Date: 2005-04-23
From: Rod Hollow Shelter

To: Snickers Gap
Miles today: 10.5

(A continuation of my AT section hike from SNP to Snickers Gap in November, 2004.)Day 4: This was one of my worst days hiking up to that point in time. The main problem was my knee. What I did not know at the time was that I was suffering from a tear in the miniscus cartilidge in my right knee, undoubtedly incurred durin the Army 10 miler. Such damage does not heal, but has to be repaired by an orthopedic surgeon, as I was to learn subsequently. Meanwhile, the tear will only get worse if you try to keep hiking on it, and after a certain period of time, even aspirin isn't going to help. The worst part, of course, was going down hill, and today's hike was over ten hills in a row - the infamous "roller-coaster". Adding insult to injury, my supply of aspirin was now rather depleted, so I was forced to ration the pain relief. I could tell exactly how soon a new dose was taking effect, allowing me to hike with a tolerable level of pain, and I could also tell pretty precisely when that dose wore off. Not all that hard to figure out! By the time we got to the last hill, I was out of aspirin altogether.To make matters worse, the day was surprisingly warm for mid-November, and both Spook and I were using our water supply up at a pretty good clip. Between the major climbs uphill, which were were still taking relativley slowly, and the downhills, which were sheer agony due to my knee, we were also hiking more slowly than we normally might have. As a result, we also ran out of water before we made it to the top of that last hill. Just to make that last hill even more memorable, it turned out to be the hill from hell. It wasn't really all that much of an elevation gain, so much as it coming at the end of ten in a row, when we were hot, tired, and out of water. Just to spite us, the hill had the most diabotical series of false summits I've seen anywhere on the trail. Spook was in the lead, and at one point he said he though we were almost there - he could see the ridge line. Well, we get there, the trail turns a bit to the right, and it's clear that we have another piece to climb. We get there, and he again says he thinks were about done, and the trail repeats the process. After awhile it got almost laughable, and frankly, to this day I enjoy asking Spook, as we climb a hill, "are we almost there yet?" He knows exactly what I mean...Eventually, of course, we made it to the top, but we were not in good shape when we did so. Fortunately, there is a really cool old vacation home at the top, acquired by the ATC and now known as the Bear's Den Hostel. We were able to camel up on water, which we really needed, and to just sit and relax for a bit to recover our strength. Fortunately also, there is a road that runs from Snickers Gap up to the hostel. I had done a day hike earlier with my daughter, Laura, from Snickers Gap up to the Hostel, so I knew what the trail was like. From the Hostel to the parking lot where Spook's car was the AT is both very steep and very rocky - not something my knee would have appreciated. We opted, therefore, to take the access road down, which was a bit longer but not so hard on my knee. It was a great relief, especially for me, to reach the car and get off my knee. It was a successful hike overall, but not one I'd like to repeat with a miniscus tear! I also occured to us that the roller-coaster would make a good section of the trail to do workouts on, especially if someone were training for something more rigorous -- like a hike at Philmont Scout camp, for example.Subsquent to this hike, I had an MRI done on my knee, and then had arthoscopic surgery done to repair the damage. And that little episode, my friends, is why I was kind of sure two weeks ago at the Fontana Dam that what I was experiencing once again was what I had experienced that day 18 months before on the roller-coaster. It was deja vu all over again -- and no more fun this time than the last time. The only encouraging thing now is that, like the last time, it wasn't a permenant injury, and I did eventually recover. Stay tuned!Longhaul