My Own Personal Everest

WARNING: The following contains some swearwords essential to the piece




The day was clear and blue; not too warm, not too cold. The area in which we were camped was pretty deep in the bush, slap bang in the middle of a mountain range. As the bikes were unloaded, in high spirits, we were all relaxed looking forward to the fun and excitement that can only be had on a dirt bike free of the restraints of road signs, cars, and the dreaded Mr Plod.
The bikes in question were, a WR 426, an honest to god weapon; a light and powerful 4-stroke, a YZ250 two stroke, or stroker–nuff said, virtual guided missiles, a rather old 1996 XR 630, also fast and quite powerful, but very heavy, and a positively ancient DT 175.
Tex, on the 426, was in his late 40s, with a permanently reddened nose from years of habitual inebriation and hard livin’; he was the epitome of an Australian male—he drunk a lot, swore a lot, treated his wife with callous disregard, and loved his dog; yet was held in high esteem by both his peers and subordinates. Bob, on the 250, was a portly, young lad, a wannabe ‘crusty demon’, (not so much ‘crusty’, as ‘slightly untidy’) without the talent, but with the perpetual sneer and insolent attitude down pat. Sidey, (so called from his predilection to have his car sideways) conversely, was a laid back, scruffy-looking, young man, almost feral-like, with a carefree manner, who was being introduced to the delights of motorcycles for the inaugural time, here, in this very spot; (he was to earn a lot of respect from yours truly, subsequently) on the old and underpowered 175. Myself, I was on the aging 630, which just happened to weigh what felt like a ton; a point that has certain relevance later.
The bikes unloaded, we all proceeded to kit up–in the case of Sidey and myself, this comprised 1 helmet and a pair of gloves, so, he and I put our gloves and helmet on—not certain that actually constitutes ‘ kitting-up’ . I also had a pair of motocross boots—Sidey didn’t.
Tex and Bob, on the other hand, had enough gear for 4 people. Helmet, boots and gloves—same as myself—but with shoulder pads, elbow pads, chest pads, back brace, knee pads, almost an entire exoskeleton of protection, in fact many times I thought he looked like a Robocop-type figure. He even had a GPS, which, despite his strenuous protestations to the contrary, I suspect he didn’t know how to operate. When asked how it worked, inevitably, the enthusiastic yet mildly apologetic reply would be, “ oh I’ll have to get that sorted”, or “I’ll have to check the manual”, or a basic explanation of how, theoretically, it’s supposed to work, without actually knowing how it works ; to be fair, this lack of knowledge applied to us all. Bloody thing actually turned out to be as much use as a paper boat, we’d have been better off burning it for the smoke signals, but that’s another story.
So, after the obligatory wait for Tex to get his act together, (he is notoriously known for his never meeting deadlines), we set off, leaving Bob’s father at the camp, with the intention of riding for about an hour and retuning to camp to give Bob’s father a turn on the 250. If only we knew.
Now, at this point I should tell that I’ve been to this area before—twice, so I have a rudimentary knowledge of where I am, providing I stick to the areas I have previously visited. But, it is a very big place and after riding around the areas I did know for about 20 minutes we came upon the top of a very big hill, (again, if only we had known); exactly how big would not become clear until we got to the bottom.
As I was leading, I reached the start of the downward section first and stopped to consider my next move; the saying ‘look before you leap’ which I learnt, at a cost, when young, uppermost in my mind. The first thing noticed (apart from the distance it dropped and the fact that I couldn’t see the bottom) was the proliferation of deep, V-shaped ruts, almost crevasses in some cases, caused obviously by extreme amounts of water coursing down this steep hill. Before not too long, the young lad appeared beside me, so I waited for him to have a look also before asking, “well, do you think you could handle that?” I could tell he was slightly reluctant to go down (I had slight reservations myself) but he hid behind bravado and answered, “yeah, no problem”– still with the sneer.
Tex and Sidey hadn’t caught up with us yet, but I could hear their engine noise nearby so, after a quick confirming look over my shoulder, I started to move slowly over the side and down the hill.
Things go very pear-shaped, very quickly from this point.
The downward journey starts off well, with me immediately realising that some of the ruts (crevasses?) were too deep and too narrow, and were best avoided at all costs. That realisation is followed by the decision to use the forest edge to descend, which was clear of the dreaded ruts, instead having these solid tree trunks to negotiate—aye, like that wouldn’t hurt if you hit one—crumple is a word that seems particularly apt, in describing the result. The only way down, due to the steepness and loose surface, was to lock the back wheel and feather the front brake; the first incident occurs when I start gaining momentum, and reluctant to pull the front brake any harder for fear of losing the front, becoming slightly out of control, and—yep, you’ve guessed it, hit one of the trees ( in hindsight it’s just as well–I had to stop somehow, and the brakes weren’t cutting it). I navigate round my saviour from uncontrolled descent and continue on (more carefully) my downward journey. About 20 mins later, and about 300 feet down, I reach the first turn, to the right, after which the track gets disturbingly steeper, with the surface deteriorating into, not ruts anymore, but deep crevasses. I have to leave the relative security of the forest edge and follow that track, so I look around for an alternative and see another track formed by the water that couldn’t quite make the turn. I shout to the young lad who’s about 100 yards behind me, on the right, creeping down with extreme care, the other two at various intervals further up the hill, that I’m going to have a look and start down this alternative.
Again, the descent starts easily enough, but about half way down, with the steepness of the slope and the lack of traction, my front wheel slides off the dirt and into this 4 foot hole. I’m already at a 45 degree angle so when the front wheel disappears down the hole it has the effect of throwing me over the handlebars with the machine following me, and the pair of us tumble on down the slope for about 30 feet. It was here, I suspect, where I sustained the bodily damage that so handicapped me later. After manhandling the machine, which lay half-in, half-out, and upside down, from another hole, (they were everywhere) I cautiously continue to mainly slide–barely under control, to the bottom, where I park the bike and have a rest.
My relief at getting to the bottom is short lived however, upon discovering that there isn’t an alternative after all, and that I’ll have to get back up the way I’ve just come down. Just effing typical—if I hadn’t checked it out I guarantee we would have eventually discovered the ‘Holy Grail’ of exits leading from there.
“No worries”, say I, with an induced confidence, “I’ll just scoot up that side there”. There was a section, that on the surface of it looked easy enough, albeit only about 12 inches wide—perfectly doable. So I rest for a little while longer, simultaneously concentrating on my intended route and thinking (Jesus Christ, I haven’t even reached the bottom, and it’s already turning into a fucking nightmare). Let me here let you into a little secret—speed, on a dirt bike is good, with the front wheel in the air and a reasonable amount of forward motion there are few obstacles that can’t be surmounted. Unfortunately for us, 4 foot wide and deep crevasses, is one of the few. In the case of the smaller ruts, they had to be crossed at right angles and if enough speed was applied one could just race on over the top. But, if for whatever reason the approach is altered to the diagonal, then–one is stuffed, to put it mildly. I’m digressing, the point is–about half way up the narrow track there was a perfectly placed (in terms of disruption to my intentions) tree, a matter of inches from the track which if collided with at speed would have painful and damaging consequences. So speed as an ally was out, precision it was.
The first attempt sees me getting adjacent with the tree and steering slightly left to avoid hitting the handlebars, which would be disastrous, and straight into a crevasse. As I feared, before the wheels touch the bottom the gear lever, brake lever and both engine casings bury themselves into the earth either side. Copious amounts of swearing ensue and I sit with my back to the ‘partly responsible for the result’ tree leaving the machine firmly wedged in the crevasse, while contemplating the effort required to manhandle the machine backwards out of the crevasse.
A further 20 minutes of hauling, lifting, pulling (and a bit more swearing) sees me back at the bottom. My second attempt wields a variation of the same result. After the 3rd failed attempt I decide to stop flogging this particular dead horse and find another way; consequently settling on through the forest. Unfortunately the forest surface was extremely loose, making the traction almost nonexistent, the amount of trees making gaining momentum impossible, and after 20 mins of trying I found myself having to call on Tex and Sidey to help push/pull me out.
Another 20 mins of pushing and pulling with the spinning rear spitting out this cocktail of dirt, twigs, stones, rocks, and other unidentifiable detritus, which if one was in the path of, would feel like a sandblaster, found me at the edge of the track, on a strip of dirt no more than 8 inches wide, but with both edges curved so, 2 inches either side of centre usable, and a 4 foot drop on 1 side and a 3 foot on the other. Hardly Everest I’ll agree, but to reiterate; these crevasses were, as earlier mentioned, V-shaped and the main problem (as earlier discovered) was the sides of the engine casing becoming jammed before the wheels touched the bottom—a shit-fight extricating the bike from there!
Inching along it I eventually get to rejoin the main track and shortly thereafter the bottom. My relief is again put on hold when I see that we have just a short distance of level ground before a hill, at least as big as the one we’ve just come down—goes up. Up to this point, we all had been thinking (hoping?) that once we reached the bottom, there would be an easy way out. But no, we appeared to be at the very bottom of a valley between two thousand foot hills. Fuck!
After considering and rejecting going back up the way we came down, we realise that we’ve no choice—we have to go up this other side. At this point, I feel a modicum of guilt at getting us into this, but just a fleeting feeling–after all, no-one held a gun to their heads. Who’s more stupid—the moron who leads us into such a predicament, or the boneheads who blindly follow?
So, up we go and after a section that’s relatively simple we arrive at the bottom of the hill proper, the top of which we can’t see. It is massive. We rest and consider our next move (not whether we go up–but how we get up). The deterioration of the track is such that there is no obvious way to go, so after deliberations, I again choose the forest route with its lack of traction. I get into 3rd gear as soon as possible and accelerate to get as much momentum as I can, but it’s difficult and the rear is spinning constantly on the loose surface. This ‘shortcut’ meets the track about a third of the way up but just at the last 30 feet it takes a severe upward turn and the added twist of throttle results in the rear wheel spinning faster and digging itself into a hole. Back down to start again. The same process is repeated with the same result. On the third attempt, just as the rear starts to spin and dig itself in, I jump off and, with the rear still spinning, push with all my might (remember earlier comment about the weight of the machine) to get over the final hump. With heart-bursting effort, I manage to succeed and park the bike, consequently collapsing.
The others are at various stages on the hill, all with their own struggles. I decide to wait, not that I had a choice–the spirit was willing but the body was, well— fucked. So I lie there where I fall, my heart pounding, with every deep breath (which was all of them) causing a face contorting pain. It’s funny–I’m sure I can feel my ears burning.
Tex is next to attempt the forest shortcut and encounters the same problem with wheelspin as I, so I go down to help push him out.
By this stage, the damage to my body caused by the ‘over the handlebars’ incident was becoming apparent; every time I breathed deeply (which was all the time, with pushing and pulling bikes up hills, and walking up and down the same hills) the pain was excruciating due to a suspected pulled muscle high on the left side of my chest, and I had twisted my knee which was beginning to swell. But he wasn’t getting over that on his own so I had to help.
On getting him over the top, he too, collapsed, amid a tirade of abuse directed at me, while gasping for breath. I’m sure the authenticity of my parents’ wedding certificate was questioned amid his gasps.
Meantime, below, Sidey and Bob were having their own difficulties. Both were out of sight of Tex and I, just round the corner, but we could clearly hear the high revving engines as they struggled to get up this hill, followed inevitably by the sudden silence of a stall, with the subsequent profanity, or the cushioned thump of an ungraceful dismount, with further profanity, echoing throughout the forest. Eventually, somehow Bob manages to reach the short, relevantly level section where Tex and I, still recovering, wait. As he crests the top, wheel spinning, legs searching for balance, and narrowly shooting past us with bare control, he rides straight into a crevasse beside a bank and stalls.
The clutch cable has snapped. Fuck again!
The exertion of getting to this point coupled with the realisation of the broken cable and all of the ramifications within result in Bob losing it and he starts kicking the machine, launching into a tirade of insults directed at the poor inanimate bike. I watch the show for a while, my heart rate having slowed somewhat causing the pain to subside and move to the edge to see how Sidey’s doing; he’s still trying hard with little success to climb the same section so I shout down to him to use the forest track. He does and shortly after we watch as he tries (like we all did) to gain enough momentum to carry him over this traction-less surface. It’s a very narrow track and it’s hard to stay on it; consequently, he falls off. He remounts and tries to carry on from that point but the surface doesn’t allow it and the rear wheel immediately starts digging itself into a hole. So, down to the bottom to start again. Again he falls and again returns to start again. At this point I’m beginning to fear that we’re all going to have to walk down to him and push him all the way up, but he has one more go. This time he gets past his previous best efforts and makes it to the point where the track takes the steep upturn. The three of us waiting at the top are willing him with all we have to make it, with me unable to restrain myself, shouting “C’mon Sidey, c’mon”! But just as with the rest, the wheel digs into the soft surface and the bike starts to flip. Sidey jumps off and lets it. I tell him to wait and have a rest and we head down the hill again to push him up. We get him to the top with relief.
At this stage we’re all beginning to feel the effects of such strenuous effort; we’ve been at this for the better part of three hours and, still, we can’t see the top of the hill. The thought of running out of fuel insidiously creeps into the periphery of my mind, where it lodges itself, waiting like a malignant promise of potential disaster.
We discuss our next move. Without a clutch cable, the bike can’t be put in gear, once it’s started, the only way being a rolling start (at Tex’s suggestion), but we’re on a steep hill, so there’s no way we could push it fast enough to facilitate this. We try anyway, because the alternative is to push it all the way up to the top (remember, at this point we don’t know where the top is—could be miles away for all we know). So, we prepare for it; get Bob on, start it, and take our positions at various points, and—push with all our might. As we approach the end of the short distance we have, Bob knocks it into gear and the bike lurches forward and stalls. Expletives abound. Disappointed, we sit and, again consider our next move. There’s nothing else for it—we’re going to have to push/manhandle the machine up to the next relatively flat section which is a bit longer and try again. I realise that it’s getting darker and for the first time, consider the fact that we might be out here all night. I mention this to Sidey, and jokingly suggest that he catches us a rabbit (there was a creek nearby, so water wasn’t a problem).
As we sit and recover, my mind wanders and I muse over the thought of a few years from now, someone discovering in this wilderness, four skeletal remains, lying near four motorcycles, the spirits of these riders roaming in perpetuity, throughout the forest, growing into folklore, scaring young children, the warnings clear–“don’t go near the forest, stay out of the forest”. I laugh at my over-imagination and consider writing a book. My heart rate is back to normal and my mood’s lightened by my getting carried away, so I begin to enjoy the camaraderie shared by protagonists of such adversity.
And I smoke. So does Sidey.
Tex is next to comment on the lateness of the hour, suggesting we move, that it’ll be dark soon (surely the most recognisable phrase in movie history–we better move/hurry/camp, it’ll be dark soon).
As a sidebar, and as an indication of the power of the water that at various points thundered down this hill, we notice a tree trunk, about 2 feet in diameter and about 30 feet long lying in one of the ruts. A crane would be needed to move it yet here it was wedged in a rut. The power of the water must have been awesome. Far out
“Alright then”, I say, “let’s get this 250 with the broken cable up and overwith”. So we take our positions, Bob pushing the bars, Tex and Sidey pulling from the front wheel, and myself pushing from the back—except, it’s not like pushing a bike up a tarmac road, we have to manhandle it over the crevasses, and when we could roll it on its wheels, because of the steepness of the slope, I had to grab the knobblys on the tyre and pull upwards while the others pushed and pulled their own respective parts. On a count. 1,2,3–go. 1,2,3–go, and so on. It was very slow and very tiring going–about a foot per effort. We all kept losing our footing with me repeating again and again, “don’t let go of the brake”. Eventually we reach the top of this section and rest some more.
Now we have to get the other three bikes up, but we only have to ride them, although bearing in mind the effort required thus far after 4 hours of really hard slog that is not an entirely more preferable option. Luck had been with us in a sense with the 250 being the lightest machine of them all, (light being relative—no bikes are light if you have to push them, even on a flat, tarmac road, never mind a steep hill). My 630 for example, would have been twice as hard. But still, we had now been at this constantly for 4 hours and were all feeling a bit worn out. My pulled muscle, with being worked so hard for so long was causing me considerable pain and discomfort and my twisted knee couldn’t support even my body weight for any length of time.
Sidey goes next and manages to surmount the stage with relative ease, albeit with legs sticking out all over
I go next and as I approach the top, my front wheel hits an inconveniently placed protruding root, (although that’s not what I called it at the time) and bounces into a rut, Fortunately, this one is only about a foot deep so the wheels hit the ground before anything else jams, but I’m still stuck at a 45 degree angle in a hole, and when I try to drive out, the rear spins and digs itself into a hole again. I glance down the hill towards Tex, whom I’m sure is thinking that my current predicament is some form of divine retribution for getting us into this.
Returning to the problem at hand, I again have to call on brute strength and with the rear spinning (with me hoping one of the rocks being fired from the wheel will bounce of the grinning idiot’s head below) I heave with all my might to get out of the rut. Fortunately I succeed and reach the top, relieved and out of puff. Tex follows. The next upward section was inspected, with an almost military precision, for the easiest route. As a whole, it was less steep than what we had experienced previously, but we had all had quite enough by that point and easy mistakes could still be made, so a path was agreed on. Bob, with the broken cable was to go first. No matter what happens, we tell him, don’t stop. He doesn’t and disappears round the bend, out of sight. The three of us remaining take the last part with relative ease (thankfully—I think we had all had just about enough thank you very much), and reach (sound of trumpets) the top.
Adding further insult to injury, it turns out the entry and exit points were a stones throw apart, and only a girl’s throw into the bargain. AND - Bob's bloody father, while he was waiting for the four and a half hours, ate my chocolate bar!
Since, they have arbitrarily denied me the right to lead EVER again. In fact, I suspect Sidey never wants to set foot on a dirtbike again; a fact confirmed by his never having used the one he bought after the event.
For my part, I have revisited the area since—alone, I couldn’t convince the others to go with me— and marked the entrance with an ‘enter at your own risk’ sign.

Thus ends the time spent on #*+* hill, as it came to be known by those involved. An offensive word, unable to be printed, and indicative of the feelings promoted in the riders.