March 2022

March was a bit of a terrible month for me. It started out when I was rear-ended while just sitting at a stoplight on my way to work one Monday morning. This ended up causing the insurance company to consider my truck totaled (I, of course, said no way….this truck and I have been through too much for anyone to say that and I still drive him to this day! I will digress here for a moment…..you remember the movie Dirty Dancing when Patrick Swayze says “Nobody puts Baby in the corner.” That was all I could think of….Nobody says Baby is totaled! Let’s just say the insurance company and I did not get along for months after this while I strongly advocated for my truck.) But in the process of being slammed from behind by that monster truck that hit me, and having my brain rattled up a bit, I experienced a concussion along with some left hip pain after my left knee actually broke the dashboard at impact. This is an issue being a tiny human who has to sit close to the dash. Luckily the knee strap I wear every day for my bad knee saved my knee from any further injury….but it just drove the impact up and caused some hip strain. In normal Amy fashion however, I shook it off and went hiking two days later. Nothing was going to stop me from my hiking!

That hike is pictured here. It was supposed to be a 25 miler that day….my longest day hike yet. This is a wonderful trail that is an old converted rail line with several trestles to cross north of the town of Lyle in the Gorge and is open sky country for sure. It is also a trail where I generally will find 20-40 ticks from one hike. I was planning on a nice March hike hopefully just before tick and rattlesnake season. While I secretly enjoy playing with the rattlesnakes, the ticks are getting old. If I am being honest, I am real tired of getting home after a hike and when I undress in the bathroom finding ticks taking a blood meal on my back or hips or along my sports bra line. I don’t know how those sneaky buggers do that all spring, but I am ready to start taking my dog’s flea and tick monthly oral preventatives myself!

I have done this hike in all seasons and it always surprises me by its beauty and discoveries. I have found the largest herds of deer on this trail system as anywhere I have ever hiked. I recently counted 18 head in one herd alone and you will come across anywhere from 8-12 herds in one day out here. I have found whole deer skeletons, ground squirrels taunting rattlesnakes, scat from every critter you can imagine and once got to track the largest mountain lion’s prints I have ever found for miles! His paw prints were easily 4 times the size of Josie’s wolf prints and that was when she was over 50 pounds. The prints were so fresh I was sure we would find this beauty, but alas, he alluded us at the end when he went up a cliff we couldn’t easily track up. One of my favorite things about this hike is with the big open sky, you can really watch weather systems come and go. The sunsets are indescribable here….as are the snow storms and wind!! Eagles often fly right over you here as well. But on this particular day pictured here, I was unable to do my intended 25 miles due to the extreme hip pain I was experiencing. I had to cut it at 16 miles, which felt like total defeat in my book and left me not very happy.

To make up for that defeat, one week after this hike, I planned a 17 mile hike with upwards of 20 river and creek fords. This was the start of what I called river boot camp. I had decided that in 2022 I was going to master river crossings of all sorts, which would open up many more trails that I had previously avoided due to dangerous crossings. I knew that Nova and I needed a lot of practice to master these well and get some confidence in them (as they are the one thing that always got me quaking in my boots previously). This meant we needed to experience a large variety of widths, depths, currents and other challenges on crossings. So off we went. Well at about river crossing number 4 on this hike, we decided the best course of action would be to do a “Jedi Jump” from the tiny wet and wobbly rock we were standing on mid river to land on a wet log without bark on the opposite bank. Yeah, you see where this is going right? Jump we did, stick my landing, I did not. My feet hit that slippery log and due to my momentum from the jump, the pitch of the log on the slanted ground and the weight of my pack, my feet flew straight up behind me in a flash and my entire body landed on the left side of my skull and left shoulder. It happened so fast, I barely even knew what was happening. I just remember one final thought…..”did it just get dark”….and then I remember nothing until I kept hearing this very loud moaning. I came to standing bent over with my hands braced on my knees and I realized I was the one moaning loudly….which I found very embarrassing and I actually looked around to make sure no one was there to see or hear me. As I did so, I realized that my head and shoulder REALLY hurt and that the entire left side of my body, from hair to boot, was soaking wet and dripping water…I mean really dripping water like I had stepped out of a bathtub fully clothed.

All the pieces came together and I realized that I had knocked myself out when I landed on my head and apparently rolled half of my body back into that cold river which must have revived me enough to come to and stand up before I rolled all the way in. I still do not have any memory of going in the water or getting out of the water or even off the ground for that matter……but Nova was faithfully standing by my side clearly worried about me when I came to. I quietly and only somewhat confidently told her I was fine and that we needed to put on our big girl panties and finish the hike. To be fair, I think I was moving a bit slower than normal after that. But we completed the hike and ALL those river crossings that day. Yes, after several miles I realized that the vision in my left eye (indeed the same side of my head that slammed against the log and rocks) was blurry. But I kept rubbing it and just telling myself I must have gotten lotion into my eye. (I use coconut oil on my face when I hike, and to be fair, it does sometimes get in my eyes). My head ached and throbbed for most of the hike and I was rather dizzy, but I told myself to suck it up. (Thanks to Ant Middleton, Jason Fox and Aldo Kane for the constant voices in my head to suck it up! We are clearly kindred spirits! I love your books guys. Keep them coming!)

Later, I realized that I had hardly taken any pictures on this hike and I don't remember even taking the ones that I did. But Nova certainly looked concerned in them both. Funny that I didn't take any pictures of the river crossings!

The funniest part of this day was when I stopped for lunch at this huge downed log and almost found my tear ducts when I realized that my prize home-baked chocolate chip cookie I had packed as a reward for completing river crossings was missing in my pack. I searched and searched everywhere, but it was gone. I finally assumed it must have fallen out when I knocked myself out and some chipmunk was having the time of his life. When I was almost back to my truck that day though, I ended up reaching in my pocket for something and low and behold, there was my cookie!!! I think I shrieked out loud with joy!! No one has ever been so happy to find a cookie I can tell you that. Apparently, I had completely forgotten where I had put it. After this hike, I also found that I have forgotten names to a rather significant degree. But I can live with that.