Last night's Hash was a fun one. One of the Hashers is leaving the island in a month. This was his last time setting trail before he leaves. He is a geologist, so he gave a little geology lecture at the beginning and they included some interesting rock climbing on the trail. I was hoping the lecture would be about Saipan's formation, but it wasn't much more than "igneous, metamorphic, sedimentary" with some light local tie-in.

The trail was nice, though. It started off with a bit of road, but that seemed primarily to throw us off to the fact that the whole thing centered around Forbidden Island. We took the normal trail down the to beach by the island, then climbed back up through the cliffs and jungle south of that. I put the map pin on Forbidden Island if you zoom in.

There was one point where they strung a climbing rope to help people up. There was a bit of a backup at the rope when I got there (sound familiar?). People could only go up the rope one at a time because of loose rocks. While I was waiting, I climbed up with some others to a plateau with a beautiful view of Forbidden Island and some of the geological transformations in the area. You can see where and how the water eroded the land underneath and then the resulting bridges collaped. The rock in this area is very jagged volcanic material. Overall, a very cool place to hang out.

I decided that the cliff face above the plateau was a better ascent. Three of us climbed up there instead. It was a much easier climb even without a rope. The area around the rope was getting slippery, as well, because there was more dirt there (thus, the loose rocks), lots of people had already used it, and the day had been rainy.

The rest of the trail was a demanding ascent through a different style of growth than on other parts of the island. The trees had straight trunks, usually no more than 1" around, and were close together with little undergrowth. The trail definitely wasn't cut for the tall or the wide.

The weather had been good for the Hash, although the trail was very wet and muddy from the earlier rains. It stayed that way until the very end of the campfire, when the sky opened up and it poured. I got drenched riding back to the cars in the bed of a pickup truck. I also sliced my thumb open on the metal on the side of the pickup bed when I slipped sideways on a big bump. It's nothing to run to the hospital for, but it's still bleeding a little the next morning. It looks much worse than it is.

After we got to the cars, we went to Hamilton's to dry out (literally, certainly not alcoholicly) and hang out.