Updated: Aug 5, 2021

trail angels Dean, Jackie, Shannon and Paul

By Mary Anderson

On this section of hike when I am heading cross-country to avoid fires, everything is a lesson in deeper trust. I have little idea of my mileage. I don’t know exactly how much I’ve walked, nor how much more I have to do. I have only minimal information on water sources. I’m not completely sure where all my food resupplies will be. And now I am not even following a daily schedule for miles. I’ve begun telling myself that either I will enjoy this hike or I will stop. I don’t want to stop short of my long-term goal, so I’ve decided to change my daily goal to fit the circumstances.

When I hurt my knee early on in my hike, I felt discombobulated, alone, and depressed. Yet it all turned out okay in the end, with some interesting twists to my story that would not have happened without the knee injury. Now I am sitting in Ennis, Montana, with some new mysterious injury that is making it almost impossible for me to hike. Somewhere in my hip, pelvis, or groin there is a lot of pain. Yet except for needing to numb the pain enough so that I can sleep at night, I am barely phased by it. It hurts, so I know I have to take some time off from hiking. I have no idea how much time, and I don’t seem to care. “It is what it is,” as they say, and I can only do so much.

I have had some deep massage and gone to a chiropractor. In fact, I will return to Dr. James Parsons, the eighty-something-year-old chiropractor, again this evening at no additional charge. He has already spent two hours with me, some of it sharing tea and visiting with his lovely acupuncturist wife, Sherril Gold. This visit kept me from having to walk out into the much needed rain. Without this pain I would not have met these kind people dedicated to the healing arts. After my appointment this evening, they will drive me the nine miles to where I am staying.

Without this injury I might not have met Jackie and Dean, the trail angels who are letting me camp in their luxurious camper. I really enjoyed meeting some of their family, including three very charming grandsons.