unless you know precisely where to go, you're hacking your way through the bush with a machete and guessing where you're going to end up. 
The first trail begins in the quarry that is located up the valley that's behind the Lyndon B. Johnson Tropical Medical Center, the only hospital in American Samoa. The path follows the creek up some steep dropoffs. Each drop off had its own waterfall and pool. We saw some great freshwater aquatic life on the hike up, including a huge freshwater eel, some monster shrimp and a few other fish that were too shy to identify. The climb up a few of the slopes alongside the waterfalls were closer to rock climbs than hikes, but it was wonderful to do some hiking that felt closer to the lush creek valleys of Northern California or the Pacific Northwest than the tropical South Pacific. The path was hemmed in by steep slopes on both side for most of the way up. At the 6th waterfall we were unable to climb further and thus had to do a little exploring to find where to link up with our next trail. We hadn't seen a trail link in to the trail we had been following so we were forced to do some creative exploration. We followed a creek that connected in, but the rock scramble was difficult and eventually everyone turned back to the original path but me. I eventually dragged myself up to a muddy cliff that would not be easily climbable and had to descend down to the first creek in defeat.
We then opted to take a brief break at a man-made damn that had been constructed on the upper reaches of the LBJ creek. After our rest Sara picked out a ridge line that was headed in the direction we needed to go to connect with the next trail and started climbing. The ridgeline was an easy climb out of the drainage that we had been hiking in. The forest in this area was thick enough in the canopy that little under brush grew on the slopes and it was easy to hike our way to the ridge.
On the climb up we found a few stone age homestead sites. These are identifiable as the are terraces that are built into the hillside. All of the historic structures have long since been reclaimed by the jungle, but the foundations of these old houses are still cut into the hillside.
Once we made it to the top of the ridge we were able to find some flags that marked the Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources bird survey transects. These were along the path that we were trying to link up with, so good work on our orienteering.
All we had to do was follow the path down to Fagatago and we'd comlpete our planned route. After 20 minutes of hiking we lost our DMWR flag line. Knowing that we were close to our destination, since we could hear the activity from the port and harbor we opted to take the direct route, straight down the ridge. This turned out to be a huge mistake. Our route was steep, treacherous and not a trail. The hiking soon became scrambling down the sketchy slope on our butts. It then got even steeper, to the point that we were climbing down using tree roots and trunks to keep a hold to the slope. The pictures do no convey the loose dirt and rock that would constantly slide out from underneath us and send head sized rocks rolling off the side of the hill. Not wanting to try and take this route back up to the trail, we soldiered on and kept pushing for the road or path that we felt must be below us. Eventually our persistence paid off and we found a creek, similar to the one we started at hours ago near LBJ.
Following its course we soon came to an abandoned house foundation and were able to follow the crumbling path back down to the village of Fagatago. Dirty, sweat and still alive we opted to reward ourselves with drinks and a meal at Tisa's Barefoot Bar, since, after all, that's what we end up doing every Sunday here in American Samoa.
No comments:
Post a Comment