Reflexions

There had to be drama. Things were going too well.

For the first time this week, I was going to have a hiking partner, and what a good one it was. I’ve known Glenn for over 30 years — since my earliest days at IBM — and we’ve managed to keep in touch across the miles and over the years.

On the flora and fauna front, we saw a big black bear cross the street in front of us while driving to the trailhead. Seeing a bear from inside a car is exactly the way I like to see them! It was moving so fast, I wasn’t able to get a picture <sorry!>. This was dramatic, but not the drama I’m talking about.

Once we got close to the trailhead, we couldn’t quite get to the parking area, as a good-sized tree had blown across the road during an overnight storm. In the process of trying to drag it out of the way, the upper trunk of the tree snapped, quickly striking me across the upper thigh. Now, I’ve had “Charlie horses” before, but this one had me seeing stars. Once the stars cleared, and I regained my composure, I was faced with a decision: start the 6-mile hike up the mountain, or abort the mission. My “logic” at the time told me that perhaps hiking would help my newly-cramped-up thigh — you know, loosen the muscles and all that. So up the hill Glenn and I proceeded in search of Ethan Pond.

Without getting into all the gory details, let me just say there was a lot of leg swelling, very slow one-legged hiking, some very pretty trails (and mushrooms!), and a beautiful mountain-top lake known as Ethan Pond. The guidebooks say that the trail here is full of bears and moose, and most people in northern New England know that the moose is the one to worry about. So we kept our eyes peeled, but alas no big furry animals graced us with their presence.

Once we were safely back at Glenn and Amy’s cabin on Pine Lake Pond (they call them ponds in the northeast; we in the South or the Midwest would call them stunningly beautiful lakes), Glenn and Amy’s daughter Sarah (a newly-minted Physician’s Assistant) and their cousin Christie (a veteran Physical Therapist) diagnosed my injury as a deep thigh muscle bruise. They prescribed ice, elevation, mucho ibuprofen, and rest.

All in all, what should have been a strenuous three-hour hike ended up being an almost eight-hour exercise in torture, given my hobbling down the mountain (hiking downhill is always the hardest, but now it was painful too). Glenn was a great hiking partner, patiently waiting for his injured friend each small step of the way, and I’ll never forget him or this hike. I fell asleep to the sound of the resident loons, wondering if my hiking adventure had come to an abrupt and unfortunate end.