The Story of a Lifetime

Let me preface this with, we are “all” okay.

We went snowshoeing Sunday on the North Country Trail. Although it was only 4 degrees we were staying warm and enjoying ourselves, until we got to a section of the trail where we were at the Manistee River’s edge. There was about 25 feet of ice at the edge of the rapidly flowing river. Hector and Katy obviously thought it was “land” and thus went to the edge of the ice to check out the water. Hector fell through and couldn’t get out. He struggled for a brief time to get out as we tried calling him. But when we recognized he couldn’t, and all he could do was to hang on to the edge, we really didn’t know how much time we had to get him out. So with snowshoes still on, I belly crawled out to get him, not knowing how thick the ice was. Paula was on her belly right behind me. I got to Hec, grabbed his collar and got him out. But just at the moment, I went through the ice. Probably because of the increased weight at the edge at that moment. Boy am I impressed with how instincts come through however. I rolled on my back not even thinking and the air in my gortex jacket kept me buoyant. My feet/snowshoes were still above the ice, which saved me. Paula was right at my feet on her belly and when she grabbed a hold of my snowshoe, it moved me up river enough so that my shoulder was at the edge of the ice. I had the thought, “they say to roll onto the edge of the ice,” so that’s what I did and it got me out of the water. Then Paula said, “roll” and we both rolled back to shore. The adrenaline surge was incredible. My heart rate had to have been 160 from this. I was soaked and knew I needed to get to the car as fast as possible or I’d be in more deep trouble. We were about 35 minutes into the woods so getting back was going to be a hike. So I took off jogging in my snowshoes. I stayed pretty warm by doing this. My legs started to lose coordination when I got to the straight away near the car. What also went through my mind was, “Paula and I really shouldn’t be separating like this,” but I had to trust that she’d be okay.” Meanwhile Katy and Hector ran back and forth between us until the distance got too great. Then this part is cool, Hector came up and stayed with me, while Katy stayed back with Paula. Paula said she kept circling to look for me, and even showed Paula the short cut through the pine trees to get back faster. Their instincts shined as well.

Needless to say, we are all pretty tired and sore. I have a huge purple bruise on the back of my leg near my butt, I’m guessing there was something below the ice, perhaps a tree or something that I hit when I fell through. We both have bruised knees from belly crawling on the ice with snowshoes. We must have been gripping pretty hard. Hector and Katy have been pretty quiet the past two days, sleeping lots. Katy was moving pretty slow on Monday. The old girl isn’t used to having so much responsibility. I’m sure it took its toll on both of them. But boy, were we lucky. This could have turned out a whole lot worse than it did. When I got back to the car, I couldn’t open my pocket that had the car keys because my zippers were all frozen. I finally thawed the zippers and was able to get my clothes off. Hec and I waited for Paula and Katy in the car with the heater blasting.

We’ve analyzed just about every moment and feel we really didn’t have any other options. There was no way I was going to lose our Hector. He would have drowned if we didn’t go out after him. Fortunately all is fine. But we certainly won’t be hiking near any rivers or lakes anymore in the winter.

Hope your Valentine’s litter arrives with hearts of gold.

Karen