BACK TO HIKING

Fun with the lens.  No flash, kept the lens open for 25 seconds and briefly 'painted' myself with the headlamp

Leigh was leading a decent pace up the Chiraco trail to Poo Poo point and I was struggling.  I could not control my breathing and my legs felt like lead.  How could I have let myself go like this?  I had hiked fairly regularly for 8 years and the last 3 years had a near weekly regimen of hiking cable line.  Cable line has nearly 2,000 feet of elevation gain in a mile in a half.  Nearly every step is sharply up with no switchbacks.  By comparison, Poo Poo point is pretty easy.  And yet I was struggling mightily on this 16th day of October.   Why?

Because I hadn’t hiked steadily in several months.  Ok, close to a year.  And I had developed a fondness for Tillamook Mountain Huckleberry ice-cream.  And a steady diet of Ellenos yogurt.  How bad can yogurt be?  It only had 125 calories.  But in the fine print it showed ‘2 servings per container’. So I was eating a candy bar a day.  In addition to the other candy bars I occasionally scrounged.

That’s why I was struggling.  During the hike I fell silent. I had let myself down.  And I needed a plan to keep up with Leigh.

I phoned a friend.  Jae.  “Cableline on Wednesday?”.  “YES” came the reply.

October 19th.  Jae was running late on that first night hike.  Fantastic.  I texted him - I’m going up.  You can catch me.  I started out slow and it felt OK.  Jae caught me towards the top and for a moment I thought I was on the way to recovery.

Fast forward one week.  Jae was on time.  He’s faster than I am.  He’s also just over half my age. And taller.  He led and had a good pace.  I started to lag.  Finally I said - you go to the top, catch me on the way down.

And so it went for the next 2  or 3 weeks.  We’d start out together, but my energy would flag and I’d turn around.

That continued for a couple of weeks then I finally made it to the top, and on November 30th, the 6th time up Cableline, I not only made it to the top, I felt great when I did so.

Yesterday Jae and I tromped up Poo Poo point again.  I led what I thought was a blistering pace.  Jae thought it was Ok.  I’ll take it.  It was probably nearly as fast as Leigh had done about 2 months ago.  And I felt pretty good.

There’s still lots of work to do.  I’m not ‘in’ shape.  But I’m getting there.

The top of Poo Poo point