Statistics show that 46% of all kids who smoke marijuana are inner-city youth. Guess who the other 54% are? Call for a free parent's guide to drug prevention. 1-800-624-0100. Portaging can do is a pretty straightforward process. First, make sure you've got good footing. And then instead of using your back, you want to be using your leg muscles, just like lifting any heavy object. Make a table out of your thighs, bring the canoe right up, reach for the far gunnel, and with smooth movement, turn and bring it up on your shoulders. Wow! Nice. It's real nice when you work for it. Some people call me Fast Eddie. Catch me this week on Trailside. I'm hiking through one of the wettest places on Earth, soaked to the bone, tromping through the mud, and you know what? I'm having a great time. In fact, I've got rain gear in my pack and I'm not even thinking about putting it on. Yet. Hi, I'm John Vienma. Join me in Puerto Rico's Ojunque rainforest as we make our own adventure on Trailside. Puerto Rico's Ojunque is not your everyday tropical rainforest. Sure, it has hundreds of rare plant and animal species and plenty of rain, as much as 240 inches a year up there in the cloud forest. But what makes it unique is what it doesn't have. No poisonous snakes, no piranhas, no man-eating mammals. It's also the only tropical forest in the U.S. forest system, and with a growing network of trails, that makes it ideal for backpacking. Well, I've got my backcountry permit, a good map, and everything I need for a four-day hike, so let's hit the trailhead. Hi, John! This may be a friendly rainforest, but you don't want to head out there with just anyone. Joining me today is Francisco Valenzuela. He was hiking rainforests all over the world and spent five years studying the trail system here, while he developed a visitor education program for it. Hi, Francisco! Hi, John, how are you doing today? Welcome to Ojunque. Hey, good to be here. Well, tell me, what is it with you in this place anyway? Well, I guess I'm just a rainforest fanatic, you know. It's another place I've been to where you can see something new and amazing every time we go out. Oh, great. We've got a lot of things to see today. Okay. So we're going to be hiking the Rila Lamina Trail, which in English is known as the Trail of the Mine. Oh, neat. It's a steep trail with lots of waterfalls. You don't mind getting a little wet today, do you? Well, I don't start a day without a shower, so this will be a typical day for me. I should get about 15 of them today. Oh, great. Watch your step, because it's a little slippery. Yeah, I can see. It's a lot more light down here than I expected. Isn't it usually kind of dark and shady in the rainforest? Yeah, usually, but in 1989, Hurricane Hugo ripped through here and pulled down a lot of trees. And these Sacropia here, which are sun-loving and fast-growing, have shot up. Yeah. Anytime you see those, you know that something dramatic has happened to the canopy. Kind of like what a jack pine does after a forest fire. Exactly. Now, is there any other kind of poisonous plants or anything we have to be on the watch for? Well, there's all kinds of poisonous plants. For example, right here, here's one that's not as much poisonous, but pointy. Yo, you can say that again. Yeah, those little needles break off in your skin. They're just really irritating. Even the trunk has these thorns. What do you call this? Ortiga. Ortiga, huh. Look at the size of this snail over here. Boy, they're everywhere, too. I've never seen one quite that big before. Yeah, this is our largest land mollusc here. And the tropical rainforest is so wet that a lot of creatures associated with marine environments can live in it. Some of our snails don't even have shells on them anymore. They're so used to being in the water here. Boy, that shell is really smooth underneath, too. You really have to keep your eye out. There's all sorts of life here, isn't it? All over. All of it, most of it hidden. Mm-hmm. What's this? This is a pretty flower, isn't it? A heliconia. It's a relative of like the banana plant. Right now, people are studying this for medical purposes, maybe even cures for cancer can be found by many of the plants here in the tropics. Looks like the rain's coming in, too. It looks like it. You can hear it coming. Yeah. I'm going to get my jacket out, I think. At least you get a nice warning, huh? Yeah. You're not quite here yet. You use a poncho, huh? Yeah, it's much cooler. I don't like to be sweating underneath my rain gear. I want as much ventilation as I possibly can. I kind of like to use these pack covers because that way you can kind of take your pack off if you stop and still have your rain suit on. Right. A little more versatile. I just use a poncho over my pack so that I can keep a lot of ventilation from me and the rain gear. As soon as that rain stops, you really feel the humidity. It's getting hot under here. Yeah, as we drop down the drainage, the real lamina, the temperature goes up. Well, I think you might be right about the advantages of a poncho over a rain jacket. I'm heating up a lot in here. I think I'll stop and take this rain jacket off. Yeah, right. I'm way ahead of you. I'll see your way ahead of me. It's another one of the selling points of ponchos there, huh? Yeah. So I imagine we're going to be doing this a lot today, taking rain jackets on and off. Yeah, you know, it gets to be a hassle because you have so many of these brief showers and it gets so warm in between that sometimes it's not worth getting all steamed up under the gear. Yeah, I suppose after a while, too, you look forward to the rain because you get heated up pretty good. I do. It makes me feel refreshed to get that rain on me. Well, this may seem like an obvious question or why is it raining so much here? Well, John, here in the Caribbean, we have all this moist ocean air that comes across the mountains here. As it hits Saliunque, the air is forced up. As it forces up, it cools. When it cools, it drops moisture here on the forest. Neat. And because we have constant trade winds, we have constant rainfall all year round. Is it safe to drink the water in the forest? That's pretty safe to drink the water, but I use iodine crystals. I've been carrying around for 15 years now and they work great. What do you use? I use a filter. I know it's some extra weight, but I just don't like the taste of iodine in my water. Well, I don't like the extra weight. No, and I say tomato and you say... Tomate. Well, this is a lot up for going downstream, Francisco. Yeah, right. Hey, now, if you ever got off trail in a place like this, what would you recommend? Find a river like this and follow it all the way down, or what? Well, I wouldn't follow a river like this down because you're bound to get clipped out. Okay. It's much better to try to climb up to one of these ridges and work your way back up. As you go down, the forest gets even more dense and hard to work your way through. Looks like more rain. Should we pull out our rain gear? Now, I've come to the conclusion it's better to hike cool and wet as long as we can cap dry and warm. Yeah, and I guess if you do have dry clothes in your pack, you better make sure they're in a waterproof bag, huh? Bombproof. Check this out. Boy, you know, with all the water heading through this forest, you really got to admire trail construction such as this. Look at the stonework. Yeah, it looks like this had washed out not too long ago. Looks like Victor's work. Yeah, it does, doesn't it? Victor Mercado heads the trail maintenance program here. Before heading out, I caught up with him on a typical day in his Iljunque office. So, Victor, where did the trail system come from that's down here? Well, most of our trail system was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps way back in the 1930s. Really? So it's just like most of the trails and the rest of the trail, national trail system, even the Appalachian Trail, a lot of that was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps. That's correct. How'd they do for you? They did a good job. We have improved the methods ever since, and we've gone on to better trail construction techniques. Yeah, and notice they've got an erosion problem down here that's pretty unique. Look at these roots here. Yeah, this is where originally the trail laid in, as you can see. There's that much of it's gone. It's gone, yeah. You've got some serious erosion problem down here, too. This is very typical here in our rainforest. We've got such a large volume of water that we can never really stop. It's year round. Three feet about has gone there. About three feet here. But the real problem is not here. The real problem with this is the water that is up here, that's in the upper elevation that somehow has managed to get into the trail and is traveling along the trail and it's eaten this up. Now we're in the process of reconstruction of the segment of the trail. Yeah, so you're going to divert all the water away from the trail that you can, but even after you get this all nice and laid out with loose rock, you're still going to have water coming down the trail bed. What are you going to do? Well, we plan to build up actually this with rock, as you said, but we're going to add an inner drainage system here, and that will bring any water that's left on the trail down this way. And what is this he's building here? Right, this is one of our most common trail construction techniques. It's called a water bar, and it's used to divert water straight out of the trail into an area that won't cause further erosion. And all the rock and materials you're using here you've gotten from right in the same area. So everything you need is really just over here on the trail side. That is correct. Most of the rock we find in the area, in the vicinity, and it's very, very label-intense. This type of structure has to be done right with large rocks. As you can see right here, these are very large rocks that will last and hold for a long time. Well, it doesn't look like you're going to run out of work soon with all this rain. Not right. Good job, Oscar. These raspberries are delicious. How do you know when it's safe to eat berries in the wild? Well, generally I let my hiking partner eat them first, then I watch what happens. Oh, nice. No, really, you shouldn't eat any fruit unless you can clearly identify them. And don't eat them all. You need to save some for the Flam Bay later. I don't know. It's going to be hard controlling myself. These are pretty good. Try, all right? Okay. Have you ever swum a rapid? Yes, John, I have swum a rapid. I don't really plan to swim one today. Well, do me a favor, William. Just double-check that your pack straps are unbuckled. And remember, if we do end up in that, keep your feet up and downstream and wait for a nice calm eddy before you try to stand up in that current. Okay, John, but I think we made it, so let's not worry about it. Well, you sure know how to pick a remote campsite. I love my privacy. Watch out, it's really slippery here. Okay. It's like it on the rock. I've got a great flat spot over there to set up my tent. Okay. Believe it or not, when we were coming across that log, I was eyeing this overhang, and that looks like a pretty cozy spot to string my hammock tent, so I think I'm going to head over there. What about the tarp? Well, we can do these two trees. We can do some paracord right from those trees, actually run it right down there to that log we came across, and probably create a nice dry kitchen area right in here, a place to hang out. Okay, why don't we set up our camp and set up the tarp and scrub our packs off underneath this boulder. Okay. Boy, you aren't kidding about this rock. Really slippery. Thanks, Francisco. You're welcome. You know, most backpacking tarps today come with plenty of tie downs, but a lot of times they're not located where you need them, or they might even pull off completely in the field, so you have to jerry-rig something. The easiest way to do that is just take a little stone like this, place it where you need the tie down or the anchor, and just twist it off like that. Take your rope, go around a couple times, and there you have it. Real secure. But we don't need to do that here today, so we'll use the tie down. Let me show you one of my favorite knots. It's called the trucker's hitch. It's easy to do, and it's great for creating tension on a line. Just take your two fingers like this on the side of the line, spin them around, reach through the loop you've made, and grab the end of the rope that's leading to the open end. Pull it through, create a little loop like that, and take the open end of your rope, feed it through that loop, and just gradually bring in the tension. Works real well. There is one big danger with this knot, however, and that is that it can get something so tight that it can just about shred your tarp if you aren't careful. There's one other nice feature of this particular knot. That is in the morning, when you're breaking camp, you're doing all your lines, you just take it out like that. You don't have to mess around with taking out all sorts of knots and breaking your nails doing it. You just pull it, and it's gone. There's that rain fly. Put that on there quick. Thank you. Yeah, this is a great tent for tropics, because it has a good, solid rain fly, good bathtub bottom. A lot of ventilation to dry out tonight. Yeah, that's great. Well, you got a handle on that one. I'll go take care of mine. You know, camping out, especially in the rain, is not a time to be standing around with an instruction sheet learning how to set up your tent for the first time. So take some time before you leave home to set up your tent and get familiar with it. Now, I'll be using a hammock tent while I'm out here, because unlike Francisco, you can't always count on having a flat spot, and when you do find a flat spot, chances are it's likely to be wet. A hammock tent also gets you up off the ground and away from any crawling insects, although there aren't that many in here in El Junque to worry about. Recognize this knot. Here's our trucker's hitch again. String this guy right up. There we go. There we have it. Home sweet home. I think I see some bananas over there. You want to go get some? Yeah, I see them. Let's go get them. There are a few things I like to keep in mind when I'm driving. One is that I like to keep my There are a few things I like to keep in mind when I'm crossing any kind of stream. First, if you're wearing a pack, unbuckle the straps. That way, if, perchance, you do fall in, you can get free of your pack as soon as possible and get over to shore. You can always retrieve your pack later on downstream. Secondly, keep your boots on. You're going to have much more secure footing with them on than off, but I'd much rather have wet feet than a twisted ankle any day. Third, plan your route. Just like in a good game of chess, you want to think a few moves ahead, and if you see wet rock above the water, you might want to avoid it because it's probably covered with lichen or moss, and that could be treacherous stuff. Finally, when you're dealing with current, think slow and wide instead of fast and narrow, because where the river comes together all at once, that's where the fastest current is, and that's where you're likely to lose your footing. Now let's go bananas. What do you got, Francisco? I got the bananas. All right. Ready? Good job. You want to take them? I never tire of looking at a river. I'm with you on that one. Native people bathe daily to remove unwanted insects from their bodies. Some of them insects even try to lay eggs in them. Really? So we've got to take a swim ourselves. Yeah. Boy, look at this. I'm wearing this new waterproof, breathable fabric, but I'm as wet inside as I am outside. What do you think is causing that? It's so hot and humid outside that all that hot and humid inside can't push itself out. In dry climates, it's not a problem because there's so much different vapor pressure between inside and outside, it just pushes that moisture away. All right. What do you do for your feet? It seems like nothing would keep them dry. Here, with all this stream crossing that we're doing, it's impossible to keep them dry all the time, but still you've got to try to keep them as dry as you can. What I do is I use two different pairs of socks. I use an inner sock, which is a liner made of material that doesn't absorb water. Feel that? It's almost dry. Dry. The outer sock is a mixture of nylon wool, which also pushes water away. It's really nice because it keeps your feet relatively dry during the day, and then all you have to do is start beating the water out of the socks and hang the thing you can to dry it. By morning, it should be dry. Okay. What do you say we go get washed up? I think that's a great idea, but not here. I've got a surprise for you right nearby. That smells great. What is it? It's called azo-paco en pollo, or like a Spanish gumbo with chicken. Very popular here in Puerto Rico. I just finished browning the chicken there with margarine and some crushed garlic. Great. Here we have some tomatoes, bell peppers, and onions. They've been sitting in water for about an hour. They're just rehydrating right there. Let them sit for a bit. Okay. To that, we're going to add some quick rice that has some other spices ground in there already, which I finished pre-cooking. And to that, we're going to add these nice beautiful peas, grated cheese. And we're going to top this whole meal off with these Spanish olives and mintos. It's going to be a feast. Seems pretty involved. Well, it's not really that involved because before I left home, I pre-packaged everything and pre-mixed all the spices. And the whole thing is composed primarily of dehydrated foods, so it's very light and doesn't take up much room. It really only takes about, once you get cooking, about 15 minutes to prepare the whole meal. So you can really eat like a gourmet on the trail, huh? That's the only way to go. Okay, we have the rice. We cooked it earlier. Add it to our mixture. Mmm. John, could you stir that a little bit? Sure. I don't get to taste any of this? Not yet. Okay, let me add the peas. Stir that in really well. Okay. All right, it looks good. Looking good. Let me take that. Nice chicken. Spread that around a little bit. Sure. I'm starting to be able to taste this. Add the olives, crush them up a little bit. Mmm. All we have to do now is cover it. In a few minutes, we're ready to eat. Great. Boy, those look like candy, those bananas. I got the rum heated up. Bananas flambé, here we come. Yeah! Voila. Well, after a long hike and a good meal, there's nothing like lounging under the stars. I'm just making a few field notes on this waterproof pad. And by the way, I like to use a mechanical pencil because it'll write in just about anything. While my boots and clothes are drying out under the tarp, Francisco likes to hang his in his tent where his body heat will speed up drying time. Beyond that, I guess my only challenge tonight with all this water around me is to keep Jacques Cousteau out of my dreams. Huh? Huh? We've got to climb 3,000 feet today. It's just a few miles. OK. It's going to be steep, but it's also going to be great because we get to see several forest life zones. Well, you think we'll get to see any raspberries up there? Well, not if they see you first. Darn. These trees are really gnarly. I don't think I've seen anything like this before. These trees are dwarfed by high winds up here on these ridges and the constant rainfall they receive. So we're really right up in the clouds here, huh? Yeah, we're in the highest reaches of the forest now in this really unique ecosystem. The Caribbean National Forest has more tree species than all other tropical forests combined. No kidding. And up here we have species of trees that you can find nowhere else except in a cloud forest like this tree fern. Uh-huh. Boy, it's kind of brittle though down, you know. It's not like the ferns you see down in the lower forest, is it? No, but I love this new growth that reminds me of elephant heads. It's so soft. It does kind of look like a trunk, doesn't it? It does. You know, I can't help but notice the quiet up here too compared to what's down below. I love the quiet and the mystery of the fog. The Taino people who were here before Columbus, they considered this place to be sacred. Uh-huh. In fact, they thought of it as the home of their god, Yokohu. Uh-huh. Neat. It's been a long hike today, but this is so worth it. Yeah, it looks like the peak over there. Is that it? That's it. And if we're really, really lucky, we might get a view, but don't count on it. Okay. Well, this is the last part of the climb. Okay. This is nice and steep. Be careful because it's really slippery here. Always try to keep at least two points of contact or three if you can. Boy, that canopy is so thick. Good luck trying to find where we camped last night. I can't even see the stream through the palm trees. Yeah. When Columbus came here in search of treasure, he probably had no idea what he had found. Places like El Junkie are the real treasure. This is the wealth of the world. See you next time on another trail site. What do you think? You want to go grab lunch up there in that flat spot? Sounds great. Let's do it. This water's really come up since last night. I'm going to jam my log up here. See this thick sniff of it? It's real sweet. It almost smells like root beer or something. Right. We call it candy root. Take a taste. Look at that. What's that? A little nest or something? Yeah. A bird in there or what is it? Yeah, it's a little bird. Funding for Trailside is made possible in part by Chevy Trucks, who remind you that it's possible to have fun outdoors and still leave Mother Nature with a smile on her face too. And L.L. Bean, providing sporting gear and apparel for people who love the outdoors for over 80 years. And Hi-Tech Sports, who invite you to enjoy the great outdoors and follow the trail to adventure. Guys, we're about ready to come in and block this thing out and do it. Wouldn't mind doing one more. You wouldn't mind doing another one? Yeah, we'd do this wild track right here. Rolling. Want me to be walking? Fifty-two, take two. And action. Oh, this is incredible. The real challenge of doing a show backpacking through the rain forest had to be walking on slippery rocks. Rocks when they're wet are slippery, but in a rain forest, I don't know why, but you really have to watch your step when it's anything less than sunny. Sound is everywhere in a rain forest, and the challenge for Michael Lonsdale, our sound man, was controlling it all, from waterfalls to rain. I'll make that more like monsoons to the plants and branches that constantly were hitting our microphones as we walked through the densely matted forest floor. You need to know right here that on and off, and set this on seven, which is right about there, seven or eight. And then what? Just let it run. The waterfall filters itself out. Kokis are my most memorable night sound, and Kokis is what you'll hear playing all the way through the show. They're actually little green-brown tree frogs, about the size of a quarter. And the chorus of Kokis really strikes up at dusk and on until morning. I was fascinated by Kokis, quite frankly. Another little aside is that Kokis rarely see a pool of water, or ponds and lakes like other amphibians would. Instead, they actually live their lives in trees, laying eggs in the tiny pools of water that are created when a leaf or a branch traps the runoff down its trunk. To get the shot of us crossing the stream, it was probably even more dramatic watching us shoot that scene than it was the scene itself. Our goal was to have a seamless tracking of my fording the stream, and that meant no bouncing as Jeff the cameraman went from walking to being suspended on a 300-foot static line that crossed the river. Once he was suspended, he was basically tethered so we could ease him across the river while he hung by his waist from a pulley. Of course, it was even trickier for Jeff because he had to use one hand to steady himself in the harness, while trying not to jiggle at least a 30-pound camera in the other hand. After 10 attempts at this scene, I didn't dare muff my lines because I could literally see the strength running out of Jeff's arm as he came in close for the last few critical seconds of that shot. Wow! Nice. It's real nice when you work for it. Why don't you move the tent and I'll kind of rough up the area a little bit, get it looking a little bit more like its original condition. I think that looks even better than when we started. You know, low-impact camping is even more important in a wild place like Alaska, not just because it's easier on the environment, but also because it preserves a sense of wildness for the next person to camp here. We had that sense of wildness until we came to this campsite. This old fire ring is a good example of high-impact camping. You know, not only are fires unnecessary, especially for cooking, they leave visual scars, charred rock, scorched earth. You can discourage high-impact camping by dismantling fire rings when you come upon them and restoring the camp area to its original appearance. And if you do have to build a fire in an emergency, dig a hole below the tideline, use small pieces of driftwood, and no stones. And when you're through with your fire, fill the hole back in and the ocean will clear away any trace of it. And when we get done with a camp area, we like to sweep it, because we think it's nice to not even leave footprints. [♪ music playing on the radio, and the sound of a horn blowing in the distance.] So I always like to set what I call an all-day pace, which is figure somewhere in between what you feel like doing when you're starting out and what you're going to feel like doing when you're finishing up for the day. About in between is where you want to sit. So keep in mind, they're out here to have fun, not to win a horse race. [♪ music playing on the radio, and the sound of a horn blowing in the distance.] Organic waste, like this peach pit, while biodegradable can attract wildlife to an area, and in heavily used areas creates a visual eyesore. For instance, an orange peel can take up to six months to biodegrade out here. So bring along a plastic trash bag and pack out all your waste. When you're ready for cleanup, just like with your bathroom area, you want to pick an area for cleaning your dishes that's at least 200 feet away from any water source. And bring your water to the dishes, not your dishes to the water. Use biodegradable soap, and sprinkle a little dirt or sand in your dish water to help scour out the pans. That's how we just did our dishes. Well, good for you guys. And it sounds like Andrew found a tree to hang the food on up ahead. All right. Hey, how do you involve the kids in cleanup time? Give the kids as many jobs as possible. Andrew's really good with the dishes and pots. And the girls pick up around the campsite. I've seen this before. I've always had trouble with it, too. An awful lot of white in the background there. You might want to over-spoon your pictures just a little bit, John. Yeah, I know. Last time I shot something like this, the film came back. It was way underexposed. So I'm going to do a lot of bracketing, you know, overexposed, underexposed, shoot up a lot of film here. That's why we brought so much film. Yeah. Oh, I like the log in the water. It's wonderful. This will be a great shot. What do you do about shutter speed and something like that? You might want to try some different shutter speeds. A fast shutter speed will freeze those little drops of water in the air. A slow shutter speed will give it a soft, silky, blurry look. To the untrained eye, this looks like rolling farmland. But to the geologist, this is classic cave country. One of the first clues is that while this area obviously gets plenty of rain, there are no above-ground streams. While the water's here, it's just running underground. Another clue is the limestone. A water-soluble rock that's found throughout the area. But the real clincher are these sinkholes, natural depressions that funnel water underground. Hey, what size binoculars are you using? These are 8x30s. Well, you don't have to be a mathematician to figure out what size binoculars you need. The first number, in this case 8, is the magnification. The second number, 30, is the size of the front lens. The greater those numbers, the bigger and brighter your image size. That also means that your binoculars are going to be larger. So somewhere, you have to make a decision as to how much binocular you want to carry in terms of size and weight. These are 7x24. Any tips for using binoculars up here, Carl? Well, it is more complicated than just looking through them. What I do is slowly sweep an area and try not to fix on any one object. Once that's finished, you can repeat the cycle, go over the same area again, and look to see if anything has moved or if anything looks unnatural. Okay. I see a lot of logs down there. Yeah. If you move a little to your left, check out that log on the right bank. What do we got there? Looks like a brown bear. Music Hi, I'm John Veman in Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Come with me as I learn to shoot with a pro. This week on Trailside. Music