Indiana Jones and the Horsethief Trail

Now that is a catchy title, dont'cha think? From beginning to end on this hike, we all felt a little like Indy was leading us on an adventure through the wilderness in South Orange County. It all started with an email which stated that the drive to the trail head off of El Toro Road was only suitable for high clearance vehicles. When I read this, I felt like Professor Jones at the university hearing about a far off place with a mythological treasure that he must find in order to save modern society. Actually, we kind of are doing this to save modern society since we are, after all, doing all of this to find a cure for blood cancers. Without question, we grabbed our gear and headed to meet the team. We headed to the meeting place and got in our designated high clearance vehicles to set off on our adventure.

Once we got in the trucks and SUV's to carpool to the trail head, we found out why they needed to be raised high off of the ground. It felt very similar to my least favorite and most unforgiving ride at Disneyland, Indiana Jones. I love the scenery and theatrics of the ride, but the ride itself is painfully bumpy as the car jolts your body all around and the seat belt feels like it is trying to punch you in the bladder the whole time. Our nauseatingly painful car ride to Horsethief Trail was scarily similar to the ride (see video), the only difference was that we did not have to pop it in reverse to dodge any booby trapped boulders along the way.

As on any Indy adventure, along the way there were ominous signs of danger. The first signs of danger were the native ram shackled huts that we passed in our trucks (cabins which looked eerily like where Jason Vorhees lives at Camp Crystal Lake). We were silent as we waited for the sounds of banjos to signify that we were in unfriendly local territory. Once we were on the hike, we passed other signs of danger such as the abandoned rusty car riddled with bullet holes, and the cave which I passed with caution so as to avoid being struck by poison tipped darts. There were also rumors of dangerous wildlife in the area as told by the local mountain biker tribes and there stories of poisonous serpents lurking in the shadows who rattle their tails and coil their bodies right before they strike your ankles and inject your body with a deadly paralyzing neurotoxin. I could almost hear Indy's fearful cry about his one and only weakness, "SNAKES! I HATE SNAKES!!!"

Indy often goes to beautiful places in search of his archaeologically priceless treasures. As any explorer will testify, when things in nature are beautiful, they are also more deadly. This was definitely the case with the amount of poison oak on the trail. Our rule of thumb was that if it is green, stay away from it. Not easy to do on an overgrown trail, so we were instructed to clean all of our gear if and when we make it home in case our pets might come in contact with it. This lush green scenery would gradually change throughout the course of our ten mile hike as we climbed over 2000 feet of switchbacks and back down over the course of our 8 hour day. When there are drastic changes in scenery, it is a sure sign that the level of oxygen is depleting due to the change in altitude, and your hiking boots are getting their fair share of mileage. The post hike migraine is also a good souvenir to remind you of the hours spent in the sun and altitude.

We made it home safe in the end with no signs of rash from the poison oak, festering puncture wounds from poisonous serpents or darts, or any stories of dangerous run ins with local banjo playing tribes. All members of our expedition were accounted for in the end as they came back to the trucks with stories of narrowly escaping being run off the trail and falling down the mountain to their doom by silently stealth mountain bikers. I even came home with a geographical find, a mysterious clear brown rock too dark to be amber.

We have six sequels to this adventure left until we hike in Yosemite on June 19, 2010. We can't wait to see what dangers we might face next week, so stay tuned to not miss another tale of mystery and action packed excitement! On to the next adventure!!! Don't forget to click the title to this story if you would like to donate to our cause! Let's not forget that we are risking our lives on our weekly adventures in search of a cure for blood cancers!!!

"Indiana Jones and the Horsethief Trail"


P.S. One of Danny's closest friends wrote a great blog about when they visited Disneyland on the day the Indiana Jones ride opened and it is a great read!!! They were in line so long that they learned how to read hyroglyphics (no joke)!!! Check it out here: http://www.thepageisblank.com/main/2010/3/4/well-hello-my-friends.html