This past summer I spent some time out in Utah with my daughter, Sarah. I love the Rockies, and I love to hike.
So, I challenged her to a 7-mile hike up Mount Olympus. The year before we did a nine-mile hike in Mount Zion and since I walk every day, I figured this wouldn't be a challenge.
Sarah wasn’t thrilled about the venture as she knew how tough this trail was. But she supports me, so off we went!
This particular day was not going to be too hot. We would leave at sunrise and be back by 1 PM. Sarah checked the weather, and we weren’t going to have any storms until late afternoon. We would be back well before they came. It was going to be a sunny morning.
But what I didn't realize was that the mountain trail was a 4000-foot elevation we had to climb.
Well, the trail was easygoing for the first two miles. Then we had rocks to climb over. In some cases, you literally had to get on your hands and knees to climb over some of these boulders.
No sooner had we arrived at the top after five hours, 4600 feet elevation and 3.5 miles. We were now at over 10,000 feet in elevation. Then we heard thunder in the distance. And where there is thunder, there is lightning.
Everyone knows you should not be on a mountain when you've got a storm coming in for a multitude of reasons.
My daughter who is an avid and experienced hiker said, “Mom, we’ve got to get off this mountain and get off it now.”
If you don't know anything about Salt Lake City, it is in a valley between the Rocky Mountains on the east and the Oquirrh Mountains (pronounced “oaker”) on the West. We were so high up that we could see the storm racing toward us from the Oquirrh Mountains in the West. We were level with the thunderclouds.
We got about a mile zigzagging down the mountain when the wind picked up and the storm hit us. There was nothing we could do but keep going down the mountain. At times I had to turn around get on all fours and slip down those rocks. Some of the rocks were slate and they might as well have been ice as they were that slippery to go down.
To make matters worse, the water was now flowing down the very path we were trying to walk.
About another ½ mile down, I did indeed slip. Not only did I slam my left shoulder into a tree but my head followed. Fortunately, I didn't knock myself out. As a physician assistant and having worked in emergency medicine I knew I was OK. I had sprained my left ankle but at least it wasn't broken, and I could walk on it.
I might add that both my daughter and I were carrying backpacks. You do not do a 7-mile hike without at least 4 liters of water, food, and Pedialyte in case you get too dehydrated.
As the storm raced in with torrents of rain, thunder, and lightning, our path down the mountain continued to get flooded with water. This made it even more treacherous and slow going. The lightning was particularly frightening to me because at times we didn't have any cover. We were out there in the complete open and there were 500-foot drop-offs on the left side of our path.
My daughter was using her walking sticks made out of titanium. Somewhere in my memory banks, I think titanium was on the Element Chart as a metal. That made me particularly nervous, especially with the lightning.
Other hikers were racing past us, leaving us as the only two left on the mountain.
At one point in our hiking, my daughter told me to be aware of any strange noises and a terrible odor. She said the odor was from a mountain lion that marked its territory with its urine. And that meant they were coming around.
Well of course coming down the mountain I smell this terrible odor. Knowing that mountain lions will usually spring from a tree and go after your neck, I kept looking up through the torrents of rain at the trees for these wild animals. While the lightning and thunder and rain poured down around us, I was also trying to watch my step so I didn't slip again.
While all this is going on, I'm keeping my cool. Sarah kept reminding me that I was “super-aging”. To be honest, I think this kept me from going into a full-blown panic attack. With every step my ankle hurt, both knees hurt, and my left hip was feeling it as well. And we still had 2 more miles to go.
Also on this day, it was my son's 29th birthday. And all I could think was, “Dear God, please don't let me die on my son's birthday.”
Needless to say, we finally made it to the car. Yes, the ONLY car left in the parking lot! We were soaking wet through and through from our hiking boots to our backpacks.
When we got home, we assessed the damage under all the dirt and grime. Sarah was in great shape. I came out with a sprained left ankle which eventually turned black and blue a few days later. I never did get a headache from whacking my head on that tree. I did however feel my left shoulder that had whacked the tree first and was now sore. But I think the impingement I had in my shoulder that is always hurting opened up a little bit because now my shoulder feels 10 times better than it ever has.
I did suffer some cuts and bruises, and it took several days for my knees to stop hurting. Every muscle in my legs and backside was used to get down that mountain without slipping again.
At one point in our hike up the sunny mountain, my daughter told me to get behind her to look only at her back and follow her steps. I didn't think much about it as my daughter knows what I can and cannot do.
Later that evening when my daughter and I were resting, she asked me if I wanted to know why she told me at one point to get behind her and look only at her back. I told her I thought it was because I had to step a certain way. She said, “No Mom, there was something I couldn't let you see that was right next to you. Do you want to know what it was?” I said, ”Yes, go ahead and tell me.” She said it was a tarantula the size of her palm and the legs were the size of her fingers.
Now my daughter knows I am deathly afraid of spiders. Had I seen that monster, I definitely would have been traumatized, turning around, and racing down the mountain at 90 miles an hour.
So here comes the interesting part.
I still love hiking and being out in nature's beauty. The idea that a 70-year-old can get out there and do this proves to me that age is not a factor. However, intelligence is.
For the first two days I was home, I realized my body was going through some serious recovery work.
I discovered I had not only sprained my left ankle but also my right wrist. I ACE-wrapped both of those for 3 days and took some ibuprofen for pain.
Because I've been on a particular food plan for over a year now and have lost over 40 lbs., I can tell you I am so attuned to what my body needs and what it doesn't need.
I was not thirsty because I'd lost so much salt sweating as we went up those rocks in the sunshine. Now, my body was seriously dehydrated and craving salt so going off my normal food plan and not feeling guilty was perfectly acceptable.
I bought a bag of the saltiest potato chips I could find and ate every single one of them in one sitting. Within an hour, that piped up my thirst again so that I could start drinking more water than normal. This kicked my kidneys into action, and I started needing the bathroom again. And I knew my muscles were rehydrating, too because they stopped aching.
The second thing I noticed was that I didn't want anything on my food plan. I only wanted carbs. So, for the next 2 days, I ate whatever my body craved. Carbs meant lots of pasta.
On the third day, I no longer craved anything and was well on my way to getting my kidneys back up to working again, rehydrated, and back to my normal food plan.
It just goes to show, our bodies will recover. We’ve just got to be aware of what they need when we push their limits.
I had a great rest of the summer and yes, I kept hiking those beautiful Rockies.
But now when I hike or even take long walks on the beach in Florida, or take the boat out on the Gulf, I not only appreciate nature, I appreciate its power, the Earth, and the people who mean so much to me.
