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| Hiking | 9.70 Miles |
3,375 AEG |
| | Hiking | 9.70 Miles | 9 Hrs 28 Mns | | 1.08 mph |
| 3,375 ft AEG | 30 Mns Break | 18 LBS Pack | | |
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| no partners | | Hiked this with my wife… a beautiful day but I think this will be our last off-trail hike together.
Started at 8:30am, made it up to Table ok. It was an elevation workout, but the challenge was the off-trail going up that little canyon. It is steep in spots, the dead grasses are slippery when stepped on, and some of the rocks that look stable in the ground are not. We took in the views at the top for a half hour over lunch, dangling our feet off the edge, then started down. By the way, the fireplace is rebuilt, a nice little one with three small camping spots nearby.
On the way down, she lost her footing on a loose boulder and fell forward. As she did, she fell a couple of feet face forward, and hit a rock. Thankfully it didn’t do any serious damage, we were very very fortunate. But it left a deep gash a quarter inch above her eye that gushed a lot of blood, and another cut and big bruise an eighth of an inch below that eye. How it didn’t puncture her eye, or knock out teeth or something I don’t know. Once I got the bleeding under control I helped her down the rest of the canyon, then we had to still hike three more miles out before getting out just after 6pm, just after dark.
Took her straight to urgent care. They cleaned her up, glued her big gash, gave her a tetanus shot, and prescribed an antibiotic. She had been home resting for the last day, a pretty nasty shiner but no broken bones or concussion.
Being out and off trail is so much fun, particularly in amazing spaces like that. But the risks, especially with someone one you love, as we get older (now in our early 50s), I guess you have to make hard decisions. I think that means no more off-trail hikes together… at least on mountainsides, or miles from a trailhead. Would love to hear what everyone else thinks about this, if you think I’m off base? |
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| "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." — Henry David Thoreau |
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