Thunder, Lighting and Tripping on the trail

Grandma's Room


Uncle Johnny’s Hostel to Fire road Campsite 14 Miles

We left Erwin after breakfast and climbed pretty fast. My swollen legs were giving me trouble and I imagined I was a bloated slug trying to climb the trail. It felt like slow going but then I looked at the GPS and it said my average was over 3 miles an hour and that was mostly up hill. Cyclone and Rolex took off up the hills as usual and I ended up playing catch-up.

I got in to the Curley Maple Gap Shelter about 2PM and Cyclone and Rolex were sitting there waiting for me. It turns out, I got in just in time because about five minutes after I dropped my pack, the thunder started thunderin’ and the lightning started a-flashin’ and shortly thereafter, the rain and the hail and the cats and the dogs were all fallin’ all over the place. Cyclone prognosticated the thunder with a comment like, “Is that thunder?” just as it went BOOM! And Rolex laughed uncontrollably until the hail started playin’ “This Old Man” on the tin roof. In the plastic bag where the hiker log is, Cubit left me a tube of Icy Hot and I applied some to the backs of my legs. I recommend you don’t do this in the rain. It just kept getting hotter and hotter! It felt good though, my legs have been cramping up or something. It feels like a cramp but also like a strained tendon on the back of my legs. It’s weird though, because it’s intermittent. Lots of rest and thick, juicy steaks seem to help it though. There were some potassium pills in the bag that someone had left behind and I put some of them in with my vitamins. This is a weird coincidence since I’ve never seen potassium pills before and I was just thinking yesterday that lack of Potassium might be part of my leg problem.

The rain eventually let up and we donned some wet weather gear and took off. Within 100 yards all of us had taken off our rain gear while we were walking. Removing your raingear while you are walking with a pack on is an art form that is unfairly overlooked in Modern Civilization. It requires a mélange of skills, combined with the severe consequence of failure; a delicate balance of daring and dexterity where death or disfigurement can come as quickly as it takes to tangle rain pants and Leki pole. This is not an endeavor for the faint of heart or the uncoordinated to be sure. I was having a rough time of it and finally stopped moving so I could stuff my jacket under my pack cover. Rain loomed and threatened all day but held off until we found a place to hole up for the night. It was just a small campsite off the side of the US Forest Service Road that was near a weak water source. We lit a fire and ate. The wind was strong and it rained a little; the fire stayed lit and we slept. Paraphrasing Billy S: “To sleep, perchance to heal…”

David AKA "Jukebox"


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