Day 6: The Feet Strike Back
May 21, 2023
Campsite to Campsite
16.0 miles
In the wee hours of this morning I woke up to the craziest bird calls. It seriously sounded like R2-D2. It had so many different calls in its song. Beeps, blips, chirps, honks, and tweets. And it just went on forever. It's funny because a couple weeks ago we were at a friend's house watching the Empire Strikes Back and any tie R2-D2 made an appearance, Checkers the cat would could put of her hiding place thinking there was a bird on TV. Apparently she regularly watches bird shows and loves. Needless to say, Checkers was very dissapointed to find out it was just a robot.
Clear skies welcomed us as we packed up camp and walked the 2.5 miles the next watersource which was a wildlife tank. We ran into a couple of hikers in the way and their dog Yogi. After a healthy amount of butt scritches for Yogi we moved along and took our morning break gathering and filtering water and having breakfast.
We're now is a big grassy expanse dotted with craggy Utah Juniper trees. The soil has changed to a chocolate brown due to the rocks becoming igneous from the surrounding hills that were formerly volcanic. Threatening clouds rolled in and began to rain on us (again). I never would have never thought that it would rain on us every single day of our hike in Arizona of all places. Even on our Martime bike tours the last couple years, we had multiple days without rain. The rain eventually petered out but the clouds remained.
As the darkest of the clouds appeared to be rolling in we decided to set up the tent to have lunch and wait for the rain to pass over us before we resumed. Fortunately we had service I I turned out the radio from my phone to listen to the last row qualifying and pole shootout for Indy 500 qualifying. Jack Harvey bumped his way into the field on a bonzai last second run to knock off his teammate Graham Rahal and Alex Palou put down a monsterous first lap of 235.131 mph for a four lap average of 234.217 mph, a new pole record. Absolutely mind boggling.
While on our break we discussed the possibility of cutting out hike a day short to get an extra day in town before leaving for the airport. As Air Canada so frequently does, our return flight was cancelled and we had to rebook to an earlier flight. So instead of leaving Flagstaff midday on Saturday, it would be very early in the morning. So an extra day in town would provide us with some breathing room before doing a full day of airporting.
I've been noticing a weird prickling sensation on my feet while walking. It almost feels like I'm walking on course sand. When I took my shoes off at lunch my feet were super sensitive and red with some red dots/blotches. It doesn't necessarily hurt, but it is uncomfortable. Glowworm found a blister on the ball of her left foot too. I wouldn't be surprised if all our foot issues are related to the miles we've walked in wet socks and shoes over the last several days. One day here and there is one thing, but every day takes its toll.
We kept on for the afternoon. We only had like 4 miles left as we made pretty good time in the morning hiking 12 miles. But Glowworm was definitely hobbling. We were both just tried in general by the time we got to camp, but Glowworm was definitely smarting. When we took our shoes off in the tent, we realized what was causing her pain; multiple blisters covered her toes and feet and the realization of the implications brought her to tears. I sat there silently with my hand on her back while we both processed what this meant.
It's obvious that our hike had come to an end. Glowworm wasn't capable was continuing on in any kind of reasonable form. Blisters like that don't heal if you keep walking on them and they were too far gone to consider hobbling on them for the next three days. We quickly knew that bailing was what was needed. Fortunately we're only three miles away from Hwy 180 and we're actually camped along a forest road which is part of the trail for a short segment. So the plan in the morning will be to hobble our way to the highway and hitch a ride into Flagstaff where we'll chill the rest of the week and fly out on Saturday.
It's really hard to accept this kind of defeat (de-feet?). We've planned this trip for months, trained for it, have been so excited to finally get back on trail only for something like blisters to prevent you from finishing. We still got to see so many cool things and have six awesome days in trail, but it still sucks. Glowworm is really taking it hard. But as I reminded her, these kinds of things just happen sometimes. It's hard not to run through a list of possibilities in your head about what you could have done differently. Should we have trained more? Changed our socks twice a day? Taken more breaks? Let our feet air out more? Treated them earlier? It weighs on you, but at the end of the day, doing something like this just comes with a territory; it doesn't always go as you anticipate.
Several years ago I went on a backpacking trip in Colorado with an old friend from high school. It was meant to be as a prep trip for my eventual PCT hike. I remember the morning I picked him up from his house on the south side of Indianapolis. He came out of the house with this huge external frame backpack circa 1980s with an enormous two person tent. Contrast to my new, small ultralight pack and trekking pole supported one person tent. He even brought several books with him. We drove all day to the trailhead near Leadville around 10,000 feet and spent the night. The next morning we started our hike up to Hope Pass. But as we climbed it became evident my friend was having a rough go of it and we weren't going to make the miles that we needed to complete the trip. And it was only day one. I remember being angry. Angry that he brought an enormous pack, angry that he didn't seem physically prepared, angry that he was inhibiting my trip. The next day we hiked over the pass and camped at the bottom. He started feeling better but I too a turn for the worse. I ended up with pneumonia, which would eventually spoil my senior track cycling season at Lindsey Wilson College.
It pains me to recount this story. I hate thinking about it because it's so embarrassing. I behaved like a total ass. I wasn't directly making any comments to him, but I'm sure he could see my disappointment. Inwardly I was upset and it was all towards him. In hindsight I was the one who set our daily mileage too high, several underestimated the effect of altitude, and didn't collaborate on getting our gear sorted. Even though it's not a moment I'm particularly proud of, I'm really glad it happened. I learnt that when doing hikes like this, there's so much out of your control. So often things don't go as planned and you can't plan a trip leaving no wiggle room for failure.
In the years since and especially with experiences I had on the PCT, I've learned to roll with punches that trips like this give you and to expect the unexpected. And also to not let your world cave in when you're dissapointed. I don't know if I would have been able to handle the situation we're currently in without my Colorado experience.
Sometimes success is just knowing when to call it quits. I think quitting has gotten such a bad rap in our culture. Quitting is often most closely associated failure; something that could have been prevented if you just worked harder or have more effort. But too many times we're found in situations where pushing harder just makes things worse and in fact the best thing to do is to just remove yourself.
During our first COVID summer Glowworm was out of work I had just graduated from my masters degree. We were both out of work and some friends invited us to join them tree planting in northern British Columbia. On our way out west, our car broke down and we ended up having to abandon it at a storage lot. On the first day of work, I developed tendonitis in my left hand, a common planting injury. I wasn't able to plant my minimums and all of that combined with the stresses of the pandemic and the lack of jobs available in my field, I found myself in the worst mental state of my life. I had multiple panic attacks and even sought out counseling while working in the bush. I quit after half the season. I was so ashamed and felt horrible because I felt like I let my friends down, one of which was out boss. Despite their full support it was still hard not to feel the way I did. But it became evident that the only path to move forward was to quit. We had no backup plan, no working car, no jobs to return to, but it was the right thing to do.
Fortunately, some nasty blisters aren't to the same degree as any of these anecdotes. But I'm thankful for my life experience in helping us handle this moment of dissapointnent. Tomorrow we get off trail and our hitchhiking adventure begins
