Impulse and Injury
For a friend's birthday we had decided to go car camping down by Mt. Rainier. Saturday morning two of us would go for a hike while her the other three would go climb mountains on their bikes.
Heeding the restrictions still in place (I tried to talk my physical therapist into relaxing them) we planned an 8 mile hike with roughly two thousand feet in elevation. Yes, dear reader, I realize that was toeing his line. Toeing.
Saturday morning we set out in three cars. 1 car with hikers and 2 cars for all three cyclists and bikes. We got to the park entrance and noticed the fee. Since I hadn't done any of the planning I didn't realize we were going into a National Park. The kind of park that has $15-20 entrance fees. The cyclists didn't want to pay to drive a mile into the park and park and ride so they opted to park before the entrance. The hikers, however, had to drive into the park.
I rolled up to the ranger booth, smiled sweetly at the adorable 12 year old ranger (to be fair, he was likely at least 22) and asked, "Can I get a National Park pass from you?"
80 bucks later I'm the proud owner of a National Parks pass. Better use this baby.
After finding the trail head we set off on our hike. Frankly, the Wonderland trail is amazing. Should you ever find yourself in Mt. Rainier NP do yourself a favor and check this one out. It was so lovely we pushed our turn around point from 4 miles to 4 1/3. Don't look at me like that. It's not like an extra 2/3rds of a mile was going to be the difference between injury and not.
On the descent my knee started bothering me, so we paused and I rested it. After 5 or 10 minutes we were bored of that and headed out. Oh, now might be a good time to pause and mention that early in the hike my friend had said, "I want to get a good workout in, so I'm going to push you today." She did. And, it felt great. Well, until my knee started aching.
Rested, we moved on. Chatting our way down the mountain. Suddenly, I was acutely aware of what I wasn't sure wasn't a broken right ankle. I cried out in pain and threw myself to the left of the trail, raising my right foot as I went.
She inquired after my ankle's health and I replied, "I'm not sure, I might have broken it. I'm going to sit here until I can decide if it is or not." We decided to move me (and, by that I mean, I hopped and hobbled to a different spot) so I could elevate my foot. Despite the desire to remove my shoe and look for a broken bone I knew removing my shoe would only cause problems and solve nothing.
If my ankle was broken we'd figure that out as soon as I tried to walk on it. If it wasn't, well, we'd likely know that soon enough as well. We sat for a while discussing options. We were both keenly aware that realistically we had two option: 1. I hike out (she suggested hopping and I quickly told here I wasn't hopping out a mile or more as that would only lead to a sure left foot break (we weren't sure how far we had really gone or how far we had left); or 2. I attempt to hike out, fail at that, and she would have to hike out for help. To be honest, I have never wanted to be emergency rescued by a ranger, no matter how cute I think they are, so I decided to opt for option 1.
Option 2 would happen only if the situation proved dire.
The situation did not prove dire. I hiked out just fine and was terribly thrilled to determine I likely just sprained it.
My physical therapist, on the other hand, wasn't thrilled that I sprained my ankle ("not insignificantly") or quite likely fractured one of my metatarsals. His words of comfort for the foot fracture were simply, "well, we could boot it, but it really wouldn't do anything, so just take it easy, ok?"
On the other hand, he was relieved when I said, that I'd put away the stilettos for the weekend and would make other shoe arrangements.
Heeding the restrictions still in place (I tried to talk my physical therapist into relaxing them) we planned an 8 mile hike with roughly two thousand feet in elevation. Yes, dear reader, I realize that was toeing his line. Toeing.
Saturday morning we set out in three cars. 1 car with hikers and 2 cars for all three cyclists and bikes. We got to the park entrance and noticed the fee. Since I hadn't done any of the planning I didn't realize we were going into a National Park. The kind of park that has $15-20 entrance fees. The cyclists didn't want to pay to drive a mile into the park and park and ride so they opted to park before the entrance. The hikers, however, had to drive into the park.
I rolled up to the ranger booth, smiled sweetly at the adorable 12 year old ranger (to be fair, he was likely at least 22) and asked, "Can I get a National Park pass from you?"
80 bucks later I'm the proud owner of a National Parks pass. Better use this baby.
After finding the trail head we set off on our hike. Frankly, the Wonderland trail is amazing. Should you ever find yourself in Mt. Rainier NP do yourself a favor and check this one out. It was so lovely we pushed our turn around point from 4 miles to 4 1/3. Don't look at me like that. It's not like an extra 2/3rds of a mile was going to be the difference between injury and not.
On the descent my knee started bothering me, so we paused and I rested it. After 5 or 10 minutes we were bored of that and headed out. Oh, now might be a good time to pause and mention that early in the hike my friend had said, "I want to get a good workout in, so I'm going to push you today." She did. And, it felt great. Well, until my knee started aching.
Rested, we moved on. Chatting our way down the mountain. Suddenly, I was acutely aware of what I wasn't sure wasn't a broken right ankle. I cried out in pain and threw myself to the left of the trail, raising my right foot as I went.
She inquired after my ankle's health and I replied, "I'm not sure, I might have broken it. I'm going to sit here until I can decide if it is or not." We decided to move me (and, by that I mean, I hopped and hobbled to a different spot) so I could elevate my foot. Despite the desire to remove my shoe and look for a broken bone I knew removing my shoe would only cause problems and solve nothing.
If my ankle was broken we'd figure that out as soon as I tried to walk on it. If it wasn't, well, we'd likely know that soon enough as well. We sat for a while discussing options. We were both keenly aware that realistically we had two option: 1. I hike out (she suggested hopping and I quickly told here I wasn't hopping out a mile or more as that would only lead to a sure left foot break (we weren't sure how far we had really gone or how far we had left); or 2. I attempt to hike out, fail at that, and she would have to hike out for help. To be honest, I have never wanted to be emergency rescued by a ranger, no matter how cute I think they are, so I decided to opt for option 1.
Option 2 would happen only if the situation proved dire.
The situation did not prove dire. I hiked out just fine and was terribly thrilled to determine I likely just sprained it.
My physical therapist, on the other hand, wasn't thrilled that I sprained my ankle ("not insignificantly") or quite likely fractured one of my metatarsals. His words of comfort for the foot fracture were simply, "well, we could boot it, but it really wouldn't do anything, so just take it easy, ok?"
On the other hand, he was relieved when I said, that I'd put away the stilettos for the weekend and would make other shoe arrangements.
posted by granola girl at 7:08 pm
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