Section 3.5: Detour to Payson
"If you don't have two broken legs, it's a zero day."
This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. Repeat, this is a test.
You may have noticed that I am not in Globe! This is for reasons that will soon become obvious. Don't worry, everything's fine now. I'm posting this from a windy bluff overlooking Roosevelt Lake, directly under a radio tower (hence the good cell service). Let's get into it, shall we?
The last morning in Pine was a whirlwind of chores, and I didn't feel rested or relaxed when it was time to hike out. I hadn't slept well at all, the promised jacuzzi ended up being a bathtub with jets, and the laundromat was closed on Tuesdays, so I was stuck with sticky, sink-washed clothes. My chest still hurt from the wildfire smoke. Every uphill set my heart hammering painfully fast, and I was developing a stitch under my right breast. I had thought my period was over, but apparently the stomach distress had just signalled a temporary retreat. My abdomen felt as if it was inhabited by an angry ferret. I was behind again, sweaty and annoyed, slightly nauseated with effort. At least we had a short day. At least there was cold water in my new clean bottles. I belched unceremoniously, then plopped down on a shady log. Come on, body. Work with me here. I fed you a family-sized box of chicken tenders AND some pizza, and doughnuts this morning too. I imagined my body was an obstinate toddler, and my mind was the poor beleaguered nanny trying to get ready to leave the house. If we get to the top of this hill, it's all downhill and shady, and you can have ... ummm... I tried to remember what I had in my pack, and totally failed. Peanut butter m&ms? Constantine had watermelon sours, he'd probably share. Oh wait. I had watermelon sours too! When we get to the top of this last climb, we can have treat, body. How about that? My body stopped whining and put on its shoes with a elaborate show of politeness. Good body! Come on, let's go. The ferret dug its claws into my right ovary. No watermelon sours for you, you preposterous weasel.
Up on the aptly-named Hardscrabble Mesa, I found Constantine posted up under a juniper. "How long have you been waiting?" I asked.
"Oh, not even five minutes, I think. I knew you weren't far behind. Your guts doing ok?"
They were. I dug out my promised treats and we sat for a few minutes, then set off across the hot plain. It wasn't actually shady or downhill, but my inner toddler was too stoked on candy to notice the trick. I had intended the large bag to last me two days, but it was already melting in the sun, so I gobbled up every last watermelon and licked sour sugar off my fingers with childish glee. I was happy again! A little sore, but happy. Hardy popped out of the bushes just ahead, having taken his own break out of the sun, and together we walked the dusty powerline road. Some of the cattle gates were used so infrequently, they required two people to open.
The boys are obsessed with this guy named David Goggins, a ridiculously tough Navy SEAL who does things like run ultramarathons on two broken legs. This morning there had been a friendly competition of push-ups and pull-ups between Constantine and Hardy, each trying to out-Goggins the other, so I silently volunteered my un-exhausted arms and wrenched open the most stubborn of the gates. I personally do not love David Goggins' attitude, but I do find the boys' fake-manly duet pretty funny. Constantine and Hardy are actually really chill about masculinity, especially for straight guys. Sie doesn't bother to compete. He's a veteran of the Marines and is still incredibly fit, so we all know he'd win without even trying. The game isn't really about winning, anyway. Hardy decided it was time to Goggins it up once more, and took off jogging under the weight of his full pack. See ya later, alligator. I was content with my snacks and my regular roadwalking pace.
Behind again, the next morning. We'd scrambled down a loose volcanic slope in the dark the previous night, which was terrifying, then clambered through a thorny downed acacia to get water and passed out exhausted at 8pm. I hadn't wanted to get up again to get more water, and had drunk barely half a litre that afternoon, after skipping lunch to keep up with the crew. The temperature stayed hot at the bottom of the mesa all night long and by 9am it was already scorching. I'd done ... let see, maybe four miles? My dyscalculia makes it hard for me to remember numbers when I'm tired. Constantine would be ahead, having a good time with the guys and not worrying about me. He knows I'm a strong hiker, I thought. I was feeling off in a way I couldn't define. My body was depleted, true. Even at the best of times, I'm definitely sluggish uphill compared to other hikers, but something about this felt wrong. In retrospect, I'm fairly sure I was experiencing heat exhaustion. Having watched Constantine's section video, I was hiking much slower than I had thought at the time, resting far too often and unaware of my depths of my fatigue. My journal entries from that morning are slightly disjointed and written in an uncharacteristically sloppy hand.
I paused to catch my breath again on the long climb up the next mesa, rested my hands on my knees and saw something move next to my foot. Something huge and hairy and... holy shit! Another tarantula, and I had nearly stepped on this one. The trail provides - you wanna see a huge tarantula? Here's a REALLY HUGE TARANTULA. Without a doubt, this was the biggest fucking spider I have ever seen. My noodle-legged overnight guest was nothing compared to this enormous monster. She was bigger than a hockey puck, and her body was fat and covered in brown bristles. Her legs were as thick as pencils, the front four tucked back just a millimeter from my shoe. She had fangs. Big fangs. Eight beady eyes glittered blankly in the sun. "Evolution, what the fuck?" I said, stepping gingerly and slowly out of her way with the same caution I would show a bear. This spider did not scurry. She stepped with deliberation and took up residence under a scrubby bush, barely an inch from the trail. I'm not generally scared of spiders, but I was definitely scared of this one. This spider was too large. Nope. Uh-uh. No thank you, madam. I did not like this spider at all.
Ten minutes later I sat down on a rock to calm down and eat a snack. I checked carefully for spiders - no more tarantulas please, nope nope nope. Uphill again, and steeply to the top of the ridge, then little bumps up and down all day. Iffy cow water in eleven or so miles. Something skittered in a bush and I jumped; just a chipmunk. We'd left town yesterday and I already didn't want to hike any more. Breaking in my feet was coinciding with my 2,000th mile of trail for the season, and I had felt so rushed in town that I hadn't actually eaten properly the day we left. My hipbones dug sharply against my pack with no fat to cushion them. I missed my nice soft bed and my perfect cosy van. I missed skiing. I missed the cold. I didn't exactly want the trail to be over yet, but I didn't really want to be out here any more either. It'd be nice to have a chairlift to get me up the last steep mile.
Bleak. I was feeling bleak. I panted over the crest of the ridge, hot and thirsty. How was I so thirsty? Somebody had drained my water bottles. Me? Did I drink all my water already? No, I still had half a litre. It was eleven o clock somehow. Constantine appeared suddenly, sans pack, jogging back along the trail looking for me. "Magpie! I found you. I was worried about you, I've never seen you so far behind! Are you okay?" I startled badly, and the panic attack I had been suppressing for two days flooded me with shame. "Oh my god oh my god I'm so sorry, you shouldn't have waited, I'm so slow, I'm such a piece of shit, I'm so sorry, I'm ruining everything, I'm such a terrible hiker, imsorryimsorryimsorry..." I babbled on and on, mortified but unable to stop the wave of anxiety. Constantine tried to calm me down, reassuring me that he wasn't mad, just concerned. We walked back to the dry spring, where he had dropped his pack after waiting over an hour for me to crest the ridge. I was on the edge of hysteria, stumbling and incoherent. I couldn't explain what was wrong with my body, and the torrent of self-loathing kept my mouth running faster than I could breathe, despite my efforts to shut up and hike. What was wrong with me?
I ate a bacon and cheese wrap and added an electrolyte tablet to the last of my water. I was so tired, so anxious. There were supposed to be some pools of sketchy water in three miles, and Constantine kept close behind me and listened while we walked. I told him about my fears of inadequacy, about the internal pressure I felt to keep up with Sie's intense hiking style, about the lifelong experiences with sexism and misogyny that made it hard to speak up when my body required something the others didn't anticipate. I felt as if I had to be the best and hardest and fastest and never need anything, just to earn basic respect. I was raised in the macho world of motorsports by my Formula-racing father and slalom-champ mom, worked as a bike mechanic and later a messenger in Montreal, had been a hardline anarchist punk for most of my late teens and early twenties. I was used to being the only femme in the room, and had often gotten a lot of shit for it. I used the hate and harrassment as fuel, to be better and tougher and stronger than anyone who would discount me for the gender I was assigned. But it got under my skin all the same. The negative voices in my head sound like the people who told me I’d never be good enough because I'm just a weak girl, a stupid slut, a crazy bitch. Get back in the kitchen, go make me a sandwich. Even when I'm alone, I often feel as if my performance is being critiqued by sexist enemies, looking for any moment of weakness as an excuse to throw me out of the club. I'll push myself past the point of injury to spite those voices, though mostly they just exist inside my head. I was well past the point of injury now, emotionally collapsing under the weight of the cruel expectations I placed on myself.
Constantine is a good and patient listener, and a kind soul. Between the conversation and the electrolytes, I was beginning to feel a lot better when the trail gods played a final pair of tricks on me. First, not even half a mile short of the water, I tripped while avoiding a bristling cactus and impaled my knee on an agave spine. If you've never seen one of these plants, they resemble an enormous aloe vera, each frond terminating in a spike that can easily be two or three inches long. They're as hard and sharp as steel, and the spine sunk into the soft spot between my outer tendon and my kneecap, deep into the tissue and nerve below. I yelped and pulled back, and blood gushed out of my knee from the puncture. It didn't seem too bad at first. I wiped up the blood with my bandanna and we kept on pushing to the water.
Then while filtering water, my IBS flared up. I probably should have seen it coming and asked the crew for a shortened day at our morning camp. Any time I have some sort of gastrointestinal problem, I tend to get a flare-up a few days later. It's especially likely if my body's in starvation mode, or if I'm emotionally stressed. A really bad IBS flare can incapacitate me completely for several hours, lying on my side and breathing shallowly so my lungs' inflation won't press into my stomach. This time it wasn't that severe, but my stomach still bloated so painfully that I couldn't fasten my hipbelt or tie the drawstring of my shorts, which were normally so loose that they threatened to slide off my hips. I wanted desperately to vomit but knew it wouldn't help. Still, I pushed through. My knee was beginning to swell and ache with the extra water weight in my pack, but I couldn't drink anything more than tiny sips. Eating was out of the question.
I called a halt to Constantine just ahead. We knew we wouldn't catch Hardy and Sie that night, and I was just so uncomfortable that I needed to sit down. I still felt humiliated by my body's uncooperative insistence on rest and nutrition, and now my knee was really swelling. I didn't want to hold him back at my pace though, and I really needed privacy to belch and dig holes. We set a new camp, an embarrassingly short twenty-one mile total for the day, but it was getting on in the afternoon and there was no way we could make it to the previous goal without a very late night-hike. After the ankle-breaking scramble of yesterday evening, neither of us wanted to try that again.
I nibbled a cracker and sent him on his way for the last nine miles, dug a hole, shouldered my pack. I had assured him I would be fine. IBS might make me slow but it would pass in a few hours, and I would catch up on the downhill into camp. The worst of it was fading already, and while I felt weak from hunger, I knew I'd be home in the tent within three or four hours. That's when it struck. One step, I was sore but hanging in there, the next, BANG! The most excruciating electric shock of pain I have ever felt in my life ripped through my leg, a simultaneous lightning bolt up and down from the injured nerve. I must have screamed. I saw stars, stumbled and nearly fell, causing a second strike of pain just as intense. I caught myself on my trekking pole and good leg with a strangled shriek. What. What! What?! "HELP!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, surveying the empty hillside before me. He was gone, over the rise. He wouldn't hear me over the wind. "Constantine!" I tried anyway, growing quieter between gasps. "Help! Oh fuck, help. Oh fuck, ohhhhh fuck this hurts, oh fuck, I'm so fucked." I lowered myself to the ground, noticed that I was hyperventilating. I breathed for a moment, tried to slow my heart. Don't panic, don't panic. The pain settled into a constant buzz, filling my head and making it difficult to think. Shhhh. Think. Think! What happened?
My knee looked fine, aside from the bloody puncture. Nothing of the thorn remained lodged inside. It was a little more swollen, maybe? I touched the bruised tendon experimentally and nearly vomited at the wave of agony. So that was a mistake. No touching. Okay. The nerve is on fire, I can't tell if anything is torn, there's nothing I can do about it. Breathe. Next problem. How bad is this situation? I was alone. I wasn't sure if I could walk. I'd told Constantine not to worry if he didn't see me, that I might get into camp quite late. I did not have cell service. So I wouldn't be able to get help unless I walked nine miles, or until he woke up alone the next morning and came looking for me. So, pretty bad. Breathe. What's working to your advantage? I did have water, though not enough to cook with. The injury wasn't immediately life-threatening, and I still had a few hours of daylight. I could cowboy camp on the trail if I couldn't move, though it would be sloped and uncomfortable. Not good, but not as bad as it could be. Breathe. What's next?
Could I stand? I was afraid to try. But doing nothing and waiting here in pain... Breathe. Trekking pole. Right foot. Lift. I levered myself up using the side of the hill for balance with my free arm. I was up! My injured left leg was hanging stiffly in a neutral bend, tip of the toe touching the ground like a horse resting a hoof. It hurt, but no more than sitting. Almost bearable. Okay, that's good news. I can stand! Can I take a step? Just one step. Breathe.
Trekking pole. Right foot. Left toe, pain, quick, pole, foot. Okay. One step! It hurt. It hurt more than anything I had felt before. I've been hit by a car on my bicycle more than once, broken all ten toes at the same time, received a horse's kick, dislocated my jaw, rearranged my nose with a set of stairs, been concussed, gotten frostbite, flipped a go-kart. I recently bruised my tailbone so badly that I told Urgent Care I thought it was broken, and after being released could only sob facedown on my bed until the T3s kicked in. This nerve pain was worse than any of it. It was truly indescribable. I have trouble even believing it happened now, just days later, even with the occasional aftershock still firing.
I sobbed, took another breath. "If you can take one step, you can take two steps." My voice was shaking. I took two steps. "If you can take two steps, you can take three." My knee buckled on the third step, but I caught myself and struggled on for a fourth. You can do this. Nine miles. What's nine miles? You do nine miles all the time. Piece of cake. You're not really hurt, it's just the nerve. Six steps. Ahhhh-ow-ow-ow-ow. Ten steps. Twenty steps. Sob, gasp, breathe. Twenty one steps. Thirty four steps. The pain ebbed a little with movement, then throbbed back stronger, then faded back down to an almost tolerable level, over and over and over. It took me more than an hour, but I walked a mile, one limping stride at a time. Eight more miles. Oh god. "Shhhh baby, shhhh. You can do this. You're okay. It'll be okay." Seven miles left, another forty-five minutes. The sun would go down soon. "You've got it, you've got it. You're so close, a few more hours." Was the pain calming down, or was I just getting used to it? Six miles left. I was hobbling along at mile and a half per hour in the blue dusk. It was getting a little better! Almost two miles per hour on a gentle uphill, which took the pressure off my knee and make it easier to move forward. Three miles left, only three, only a little more than an hour in the pitch black. Lightning bolts of pain shot through me periodically, sometimes random, sometimes caused by an errant step or an overconfident attempt at speed. At some point, I stopped cursing or crying out with words, frayed to the point of inarticulate animal sounds. Whimpering or howling, I would pause, doubled over, then straighten and set off once more. I feared that I wouldn't be able to stand back up if I sat and rested, so I stood or walked for the whole ordeal. I was going to get myself out of this. I would be okay. I would be okay.
Constantine and I had actually discussed two potential camp spots - it wasn't clear from the map if there would be flat ground near the spring in exactly nine miles, so if there wasn't, he would go on another 0.3mi to where the topo lines spread out and good camping looked likely. The small part of my mind unoccupied by pain hoped with feverish desperation that he would be next to the spring, and as I approached around the corner, I yelled as loudly as I could and searched the darkness for any tiny light, any glimmer of the white tent fabric. Nothing. Just boulders and steep hills. "FUCK!" I yelled. Then, quietly, "Just point three. Not far, you're so so so close. You can do it. You can do it. You can't give up now." I was exhausted, utterly spent. It was past eight pm, well beyond full dark. The trail was weaving and dipping through tall brush, and I had startled myself into seeing ghosts several times with the sweep of my headlamp across the shadows. My adrenaline was gone, and I felt a real and unshakable fear that I would never find him and wander in the dark forever. The pain returned to its highest key with my distress, and I found that I was crying. Maybe I had been the whole time. I had forgotten about the possibility of sunrise.
An eternity later, I checked my GPS again and saw that I was now exactly 0.3mi past the spring. Still nothing. I turned off my headlamp but still saw no light, and in that moment, I lost it completely. I tried to make our usual "where are you?" call, a distinctive "hoo-dee-hoo?" that carries better than words in the wind, but it came out of my mouth as "Auuughhhhooooowwww!" and echoed back distorted. Was that an answering call? I couldn't tell. I panicked. "Constantine?! WHERE ARE YOU? WHERE ARE YOUUUUUU!!?? AUGHHHHHHAHHHH!!!!" I sounded like a demon, a raw scream of terror that was barely recognizable as human. It began somewhere deep in my guts and roared out of my mouth in a desperate shriek, painful with sheer volume. I had nothing left, absolutely nothing.
“Magpie? Magpie!" A light? "Just a little farther! What's wrong?!" I saw him jump out of the tent and stand, just above and to the left. He came padding down the trail in his bare feet, as fast as he could safely step, while I struggled the last hundred metres over to the tent.
"Oh god, you're here, thank god, I'm in so much pain. No, not my stomach, my knee. I need to sit, I need to sit sit sit." He took my elbow and helped me take the pack off, put my sitpad down on the floor of the tent as I collapsed back against him on his sleeping bag, bawling uncontrollably with fear and relief and pain. It took a few minutes before I was calm enough to explain.
"Goddamn Magpie, you're the most badass hiker I've ever met. Seriously. I don't know if I could do that, knee injuries are no joke." After I told him the whole story, he helped me set up my pad and sleeping bag, filtered some extra cooking water he had packed out for me, petted my hair while I stirred my rice and took ibuprofen. I hadn't wanted to take any while I was walking so I could monitor the pain level and see if the swelling got worse. Now that I was safe, I could think more clearly. Tenderly, he inspected my knee - I yelped when he brushed it with his fingertips, but could tolerate the touch for a moment. There was yellow-green bruising up and down the injured tendon, but no signs of a serious tear. We decided I was probably right, it was just an inflamed nerve that had caused everything to get stiff and swollen, aggravated by my afternoon squat. We were both far too short on food to get to the corner store near Globe without consecutive mid-thirties, and I definitely could not do that. Payson, 30 miles away, wasn't on our itinerary, but it was our best option. We would certainly lose Hardy and Sie if we went in, but we didn't have much choice. We'd see how my knee felt in the morning, and if I could walk on it, we'd try to get into Payson early on the second day.
I woke up with some soreness, but much improved. The morning was a long gentle climb, ideal for my knee, and would have been beautiful if not for the battering wind and spiky plants. Small acacia saplings draped themselves over the trail, stems laden with murderous little thorns that hook into flesh like satanic velcro. My nerves were so sensitive and overloaded that even the brush of a leaf hurt my injured leg, so this was real torture for me, but even Constantine found them difficult to navigate. He stayed close behind me the whole way and we hiked an hour, rested an hour. The ibuprofen and the slow climb loosened up the stiff joint, and soon I was moving at a decent 2.5mph pace, except for the thorns. At one break, overlooking the valley we would soon descend, he spotted a forest service road that appeared to parallel the trail all the way to the highway. Yes! It connected easily to the AZT with a side trail, and would save me a descent on loose shale and the maddening acacias.
We camped that night in an abandoned forest service campground, slightly creepy but with the luxury of unlocked privies and easy water access. I had managed about 27 miles in good time with the help of the road, and felt 80% back to normal. A rest was all I needed, and we would probably get to town in time for breakfast. The hitch in went smoothly, only waiting half an hour by the roadside before a guy in a truck picked us up and gave us sodas. The motel owner was nice and let us check in early, and after a huge diner breakfast, Constantine took care of the laundry while I watched reruns of the X-Files and intermittently napped. Later, I attempted a two mile solo run to Wal-Mart for resupply and ice cream. It was almost painless, so I made a side trip to a pharmacy for a knee compression sleeve, anti-inflammatory salve, and probiotic supplements for my IBS. Yes, I would be fine. I would be fine! It was going to be okay. Mexico, here we come!
What I'm listening to:
This is normally the part of the show where I'd transcribe a goofy conversation with Constantine and make jokes about him, but he's been so attentive and caring that it doesn't seem right. I feel only appreciation and tenderness for him right now, so here's a song about that.
My knee continues to improve - we might or might not see Hardy and Sie again. They're in Superior right now, two days ahead, so they'll have to take some zeros in order for us to catch them, and Sie doesn't like to zero. I hope we catch them! But if we don't, it was nice hiking with you two! Happy trails.
Talk soon, and take care.
-Magpie