Extreme Frontiers: Racing Across Canada from Newfoundland to the Rockies by Charley Boorman Read Free Book Online Page B

whether you keep evolving or fall way behind.’
    ‘How do I get up it?’ I asked. ‘Or do I have to figure that out for myself?’
    You’ve got it. I had to figure it out for myself. So, using the harness and karabiners, I clipped into the metal protection
     loops that studded my ascent and laboriously made my way from peg to peg.
    ‘Is it hard?’ Russ called from below.
    I looked down at him, one eyebrow cocked. ‘More a pain in the arse actually, mate. More a pain in the arse.’
    It was knackering: one arm wrapped around the log while trying to move the karabiners from ring to ring.
    Wade was no help. ‘Come on, Charley,’ he called. ‘If you’re not able to get to the top, you have to go back to the family
     ropes course.’
    You just had to love this guy, didn’t you? Undeterred, I climbed on and finally made it to a wooden platform, where I could
     pause to catch my breath, though not for very long. Now I had a tightrope walk to perform – a cable extending between the treetops
     with another at shoulder height to clip on to. Like some high-wire walker from a circus, with the crowd cheering me on from
     below, I set out, sliding one foot and then the other along the cable. I made it, just, heart in my mouth. At the far platform
     I clung on to the tree as if my life depended on it. Fortunately I didn’t have to go back the way I’d come – there was a regular
     wooden-rung rope ladder to descend.
    On terra firma once more, I was sweating like a pig when Wade came up with another impossible task. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘For this
     next bit we’re free from our karabiners and you can jump, dive and struggle your way across.’ Gesturing with the kind of enthusiasm
     only the most sadistic torturers display, he rattled on, ‘You jump off the platform, try to grab hold of that first hanging
     pyramid, bear-hug it, get as high up as you can, then reach for the next one and swing yourself from one to the next.’ Pausing
     for breath he added, ‘It’s impossible for an ordinary man, but from what I’ve seen today, I think you’ll be able to handle
     it.’
    I stared at him, wondering if Ewan wasn’t paying him or something, getting me back for all those sand dunes we’d had to ride
     across on
Long Way Down
. Below me was a net, of course, but I still wasn’t convinced I could do it withoutfalling. I wondered what I was doing here; if I’d wanted to be a trapeze artist I’d have run away and joined the circus, wouldn’t
     I?
    I think I made it to the first pyramid and that was it. I peeled off and lay on my back with the net supporting me, just trying
     to catch my breath. That had to be it now, didn’t it? But no, they were not done with me yet. Next I was clipped on to a single
     cable with a series of hanging rungs to cross and the forest floor far, far below. By this point I reckon my blood pressure
     was through the roof, and I was hanging on to the overhead cable for dear life, wavering around on the wooden rungs that bobbed
     under my feet. They were wobbling so much I could barely get from one to the next. Why didn’t I just have a normal job? I
     wondered. You know, one where the alarm goes off and you pack your lunch and drive off to work listening to the radio. I was
     exhausted and beaten up to the point where my legs felt like hunks of immovable lead.
    After acting like some sort of partially evolved ape for the past few hours, I was delighted to finally don a life jacket,
     grab a paddle and head out on to the lake. Saguenay is a playground, it really is, and the fun doesn’t stop when the snow
     comes; it just shifts to ice-fishing, snowmobiling and dog-sledding. You name it, they do it at Saguenay.
    It wasn’t long before we found the most amazing waterfall: gallons and gallons flowing over a pinnacle of rock. Now we’re
     talking. Paddling right up close, I finally washed the sweat from my aching body by diving in. God, it was cold! Saguenay
     is a glacial mountain lake and it