Old

I Thought This Hike Would Be Easy. Then My Jeans Tried to Kill Me

I found myself breathing hard, sweat rolling off my brow, down my face and into my beard. The sun would be setting soon. Already the shadow of the ridge had cut across the hills and meadows to the east. Those shining white towns that thread their way along the Shenandoah River Valley. The path ahead had been built by out of work young men nearly a hundred years ago. Stairsteps and walls built from locally quarried stone that I had thought only climbed a few hundred yards to the ridge of Panorama overlook in Shenandoah National Park.

I was mistaken.

Had I known that the hike would be three miles straight up and three miles back, I might have done things a little bit differently. I might have started off earlier. I might have brought a bottle of water and maybe a daypack to carry snacks or a compass or a way to start a fire. The essentials of survival in case you get into trouble. As it was, I had on a pair of too-tight jeans.

The only hydration I had gotten was from a whole french press of coffee for breakfast and a Pepsi I washed my cheeseburger down that I had for lunch. And a couple sips of shitty Dunkin Donuts coffee I got in Luray before heading up into the mountains.

I could almost smell the coffee seeping out of my pores as I continued to climb and breathe too hard. I thought to myself, “Damn, you are getting old.” Nobody ever tells you that one day you are 17 and climbing 14ners and then the next you are 50 and questioning your life choices as a pair of too tight Wranglers is threatening to saw you in half from the crotch up.

Every heavy footfall up the mountain side, I thought “You’re too old. Too fat. You’re gonna die up here from dehydration because you haven’t drunk anything but coffee in weeks. Why won’t you drink water? What’s wrong with water you fat bastard?” I admit, I really hate drinking water. But I also think that those gimmicky flavor drops are a crappy excuse to drink water too and I won’t touch them. Coffee. Egg Nog. Sometimes tea. But not for a few weeks. Lately, it’s just been the coffee and whatever traces of milk I get from adding it to the coffee.

I kept making the newbie hiker mistake of asking people how far it was to the top. I used to do this to one of my friends in high school. “Just another 400 yards” I would tell him and four or five miles later, we would make it to the summit. Hikers kept calling me “Sir” like I was some inspirational story of some old man who one day decided to hike up the side of a mountain in the Appalachians. A real feel good story of courage and defying the rigors of time.

What had become of my life? It wasn’t that hard. Sleep better. Drink more water. Try eating some more vegetables. Procrastinating my health had taken me out of the latter half of my forties and now I was 50. One misstep from rolling my ankle and snapping a femur and bleeding out on the trail as people looked for my wallet, but I had it stuffed in my camera bag along with my cellphone because my pants were too tight and could not spare the additional volume they added to my measurements like some kind of pelvic garrotte. Maybe some pants that fit should have been included in the list.

I saw an older couple resting on the way down. Mid to early sixties. Hiking poles. Wicking fabric in their hiking clothes. I asked how much further and the man broke down the distance in percentages that didn’t make sense to my oxygen deprived brain. A piece of cheeseburger was likely blocking bloodflow, lodged directly in my carotid artery.

I thanked them and kept hiking, telling myself I would just walk another hundred yards. Take some more photos and then walk back down to the bus before my feet started to hurt. Years of physically punishing myself has given me bad plantar fasciitis. The new thing that sucks is how I can feel the strain of every step in my knees. At least I get my calcium every day with that splash of milk in my coffee.

I continued to hate myself up the side of the mountain. It wasn’t the same as hiking in Colorado. Not the places where I usually go anyway. Or went. The last time I went on a hike I quit 1/3 of the way up. I was just too beat to hell to continue. I told myself “I’ll try again next summer!” Enough summers of telling yourself that and you don’t have to do it eventually.

At 3,000 ft, no wonder I was breathing hard, having been at nearly sea level for over a month. I kept getting the same report, “Just another mile to the top.” A mile? A whole damn mile? I didn’t expect the top to be a mile total round trip.

“But the view is totally worth it!”

I heard this many times. I looked out over the valley, east towards Washington DC. Beyond that was the coast. Rolling hills. Green valley. Trees. A band of haze marked the eastern seaboard megatropolis. I imagined looking west would be about the same, only there was a mountain blocking the way. The mountain I just happened to be on.

I kept climbing. I passed a father probably my age (maybe younger) with two surly sons, each with that brocoli/lama haircut. None of the trio looked happy to be climbing down. A chore of family bonding. Maybe it would become a core memory for them. Either about the great times they had with their dad or that time he dragged them up the side of a mountain when they really wanted to be at home playing Call of Duty.

Nobody ever appreciates the body they get to ride around in when they are young. My 70 year old self is screaming at me from the future about how good I had it.

Eventually, the switchbacks got shorter and shorter. The line of light and dark cast by the summit of this mountain was just in the trees, not thirty feet overhead. I kept going and when the trail broke through the trees, there it was. The Panorama. A nearly 360 degree view of the Shenandoah Valley. The sun was just setting to the west and a ghostly pale moon was rising from the haze of the east. Earth balancing the two celestial bodies out right in the middle.

I couldn’t believe it, but it was actually worth the hike.

After chatting for a bit with a couple who had already summitted, more “sirs” and eventually offering to take photos for each other, I decided it was time to try to get back to the bus before my failing night vision did me in. I stupidly ran a lot of the way down the trail and eventually my heel started to give out. By the time I reached the parking lot I was limping from the pain in my foot.

But I made it. I survived. I climbed the mountain and lived to tell the tale. I started thinking about what I need to do right. Eating better, drinking more water, less coffee. What would a life inside four walls look like again? Would that be something I want one day? I thought instead about going abroad, walking all those cobblestone roads in ancient cities. I have time, I thought. I have time if I start today.

The view is totally worth it.