In some ways I was relieved to find out my foot was broken and I had to get off the Pacific Northwest Trail. If I hadn’t done the MRI and had just gone with the x-ray results, I would have kept hiking on that painful foot. I hadn’t been enjoying myself for much of the trail and I’m sure I would’ve liked it even less as the pain in my foot continue to grow. But up until then I had never quit a trail before I reached the end. I wasn’t sure how I would react to doing so. I always knew it was a possibility, but was afraid I would see it as a failure. I was extremely pleased to find I didn’t feel any sense of failure or shame in quitting. I’m not sure that would have been true for me before these last years of deep internal growth. Now, rather than seeing it as quitting, I was able to see ending the hike as embracing what was given to me and going with the flow. I really had been ready for a break from the Trail ( albeit without a break in my foot!) and it took something of this caliber to cause me to quit. I wonder if next time I would be able to quit simply for lack of enjoyment. I know that’s a fine line because sometimes with a big goal, one has to go through times of not enjoying it. No trail I’ve ever done has come without days of wanting to quit. But I had really not been enjoying the Pacific Northwest Trail. The views had been underwhelming, especially after the Arizona Trail. The days had been extremely hot, the road walks long, the bushwhacks were no fun, I had fewer personal connections in town and it had been extremely smoky for quite a bit of the trip.

Hiking my last few days with Mighty Mouse had been fun. She and I both hiked a very similar pace and style and we had an easy camaraderie. I was sorry to lose that, but as much as people kept offering me condolences on my foot, I was not sorry to get off the trail.

When I got to East Glacier I received an email telling me my insurance company was not going to renew because of some claims that had been made a few years earlier. I knew my house would not be an easy one to find insurance for as it is primarily heated with wood and is far from a fire station. I didn’t know what I would be able to afford. I also was feeling very frustrated at not being able to schedule a medical appointment to be seen for my foot once I reached Vermont. I was making numerous calls every day trying to get the hospital in Tonasket Washington to make a referral or to get my primary care doctor in Vermont to make a referral now based on my medical records. If she did that I wouldn’t have to wait the time needed to get home, see her, wait for her referral and then schedule an appointment with the foot doctor who had a few weeks wait. As I kept making call after call and hitting a wall, I felt myself falling apart at having to deal with all these life things.

Of course, coming off the trail in such an abrupt manner made having to deal with these things harder. But what made them even harder were the emotions attached to these things. Before I met Mark I had done everything financial by myself. In fact, I relished doing income taxes because I was good at understanding how they worked. But after 10 years of Mark insisting on doing it all himself and refusing to allow me to even know who the companies were, I felt at a loss.

Having this thrown in my lap now reminded those little parts of me the inhumane way he had left us. I had begged him after he left to help me understand the finances and he had refused, accusing me of stalking him for asking for simple things like the title for my car. I found myself dealing with all that emotion as I tried to deal with these necessary things in the moment and abruptly transition to life off the trail.

I believe what creates a sense of overwhelm for me is not the task itself but rather the emotional underpinnings attached to that task. After years of internal growth I had learned to remind myself to back up and lean into the emotions that came up when I felt overwhelmed. I found that by riding through the emotions and becoming conscious of what they were, I could then attend to the task hand. But I was having trouble doing that now.

Luckily when I got the email from the insurance company, I had been chatting with Misty. I mentioned it to her and very nonchalantly she said, “well get a new company.” I knew it would probably be difficult to do so but hearing her verbalize it as a simple problem helped me regain connection to the part of myself that is capable and competent in these situations. I felt I was regaining something that Mark had robbed me of by his refusal to allow me knowledge of our financial situation. I had unhappily gone along with him to keep the peace, feeling that if something happened to him, I would be at a loss. When he left the cruel way he did, the emotional trauma left me stuck in a young, traumatic place unable to connect with the parts of me that are capable of handling my finances. For four years, while the divorce was going through, I was terrorized by his lawyers who were insisting on knowing where every penny I spent went. Now, with Misty’s comment, I could feel myself being able to gather up those fearful little ones inside and let them know there were other capable, competent ones who would take care of the situation. I also connected to gratitude, reminding myself that I was lucky to have a house and car to insure. Even if I wasn’t able to keep the house once I got back to Vermont, I still knew that I had more than many people in the world.

It was a reminder of my one foot in front of the other philosophy. I try to deal with the situation in the present and focus on taking just one srep to move on. I remind myself that when I get to the future I fear, I’ll be a different person just for having taken those few steps. Even if there is something extremely difficult to be dealt with, I try to believe that the changes made along the way will give me what I need to handle whatever comes. And having this kind of faith in myself, helps me dig deep in the hard times to find what I need to move past them. Misty’s comment helped me remember this and allowed me to squelch the rising panic about not having house or car insurance once I got back to Vermont. Instead I focused on being in the present. But knowing I had to deal with this within the next few weeks gave me another reason to be grateful that I wasn’t on the trail trying to do it while hiking.

When I left Misty and East Glacier behind, I meandered south and made two stops in Montana. On my way up to Glacier in June, I had stopped to visit CDT Trail Angels Jackie and and Dean Strong. I had asked them if I could leave buckets of food that were in my car with them so that I wouldn’t worry about animals, especially grizzlies, getting into my car while it was parked for a few months. When I had left Vermont for the Arizona Trail in March, I threw a lot of spare dehydrated food into the car not knowing exactly what I would need for the Pacific Northwest Trail. I planned to figure that out in the month I had after finishing the Arizona Trail while waiting for the snow to melt in Glacier. On these trips I also carry food to eat while driving cross country. Because I live on a minuscule income, I do these trips as cheaply as possible, not paying to buy food along the way and sleeping in my car at night. I still had some food in the car I planned to eat on my drive back east as well as some dehydrated food I didn’t need for the PNT. I was relieved to leave the excess with Jackie until my return.

After I left the Strongs, I visited with CDT Trail Angel Barb in Helena. She asked me if I had any gear I wanted to leave with her. She offered to mail it to me if I needed it on the trail. In my car I did have a spare pack, boots and a few other items that sometimes need to be replaced on a long hike, but I had not known who to ask to be my back up supply person. I had been afraid to impose myself on people and so didn’t ask for help. When Barb offered, I felt a huge weight lift. I gratefully left behind some gear which turned out to be sorely needed on the trail. I still feel much gratitude to Barb for mailing my spare boots to me and finding me a new bite valve when mine fell off during a hitchhike to town.

After staying with Barb for a night, I made my way to North Dakota. The scenery was so beautiful that I pulled off the main road onto a small dirt road, driving down it for a while marveling at the beauty. I realized that rather than being bummed out about my broken foot, I could instead enjoy what it was like to sightsee from a car. The ease of it was a pleasant change. While I enjoy getting to places on foot, when I’m hiking I often have to make a decision between going a few miles out of my way to see some spectacular site or missing it because I just don’t have it in me to walk those few extra miles. With the car it was easier to make those side trips and I was determined to enjoy it.

As a result when I saw a sign informing me that Theodore Roosevelt National Park was just a few miles away, I made the decision to visit. I was thrilled to learn of a loop road that winds its way around the park. I spent a number of hours on it, stopping often to take pictures, grateful for this opportunity to see more beauty. I enjoyed hanging out with a herd of bison and a whole field full of prairie dogs. Seeing the prairie dogs made me think about how we value something based on our own needs and belief systems. Many people find prairie dogs a nuisance for tearing up lawns or creating holes that can be dangerous to step in. On the other hand, prairie dogs are extremely useful for a healthy grassland ecosystem. I’m sure I wouldn’t think they were useful if they were digging up my garden, and I constantly want to push myself to think about what discomfort I’m willing to accept in order to benefit the larger world and those around me.

Eventually, I pulled out of Theodore Roosevelt National Park and kept heading east as the sun set behind me. When I got too tired to drive, I stopped at a rest area for the night.

#thruhiking #CDT #continental divide trail #PNT #pacificnorthwesttrail #olderwomenhiking #nationalscenictrails #AZT #arizonatrail #dissociation #healingtrauma