king tut
New member
The cold rain is falling from the sky, as I lay in a stream soaking my weary knee. The rain is cold and really coming down from the sky as it opens up at the end of the hike. Normally I hate rain, but as I lay in the stream with the rain pelting me across my chest, I feel amazing and content. I soak in the gurgle of the stream and feel my leg cooling off while I listen to the sounds of nature. There is no other place that I would rather be at this moment.
For the last 6 weeks, my knee has been swollen and in a lot of pain. Something about the sprinting motion while playing softball has aggravated my knee, to the point where walking on uneven surfaces has been a real chore. My knee was re-constructed about a decade ago, and when it was being done, I was not sure how much usefull life I would have in my new knee once it was done. In the last several years, I managed to hike over 50 of the 4,000 footers in New England and I was hoping to finish the rest of them the next year or two. The last month plus has consisted of trying to work out without inflicting too much pain in my knee and then icing it every single night.
I have been thinking about going out and doing a light hike the last several weeks, but once the weekend rolls around, my knee has always been too sore to go out. This last week, the knee was starting to feel better, so I was cautiously optimistic about getting out this weekend. I awoke Saturday morning, and there was still some soreness in the knee, but I decided that instead of spending another morning going to the gym, this would be the day that I went out and tested out the joints. It really wasn't because my knee was feeling normal, more because of my ride home the previous night. I had a couple of drinks at happy hour and was pretty tired. I was looking around at my surroundings while driving home and noticed a lot of "for sale" signs and several moving trucks on the sides of the road. It was a little surprising and saddening to see the whole subprime mess moving into my little world. I turned on the t.v. when I got home, and Jim Mad Dog Cramer was screaming about oil prices and drilling, and it made me wonder how he has not had a heart attack as of yet? Maybe he has, who knows?
I slept in late, and got to the trailhead around noon time off of Stevensville road. This is a nice trailhead to use if you do not want to hike from the state park trailheads. I went up the Maple Ridge trail slowly, and only felt a few twinges of pain as I ascended. The cloud level was very low today and the humidity level was very high. It felt like I was walking right into a big bowl of soup. There are some excellent little scrambles up rock on this trail, a few spots were a little dicey with the wet rocks, but it only added to the excitement of the trip. There were 0 views today, most of the hike was heading into the unknown. Walking into the void, it was eerie to hike into the nothingness ahead of me. I reached the top in a few hours, and took a quick break at the summit building. From there, I decided to head back down into the fog via the Long Trail.
I wasn't really sure of which trails to take on the way down, more of a metaphor of life lately. When I heard the news that Tim Russert passed away a few weeks ago, I felt a bit empty, even though I was not a huge follower of him, but I did really appreciate his work. I think it was because my father is around the same age as him. One of those moments that make you think of mortality, be that your own or that of others. Everything in life seems to be half chance. Things happen, the reasons are not always readily apparent. Maybe that's why I decided to head out today, I wasn't feeling physically ready, but something inside me told me to go out.
The Long trail south from the forehead is a pretty sweet mix of rocks, cliffs, ladders, and descents at off angles. The rocks were pretty slick today, which added to the challenge, but I was loving every moment of descending into the valley below. I brought along two ski poles to help distribute the weight while descending and had to hurl them down 20-30 vertical feet at a time in order to keep both hands free to grasp ladders and transfer weight from the slick rocks. The trail eventually levels out and you arrive at the juncture to the Nebraska notch trail. From here back to the parking lot, the trail is pretty gentle for the last mile and a half.
The rain started to fall at a steady pace when I was nearing the parking lot. I arrived at my car and noticed that my legs were caked in mud, so I descended the banks of the parking lot to the stream below. I took off my boots and my shirt and soaked in the stream. The rest of the world was inconsequential. The quietness of nature made life slow down. The blinders of every day life were off, it was refreshing to take in a surrounding that did not consist of 6 foot tall cubicle walls and reports.
For the last 6 weeks, my knee has been swollen and in a lot of pain. Something about the sprinting motion while playing softball has aggravated my knee, to the point where walking on uneven surfaces has been a real chore. My knee was re-constructed about a decade ago, and when it was being done, I was not sure how much usefull life I would have in my new knee once it was done. In the last several years, I managed to hike over 50 of the 4,000 footers in New England and I was hoping to finish the rest of them the next year or two. The last month plus has consisted of trying to work out without inflicting too much pain in my knee and then icing it every single night.
I have been thinking about going out and doing a light hike the last several weeks, but once the weekend rolls around, my knee has always been too sore to go out. This last week, the knee was starting to feel better, so I was cautiously optimistic about getting out this weekend. I awoke Saturday morning, and there was still some soreness in the knee, but I decided that instead of spending another morning going to the gym, this would be the day that I went out and tested out the joints. It really wasn't because my knee was feeling normal, more because of my ride home the previous night. I had a couple of drinks at happy hour and was pretty tired. I was looking around at my surroundings while driving home and noticed a lot of "for sale" signs and several moving trucks on the sides of the road. It was a little surprising and saddening to see the whole subprime mess moving into my little world. I turned on the t.v. when I got home, and Jim Mad Dog Cramer was screaming about oil prices and drilling, and it made me wonder how he has not had a heart attack as of yet? Maybe he has, who knows?
I slept in late, and got to the trailhead around noon time off of Stevensville road. This is a nice trailhead to use if you do not want to hike from the state park trailheads. I went up the Maple Ridge trail slowly, and only felt a few twinges of pain as I ascended. The cloud level was very low today and the humidity level was very high. It felt like I was walking right into a big bowl of soup. There are some excellent little scrambles up rock on this trail, a few spots were a little dicey with the wet rocks, but it only added to the excitement of the trip. There were 0 views today, most of the hike was heading into the unknown. Walking into the void, it was eerie to hike into the nothingness ahead of me. I reached the top in a few hours, and took a quick break at the summit building. From there, I decided to head back down into the fog via the Long Trail.
I wasn't really sure of which trails to take on the way down, more of a metaphor of life lately. When I heard the news that Tim Russert passed away a few weeks ago, I felt a bit empty, even though I was not a huge follower of him, but I did really appreciate his work. I think it was because my father is around the same age as him. One of those moments that make you think of mortality, be that your own or that of others. Everything in life seems to be half chance. Things happen, the reasons are not always readily apparent. Maybe that's why I decided to head out today, I wasn't feeling physically ready, but something inside me told me to go out.
The Long trail south from the forehead is a pretty sweet mix of rocks, cliffs, ladders, and descents at off angles. The rocks were pretty slick today, which added to the challenge, but I was loving every moment of descending into the valley below. I brought along two ski poles to help distribute the weight while descending and had to hurl them down 20-30 vertical feet at a time in order to keep both hands free to grasp ladders and transfer weight from the slick rocks. The trail eventually levels out and you arrive at the juncture to the Nebraska notch trail. From here back to the parking lot, the trail is pretty gentle for the last mile and a half.
The rain started to fall at a steady pace when I was nearing the parking lot. I arrived at my car and noticed that my legs were caked in mud, so I descended the banks of the parking lot to the stream below. I took off my boots and my shirt and soaked in the stream. The rest of the world was inconsequential. The quietness of nature made life slow down. The blinders of every day life were off, it was refreshing to take in a surrounding that did not consist of 6 foot tall cubicle walls and reports.
