I laughed when I reached the age where doctors asked me if I had any falls recently. I always fall on my hikes but I don’t think those are the kind they mean. I had my first fall on the second day out and thought about how glad I was that I knew how to fall; to relax into it and not fight it. Again I thought about life and the times we’ve struggled and how much better it’s been for me since I’ve learned to relax into the harder times rather than fighting them. It makes for a much softer landing and a quicker recovery, both physically and emotionally.

On my third day out as I was walking down the trail after receiving water from Bob and thinking about how wonderful life was, I stopped thinking about the rocks under my feet. Sure enough I took a header. This time I landed with the full force of my 30 pound pack on my back and hit one knee on the ground. I knew it wasn’t an injury that was going to be an end of the hike, but as I sat there I could hear parts of me saying “why are we doing this? I just wanna go home.” I gave myself time to sit and recover from the trauma of the fall and then I picked myself up and kept on walking.

That night the injured knee definitely made sleep hard even after taking some aspirin and ibuprofen.

I wasn’t sure where I was going to go that next day as good water was possibly 22 miles away. There was a town 15 miles by trail and then 5 miles off the trail by road, but I hadn’t been planning on going there. I went to bed figuring I would decide as I went along the next day. Then what a night!

First, it was the knee that kept me awake a good part of the night. Then there was the very aggressive skunk. I had learned on a previous hike that throwing the contents of my pee jar at an aggressive raccoon had finally made it leave, so I tried the same thing here. Lo and behold it worked again! I love that little pee jar that keeps me from having to leave my sleeping bag at night!

But that wasn’t all that night had to throw at me. Along came an incredible storm with wind, hail, and snow. A couple of times some tent stakes got blown out of the ground because the ground was so hard I hadn’t been able to get them in as deeply as I would’ve liked. Between the wind and me knocking on the tent walls to keep the snow from building up and collapsing the tent the stakes came loose. Once I got out of my tent to fix it. The next time I just let it stay down, figuring it was safer that way than having the wind tear the tent to shreds. It was kind of like being inside a plastic bag and was OK except that it allowed some water from the snow to seep into the tent. Thus, I had to pack up some wet gear in the morning.

Taking things in stride, I decided there was no way I was going to get an early start nor hike 22 miles. I decided I was most likely going to go into Patagonia. I waited until 9 o’clock when the worst of the snow stopped to start walking. Surprisingly it wasn’t that hard to get started, but I struggled that day with the demons in my head. Some of my old traumas came rushing in and it didn’t help knowing that all the hikers I had been with were all ahead of me. My body was aching. The hooks on my boots had broken off and I begin to wonder what I was doing this for. But I know that those are always thoughts that I have on these adventures and the trick is to ease into them like a fall, and then to get up and move on. I’m always glad in the end for having persevered and the ability to draw on past experience is definitely one advantage of being old. I can remember, “oh yeah I’ve been here before. Just go through the other side and you’ll be glad you did it.”

So I hiked on in the brutal wind and biting hail. It wasn’t very big hail but every time it hit my skin, it’s stung because it was being blown at such a high rate of speed.

Eventually, I reached a place where there was a trail junction with cell service and I turned on my phone. I was thrilled to get a bunch of texts. They raised my spirits so thank you to everyone who stays in touch and who makes comments on the blogs. It really means a lot to me.

One of those texts was from a trail angel in Patagonia. She herself was unable to come get me because she was recently out of the hospital, but she made arrangements for some friends of hers to get me and I’ve been in a home in Patagonia, where I got a shower and lovely dinner last night and was brought tea in bed this morning! I was able to make arrangements to get a new pair of boots sent to me further up the trail. I back flushed my water filter, Jackie did my laundry for me and I’m going to take a soak in the tub later today. It doesn’t get much better than this.

What a great reminder that when you ride out the falls, the peaks will come. My goal now is to not let my emotions be pulled up or down by what’s happening around me, but rather to accept it all as a learning experience and part of a wonderful life. I hope you all experience angels in your life.