Post by zeke on Apr 5, 2019 3:10:14 GMT -8
7/8ths isn’t at all bad
I just returned from what was supposed to be 8 days hiking below the Rim at the Grand Canyon, hiking downTanner and up Grandview. Well, I’ve hiked up Grandview before.
Jazzmom, Rumi, Big Load, a young woman I am going to call Ms.T, and I planned a trip to the Canyon for a couple of months now. We all met up at the South Rim on Tuesday, March 26th for a 27th early departure. Ms. T was a new person to me and she more than held her own all week. She had not hiked the Canyon before. At 36, looking like she needed to be carded at the restaurant, I am just going to chalk it up to her youth.
5 of us started the day dropping off one car at the take out trailhead, and shuttling over to the departure trailhead. Dropped down Tanner, and found some crusty snow and some patches of ice. Nothing too bad, but I thought maybe I should’ve had some spikes a time or 2. For those of you unfamiliar with Tanner, it is an unrelenting downhill on golfballs and marbles, just to keep your quads screaming at you.
I slipped and fell down a couple of times, but nothing more serious than a scrape or so. It was the constant quad scream that slowed me down. That and the 67 yrs of existing on this green Earth. But, by 4 Pm, I knew I’d be getting into camp by headlamp. Rumi just decided he couldn’t see well enough to do that, so he and I camped up on a flat spot, 3 miles from the river. The others made sure we had enough water, and they headed on down. Originally, Day 2 was 9 miles to the confluence with the Little Colorado, returning on Day 4 after a day hike on Day 3. Rumi and I just waited for the rest to return to Tanner, taking 2 zero days at the river.
So, Rumi and I got to the river about 11 AM on Day 2. We filtered water out of the river, and found a nice shady spot to sit out of the sun. By 1 PM, we found a shady campsite for sleeping.
Day 2 for the other 3 meant hiking the Beemer trail, 9 miles of rock on the precipice, several hundred feet above the river. Their Day 3 day hike proved unreachable because of the Little Colorado flow level, so they took Day 3 as a zero day.
Day 4, the others hiked back to us by 2:30, and we shared filtered water and shade before hiking the 3 miles to our camp for that night.
Day 5, I awoke with vision difficulty. I had a shadow about halfway down my right eye field of vision, and blurry vision for the remainder. No ability to focus out of that eye. I kept it to myself for several hours of walking. When I did speak of it, we did a quick check of speech and muscle control to see if it was stroke induced, but none of us were medically trained. I voted to continue on. It was only a 7 mile day on the Escalante that took several more hours than it should’ve to complete.
Day 6 was an adventurous day, and would’ve been so even with both eyes. We were to climb a 40 foot wall, somehow getting our packs up, and then navigate a 300 foot rock slide down Papago. The slide was more terrifying. Going up the wall with my pack on wasn’t too difficult, but I am 6’ 1” with an 8 ft reach up to find finger holds. Once up top, I tossed a line down with a carabiner to haul some of the other packs up. Jazzmom and Ms T are considerably shorter, and needed some help reaching a couple of handholds.
The slide was a pile of larger rock up top, and some smaller ones down below, ending in more large ones. The trick was to not dislodge big rock down on the others below. I was standing on one such rock and grabbed another to hold onto. That one in my hands ended up sliding down a little, into my lap. I managed to put it back before it became a hazard to the others. Everyone handled the slide quite well, I thought. In any group, there are always some who find things more scary than some of the others do. That first drop off at the top of the slide was one that challenged all of us, making us talk to ourselves. We weren’t the first ever to travel this route, and won’t be the last.
Day 7 began much as the others, but before noon I noticed my right eye vision had become completely black, no longer just fuzzy. I talked to the rest of the team. I hesitated for a few minutes, trying to figure out some way for me to continue. In the end, I knew it was best to PLB out, and not slow the team so much it ruined their trip. I was sad, fearful, and pissed off. I was crying because I didn’t want to leave before ending the hike, fearful that I might lose all vision in that eye, and pissed off that this had happened to me.
I rode the chopper back to the top, then an ambulance to Flagstaff Medical center ER. Spent most of the evening getting an MRI, a CT Scan, and a Sonogram of my eyeball. They held me over for observation, after determining it “probably wasn’t a stroke”. They still wanted me to have an Echo Cardiogram to check for clots in my heart, but that had to wait until morning.
I told them to get that last test done by 11, because I had friends to meet at Bright Angel Lodge by 4. Now that I knew for sure it wasn’t a stroke, I wasn’t going to let them change my plans for a great dinner with friends. I told them I would self discharge, against medical advice, if they tried to hold me past noon. They got the message. By 8 AM, the Echo technician was in my room and told me my heart was fine as he finished. I told him that wasn’t the kind of news his staff wanted me to hear, as it only solidified my desire to get the heck out of there. I took a cab back to the South Rim, at $140 as opposed to the shuttle that was full, at $50. The cab ride was “fun” because the young woman had never been to the Canyon before and was excited to get to go as part of her work. So excited she invited another friend to go along. As the 3 of us drove up, the driver started texting. Her friend chastised her, mentioning a recent rollover wreck for doing the exact same thing. I made her stop the car and told her she could not use her phone for the remainder of my ride, or I wanted a new driver. She took the instruction well.
Met up with the others about 5, as they drove straight to the lodge for a fancy dinner, in all of our hiking glory. At least I had had a shower, but was still wearing my dirty clothing. No one at El Tovar seemed to care. Our $$ were still green. We told each other what had happened since we last saw one another, laughing at the shared adventures.
After dinner, Big Load, Rumi, and I drove to Vegas where we managed to get to sleep about 1:30 with a 5 AM get up. Flew home safely.
I really liked our group. Ms. T was a delight to hike with, and her sense of humor lightened our banter. She is a co-worker of Jazzmom’s, so they knew each other before. They may not talk at work for a couple of weeks. She may think JM tricked her into coming along. I’ve known Rumi and Big Load for years now. Jazzmom has been a friend for a while, and has kayaked some of the Everglades with me.
My wife understands why I didn’t call her from ER, and is happy it isn’t anything more serious.
I just returned from what was supposed to be 8 days hiking below the Rim at the Grand Canyon, hiking downTanner and up Grandview. Well, I’ve hiked up Grandview before.
Jazzmom, Rumi, Big Load, a young woman I am going to call Ms.T, and I planned a trip to the Canyon for a couple of months now. We all met up at the South Rim on Tuesday, March 26th for a 27th early departure. Ms. T was a new person to me and she more than held her own all week. She had not hiked the Canyon before. At 36, looking like she needed to be carded at the restaurant, I am just going to chalk it up to her youth.
5 of us started the day dropping off one car at the take out trailhead, and shuttling over to the departure trailhead. Dropped down Tanner, and found some crusty snow and some patches of ice. Nothing too bad, but I thought maybe I should’ve had some spikes a time or 2. For those of you unfamiliar with Tanner, it is an unrelenting downhill on golfballs and marbles, just to keep your quads screaming at you.
I slipped and fell down a couple of times, but nothing more serious than a scrape or so. It was the constant quad scream that slowed me down. That and the 67 yrs of existing on this green Earth. But, by 4 Pm, I knew I’d be getting into camp by headlamp. Rumi just decided he couldn’t see well enough to do that, so he and I camped up on a flat spot, 3 miles from the river. The others made sure we had enough water, and they headed on down. Originally, Day 2 was 9 miles to the confluence with the Little Colorado, returning on Day 4 after a day hike on Day 3. Rumi and I just waited for the rest to return to Tanner, taking 2 zero days at the river.
So, Rumi and I got to the river about 11 AM on Day 2. We filtered water out of the river, and found a nice shady spot to sit out of the sun. By 1 PM, we found a shady campsite for sleeping.
Day 2 for the other 3 meant hiking the Beemer trail, 9 miles of rock on the precipice, several hundred feet above the river. Their Day 3 day hike proved unreachable because of the Little Colorado flow level, so they took Day 3 as a zero day.
Day 4, the others hiked back to us by 2:30, and we shared filtered water and shade before hiking the 3 miles to our camp for that night.
Day 5, I awoke with vision difficulty. I had a shadow about halfway down my right eye field of vision, and blurry vision for the remainder. No ability to focus out of that eye. I kept it to myself for several hours of walking. When I did speak of it, we did a quick check of speech and muscle control to see if it was stroke induced, but none of us were medically trained. I voted to continue on. It was only a 7 mile day on the Escalante that took several more hours than it should’ve to complete.
Day 6 was an adventurous day, and would’ve been so even with both eyes. We were to climb a 40 foot wall, somehow getting our packs up, and then navigate a 300 foot rock slide down Papago. The slide was more terrifying. Going up the wall with my pack on wasn’t too difficult, but I am 6’ 1” with an 8 ft reach up to find finger holds. Once up top, I tossed a line down with a carabiner to haul some of the other packs up. Jazzmom and Ms T are considerably shorter, and needed some help reaching a couple of handholds.
The slide was a pile of larger rock up top, and some smaller ones down below, ending in more large ones. The trick was to not dislodge big rock down on the others below. I was standing on one such rock and grabbed another to hold onto. That one in my hands ended up sliding down a little, into my lap. I managed to put it back before it became a hazard to the others. Everyone handled the slide quite well, I thought. In any group, there are always some who find things more scary than some of the others do. That first drop off at the top of the slide was one that challenged all of us, making us talk to ourselves. We weren’t the first ever to travel this route, and won’t be the last.
Day 7 began much as the others, but before noon I noticed my right eye vision had become completely black, no longer just fuzzy. I talked to the rest of the team. I hesitated for a few minutes, trying to figure out some way for me to continue. In the end, I knew it was best to PLB out, and not slow the team so much it ruined their trip. I was sad, fearful, and pissed off. I was crying because I didn’t want to leave before ending the hike, fearful that I might lose all vision in that eye, and pissed off that this had happened to me.
I rode the chopper back to the top, then an ambulance to Flagstaff Medical center ER. Spent most of the evening getting an MRI, a CT Scan, and a Sonogram of my eyeball. They held me over for observation, after determining it “probably wasn’t a stroke”. They still wanted me to have an Echo Cardiogram to check for clots in my heart, but that had to wait until morning.
I told them to get that last test done by 11, because I had friends to meet at Bright Angel Lodge by 4. Now that I knew for sure it wasn’t a stroke, I wasn’t going to let them change my plans for a great dinner with friends. I told them I would self discharge, against medical advice, if they tried to hold me past noon. They got the message. By 8 AM, the Echo technician was in my room and told me my heart was fine as he finished. I told him that wasn’t the kind of news his staff wanted me to hear, as it only solidified my desire to get the heck out of there. I took a cab back to the South Rim, at $140 as opposed to the shuttle that was full, at $50. The cab ride was “fun” because the young woman had never been to the Canyon before and was excited to get to go as part of her work. So excited she invited another friend to go along. As the 3 of us drove up, the driver started texting. Her friend chastised her, mentioning a recent rollover wreck for doing the exact same thing. I made her stop the car and told her she could not use her phone for the remainder of my ride, or I wanted a new driver. She took the instruction well.
Met up with the others about 5, as they drove straight to the lodge for a fancy dinner, in all of our hiking glory. At least I had had a shower, but was still wearing my dirty clothing. No one at El Tovar seemed to care. Our $$ were still green. We told each other what had happened since we last saw one another, laughing at the shared adventures.
After dinner, Big Load, Rumi, and I drove to Vegas where we managed to get to sleep about 1:30 with a 5 AM get up. Flew home safely.
I really liked our group. Ms. T was a delight to hike with, and her sense of humor lightened our banter. She is a co-worker of Jazzmom’s, so they knew each other before. They may not talk at work for a couple of weeks. She may think JM tricked her into coming along. I’ve known Rumi and Big Load for years now. Jazzmom has been a friend for a while, and has kayaked some of the Everglades with me.
My wife understands why I didn’t call her from ER, and is happy it isn’t anything more serious.
