Lbealsjr - Pacific Crest Trail Journal - 2007

Off the trail - Injury

April 19, 2007

Off trail

Well on the morning of the 18th after a fitful and painful night of sleep I packed up everything and decided to make the decision on how or whether to continue with my hike. I knew that I need to at least get to a gear store to get a new buckle for my pack hipbelt if I have any chance of making any kind of mileage (I didnt carry a spare in my repair kit and duct taping it all together to make it work was not a viable solution.) and my knee while somewhat better still had a disturbing tightness and roughness to it. The nearest on trail gear store would be in Idyllwild, almost 150 miles away or I could try and order it through REI and see if they could drop ship it for me to Mt Laguna or Warner Springs. After slowly hiking down to the corner of the campground I stood there for a while weighing my options. I was 90 percent sure I could make it to Mt Laguna in one piece if the knee was the only issue but I also knew that having to have a SAR team come and extract me from the side of the trail when I had other options was irresponsible. That more than anything convinced me to make the phone call that took me off the trail.

This morning I was able to get in touch with my orthopod, always nice to keep old phone numbers handy, and we had a brief chat about my knee problem. Probably not seriously injured but definitely not something I want to ignore and continue to stress without giving it a chance to heal as best it can. Since I can stand on it and it doesnt lock or collapse the best option right now is to rest it, wear a brace for a bit to take the strain off it and slowly work on stretching the iliotibial bands which were probably tight from the previous kayak injury and a couple of recent fall and continue to take the tripleflex to help it heal. When I get back to VA I will have to have it checked for long term damage but right now I dont want some over eager orthopod racking up another scalpel victory and leaving me sidelined in CA for months to heal.

So I am off the trail this season at least but hopefully a bit wiser about how to approach things in the future.

Sorry this turned out to be such a short journey for those following along but I dont regret making the attempt and even with the problems I still had a great time. And I now have a couple of months of food already packed up and nothing to do so I guess some more National Park visits and some kayak camping this summer are in order.

Hike safe

Bear

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