Their honeymoon hiking trip in the backcountry of British Columbia was just as spectacular and breath-taking as they had both imagined. They had chosen a destination about 3 hours north of Vancouver, along what is known as the Stein Valley Traverse. Their honeymoon consisted of 8 days and 7 nights of the best terrain Canada had to offer along the 55-mile route Danny and Elise took. From temperate forests to alpine lakes, there was never a moment where either of them were bored and not totally awestruck the entire way. Elise took lots of pictures.
Initially, she had been nervous about flying for the first time, though she had always wanted to, but their flight from Indianapolis International to Vancouver International had been a breeze. She couldn't believe she hadn't travelled by plane sooner in her life and made a vow to herself to travel more.
Elise had also been worried about bears, especially the grizzlies, as she wasn't accustomed to camping and hiking where they lived. All she knew was that they are usually much more dangerous than the black bears that inhabited a few of the neighboring places they had backpacked at home. Fortunately, they didn't run into any of those and Danny did his best to help lighten the mood and ease her apprehensions, making jokes and telling funny stories. Elise was fairly certain he was just making up half of them for her benefit, so she added that to the running list in her head of reasons she loved him.
The weather had been exceedingly pleasant for their trip too. Albeit a bit chilly in the low 50's and high 40's most days, they had luckily avoided rain, for the most part, save a night on their sixth day and some sprinkles on their second afternoon. Unfortunately, the rain and ice melt on the mountains was evident in the swell of their last creek crossing. They had read online that it was normally a bit tricky to cross over in ideal conditions, not having many spots nearby that were much better, but the torrent they came across on their final day was even worse.
"This doesn't look good," Danny said plainly as they came to the rushing stream, a fallen tree the only obvious means across.
"I don't like this, Danny," Elise replied once she got a closer look at the situation before them.
"Why don't we search around for a better place to cross?" he suggested, turning towards her for affirmation. She nodded her head in agreement, but knew from all of the research they had done online beforehand that there would be no better crossing spots than the fallen log. Still, she went along with him, buying herself some time to psyche herself up to cross.
They searched up and down the bank for a good 15 minutes to no avail. Danny finally sighed, rubbing his hands down his face.
"We're going to have to cross over that log," he said, resigned.
"I know," Elise spoke quieter.
"It's the only way," he reiterated.
"I know, Danny. It's ok."
Judging by the look he gave her next, he knew she wasn't really ok with it, but continued anyway, out of options.
"I'll go first. You hold my hand, ok? We'll cross together," he slowly made his way, side stepping, onto the log. Afraid to lose his grip, Elise followed.
"You're doing great, sweetheart," Danny insisted as they neared the halfway point. She had forced him to succumb to taking baby steps. She felt bad, knowing he could already be on the other side if it weren't for her, but Elise was petrified of heights, even if they weren't all that big. The creek raged a mere 5ft below them. Maybe it wasn't the height, in this case, she told herself. Maybe it was the fear of falling into the turbulent current below and getting swept away. It wasn't that big of a stream, but big enough, under its swollen conditions. She continued inching along the log sideways, keeping a death grip on Danny's hand. Elise willed herself not to look down. 3/4 of the way across.
She had no clue why she did it. (Did anyone in circumstances where they could fall and injure themselves?) She looked down. She was so close to being across the log, only 3 feet of water or so between where she stood and where the bank started it. It was a mistake and she knew it. The world around her began to spin. Elise was vaguely aware of her grip loosening from Danny's. Everything suddenly became slow motion. She turned to him as she fell, mouth formed in an "oh!" of surprise as she tumbled over the side.
"Danny!" she screamed out. Suddenly everything returned to normal speed, including her fall. Her hip jolted hard against a large rock below, the creek bank was lined with them. Pain instantly seered from the site of impact, but she had more important things to be concerned with. Elise was in the raging stream now, backpack and all. Would she be able to clamber onto one of the slippery boulders she passed as the current swept her farther downstream?
"Elise!" she turned towards Danny's voice behind her. He was farther away than she expected. She tried hard to grab any branch or rock that she could, trying to kick her way towards shore the whole time to no avail. Her leg wasn't working right. Her kicks a pitiful display, lopsided. Another thought to worry her.
Ultimately, a large branch sticking halfway out into the creek snagged her backpack and didn't let go.
"Elise!" she turned to find Danny running toward her along the uneven bank. She was disturbed by how far the stream had carried her in the short amount of time. The log they had been crossing over looked so far away.
"Hold on, sweetheart!" Danny called again, almost to her. She tried to reach to him as he climbed precariously out onto the branch that was snagging her in place.
"Grab my hand!" he yelled. He was so near. Since her legs were no good, she mustered all of the upper body strength she had to push herself off with one hand and reach with the other...But she didn't find contact with Danny's hand. The waterlogged backpack made things infinitely more difficult than they should have been.
Elise felt a jolt and realized she had somehow managed to push herself free of the log, momentarily, but Danny caught her wrist just in time. His grip hurt a little, but she knew better than to complain as he pulled her slowly towards the rocky embankment. With the weird currents and eddies near shore created by the flooding, Danny struggled to pull her in in a timely manner, but eventually managed to do so without losing a hold of her again.
"Baby, are you ok?" he looked down at her, hands resting on his thighs, seemingly catching his breath, finally letting go of her hand now that he knew she was safe.
"Mostly," Elise floundered, trying to wrap her head around what had just happened
"Can you walk?" he grimaced. "Seems like you took a pretty nasty fall on that rock." She tried to stand, make her way on her feet as she always did when rising from the ground, but fumbled about, and she couldn't blame it on the rocks.
"It's your hip, isn't it?" Danny looked at her with extreme concern as she continued trying to stand up. Elise felt like a marionette with someone who didn't know how to control it. New pain coursed through her left side as she tried to stand, a simple enough task, right?
"Sit down, sweetheart," Danny gently pushed her shoulders, not taking much effort to make her sit.
"Don't make it worse. You can't stand up, can you?"
"Maybe if you helped me..."
"Elise, even if you could with help, something is still majorly wrong," he interrupted. She suddenly began to grow scared.
"I'm cold," Elise mumbled at the same time the fear she may have broken something set in.
"Let me get my spare jacket from my pack. Right back," he announced. She watched him run off, toward the end of the log he made it to but she hadn't, to his pack a mere 6ft away. He pulled the rain jacket from his bag and ran back to her, wrapping it around her as best he could. He didn't stop there, though, as he wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug.
"What are you doing?" Elise managed to ask amongst all of the other questions in her head.
"You're shivering. I don't know whether it's from shock or your core body temperature going down from the cold water and cool air. Either way, I"m not taking my chances," Danny answered expertly.
The weather was deceivingly chilly. The sky was bright with sunshine with only a few small clouds passing overhead occasionally, but the temperature was in the low 40's. Just her luck.
The warmth from his body felt good. That thought alone made her lean toward the latter of his reasonings. Great. Hypothermia on top of a hip injury. That was the last coherent thought Elise had before she began to feel very sleepy, the likes of which she had never known. She needed to close her eyes...
"Stay with me, Elise," Danny commanded. She was vaguely aware of him looking at her, even with her eyes shut.
"I just need to close my eyes for a minute," she conceded, attempting to fall asleep because she felt so tired that she felt there was no other option.
"Goddamn it, Elise. Stay with me!" he shook her gently, still holding her tight, trying to warm her with his own body heat.
Reality became fuzzy. Elise was vaguely aware of Danny cursing at his phone, trying to get a signal. Why would he be making a phone call right now? She was having a hard time making sense of things that should have been apparent. He was talking to someone, but she didn't think it was her, though she couldn't really focus on what he was saying. His voice sounded urgent, whoever he was speaking to. The talking stopped. She was moving slowly back and forth. After a minute she realized it was Danny who was rocking her. Sniffles from above her head.
"Please stay awake, baby," were the last words she remembered.
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