Refreshment Deferred
This is a story about a can of Dr. Pepper.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning.
Last year, I got it into my head that I wanted to take on the Skyline Trail, a looping hike in the Paradise region of Mt. Rainier. At 5.5 miles, the trail is well within my athletic ability, but the 1,700’ elevation gain was intimidating, especially after hiking in the relative flat of the California desert for the past decade. If I was going to hike this trail, I would need to train for the incline sections.
With this in mind, on a particularly dry day in February (well… dry for Oregon), I traveled an hour south to hike the Trail of Ten Falls in Silver Falls State Park. The seven-mile trail descends about 1000’ feet down into a river canyon, passing by (and sometimes behind) its namesake waterfalls before rising 1000’ feet back out.
When I hike, I always bring a can of soda with me for some sugary mid-hike energy. For this hike, it was a Dr. Pepper. I planned to drink the soda with my lunch at the bottom of the canyon before the strenuous hike back up to my car.
The trail was exceptionally slick that day, and I moved cautiously over the wet rocks that make up much of the Trail of Ten Falls. Despite being careful, before I could stop for lunch, I slipped and fell while trying to cross a flooded area of the path. It all happened in the blink of an eye. The branch I used to steady myself snapped, and I throttled forward into the rocky ground. My shoulder impacted first, followed by my face. I slowly got back up and tried to sort myself out. Immediately, I knew that something was wrong. I couldn’t lift my left arm, and the pain was blinding when I tried.
I was seriously hurt. But there was no other way about it. I was at the bottom of a canyon. I had no choice but to hike an hour and a half back uphill to my car, holding my injured arm as still as possible to minimize the pain. When I returned to my car, I changed out of my muddy shoes and ate some trail mix. Then, I drove the hour home.
Once back at my apartment, I showered off the mud caked on my legs, arms, and face. Then, I went to the ER. X-rays revealed that I broke the cap of my upper humerus in three places. I would need surgery to install a metal plate and ten screws in my shoulder. But it could have been much worse, as my bruised nose attested. If I didn’t take the force of the fall to my shoulder, I would have smashed my face into the hard stone.
After three weeks of waiting, I was finally able to go in for surgery. The recovery was long and often excruciatingly painful. But I tried to remain optimistic. I put all my effort into six months of physical therapy. The progress was slow, but I was improving.
Then, in August, the Skyline Trail again started nagging my thoughts. Surely, the hike was out of reach, though. I was in worse shape (and 30 lbs heavier) than I was before my fall, having been sidelined for over half a year while I healed. But I decided to try anyway. After all, what did I have to lose?
Because Mt. Rainier now has a permit system for its busy summer season, that would be my first step. I secured a permit for the afternoon of Aug. 17th. Once I had a date, I began to prepare, spending up to an hour on my stairstepper each day to build up my leg muscles and cardio endurance.
Then, the week of my hike, a severe thunderstorm system threatened to rain out my trip. It began to feel like my attempt at the Skyline Trail was cursed. But I waited this long; I could practice patience for a bit longer if needed.
The day before my trip to Mt. Rainier, I checked the weather, expecting to see the worst, but the storm was going to hold off until the early evening. I should be able to get the hike in, but I would likely drive the 3.5 hours home from the park in the dark and the rain.
I pulled out my day pack to prepare for the hike. I hadn’t touched it since my injury. Still slid into the outer pocket was the same can of Dr. Pepper I took with me the day I fell back in February. I tossed the can of soda in the fridge overnight with plans to bring it to Mt. Rainier the next day.
The weather the day of my Skyline Trail hike ended up being gorgeous. It was sunny and about 75 degrees, and there was no sign yet of the rainy weather predicted for later that day.
After a long drive from Oregon and an hour's wait to get through the park entrance, I arrived at the busy Paradise parking lot around 3:00 pm.
Without any ado, I slung my pack over my shoulders and started up the mountain. The wildflowers were in full bloom, and patches of daisies, lupine, scarlet paintbrush, and alpine aster colored the hills as tiny glacial streams bubbled and flowed over and through Paradise’s peaceful glades.
It was hard going from the very beginning. I was out of shape, and between the elevation gain and the thin mountain air, I was struggling to catch my breath. I stopped to rest over and over, sitting on rocks while younger, fitter hikers breezed by me up the trail. About 40 minutes in, a young man in his 20’s blew past wearing flip-flops. I lamented to myself how that was once me, more than two decades ago.
I may have been moving slowly, but I was making progress. As the afternoon dragged on, Mt. Rainier loomed overhead, growing bigger and bigger with each step. Soon, the trees gave way to grassy hills. Hoary marmots and striped ground squirrels grazed the meadows and darted across the fields. Overhead, a golden eagle hunted from above the ridge. The mountain’s glaciers shone blue and white in the afternoon sun, and waterfalls dropped dramatically from its cliffs.
But I was getting tired. I found a large flat rock near the trail with a dramatic view of the mountain, and there, at the foot of Mt. Rainier, I stopped and, after seven months of waiting, finally cracked open my can Dr. Pepper.
Once I was finished, I decided to head back down. I didn’t complete the whole trail, but I had already reached my limit and was happy with my accomplishment. Although I didn’t finish the full Skyline Trail (cutting it short by a couple of miles and about 600’ feet of elevation), I was able to experience the immense beauty of Mt Rainier. And in the end, that was the point of the trip.
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