Saturday was a nice day. Went to Arrow Canyon. It’s a 45 minute drive north of the base and the canyon is located in the Arrow Canyon Wilderness Area. Sunny and pleasant, high of mid 70’s.
Click here for pictures of my hike.
Now let me tell you what I did. I’m at the end of my hike, near that dam in the pictures? And I’m maybe 3 miles from my truck, maybe a little less… but probably not. On the way in, it took me about 2 hours to get to the dam.
The hike out took nearly 3 1/2 hours.
So I’m standing on a rock, relaxed and looking around. You know, cool. I’m cool. Right. Well, under me, this rock rolls. It rolls quickly. Now normally I’m pretty good. I’m not an acrobat or anything but I am a little coordinated and normally this sort of thing is simple. Look down and put your feet somewhere safe. Flex and bend and roll if all else fails. This time though, I was totally unprepared and it was fast. The damn rock practically flipped and threw me to the ground, and there was nothing I could do. I landed on the edge of another rock, off balanced, and rolled my ankle.
Ok, more like bent it in half is closer to the truth. All I saw was white. Tira tells me that when you see the white flash and start praying you know you’re in trouble. Now I didn’t start praying, but I knew I was in trouble. It hurt a lot. I laid there, holding my leg and not looking at it, suffering through the white flash of pain, and I kept mumbling to my self “oh shit”, “oh shit”, “oh shit”…
It was 20 minutes before I braved putting any weight on it and yes it hurt, but yes it worked too. I was very grateful. Now don’t get me wrong. It was swollen hard. I could feel it in my boots. I loosened the laces to lessen the pressure but didn’t even try to take the boot off. I started walking out, no one around and no cell phone service. It was walk or sleep and well, I was hungry. Small easy slow steps. Thousands of them. Walk for 30 minutes, rest for 10 or so.
When I got to the truck I took my boot off and the bruises were already forming. Both sides of my foot are bruised and it’s swollen pretty badly. I think the drive home was nearly as painful as walking. Where do you put your sore foot in a pickup truck? At home, it was so sore and swollen I literally couldn’t walk and had to hop to my camper on my left leg. I spent the rest of the evening in an ibuprophin induced haze. Sunday? up and walking again! And it only hurt a little. Monday? same. Tuesday? same but the swelling has finally gone down.
I promised Mel pictures… soon. ok mel?