Ridgecrest California  - June 9
I hiked out from the general store on Thursday the 7th and camped a couple of miles up trail.    The plan was to hike on to Independence where I could take a couple of proper zeros and rest my leg.    When I woke up in the morning my foot was so swollen it was alarming so I had to hike back and finally caught a ride into Ridgecrest where there is a regional hospital.  

   I spent quite a few hours at the Ridgecrest Hospital and, as I had expected, the hospital staff, although very competent, pleasant and well intentioned, could not provide me with definitive information about what my problem is or how to solve it.    The preliminary diagnosis is just shin splints.    A stress fracture has been preliminarily been ruled out by means of an x-ray although I am warned that stress fractures generally don't show up in x-rays until a week or so after the fracture occurs - so I don't know for sure about the stress fracture either.     They gave me lunch and sold me a jar of pills (for $200) and sent me on my way.  

Currently I am camped out in a motel room with my leg elevated and covered with a bag of frozen black-eyed peas.    I suppose you could say that I am not a happy camper.     It is sunny and warm and I can hear the wind blowing in the trees.    I think I know what it must feel like to be confined to a wheel chair. 

These last two days have been difficult but my leg is gradually feeling better and I am confident that I will be back on the trail although it may take a few more days of recuperation.   I want to be sure that I am healed to the point that I can hike without further aggravating the injury.    I certainly don't want to have to go through this again so I had better be sure to get it right the first time.   

I suspect the problem was caused by those two days during  which I walked 61 miles.   Although it seems kind of strange that the problem did not show up until several days afterwards, I can't think of anything else that might have caused the injury.      Yes, I did know that it was not a good idea to hike so many miles but I didn't realize I had hiked that many miles until afterwards. 

I have had a couple of people ask me incredulously how I could possible walk 61 miles and not be aware I was doing it.  Fair question.

The answer is that I am routinely walking 20 to 25 miles per day and I usually don't keep close track of miles until the end of the day when I have finished hiking.   I am fit and comfortable enough with my pack now that, unless there is a steep elevation gain, it doesn't feel like work.   I am just taking a walk.   When I get in the rhythm of it, the time flies by and I am limited not by the number of miles to hike, but only the hours in the day.  

In this particular case, I added significantly to the hours of hiking when I miscalculated my water and decided to hike at night.   The following morning when I strolled into Robin Bird Spring at about 6 am I had unintentionally added about12 miles to my total for the day.   My friends were on their way out and I felt good so decided to continue hiking with them.    We camped together and the following morning they were up at 3 am to avoid the heat.     I was too tired and said that I would catch up with them South of Walker Pass.      They couldn't find a good place to camp, however, and continued an additional 7 miles into the Walker Pass campground and I wound up following them all the way in.     Between the 12 miles night hiking to Robin Bird Spring and the extra 7 to Walker Pass, I unintentionally added 19 miles to my total for the two days.    I had no idea I had hiked so many miles until I figured it out after arriving at Walker Pass.

Anyway, I do expect that I will recuperate and continue the hike but, unfortunately, my friends have now all vanished up the trail.