HikeArizona.COM

There's a blog called "Hiker Hell" --it's quite entertaining and sad and funny with what can and does go wrong, from mainly US but other countries like New Zealand, areas in Europe etc.

I've been thinking about my little disasters over the years. Some coulda been bad but fortune favors fools---or so they say.

Flash Flood--- Paria Narrows--just out of Buckskin. Unplanned overnight bivouac after cliff climbing out and ending up on the East Clark bench. I'll never forget sunrise and listening to the coyotes' sing and how sweet that was---

Falls-- Black eyes in Anza Borrego, skin tear with bone exposure in Anza Borrego on a solo hike and a three mile hobble out. Impaling cholla in hand leaving it non functional in Anza Borrego with bouldering to get out. Pulled 52 spines out with 4 requiring pliers to get them out. Fell in Utah and almost had my runaway pack pull me over a cliff. Fell in the Dirty Devil River with a heavy back pack. Ruined my camera on that one. Then I started using trekking poles but still fall.

Heat stroke or exhaustion--once in Anza Borrego which I really think was hyponatremia instead and once in Utah. The Utah one I ended up hitchhiking back to my car thank goodness for a nice couple from France.

Out of water---a couple of times. Lost--no
Equipment failures---nothing duct tape could not fix.
Clothing failures--Lost the skin on my heels a couple of times with poor/cheap boots. Once in Death Valley and once in Anza Borrego--fix--better fitting boots.

Caving-- rappel device incorrect rig--fortunately discovered this at the top of the drop.
Rapped into pit in cave with bad air. Good to know your rigging when your trying to ascend when addled with high C02.
Almost hung myself sliding down a crack when my helmet got caught and my body weight was hanging on the chin strap, fortunately the guy behind me helped me out quickly.
Stuck upside down, partner put rope around my foot and hauled me out.

Other--- shotgun in face with irate rancher thinking I was trespassing to do "bad deeds" we settled it with border patrol a few minutes later.
Guy giving me a little trouble at a TH. He almost got the business end of my "little friend", fortunately he backed down.
Dodging some gun toting drug runners in the Huachucas.

Animals--seen a few and no troubles, unlike the humans.


What other tales, experiences are out there???

Maybe that's my problem! I really haven't been, I need to pay more attention to that stuff... not rebounding as well as I did a decade ago

Yea, same here. I tend to jump right back into my normal workout routine right after a big project, too. I've been researching it more and more lately. There's a lot of good parallels to draw between big hikes and a marathon since there is ample info out there about marathon running and the training that surrounds.

Not that I consider myself anywhere near the level of yous guys, but... I have had plantar problems for years, as well as achilles tendonitis and other problems. In the past, I've let bad flare-ups interrupt my workout routine, which then results in me gaining weight, which increases the risk of more flare-ups. My physical therapist told me to keep in shape by doing other, non-weight bearing activities such as street bicycling or rowing, but (lets face it) I'm clumbsy on a bike and (duh) not having a rower makes that a little challenging. It's hard to find workouts that don't punish your feet or legs.

Yoga has helped tremendously with making me stronger and protecting against other injuries, but again, I don't know how much to do when I'm injured. This last trip, I got a minor sprain on my weak ankle. So, do I just rest it up? (my answer so far has been heck no - but it's not getting any better, so I may have to rethink strategy )

Also - I've instituted a policy that says no high-stress exercise for a week before my "big hikes". I push until that deadline, then give my bod-ay a week to heal everything good, set those muscles and store up a little extra energy. It seems to be helping - definitely with the first day blahs...

Yous guys? You from Chicago? Besides, don't look at me.. I'm a hack I think with sprains, after the first 48 hours or so it's important to keep it mobile. Conscious heal-toe walking, stretching, maybe even jogging a bit once it feels looser. Although, it sounds like that's probably not a good idea since you're still sore. I know that minor sprains always feel better after keeping it mobile for me, makes it so much worse if I 'baby it'. Yes, it's pretty hard to get the heart rate up there without using your legs. Swimming?

for me the key is cross-training. i do a mix of running, hiking, biking and swimming. i'd like to give yoga a try someday.
i try to get in three runs and a challenging (long or steep) hike each week, and alternate those days with biking to the pool or an easier hike. it seems to be working. last year i was hiking/trail-running almost every day, and developed a bone bruise on the ball of my foot from landing on too many pointy rocks. i've also had problems with tight hamstrings and catching myself if i happen to stumble can set that off. i just can't run every day anymore. this approach gives me a decent base and i can usually work around a cold or minor injury without losing conditioning.

Well, I tried running in the pool this evening and felt like a total donkey at first; once I got into a rhythm, I came to see that you can get a really great workout that way for little payout in the form of impact...you just have to get past the silliness of it all.

Next time I'm near a pool where I won't be immediately laughed at I'll have to try that

Jeff MacE wrote:Well, I tried running in the pool this evening and felt like a total donkey at first; once I got into a rhythm, I came to see that you can get a really great workout that way for little payout in the form of impact...you just have to get past the silliness of it all.

Trying to summon mental picture of Jeff doing the donkey paddle

Seriously - that sounds like a good workout! Now if only I had access to a pool of water!

Ankle is better tonight than last night. I suppose I was probably a little hasty in doing Tumamoc on it on Monday. The aircast seems to actually make it stiffer - but at least it protects me from re-injuring it. Back to Yoga next week.

RICE? (Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation) - doesn't that involve sitting still for more than 15 minutes? Don't know if I'm trained in that techniquie ;)

writelots wrote:RICE? (Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation) - doesn't that involve sitting still for more than 15 minutes? Don't know if I'm trained in that techniquie

that's ok, i just did a month of it with no results....

I have had a back problem the past few weeks. It comes and goes without much preamble. I have used ice 15 min, then heat 15-30 min, with some ok results, plus several exercises, plus WAAAY too much Ibuprofen! I need to get to my favorite chiropractor one of these days--after payday.

My wife swears by the chiro...I have yet to go. The nice thing about the run-in-the-pool thing is you can switch to swimming when it gets boring. The correct stroke can be a real cardio burn and calorie burner...

I use hot water therapy and continued use... soaking in hot water to promote circulation, then activity to promote healing. But, if the injury is severe enough it becomes an issue of rest and time. I broke my little toe getting out of a hot tub some years ago... and as much as I wanted to continue to train, it simply served to rebreak the toe, over and over. I finally had to stop all activity for a couple of months. If it is not severe enough to make all activity stop, a nice alternative is to switch over to soft sand runs... that seems to have the potential to heal just about any injury. The Rillito River in Tucson was ideal.

I don't like tapering for an event, I simply give myself two rest days to make sure I have a nice glycogin reserve... and the day after a big event I go back out for a few hours, perhaps on the bike, to get the blood flowing aggressively. I also plot out the training seasons into six month runs with a month off to allow the body to recuperate and rest up to get ready for the next progressive hit. It seems to work.

I hike in six different models of shoes to make sure the feet take a varied hit throughout the week... and as the day hiking gets more challenging (...over 6,000') I'll fold in more and more rest days (hate those!).

What seems to really work well: hyper-steep trail work... getting on a slope of 1,000' per mile average and vesting 4 to 8 hours on same. It seems to toughen out the legs, ankles and knees to the point where the average trail hike just comes easy.

It stays a challenge...

Well to get back to the original topic, I chocked down the whole humble pie this weekend. I was planning on doing an overnight loop from the Tortilla TH (the parking area off of SR87) and explore both upper & lower (in relation to the bridge) Fish Creek Canyon this last weekend, but I only got maybe a half mile in venturing to the edge of that ridge that overlooks down to the bridge before continuing on with the loop. Well on the way back from that overlook to the 4x4 road, I was casually navigating thru the desert around bushes & cactus and over & around the many rhyolite rocks & ledges when the top of one of the small rhyolite rock I hopped on sheared off. It looked solid enough and it was only maybe 8-12 inches above the dirt and I believe I hopped on it to get around a cactus or something. Well as I'm quickly falling, my right leg goes to the right as my upper body falls forward and to the left causing my weight to come down as my right shin scrapes across a newly exposed sharp edge of that small rock. I took most of the impact on my hands in the dirt off to the side of the rock and I quickly hopped up to inspect my leg which I knew must have gotten skinned pretty good. And to my great shock, there's a 1x4 inch gash in my lower shin just above my ankle. I cut my shin open all the way down to the tendons, you could see them moving when I wiggled my toes... I wrapped my undershirt around the massive wound and surprisingly I could still walk without too much pain or blood loss. So I walked a quarter mile to my pack and then field dressed it with some gauze and medical tape and then tied the shirt around it again. Threw my pack on and hiked the remaining quarter mile to my car parked off of SR87 and then drove 40 minutes, again without too much pain or blood loss, to the new Banner hospital off of US60 & Higley. There probably was plenty of closer places to stop, but I don't know if an urgent care could have handled such a big wound and I didn't know if I required surgery or not to repair veins or tendons (though they seemed to all be working so far) and my condition didn't see to be critical so far. :stretch:

I hobbled into the hospital and they did a superb job of taking care of me. As soon as they removed my bandages, it started bleeding all over the place. The blood clot must have burst... :roll: They went thru numerous gauze to stop the bleeding, x-rayed it for debris, gave me a local, thoroughly irrigated it, he even felt around inside the wound looking for debris, before finally stitching the 4-5 inch long gash back up. I've spent the last fews days doing RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevated) while surfing the internet, watching TV & DVDs, napping/sleepping, and I got the whole week of from work to let it heal. So far its healing very nicely with no infection, no more oozing, and I hobble around on the ball of my foot without too much pain or blood rush to my foot.

I usually haven't shared my past misfortunes on this site, like twisted ankles or heat exhaustion and/or bonking on long hikes. But I just wanted to share how dangerously sharp that rhyolite (volcanic) rock that's found in much of southern AZ (esp the Superstitions) is or any rocks for that matter. I've been hiking in AZ for about 4 years now with over 3000 miles under my belt without any major injury, but you only have to let your guard down for a minute or make one bad step to cause serious injury. I've now got 4 hiking scars on my shins and I'm already investing in a few different types of Motocross/BMX/Mnt Biking style shin guards that I'm picking up cheap off of eBay. I love canyons and exploring as many as possible, which involves loads of rock hopping, scrambling, and off-trail water hiking but my shins just take too much of a beating from it. So if you see some silly looking 30-something hiker in some remote canyon with full shin guards and short hiking shorts on, that just might be me... :GB:

I'll be out for a few weeks letting it fully heal up, but happy hiking to you all, keep sending the triplogs & photos, and may you all be safe out there! ut:

Vaporman wrote:I'll be out for a few weeks letting it fully heal up

Dang man, that is quite a story and should remind us all just how easy it is for a mishap to occur in the backcountry doing what we all sometimes take too much for granted. Take care of yourself for a quick recovery :stretch: !

Brian, get well fast and thanks for sharing. I've shared with my wife some of the high mile days you have put in and around our house you are known as "Superman". As in, "has that guy Superman done any unbelievable hikes lately?". I think it a good reminder to all of us who hike alone to carry the first aid kit and have a general idea of where you need to go for help.

Thanks, I think I handled the situation fairly well considering. You do always take an extra risk out solo hiking, but in this scenario I'm not sure if a hiking buddy could have helped a whole lot more other than driving me and taking my pack for me. And hopefully I'm up to Superman level in the not too distant future.

You could put them in a personal album, then note that. When we are ridgewalking looking for caves in sharp and solutioned limestone I regularly wear my knee pads pulled down on my shins. Taken a few cactus spines and some sharp rock edges for me in the past.
You might start a new trend---off trail shin protectors. ;)

In response to Vaporman: Wow, I'm glad you made it out!

Brian's photos are in a gallery named "Hiking Injury", viewable from his profile if you wish...

LoL, u moved them... That's probably for the best, they are pretty nasty!

RedRoxx44 wrote:. . . You might start a new trend---off trail shin protectors. ;)

Stiller already started that trend. His shin protectors must weigh more than most peoples' boots. I think they are tactical Kevlar or something. You might be able to buy them from him if you can help him find a similar product with a Pittsburgh Steelers Logo on them