Called Again (14 page)

Warren countered, “That will make the schedule for the next few days very difficult.” Then he sat down in his car where he could stare at the numbers on his proposed itinerary.

I knew Warren was right, but I didn't want to hear it. The road crossings in Maine and New Hampshire were spread out. If I fell off-schedule, it would mean several nights spent on the trail without the help of my crew or my husband's company.

The ideal scenario was to end every day at a road crossing. I knew that there would be some days when I would need to spend the night on the trail because of mileage and accessibility. That was fine. I had no problem backpacking or spending a night in the woods.

But carrying a full pack was extra work and it was inefficient. Even if Melissa or another friend could come with me and share some of the weight, it would still take more time and energy than moving through the forest with a daypack. And this record was all about saving time and energy.

But in that moment, I wasn't able to think about logistics, efficiency, or my long-term schedule. All I knew was that I was in pain and I wanted to be with the man who left me eco-notes in the middle of the trail.

I was busy washing down the maximum prescribed dose of ibu-proffen with a full pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream when Warren came back to our car.

“You need to keep going,” he said.

I was beginning to feel frustrated and hurt by Warren's constant prodding.

“Warren, there is
no way
that I can make it to the next road,” I protested.

“You don't have to,” he replied. “You can either put on a backpack and hike in with Melissa to camp in another three or four miles. Or, if you think you can hike six miles, then Brew and I can meet you on the trail.”

I hadn't done the trail sixteen times like Warren, but I had done it enough to know there was not a road in the middle of this section.

“How are you going to get there?” I asked.

“I know a way that's not on the map.”

“And Brew can walk there with his knee?”

“Yes. We'll have your tent set up when you arrive.”

In another five minutes, I was back on the trail, and Melissa was keeping me company. I didn't feel like
I
had made the choice to continue hiking, but I knew it was the best decision.

I made sure to leave the car with two hiking sticks in my hands for the last stretch. I loved hiking with poles to help keep pressure
off my joints and to aid me in climbing up the mountains. But most of the time in Maine, I left them in the car or only took one because I needed to have my hands available to grab the rocks and roots while scrambling. At this point, though, I needed my sticks. They were no longer hiking poles; they were crutches.

Melissa and I began our hike, and at first I thought my legs felt a little better. But within ten minutes, the same pain that I had felt on Saddleback had returned, and after an hour my legs felt even more inflamed and aggravated than before.

Melissa and I both love the trail, and we did a lot of hiking together in the mountains of North Carolina. On most of our hikes, we spent hours talking about the wonders of nature. In the first few days of our record, she had hiked several miles with me each day. And during those stretches, it was great to hear her talk about how awesome it was to be in the woods, and how amazing the forests in Maine were, and how free she felt on the trail.

But tonight, Melissa hiked fifteen feet in front of me, rambling on about how perfect everything was. The only time she paused was when I stubbed my toe and yelled curse words to the sky. I think she was gushing positive comments and romantic rhetoric to try to motivate me and make me remember how much I loved hiking. But it didn't work. So now, not only were my legs bothering me, but Melissa was, too.

I do love to hike. Melissa didn't have to remind me of how I felt about the trail. That was understood. But what
she
didn't understand was how much pain I was in. And when you are consumed with hurt, the last thing you want to hear is someone telling you how wonderful everything is.

I had warned Melissa when she volunteered to help that it wasn't always going to be fun or easy. I also told her that there would be times on the trail when I would be highly unpleasant to be around, and I didn't want her to come if she thought it would affect our friendship off the trail. She was not deterred. Before
today, I had been nice. But now I was hurting too badly to be anything but honest.

“Do you hear those sounds? I love listening to the insects at night. And look, you can see the last tiny speck of the sun setting over the horizon. Isn't it beautiful?”

“Melissa,” I said curtly, “it's really hard for me to hear about how great everything is when I am in so much pain.”

There was a pause. I could tell she was not expecting criticism. And I didn't want to give it, but I was suffering too much not to say something.

“Okay,” she said. Then she hiked a little farther in front of me.

I couldn't tell whether or not I had hurt her feelings. But I also couldn't spend any time thinking about it. The pain was too consuming.

After an hour of hiking with my headlamp, watching Melissa's beam weave in and out of the trees farther up the trail, I heard male voices. It was Brew and Warren!

I was glad to be done for the day, and I was really glad to be with my husband. I crawled into the tent, forced down some dinner, then cuddled up next to him. He started to say our evening prayer, but I wasn't paying attention. I was so tired. It was hard to focus, hard to move, and hard to keep my eyelids open. It even felt hard to breathe.

That night, I did something I have never done before. I snored. I must have snored loudly and for most of the night, because Melissa said she heard it from her tent thirty feet away. But Brew never woke me up, and he never complained. The next morning, he helped me get ready, then packed up all of our gear and hiked back to the nearest road, where he got in the car and drove around to meet me later that morning.

All day, I felt horrible. At my first road crossing, Warren was there to meet me. He had some duct tape in his car and I wrapped my shins with it to try and alleviate the pain, but it didn't work.

At the next road crossing there was a river, and instead of taking a break near the car, I stopped at the water to submerge my red, swollen shins. Brew gave me medicine and athletic tape to rewrap my legs.

Melissa hiked with me on the next stretch, which was a huge help. She was relatively quiet. I assumed she didn't know what to say to make it better. But her presence and staring down at the back of her shoes helped take my mind off the discomfort.

Melissa continued with me to the base of Baldpate Mountain, where I once again set out on my own. Swollen flesh sat on top of the white athletic tape that surrounded my shins. I had dealt with the shin splints long enough at this point to realize that they were painful going uphill, more painful on level ground, and most painful going down. Above all, catching my toe on a root or rock was unbearable.

After concentrating on every step and trying with all my might not to graze the obstacles strewn along the footpath, I reached the exposed apex of Baldpate Mountain. Once there, I turned my body and walked backward down the steep slope since hiking backward didn't hurt quite as much as hiking forward.

Once I made it past the sheerest section on the descent, I noticed Warren hiking in front of me. So far, the only portion of the trail we had traveled together was the Kennebec River. However, he had wanted to hike this segment to work on his current section hike that, when complete, would mark his seventeenth completion of the trail.

“How far do we have to go?” I called out.

“It's two more miles until we reach the road.”

That was all we said. I was in too much pain to have a conversation. I walked in front of Warren and within minutes, the sun set
and we pulled out our headlamps. Something felt symbolic about the encroaching darkness. I felt like I had lost hope, and everything started to feel worse. I began to cry. Warren still didn't say anything.

I screamed every time my legs were jolted by the unexpected impact of a fallen branch or stone littering the trail. Usually, when I cried on the trail, it had at least a little to do with fatigue or hunger. But even though I was at the end of a long day, that night my tears were entirely caused by pain. In twenty-eight years, I had experienced many illnesses, injuries, and a broken bone, but I had never hurt this badly.

Roads can be deceptive. I heard the road at Grafton Notch about a mile before the trail crossed the highway. And because I could hear the constant purr of passenger vehicles and the loud roar of semi-trucks, I thought my agony was almost over. But it wasn't. I kept stumbling along, shrieking and crying, with no end in sight. I felt like the mythical Greek figure Tantalus, faced with the eternal punishment of being almost within reach of his heart's desire yet not being able to obtain it.

Finally, I saw a light through the trees. It was Brew standing at the trailhead with a headlamp. My crying turned to sobs as I fell into his arms. He held me for several minutes without saying anything.

Finally, when my gasping breaths relaxed a bit, he took my hand and started to lead me across the road. As soon as my feet hit the pavement, I began to sob again. The pain was consuming. I reached the other side and fell to my knees. Then I crawled the next thirty feet to reach our tent in the forest. I had said that I would not quit this hike, that I would hike until I had to crawl. But there I was, on day six, already crawling.

That night in our tent, I continued to sniffle and cry while trying to choke down a freeze-dried mac and cheese dinner. I had my legs propped up with ice on my shins. The slightest movement hurt. The worst pain was in my legs, but the sensation was
so overwhelming that it pulsated throughout my entire body. I couldn't even bring my fork to my mouth without cringing. Brew lay beside me and pulled the wet wipes out of his pack. He took out one damp cloth at a time and began gently wiping the dirt off my legs. I had several scrapes, which he carefully blotted, trying hard not to cause any further irritation.

He softly tried to soothe me. “It's okay, honey. It'll be alright.”

“No it won't,” I sulked. “Maine is eating me.”

That was the truth. Maine was chewing me up and spitting me out.

Brew started to chuckle. “Maine's not
eating
you.”

More tears started to flood from my eyes. “It is, too!” I yelped. I didn't know how else to describe it. Maine had swallowed me whole and sucked the life out of my body.

After Brew wiped down my limbs, he handed me some ibu-proffen and Gatorade. I shook my head at the sight of Gatorade. I had drunk so much of it over the past few days that it had caused blisters on my tongue. Brew understood what I was saying. With a simple nod, he left the tent and went into the land of the black flies to retrieve some water from the car.

But when he came back, I was already asleep.

The next morning, my alarm went off at 4:45 a.m. I didn't sit up or try to get out of my sleeping bag. Instead, I simply flexed my toes.

“Ahhh!” I cried out.

Brew turned over to look at me.

“It hurts too badly,” I said. “I don't think I can hike.”

Brew looked concerned. “Why don't you try to sleep some more?” he said.

I reset my alarm and woke up an hour later. Once again I tried to point my toes. But the results were the same.

I gasped in pain and quickly drew my knees up toward my chest. Then I looked at Brew and grimaced. “I can't do it.”

“What do you want to do?” he asked as he reached out to rub my shoulder.

“I think we need to go to the Cabin.”

The Cabin was a hiker hostel in Andover, Maine. I had stayed there on my first thru-hike, and I knew the owners, Bear and Honey. I was sure they would try to help us and let us stay there if we needed to. I never said the word “quit,” but the game plan implied that it was a strong possibility.

Brew drew back his hand into his sleeping bag, his eyes barely open. “Well, let's get a little more sleep first,” he suggested.

I fell back to sleep for about thirty minutes and then woke up again. Out of curiosity, I tried to flex my toes. I pointed them toward the tent wall and held them in that position. It hurt and caused my teeth to clench, but it didn't make me scream.

I unzipped the tent and crawled outside and then I slowly tried to stand. Pain was present in my shins, but I could support my weight. Gingerly, one step at a time, I began moving around. My motions were so uncertain that I looked like a toddler learning how to walk. It didn't feel good, and I doubted that I could make it through another long day of hiking, but I wasn't ready for my dream to end.

“I need to try and hike,” I called to Brew. “I want to keep going.”