CLOSE CALLS

1) After about 5 years of hiking a few weeks each summer in the Smoky mountains, I was comfortable doing day hikes of 20 miles a day up to and along the Appalachian Trail. I was always able to complete the hike with only 2 quarts of water, and I could complete it even if I ran out of water at the halfway mark. So, one day I got overconfident, and tried to do a 30-mile hike. Unfortunately, it was a hot August day. Plus, I started at the top of the mountain at Clingman’s Dome, and hike on the Appalachian Trail for 15 miles down to Spence Field. Well, I’m out of water, it is the heat of the day, and I get to hike the last 15 miles all uphill. The sweat just pours out of me, but it is also starting to get late, so I still average 3 miles per hour. I am so dehydrated that it is painful to swallow. I walk by two campers and am so used to being self-reliant that I don’t even ask for a sip of water. The gal runs up to me and asks: “Sir, it’s getting late, and you don’t seem very prepared.” I think: “No sh—Sherlock!” but instead just say, “I sure won’t do this ever again!” She responds: “Well, you are close to the trail end.” I keep going, but now it is even darker, and there is a fork in the trail. Fortunately, I remember that the trail to the left goes to the paved trail to Clingman’s Dome and the parking lot, while the other trail goes for miles and miles. I take the correct trail, and survive! I drive to town and gets some water, but it is still painful to swallow, and it takes a few days before I can swallow without pain. Sure is a learning experience- I now ALWAYS take enough water on a hike. Indeed, for doing the Grand Canyon in a day, I carried 6 quarts of water, and came up a trail late in the day with Safe Houses that had water stations.

2) It is December about the same year, and it’s been a stressful semester, so I decide to go away and hike in the Smokies. I have to park in the Newfound Gap parking lot, since the 7-mile road to Clingman’s Dome is closed due to snow. Nobody is around, which should have tipped me off. I start the 7-mile hike on the Appalachian Trail from Newfound Gap to Clingman’s Dome. Wow, it’s starting to snow! We don’t have that in Mississippi. After 5 miles, it’s snowing even heavier, and the sky is getting dark. Wow, cool! I get to the top, and an ice storm starts dumping slush and ice on me. Wish I had more than a light jacket and tennis shoes! Well, this is a survival situation, so I go to the slush-covered highway, figuring I can minimize the time back by jogging down the 7-mile road. I seek shelter from the ice storm in the restroom, but it is locked, so I have to keep going. I jog slowly down the mountain, but it is slippery so I can’t go very fast. A park ranger passes me in a small, enclosed vehicle, but he must just be laughing at me as he doesn’t even stop. After two hours jogging down the road, I finally reach my car. Nobody is around. I get back to town alive! Only negative side effects were that I got a bad cold. Moral- next winter, I drive down to Disney World in Florida!

3) Thunderstorms. 3 hikes, all in the Smokies. The first was on the 16-mile round trip from Newfound Gap to Mount LeConte, a trail that remains above the 5,000-foot level. Equipped with my raingear (a Walmart half umbrella) I encounter a thunderstorm that is so strong that my umbrella is useless. Indeed, the rain is falling so heavily that I can barely breathe. I desperate search for a fallen tree that I can hide under, but none is around. I keep stumbling along the trail, and fortunately the storm is brief, and I survive! The second hike was up toward the Appalachian Trail in the east part of the Smokies. This time, my half umbrella worked okay, though the lightning was kind of spooky. But I got off of the mountain with no trouble. The next day, though, I learn that the storm was so bad that it brought down a single engine plane a few miles from where I had been hiking. I learned this because I saw groups of park rangers going into the trails searching for the plane. They finally found it in a remote area accessible only by trails, so they had to bring the three bodies down by mule train. The third hike was again in this east park of the Park up to the Appalachian trail. I was raining a little, so I had my umbrella up. Some guys on horseback wearing ponchos kind of laughed at me. I got to a park lookout tower, and then started back down the mountain. It was now raining fairly heavy, and the trail was flooded. I jogged from one side off the trail to the other side, avoiding the water. In the forest, I saw the same group of riders stranded and looking miserable in their hot ponchos, since their horses could not negotiate the flooded trail. I jogged down the trail with no trouble. Moral- get off of the mountain before a thunderstorm even hits, especially out West when you are above the tree line.

4) Bears. 3 major encounters. First was on the west side of the Smokies on a trail that goes up to the Appalachian Trail and is about halfway between the middle of the park and Cades Cove. It’s across the street from a trail to a waterfall. This trail is always deserted. So I walk for miles all alone, and then I pass a large bush. I suddenly hear a crashing next to me, and see this huge bear that is larger than I am only three feet from me! I just keep walking briskly, and the poor scared bear runs away. He was just minding his own business all alone, eating berries, and this big loud human walked by him. The second encounter was a few months after the Park had its first human fatality because of a bear attack, and it was on the same trail. So naturally, I have to hike there. I pass the signs at the trailhead that read, Warning, High Bear Activity. I notice droppings, and pass a group of campers who didn’t notice them, because they were busy talking to each other. As I walk further up the trail all alone, I see a bear on the trail ahead of me about twenty feet away; it starts running up the trail away from me. For a couple of times, as I come around the corner of the trail, I keep seeing the bear just ahead of me and running away from me in a leisurely fashion. So, bears use the human trails also, since it is easier than spending energy running thru brush. After three encounters, I pick up a stick, and start beating the bushes next to me as I hike ahead, making enough noise that the bear will think that it is a large animal or a lot of people. I don’t see the bear anymore. The third encounter was in the Grand Teton Park in Wyoming. I was coming down from an 8-hour hike up to near the Lower Saddle in Garnett Canyon. I was about a mile from the gravel parking lot, and I suddenly see a group of people standing on top of a large boulder. In the middle of the trail is a big bear feeding on berries. Well, I’m too tired to wait around for it to move, so I just travel off the trail through the forest and go around him. I rejoin the trail, and suddenly I hear heavy footsteps behind me. I turn around, and there is a frightened hiker from Alaska running toward me, a state with very large and very dangerous bears. We laugh and jog down off of the mountain together. Moral- just stay away from them, and leave them alone.

5) Streams. Well, here I am in Paradise, Hawaii. I’m on the Big Island with the volcanoes, but I’m hiking on the other end of the island with lush growth and a hidden valley. To get to the valley, I hike down a steep road and am blocked by a fast-moving stream that is coming down the mountain. Some guy is sitting on a boulder, and he challenges me: “Sure you can cross the stream, just take your shoes off.” Okay. I get halfway across the stream and the fast moving and strong water is now up to my thighs. It is pulling me down the stream toward the ocean. I am cutting my feet on sharp stones. I am able to get to a boulder on the other side of the stream, and I pull myself up. I take out my emergency first aid kit (4 band-aides in my wallet), and calmly put a couple on my cut toe. I look over at the idiot whose advice I had unwisely taken, and he is gone! I hike around this hidden valley for a while, and now have to try to cross this raging stream again. I go closer to the ocean and encounter three young guys. We make a single file, and two of them are able to get across, but they warned me that the fast-moving center of the stream could pull me off of my feet. I and the guy behind me both turn around and go back to shore. I notice three people on horses who are on the other side of the stream, and their guide has stopped them, and is making believe that he is looking up at the sky. I decide to cross right where the stream enters the ocean, as it is wider, slower moving, and not as powerful. We have no trouble crossing there, and the horse train then crosses at the same spot. That night, I have to dry out my money on the hotel heat radiator, since my wallet got absolutely soaked! The moral- I just never cross a stream anymore. Indeed, one time in the Smokies I made a 30-mile day hike instead a 20-miler since I retraced my steps instead of crossing a much smaller stream.

6) Injuries. The Knee. Well, I’m finishing up a 15-mile day hike in the mountains just outside of Honolulu, Hawaii. It was a 3 mile walk from the beach hotel to the mountains, and I was finishing up a 9 mile hike up and down the mountain. I feel great, so I am moving fast down the mountain. I think- wow, am I in great shape. It’s amazing how strong the human body is, that it can take so much punishment. Then I look down at my knee, and it is swollen to twice its normal size! I feel sick to my stomach. I slow up, and finally get out of the woods. I now start limping the 3 miles back thru town. I pass a hospital, and toy with the idea of walking in, but oddly enough the injury does not hurt. So, I slowly limp across town and get back to my motel. It is my last day in Paradise, so what does it matter. I fly back home, and for a couple of weeks I just walk and limp around. I finally go to Doctor Collins at the Health Center, and he says, “Well, that condition is actually normal, since that fluid protects the knee. I could put a needle into it, but then it might get infected. You have good muscles both above and below the knee. Just live with it. At your age, the swelling will probably not go down. You could put a covering over the knee to push up against it.” So, it’s nothing, as usual. So, I walk around the floor on my knees at home for a while. The next day, the swelling is gone. The lower back. I take a long hike 6 miles from my Honolulu hotel thru town up into one of the suburbs that is on the mountain, and go up Wilhelmina Rise, a very steep road. I then start climbing up and down boulders to get to the 4-mile ridgeline that goes to the top of the mountain that divides the center of the island. Suddenly, I see a gal hiker in the distance, and I am distracted, and my foot slips, and I stretch my back. Wow, my back really hurts, now! I skip my hike, and painfully limp back 6 more miles to my hotel. The next day, I just walk around town for about 10 miles and the pain goes away. A far worse back injury was in Mississippi after a 7-day, 20 mile a day hike-jog through the state’s parks. The next day, I do vigorous yard work, bend down, and really hurt my back. For weeks I baby myself, laying on the couch. It is agonizing to just get out of the car. I finally go to see Dr. Collins, and he gives me a series of stretching exercises to do both before and after exercising. After months, the pain is finally gone. A final time I had the same kind of agonizing injury. I went to cross country practice, thinking that I would just try to walk and limp behind the team. But before they started running, an 18-year-old gal came up to me and said, “Coach Steve, will you run with us gals? Use gals need you, Coach Steve.” Uh, sure. The first mile is painful, but after that I go numb. Oddly enough, this time the pain vanished after only about one week. Moral- always stretch before and after exercises, and walking a lot is much better than just lying around. Then I had the cut leg coming down an overgrown goat trail (unmarked climber's access route) in the Wyoming Tetons. I was about three hours from my car, and distracted by thinking about what great shape I was in. I didn't see the sharp small boulder hidden by tall grass until I felt a sharp pain in my leg. Looking down, I saw my blood flowing down my leg. Oh, heck, I thought, I'm in the middle of nowhere, and my only first-aid is four bandages in my wallet! Well, at least it's not spurting, so it's not an artery. What can I do, I'll keep walking. I look down after a minute or two, and it has already clotted, a big clot. Oh, gosh, a young guy I knew was raced to the hospital emergency room to get blood thinner for such an injury, so that the clot wouldn't come off and go to his heart. But gee, I think, I used to get such big clots all the time when I was a kid, and I never died. And I'm at least as healthy now as I was then. So after three hours I get off the trail and back to my car. I immediately drive to the large hut which is the Teton National Park headquarters, look for the youngest strongest male park ranger, walk up to him and say, "Hey, look what I did to my leg. Is that anything to worry about?" He glances at it, shakes his head, and says, "Nah." I smile, say thanks, give him a thumbs up, and leave. The next morning, the clot is gone, replaced by a thin line. The morning after that, I can't even see the thin line. I am indeed healthy!

7) Altitude Sickness. I was warned by park rangers in the Rocky Mountain National Park when I drove up to the visitor’s center at the 12,000-foot level. A strong young male ranger who was just standing behind the counter had a big bottle of water that he kept sipping: “Yeah, we have young strong guys get out of their car, walk a few feet, and collapse.” I warmed up for the 13,000-foot mountains in the Rockies by spending a week in the Tetons at the 9,000-foot level. But two years gave me trouble, both times hiking along the Continental Divide trail up towards Mount Ida. A cold front came in (in August!), and the wind came off of the glaciers atop the high mountains and hit me in the face for hours, stirring up my sinuses. The next day, I stayed in my motel at the 7,700-foot level in Estes Park, but I never got better. So, at 4 in the morning, I drove myself to the nice little hospital emergency room. The young doctor said I was dehydrated, and fed me water intravenously. The next year the same conditions arose, so I again went to the emergency room. The older doctor looked into my ear, said, “You’re dry,” gave me a jug of water, and said “Drink.” Since I hadn’t been to the doctor for years, I was happy to get checked out and learn that everything was fine.