Ailments (Part One)

After passing through Massachusetts passing mostly without incident (that's right kiddies, Pawn is rocking out Connecticut) I thought I might take a few moments at the public library in Salisbury to talk about injuries and ailments. The subject has been on my mind over the last few dozen miles due to my most recent bout of foot problems. As I walked along through Mass, thinking about what to write about (it's a splendid way to pass the time) I realized that I haven't talked much about the wide range of physical problems that I have experienced or that I could experience. It's kind of a good "nuts and bolts" way to understand a little bit more about long distance hiking, and yet I haven't mentioned it.

Mostly this is because as I was suffering from these setbacks I was as least partially convinced that each one would lead me to leave the trail. Seeing as I'm still lurching along, now might be a good time to illuminate my ever growing international audience. (You still with me, people from Russia? I hope so. Take a sip of Vodka and settle in.)

So without further ado, Pawn's Encyclopedic Injurtanica.

Bite-Man Begins:

Simply put, everything in the woods can bite you. So far I've suffered stings from ants, mosquitoes, black flies, horse flies, wasps, hornets, and good old fashioned bees. This is by far the most minor category of injury and is almost always just a passing inconvenience.

Once, not too long ago, C.B. and I were walking along a nice little bit of trail when he started cursing, shouting, and hopping up and down. I was confused until I felt something like a crazy carpenter pounding nails into my legs, it was then that I realized a group of yellow jackets had built an underground lair on the trail and were NOT happy about all that pounding going on upstairs.

After vacating the area we amused ourselves by having lunch near the spot and watching northbounders, our eternal enemies, wander through gauntlet.

One thing that I haven't run into yet is rattlesnakes, though everyone tells me I will encounter them further south in the mid Atlantic. Rattlesnakes really dislike being stepped on.  Luckily for you, me, and upright apes everywhere, rattlesnakes have gone out of their way to avoid the sticky situations an accidental trod can illicit, mostly by rattling at you loudly anytime you get within two feet of them.

Basically you have to be a pretty big idiot to step on a rattlesnake on the trail--and now I have insured that I, in fact, shall step on one tomorrow.

Foot Follies:

Foot problems are the most common and persistent injury to be found on the trail. In the first month I got a nice little crop of blisters, one grape sized swelling on the pad of each of my toes. Blisters also cropped up on the sides of my feet, on my heals, and on one notable occasion, the very bottom of my foot. I don't even know how that happened.

After popping, the loose skin of blisters hardens into kind of a protective covering. I thought this was pretty awesome. I felt like an X-man who's mutant power was the ability to not get blisters anymore. Not a very useful power when it comes to fighting crime, perhaps, but not everybody gets the laser eyes or the lightening thumbs.

Stone bruises, scrapes, scratches, stress fractures, and Planter Flac..hi..tus...stopolis, something like that, I don't really have time to look it up cause I only have twenty five minutes left of time before the library closes, anyway all of those things are common and most of them except for the stress fractures and the P.F. have happened to me at one time or another.

Intestinal Instabilities:

Okay so first of all, proper digestion is difficult when you eat lunch and then immediately strap thirty pounds across your stomach and start bouncing up and down hills. Everybody knows that the best way to digest food is to lay on the sofa with your girlfriend for three or four hours, watching DVDs and drinking beer until it is once again time to eat. Ideally, nachos are involved.

Long distance hikers do not have this luxury.  We also tend to go long periods of time eating small amounts of fairly bland food, punctuated by brief periods of time overeating very rich foods.

You do the math.

Once, in the White Mountains, I stopped for lunch on a ridge line called the Webster Cliffs. Since all my stuff was soaking wet (this was New Hampshire, state of endless rain) I decided to lay it all out in the sun while I ate lunch. Ten minutes into my meal I was racked with sudden and rolling pain. My stomach made an uncomfortable series of sounds: almost as if my large intestines were balloons and a sadistic clown was busy making elephants down there.

"Oh no!" I thought. "The Chowda!"

Yes, it was the two bowls of clam chowda I had consumed on the summit of Mt. Washington, come back to haunt me.

I staggered around the cliffs, searching vainly for somewhere, anywhere, most private to evacuate myself of the New England specialty. Being above treeline is kind of tough that way. Finally I found a stand of stunted pines and set about my business.

Just then a storm rolled in, as they are wont to do in high altitudes. Within seconds the sky was dark and fat, cold drops were soaking me to the bone. All the while, keep in mind, I am squatting in the age old position known to pioneers and cave men everywhere. Thunder rumbled.

At this point, three thoughts went through my head.

1.) All of my gear was now getting soaking wet, laid out on the cliffs. Well, MORE soaking wet, I should say.

2.) My toilet paper, which was the very last thing I owned which was NOT currently wet, would become soaking wet once I opened the plastic baggie and exposed the roll to the ravages of the pelting rain.

3.) There was a thunderstorm directly over my head and even squatting I was the tallest thing around. I was like a filthy, moaning lightening rod. I pictured my mother, dressed in funeral black, explaining the situation of my death and then bursting into tears.

If you have never had all these thoughts go through your head at exactly the same moment while simultaneously suffering from sudden and explosive diarrhea, then my friend, you have yet to fully enjoy life.



Well, golly. I've used up all my time at the library and I've only covered two categories. I guess I'll have to remember these for later:

Knee Knockers:
Lyme Light:
Rash Behavior:
Rodent Rumbles:

A few other quick notes:

As I walked into Salisbury at 3:01 I passed a bakery. They were just flipping the open/closed sign to closed. Outside on the chalkboard was a sign for Strawberry Rhubarb pie. Foiled again!

CT will be short. I'll be in New York in a few days. Before that my next stop is Kent, hopefully tomorrow, where I will be picking up my new trecking poles and maybe finish this blog post.

Okay, the librarians are getting antsy. Time to roll. Five to ten more miles to go today!

Happy Trails

Pawn