My 11 year old daughter and I enjoyed a pleasant and uneventful weekend backpack trip. It was an easy trip of only a few miles to a lake we enjoy visiting. On the way out, spirits were high and we were having great fun chatting while walking down the trail. Along the way I loosened up the straps of my pack in order to cool off a bit and allow me to shift the straps to more comfortable positions. Nothing earth shattering about that, or even unusual, but in hindsight, it was one of those moments where if this were a movie some ominous music would have been playing in the background. Just to make sure the viewers would know this is significant, but not necessarily why.
Not much later, we arrived at a section of trail that is steeper (and more rocky) than most of the rest, but quite straight. Feeling much younger than my years I had the bright idea to show off by dropping behind and then running down this section of trail using my trekking poles to ‘bound’ over the rocks. With the grace of a gazelle, a 40-year-old gazelle, I started running down the trail using my poles to assist in leaping over the bigger rocks and ignoring the rest. I felt free and young, my ego growing with every step. HOWEVER, not more than one third of the way down, my pack shifted (can you hear the ominous music and imagine it in slow motion?). The shifting pack sent me off balance, and I tripped.
The next thing I knew I was falling face first towards a large rock. The memory of the rock speeding towards my face (in slow motion of course) is still quite vivid, in fact the most vivid memory of the entire trip. Apparently I put out my left hand to break my fall and prevent an abrupt and very likely significant meeting between my face and the rock. The next clear memory I have is of realizing that I am laying on the trail, on my side with my feet above me, and unable to get up while my daughter is standing a few yards away laughing so hard she was almost crying (pausing occasionally to ask if I was OK).
After flopping away on the ground like a turtle on its back, I finally managed to get into a position where I could get to my feet using only one hand (not fully conscious of why I was not using my left hand). I managed to get back to my feet, and got the world to stop spinning quite so much, just as another group of hikers overtook us. I think I managed to look just nonchalant enough that it looked like we were just taking a short breather (or they were too polite to show they could see the dirt all over me, the sweat poring from my face, or my panting). My daughter was of course still giggling and already started calling me ‘the turtle’ while occasionally asking me if I was really all right. My left hand was throbbing, and quickly started to swell up. The area between my pinky and wrist was too painful to touch. So being a ‘guy’ I took a few Advil, assured my daughter that it was just a bruise or at worsts a sprain, and just toughed it out. I figured I could move all my fingers, I could even move my pinky (kind of), so how bad could it be?
As the days turned into a week and then two, I started to realize that maybe I did more damage than I wanted to let myself believe. Eventually the pain eased and swelling went down enough that I could probe the bone between my pinky and wrist, where I found a nice new bump (still very tender). I am thinking now I probably cracked the bone and most likely should have taken my daughter’s advice and gone to the doctor. Not that the doctor would probably have done much other than take my money and force me to explain what stupid thing I did to produce such results. But then again maybe embarrassment could accomplish teaching me a lesson that clearly pain could not? I guess we will never know.
Then again last weekend while backpacking I caught myself using my poles to pole vault over some rocks, and was halfway across before thinking “are my pack straps tight?” I guess some lessons are harder to learn than others…
[Story 3]
[...] The Misadventures of Dave…Story 2 [...]