A Fine Line Between Adventure and Stupidity

Image of cliffs between Kabak Beach and Alınca courtesy hiker "suntrail" at wikiloc.com

The toe of my hiking shoe nudged the small rocks to reveal a stable stone surface at the exposed edge of the boulder. The overdrawn clatter of the rocks as they fell was a reminder of how high we were. Keeping my eyes forward, I groped for a secure handgrip and scoured the boulder surface for my next foothold. We had been hiking uphill for a good hour along a lesser-used trail on the coast between Kabak Beach and Alınca when the trail stopped at a rocky cliff face. After a mutter and scratch of his sweaty hair, Rob started to scale the cliff, having seen no alternative path, and was now two metres above me.

"I don't know which way!" he called out, clinging to the rock awkwardly. My eye caught sight of a red and yellow marker, painted in the centre of the cliff face, as apparent as our deaths should we put a foot wrong. This was indeed the way of the trail. "Up!" I yelled. "It's directly above you." Rob's position made it impossible for him to see the marker, but he continued upward, and so did I. We fell into mute concentration. 

What did we get ourselves into? Our hostel manager's uncertain "Interesting..." remark when we told him our plans should have seeded some concern, but the route described in a local hiking book that we found at the last town did not mention scrambling up rocky cliffs. It had only rated the section "difficult" and advised that the reverse direction was too dangerous. We knew then, that we were beyond the point of no return.

"Yep!" Rob cried, his usual exclamation for spotting trail markers, and he began to move laterally. I followed, making careful progress, until we both reached terra firma. Looking at where we had begun the climb and what was below, we shared our fears, exhilaration, and pride. Little did we know that our feat was the first of three such climbs and our steely nerves were to be tested again and again.