The Black Pond

You're walking through the woods. Due to the terrain and the overgrowth, you must stay on the narrow trail. As you come down a slope and around a sharp bend you encounter a very large pond. The banks of the pond are extremely steep and are rocky. All of the rocks are sheer and slick and cannot be traversed to allow passage around the pond. The forest is much too dense to allow you to seek an alternate path around the pond and you must travel on to your destination beyond the far side of the pond. The pond is too wide to be leaped, too cold to be swum and there are no boats, rafts or fallen logs in sight. You have no tools with you that you might use to cut branches with to fashion any type of floating device. The pond's water is black and the depth cannot be determined. When you attempt to step off the path to test the depth of the water, you cannot find the bottom. Dusk is but an hour away, and you must be on the other side by nightfall. How is it that you will reach your destination?