高中白袜男生:国家地理：谷底深处

By Mark Jenkins

文：马克·詹金斯

Photograph by Carsten Peter

摄影：贾斯腾·彼得

The Swiss have mountains, so they climb. Canadians have lakes, so they canoe. The Australians have canyons, so they go canyoneering, a hybrid form of madness halfway between mountaineering and caving in which you go down instead of up, often through wet tunnels and narrow passageways. Unlike other places with slot canyons, such as Utah, Jordan, or Corsica, Australia has a rich, deep heritage of canyoneering. In a way, it's an extreme form of bushwalking, something Aborigines were doing tens of thousands of years before Europeans arrived. But without ropes and technical equipment, Aborigines couldn't explore the deepest slots.

瑞士多高山，所以瑞士人擅长攀岩。加拿大多湖泊，所以加拿大人擅长驭舟。澳大利亚则多峡谷，所以澳大利亚人擅长溪降——一种介于登山与洞穴探险之间的混合型疯狂冒险运动，这种运动的参与者通常是沿着潮湿的地道和狭窄的通路一路往下而不是往上行进。不像其他有夹缝峡谷地貌的地方，比如犹他州、约旦或者科西嘉岛，澳大利亚有着深厚的峡谷溪降运动的传统。这种运动在某种程度上可以算是丛林徒步的一种极端形式，是澳大利亚土著居民在欧洲人到来前已进行了几万年的活动。但是，没有绳索和技术装备的澳洲土著并无法进到最深的峡谷夹缝中探索。

Today perhaps thousands of Aussies hike canyons, hundreds descend into them by ropes, but only a handful explore new ones. These driven individuals tend to have a rugby player's legs, knees crosshatched with scar tissue from all the scratches, a penguin's tolerance for frigid water, a wallaby's rock-hopping agility, and a caver's mole-like willingness to crawl into damp, dark holes. They prefer to wear Volleys—canvas, rubber-soled Dunlop tennis shoes—ragged shorts, ripped gaiters, and thrift-store fleece. They camp beside tiny campfires and make "jaffles" for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Jaffles are sandwiches containing all manner of ingredients—including Vegemite, a nasty-tasting yeast extract—cooked inside fire irons over the flames. Above all they search for the most remote, difficult to access canyons. "The darker, the narrower, the twistier the better," says Dave Noble, one of the most experienced canyoneers in the country. "People say, What if you get stuck in there? But that's what you are after. To be forced to improvise to get yourself out."

现在可能有数千名澳大利亚人在峡谷徒步旅行，有数百人掉着绳索深入到这些峡谷，但仅有少数人探索新的峡谷。这些雄心勃勃、动力十足的人通常有着橄榄球运动员一般强壮的腿，膝盖上满是各种擦碰留下的交错的疤痕，对冰冷的水有着企鹅一般的耐受力，能像沙袋鼠一样在岩石间灵活跳跃，也有着探穴人那鼹鼠似的在潮湿、黑暗的洞穴中爬行的意愿。他们喜欢穿Volley ——一种邓禄普（Dunlop）橡胶底帆布网球鞋，毛边的短裤、开裂的护腿和从二手店买来的抓绒衣。他们在一小堆篝火旁宿营，烤制“飞碟”三明治（jaffle）做早餐、午餐和晚餐。“飞碟”三明治是一种夹了各种各样馅料的三明治，其中包括“维吉麦（Vegemite）”，一种口感较差的酵母提取物食品酱，然后放入烘烤机在火上烘烤而成。最为重要的是，他们找的都是最偏远、最不易到达的峡谷。“越黑、越窄、越蜿蜒曲折越好，” 澳大利亚经验最为丰富的溪降爱好者之一的大卫·诺博说，“人们会说，‘如果你被困在那儿怎么办’？但这就是你去（进行溪降）的追求之所在呀——被迫随机应变把自己从那儿带出去。”

During the past 38 years Noble has made some 70 first descents in the Blue Mountains, just a few hours' drive west of Sydney. This unexpectedly rugged region has hundreds of slot canyons. The "Blueys" aren't mountains at all but an ancient sedimentary plateau deeply incised by river erosion and densely carpeted in eucalyptus—imagine the canyonlands of Utah covered with Louisiana foliage.

在过去的38年里，诺博在悉尼以西仅几小时车程的蓝山进行了大约70次峡谷首降。蓝山这个出奇崎岖的地带有着上百处夹缝峡谷。“蓝山”其实根本不是山，而是一处古老的沉积高地，河流的侵蚀将其切割得沟壑纵横，繁密的桉树又将其覆盖得严严实实——想象一下，就像是路易斯安那州的树叶子覆盖着犹他州的峡谷地。

Defiantly unconventional, Noble, 57, has never driven a car. He bicycles nearly 20 miles a day through suburban Sydney to teach high school physics. Although he has drawn heavily annotated topographic maps of canyons that he has explored and named—such as Cannibal, Black Crypt, Crucifixion, and Resurrection—and has posted pictures of them on his website, he won't tell anyone where these canyons are. He won't even let me have a good look at his maps. "It's our ethic," he says. "Wilderness canyons should be left undescribed so they remain pristine and so others can have the challenge of exploring them on their own. That's part of the mystery."

好挑战而不墨守成规的诺博，现年57岁，从来没有驾驶过汽车。他每天骑将近20英里的自行车穿过悉尼郊区到一所高中去教物理课。尽管他画出了他已经探索和命名过的峡谷的密布注解的地质学地图，他给这些峡谷取了如“汉尼拔”（Cannibal，电影名——译者）、“暗黑地牢”（Black Crypt，游戏名——译者）、“耶稣受难”和“耶稣复活”之类的名称，并在自己的网站上贴出这些峡谷的照片，但他却不告诉任何人这些峡谷的确切位置。他甚至不让我好好看看他的地图。“这是我们的行为准则，”他说，“并应对荒漠的峡谷进行描述说明，这样才能保持它们的原始状态，以便其他人仍能接收挑战，自己去探索这些峡谷。那才是构成神秘的一部分。”

Noble's chief rival in the sport is a canyoneer named Rick Jamieson, who earned Noble's disapproval some years back by writing a guidebook that revealed a few secrets of the canyon landscape. More than a decade ago Jamieson, also a physics teacher, took me on the first complete descent of two big canyons in the Blueys, Bennett Gully and Orongo. A huge, good-natured boulder of a man at 70, he's still canyoneering and still laughing.

诺博在溪降运动中的主要对手是一名叫里克·杰米森的的溪降爱好者，他因在几年前写了一本揭秘峡谷景观许多秘密的指南而招致诺博的非难。十多年前，同为物理课教师的杰米森曾带我在蓝山、本尼特小峡谷和奥龙戈的两个大峡谷进行了首次全程溪降。这个已经70岁的高大、和蔼、巨石一般的男人，如今仍在进行溪降运动，仍喜欢开怀大笑。

"Mighty!" exclaims Jamieson in his thick Australian accent when we get together for a beer. "We're lucky those GPS's don't work down in the canyons. Keeps the adventure."

“太好了！”当我们一起喝啤酒的时候，杰米森操着他浓重的澳大利亚口音大声说，“我们很幸运，那些个GPS在峡谷谷底不起作用。保持了这项冒险运动的冒险性。”

Canyoneering by sunburned white people began in the 1940s, but the biggest slots weren't explored until the 1960s, when modern climbing ropes and equipment were adopted. Danae Brook Canyon, hidden in the labyrinthine heart of the Blue Mountains, is one of the most difficult. In his guidebook Jamieson describes it as "one very, very long day" in which canyoneers must make nine or more tricky abseils, a climbing term for descending on a rope. Both Jamieson and Noble have done it, yet neither man is available to go with me. But wiry John Robens is keen to give it a try.

由皮肤晒得黝黑的白人进行的溪降运动早在20世纪40年代就已兴起，但是直到20世纪60年代随着现代攀爬绳索和设备开始为人们使用时，才有人探索那些最大的峡谷夹缝。掩藏于蓝山那迷宫般的中心区域的戴纳漪布鲁克峡谷（Danae Brook Canyon）就是最难进入的峡谷之一。杰米森在他的指南中将在戴纳漪布鲁克峡谷中的溪降经历描述为“非常非常漫长的一天”，溪降爱好者必须进行九次甚至更多次颇为棘手的“缘绳下降”（指顺着绳索下降的一个登山术语）。杰米森和诺博都已经完成了在戴纳漪布鲁克峡谷的溪降，但他们俩谁都没空陪我去。倒是瘦小强壮的约翰·罗本斯热切地想要试一试。

We meet at his home in Sydney. Most weekends for the past ten years Robens, 39, has escaped the city to go canyoneering in the bush. A shaggy-haired, wry, soft-spoken, self-employed computer consultant, Robens, like Noble, fearlessly bicycles the city streets, and he has thighs like Lance Armstrong's to prove it. He lives with his wife, Chuin Nee Ooi, also an elite canyoneer and fellow computer programmer, in a compact midtown house that appears to have been hit by a typhoon: carabiners, canyoneering ropes, and mud-clotted clothes are scattered among computers, hard drives, disks, coffee cups, and a grand piano. A large wooden box on the diminutive porch is filled with worn-out Volleys.

我们在他位于悉尼的家碰面了。在过去十年里的大多数周末，现年39岁的罗本斯都会逃离城市，到荒野里进行溪降运动。罗本斯，一个头发凌乱、幽默讽刺、说话温和的自由职业电脑顾问，像诺博一样，毫无畏惧地骑着自行车穿梭于城市街道，而且有着一双像兰斯·阿姆斯特朗一样强健的大腿来证明这一点。他和他同为溪降运动中坚分子和电脑程序员的妻子Chuin Nee Ooi一起住在市区中心一间貌似被台风袭击过的结实的房子里：登山用铁索、溪降绳索和凝结了泥块的衣服散落在电脑、硬盘、光碟、咖啡杯和一架大钢琴之间。放在小门廊里的一支大木箱里装满了磨破了的Volley鞋。

Robens and I drive west from Sydney for four hours, camp in Kanangra-Boyd National Park, and by dawn are tramping down the Mount Thurat fire trail. We have wet suits, a rope, and lunch in our packs. After crossing Kanangra Creek, we strike out into the trailless bush, navigating by map and GPS. Canyoneers share an ability to travel swiftly through seemingly impenetrable brush; Robens glides through this giant briar patch so efficiently he's hard to keep up with. Following a compass bearing, we hop over fallen trees and branches and crash through scrub, passing through giant spiderwebs, mouse-size spiders scurrying across our necks.

罗本斯和我从悉尼开车出发，向西开了四个小时，在卡南格拉-博伊德国家公园（Kanangra-Boyd National Park）宿营一宿，并在黎明行踏上了苏拉特峰（Mount Thurat）救火道。我们的背包里装着紧身潜水服、一根绳子和我们的午饭。在跨过卡南格拉溪（Kanangra Creek）之后，我们在没有路的矮树丛中借助地图和GPS的导航开辟道路。溪降爱好者都有在表面上看起来不可能穿过的矮树丛中迅速行进的能力；罗本斯快速地溜过这片荆棘地，我很难跟得上他。顺着罗盘指引的方向，我们跳过倒在地上的树和树枝，冲出灌木丛，穿过巨大的蜘蛛网，老鼠大小的蜘蛛在我们的脖子上乱窜。

"'Tis only the spiders that live in the ground that can kill you," Robens says brightly.

“只有生活在地下的蜘蛛能杀死你，”罗本斯快活地说道。

After less than an hour Robens has guided us precisely to the top of Danae Falls, although he's never been here before. A brook rushes to the edge of the plateau and leaps off.

不到一小时，罗本斯就精确地把我们带到了戴纳漪瀑布（Danae Falls）顶上，尽管他自己之前也没有来过。一条小溪奔涌到崖边，倾泻而下。

"Our first abseil is off that," Robens says, pointing to a tree jutting precariously out over the cliff. We stretch into sticky wet suits, clap on helmets, cinch up our harnesses, and sail out into space. It's like rappelling off the edge of a green-cloaked Grand Canyon.

“我们就从那开始第一次缘绳下降，”罗本斯指着伸出悬崖的一棵不太稳固的树说。我们钻进粘乎乎的潜水服、扣紧头盔、系好我们身上的安全绳，然后飞降到了空中。就像从绿荫覆盖的大峡谷（Grand Canyon）边缘用坐式下降法滑下去。

Up this high, Danae Brook hasn't yet cut a slot in the rock face, so we rappel through plumes of spray beside the waterfall, our feet slipping on giant fern fronds. By our next rappel the Danae has sliced a fissure that's only four feet wide but cuts 50 feet back into the stone. We descend at the back of the crack, looking out at a vertical seam of blue sky.

从这么高的峰顶流下的戴纳漪溪（Danae Brook）尚未在岩石表面侵蚀出一条夹缝，所以我们就挨着瀑布、穿过溅起的羽流下降，我们的脚在巨大的蕨叶上打着滑。在我们进行下一次缘绳下降前戴纳漪溪已在岩石表面划开一道仅四英尺宽但反切入岩石五十英尺深的裂缝。我们从裂缝背面下降，小心地看着从垂直的裂缝中露出的蓝色天空。

At the top of the third rappel we're deep in the dark slot, standing on a slick, sloppy ledge in a pouring waterfall. "To keep the rope from getting stuck," Robens shouts, "we'll have to pass to the inside of that dodgy ralstone."

在第三次缘绳下降的顶部起点时，我们已深入漆黑的峡谷夹缝，站在一条倾泻而下的瀑布中的一块圆滑、泥泞的岩架上。“要想不让绳索被卡住，”罗本斯喊道，“我们得绕到那块难走的‘罗石头’里面。”

"Ralstone?" I yell.

“罗石头？”我喊着问道。

"You know, roll stone," Robens says with a smile, nodding toward a chockstone the size of a refrigerator in the slot below us. It's a canyoneer's hard-knocks joke: "roll stone" for "ralstone," referring to Aron Ralston, the American who was forced to cut off his arm when a boulder rolled on top of it in a Utah canyon.

“你不知道吗，滚落石，”罗本斯边说边笑，并朝着我们下方夹缝里的一块冰箱大小的缝内岩石点点头。这是从一名溪降爱好者的不幸遭遇引伸出来的玩笑话：把“滚落石”说成“罗石头”，指的是艾伦·罗斯顿（Aron Ralston），那个在犹他州攀登大峡谷时被一块滚落的巨石压住而不得不切断自己的胳膊的美国人。

The walls are covered with moss. Sliding to the inside of the giant stone turns out to be like squeezing into a narrow, ten-story elevator shaft pouring with water. We're forced to swing into the pounding waterfall, an awkward maneuver that slams us both into the rock. But it's worth it: Standing in a pool at the bottom, we easily pull our rope down.

夹缝内的石壁长满了苔藓。结果滑到那块巨石的里面就像硬挤进一条有水往下倾倒的10层楼高的狭窄电梯井。我们被迫荡进轰隆作响的瀑布。这个别扭的办法使得我和罗本斯都撞到了岩石上。但是这样做也很值得：我们站在夹缝底的水坑里，轻松就把我们的绳索拉了下来。

Below the big boulder the slot closes up, and the silky water flows horizontally along the cavelike chamber back out to the edge of the cliff. We still have a thousand feet of air below us. We rappel directly into the bludgeoning waterfall. Halfway down I make the mistake of looking up, and the blast of water almost tears my head off.

在那块大石头下方，夹缝开始闭合， 丝绸一样的水流沿着像洞穴一般的夹缝空间水平回流并流淌下悬崖边。我们下方仍有一千英尺深的空间。我们直接下降到倾泻的瀑布里。在下降的过程中，我犯了个错——我朝上面看了看，结果巨大的水流几乎把我的头给冲下来。

The next three descents are just as extraordinary and drop us into hanging ponds of frigid water, like swimming pools midway up a skyscraper. We backstroke across these ponds, using the dry bags in our backpacks for flotation.

接下来的三次下降同样非凡，把我们带到了池水冰冷的悬池里，就好比那种半吊在摩天楼中央的游泳池。我们浮在我们背包里的干袋子上，仰泳游过这些悬池。

At 10 a.m. we share lunch on a sunny boulder with a water dragon, a two-foot, dinosaur-like lizard with a brilliant crest, and drink directly from the cool, delicious Danae. Holding my head under the emerald water, I spot blue-shelled yabbies, the native crayfish, clawing their way along the bottom of the pool. Then we both strip off our wet suits.

到了上午10点，我们就和一条澳洲水龙——一种有着漂亮纹路、用两只后脚行走、像恐龙一样的蜥蜴——在一块照得到太阳的大石头上一起吃午饭，并直接从清凉、甘甜的戴纳漪溪中取水喝。我把头闷到碧绿的溪水中，看见长着蓝色外壳的螫虾（一种当地生长的小龙虾）在池底爬行。然后我们俩都脱掉了潜水服。

Robens is perfectly happy to continue in his birthday suit, but I pull on heavy nylon pants. Two weeks earlier in another canyon I managed to step into a stinging tree, a uniquely horrific plant that burns like stinging nettles and leaves a painful rash that doesn't go away for a month. Mine is in an unreasonable place.

罗本斯很乐意一丝不挂地继续前进，而我则穿上了我的厚尼龙短裤。两个星期前，在另一处峡谷，我设法跨过一棵带刺的树，那是一株异常可怕的植物，像荨麻一样会刺痛皮肤并引发一个月都消退不掉的令人极为痛苦的皮疹。所以这时候一丝不挂不太合时宜。

Several short rappels and two huge jumps follow. Robens throws himself off the stone, howling like a free man, arms and legs spread wide in the air, closing them like a butterfly right before he hits the water 20 feet below.

几次短程下降后是两次大跨度的跳跃。罗本斯从岩石上跳下，像个重获自由的人一样嚎叫着，双手和双腿在空中大大张开，又在即将碰到他身下二十英尺的水面时像只蝴蝶一样收拢了双手双脚。

When we reach the bottom, the Danae becomes a steep boulder field, which Robens, naked but for his pack and tennies, practically runs across. He leaps, lands on a slimy, snot-slick stone, almost loses his balance, finds his balance, and leaps again, all in one fluid motion. It's amazing to watch, like witnessing the movements of some earlier, better adapted human. In an hour we cover a distance that typically requires three. Stumbling and falling, I watch Robens dancing and hopscotching as if he'd been born for it.

当我们到达戴纳漪瀑布底部时，那里已是一片陡峭的巨石场。罗本斯光着身子，身上只有他的背包和网球鞋，几乎是奔跑着穿过了这片巨石场。他跳起来，落在一块泥泞、粘滑的石头上，几乎失去平衡，又保持住了平衡，再接着往前跳，动作连贯如行云流水。看着他的动作实在叫人惊叹，就像是亲眼目睹了某个适应力更强的早期人类的动作。我们只用了一个小时就完成了要三个小时才能跨越的距离。我看着罗本斯踉踉跄跄、跌跌撞撞，一会儿跳起舞，一会儿又玩起跳房子游戏，好像他就是为溪降运动而生的。

Where the Danae meets Kanangra Creek, our descent is complete. But like climbers who reach a summit, we can't celebrate yet. In canyoneering what goes down must come back up. We cross the creek, rest for ten minutes, then begin the agonizing, bushwhacking ascent. We could go up a slope like Murdering Gully but take a rocky rib instead, nicknaming it Manslaughter Ridge. The climb is so vertical we're pulling ourselves up branch by branch.

在戴纳漪溪和卡南格拉溪的交汇处，我们这次溪降的全程结束了。但是就和登上了峰巅的登山者的情况一样，现在还不是我们欢庆的时候。在溪降运动中，人降下去了还必须得爬上去。我们跨过溪流，停下休息了10分钟，然后开始了那令人痛苦不堪的、在树丛中找路的向上攀登。我们本可以爬上一个谋杀溪谷（Murdering Gully）式的斜面，但却选择了走岩石嶙峋的山脊，还戏称之为“误杀山脊”（Manslaughter Ridge）。攀爬的角度太过垂直，我们只能拽着树枝一点一点地往上爬。

Wet with sweat, we reach the peninsular plateau of the Gangerang Range, directly opposite Danae Brook Canyon, shake hands, and whoop. From here we can take a trail, the Kilpatrick Causeway, and the going will be easy (although in 2006 a hiker fell off a 230-foot cliff on the same trail and died).

我们到达戴纳漪溪谷正对面的冈葛朗山脉（Gangerang Range）的半岛高地时已经汗流浃背。我们握了握手，然后欢呼起来。从这里开始，我们可以走一条小路——基尔帕特里克堤道（Kilpatrick Causeway），走起来就比较轻松了（尽管2006年时曾经有一名徒步者在这条小路上从230英尺的悬崖坠亡）。

Striding along the track, the sun at my back, dreaming of the avocado-tomato-prosciutto-provolone jaffle I'll cook over our campfire tonight, feeling warm and tired, my body and mind cleansed by the descent of Danae, I see Robens swerve off into the bush.

大踏步走在路上，太阳在我身后，想着今晚我将会在我们的篝火上烤制的鳄梨番茄熏火腿加波萝伏洛干酪“飞碟”三明治，既温暖又疲惫，我的身心都在戴纳漪溪的这次溪降中得到净化。我看见罗本斯突然一转方向，钻进了树丛。

"Wanta show you something," he says over his shoulder.

“想给你看点东西，”他回过头来说。

We curl around a sandstone knob on a ledge, and suddenly before us is aboriginal art. A row of stick figures drawn in ocher red, obviously naked, all with their arms and legs spread wide, all quite obviously rejoicing.

我们绕过岩脊上一座砂岩圆丘，一副土著绘画跃然眼前。一排用红色赭土绘制的线条人物——显然都是裸体——都将手臂和腿脚大大张开，明显充满喜悦。