SURVIVOR: Green Mountain

Pictures:

1. Ancient Irrigation System



2. Will about to deck me with a snowball (Andrew next to him)



3. Me.



4. Tree on Green Mountain with prayers on it (it's a Daoist mountain)



5. The Green Mountain mountainside


The Story:

It was an ordinary day. Well, an ordinary USAC field trip day, I should say.

It started without incident. We went to this ancient irrigation system up in the mountains, beautiful, covered with snow, and so of course wild snowball fights ensued. I personally got creamed more than once, but I did my fair share of creaming as well. We even stopped to get a way overpriced cup of tea – everything was fine.

But then we came to Green Mountain, a very important Daoist mountain. Temples nestled within the forest, monks banging gongs, the real deal. Time of arrival: two in the afternoon. Time we were supposed to be off the mountain and rejoin our group: 4:45. Time it was supposed to take to get to the top of the mountain: one hour. Cable car down instead of climbing: check.

So we set off with ample time, not a care in the world. Little did we know we soon have to fight for our very lives.

The most significant incident on the way up is that I inadvertently stepped somewhere I shouldn’t have and got clobbered by a monk with a stick. I was feeling a little bruised from my cultural ignorance, but aside that I was in prime condition.

It was a cold day, and it started snowing as soon as we got there. Now, keep in mind, the trek up the mountain consists entirely of stairs. Or rather, stone slabs laid down to approximate stairs, or just make you think happy thoughts of real stairs. And because of the cold and the snow and the heavy traffic up and down the mountain, these stairs were covered with ice and compacted snow – no easy walking, let me tell you. However, going up was only mildly hazardous and involved only a few slips and falls with no injuries for anyone.

The time: 3:45. We still haven’t made it to the top – it’s taking a lot longer than we were told and a lot longer than we expected. The members of my group have changed and shifted many times, with groups splitting off, dividing, and finding other members of other groups and absorbing them into our own. Well. By now it’s taken so long to get to not-the-top that we are obligated to get to the top, otherwise we’ll never be able to get the cable car down in time. No problem.

Traci, Shay and I all made it to the very top, the true top of the mountain, just the three of us. By this time it really was about 4:45, so we knew we would be a little late, but not terribly much so because we were going to take the cable cars.

The cable cars were not at the top of the mountain.

We started to descend to find the cable cars. Earlier, we had gotten separated from the bulk of our group: Oliver, Kelly, Lani, Sofia, Mario, and Derek. We made it down to a lower palace – no cable cars. The maps provided were poor, inaccurate, and didn’t show you where you were on the map.

It started getting later.

Traci tried to call our program director, Wentao, to tell her we were running a little late.

We had no cell phone reception on the mountain.

We found a payphone at one of the palaces, the kind that requires a phone card to use.

We didn’t even have a credit card.

We found some Chinese hikers and asked them if they knew where the cable cars were (in Chinese, of course). Their response: “Meiyou.” Which mean that there aren’t any, but we knew there were, so we just figured we asked the question poorly (especially since I didn’t know the word for “cable car,” so I just substituted the word for “car”).

We continued to descend. Suddenly, the clear, sweet sound of a cell phone ring sliced through the air! Traci had reception! We stopped in our tracks, fearful that any movement might cause the cell phone reception to falter. It was Oliver, long-lost member of our group!

He bore no good news. “The cable cars have been shut down,” he said. By this point it was at least 5:15.

Oliver said he and everyone else would wait for us while we made it to where they were, which is where the cable cars should have been had they been operating. We made it there pretty quickly and rejoined the rest of our group (except Sofia, Mario, and Derek, who had gone ahead). He also said he had managed to get in touch with Wentao, but he got cut off before they could say anything terribly useful.

On top of this, we had been told previously by Wentao that if we were ever more than fifteen minutes late, she would leave without us. So we were faced with the prospect of being an hour and a half away (driving time) from Chengdu, with potentially no way of getting back. To quote Will’s favorite phrase, “Na, zenme ban?” (“Then what are we to do?”)

The hour was getting later, and we began our long descent. Believe me, the going was not easy. The stairs might not have been so good on the way up, but they were ten times worse on the way down. We saw people struggling all around us just to remain upright. The stairs were narrow, slick, icy, and exceptionally dangerous. In fact, the situation we found ourselves in was so absurd that it had become hilarious.

Ah, but the best is yet to come! Like I said, the stairs were in terrible condition. So bad, in fact, that it was simply not possible to remain standing up. Traci was the first to discover our solution. She slipped and went sliding down the stairs on her rear end. What can I say? A good thing catches on quickly. Pretty soon all of us were crawling down the mountain on all fours, or sliding à la Traci.

It grew later yet – at least 6:00. Oliver was having the time of his life. “I have now had the pleasure,” he said, “of watching five women slide down a mountain on their butts!”

I suppose it was inevitable. Traci took a tumble and actually got hurt; she banged up her wrist pretty badly, painfully enough that she was in tears. Oliver helped her down a little ways and she took some time to recover. However, she could still move all her fingers, albeit with slight twinges of pain, so we trudged on.

6:30. And you know what that means. It’s about to get dark.

Much to our surprise, we ran into more people from our group! Daniel, Colin, and Sol were still on the mountain, moving very slowly, because Colin has a bad back and bad eyesight and was not doing so well. That makes at least 12 people still on the mountain, almost two hours after we were supposed to have gotten off it. That’s a fair chunk when there are only 25 people total.

We got in touch with Wentao again, who said that if we made it to a particular lake by 7:00, she would wait for us.

It was getting darker by the minute. Still climbing down icy stairs, we were having more and more trouble seeing the next step.

Poor Traci. She has a bad knee, and after all the exercise it had gotten climbing up stairs (and sliding down them), she could barely walk without assistance. So, a little more sure-footed than she, I put my arm around her to help her down to the lake, which was right around the corner.

At the lake, we found Mario. Sofia and Derek had gone ahead already, he said. There was a ferry that you had to take to cross the lake, which cost 5 RMB, and he didn’t have any money, so he had stayed behind to wait for us.

Once we made it across the lake, we still had to get to the entrance gate, which involved more stairs. And it was completely dark.

Traci had a little LED flashlight with a push-button, so she gave it to me. The problem was that in order to keep it on, you have to be applying constant pressure to the button.

My hands were so cold that I couldn’t keep the button depressed. Supporting Traci again, we walked down the rest of the mountain step by step, with the inconsistent light from her little flashlight, since I couldn’t keep it lit.

The ten of us took our little train all the way to the entrance gate. The second we stepped outside, in the inky blackness of a night on Green Mountain, we exploded into cheers, hugged each other, shouted, and rejoiced. There were cries of, “We had made it out alive! We SURVIVED!” We found someone to take a picture of our group of survivors, and we rejoiced some more.

It was 7:30, nearly three hours after we were supposed to be off the mountain.

Fortunately, Wentao had not abandoned us. We got on the bus, and at last we were off the mountain and on our way back to Chengdu.

It took me at least half an hour to regain warmth and feeling in my fingers. I know I said that when I came to China, I wanted to have lots of adventures.

This isn’t quite what I had in mind.



Sliding down the mountain! Shay is in front, with Traci right behind. Up higher, you can also see Kelly sliding down. Oliver and Lani are actually on their feet.