Lately Death Is Not By Mountain

My commitment, as you might have noticed, has been rather poor (by which I mean non-existant) for many months now. The recovery from surgery hasn't been fun. I stopped wishing I had died on the table within about a month of surgery, and was mostly better within two months of it. But the strange feelings haven't gone away. Walking makes it feel weird. Sometimes walking even makes it feel a little sore. But I'm not so bad off that I shouldn't be walking. I should be. I should be out and about in the world again.

On the other hand, I still have benefits from the improvement in my diet and the exercise I still get (yoga and bicycling). Before that fateful trip to the doctor I had had frequent and crushing illnesses. At the slightest hint of being sick I knew I'd crash and it would soon send me to bed for days at a time. Since improving my diet and exercise that hasn't happened. I can't quite claim I haven't been sick since this all started, but what illnesses I've had were merely annoying. My season allergies have gone away too. While people around me have been miserable from the juniper, I haven't. Normally the juniper makes me miss work at it's peak, and requires lots of drugs to keep myself sane and functioning. This year, my eyes felt a little irritated a couple of times, and when I've been outside in it I get a minor runny nose.

My conclusion: diet and exercise have tremendously improved my life. I do miss eating fried potatoes and chocolate as my main diet, but I can live without them I've found. Getting beef and pasta out of my diet has also shown me that neither seem to agree with my body well. Bionature organic pasta, in specific, is quite bad for me, which is sad because I like the taste of it.

In new news, I got a hold of some Vibram Five Fingers. They are the knock off of the Vivo Barefoot I've coveted for quite a while. The Vivo has proven impossible to get, and the Vibram has proven to be almost as impossible. But I have giant feet, and when I went to REI on Saturday I was certain they would be able to help me. After looking at my feet, the sales rep did admit that with my feet they probably did shoes for me. They didn't have many, but I left wearing a pair. I had a blister forming on my left foot by the time I was done shopping at REI, but once home I've been slapping athletic tape onto it and it is coming along nicely.

Turkey Creek needs to be visited again. Graduation is this weekend, and I'm not in good walking shape for it, so it won't be immediately. The 22nd or the 29th seem like good times to attempt it. It is only about 4.5 miles in and out, so I could probably hike it without any preparation (assuming I get to spend the night in the middle) but building up to it would probably be best. I really kind of like the idea of the five fingers as it will greatly simplify the three river crossings and the dozen or more stream crossings. Often by the end of the trek I've given up on dry feet and I'm just wading down the middle in my boots to avoid recreating the "wax on wax off" scene with my footwear.

This website MUST live again! I need to pick myself up, deal with the discomfort, and press on with my goal of going into the mountains.

Strawberry Peak Tracklog

From 2010-01-03

So there is my hike. A bit of the hike is missing around the base of the mountain, but I followed my trail pretty closely so you can't see it on the log.

Feeling Sick Is Also Feeling Better

I feel sick. I know it happened on the mountain. Hiking in the sun was warm, and comfortable. Anytime I stopped the wind felt cold. Hiking in the shade was cold, and stopping in the shade was worse. As it got cooler in the evening I kept a windproof jacket on, and it regulated heat well, but in the end, I felt a cough that day, and I had it yesterday, and today I'm very tired (skipped work tired) and I have junk in my throat and more of a cough.

But the notable thing is how ill I feel. Prior to my get-healthy kick, illness only came in one flavor: crushing. At the smallest hint of feeling bad I knew I was doomed. I'd plummet over the edge into being bedridden and incapable of much of anything and I lived in a state of total misery. It always knocked me out for several days, and often as much as a week, no matter what. I haven't really been sick since I started to take care of myself. Aside from the surgery, I missed a day of work because I felt a little bad, but that was it; I just felt a little bad. I feel worse now than I did then, but I'm only laying in bed because I want to get better; not because I'm too ill to get out of it.

It's nice to feel this way. I used to get very ill pretty often.

The Failure Needs To Stop!

Between diagnosis and my surgery I was gung ho. After surgery I was crippled with pain. But now I'm not in constant pain anymore, but neither am I gung ho.

Friday I lifted weights. It had been a long time for that. I managed to pull something in the back of my left thigh. A great return to weightlifting!

Sunday, yesterday as I post this, was an attempted climb up Strawberry Peak. I don't have the GPS offloaded yet. I have a few pictures. I didn't make it all the way up. I turned back pretty close to the summit, really, but I was getting tired and it didn't seem worth it.

Today was yoga. The yoga was hard because of how sore I was from yesterday. Even just sitting and trying to raise my arms up over my head required painful grimacing and some grunting noises.

I need to force myself back into shape, and I need to get up that mountain again sometime soon to redeem myself!

I need to post pictures from it, and from my snowshoeing trip that I last posted here about.

I need to post here more often as well, to self motivate into staying active and improving my health.

Attempted Death By Mountain

Yesterday I dressed warmly, strapped on a snow shovel and a pair of snowshoes, and headed mountainward in search of deep enough snow to snowshoe in.

As I arrived at Water Canyon, a state police cruiser was exiting. As I parked, a four-wheel drive two truck arrived and started to head up the ice-packed road. I went up trail 13, one of my favorites, because there was certain to be snow on top.

On the way up I encounted lots of snow 8 inches or deeper. All powder, and all in shady areas on the sides of the mountain. No chance for snowshoeing, but it did make the hike extra tiresome as I plowed through it all.

The hike up was amazingly quiet. The air was perfectly still, and the canyon was deathly quiet.

Up top, the stillness ended, and a bitter cold wind blew across the mesa. I'd packed with the plan that I'd add my windproof layers last, but I was too warm for the stuff on top of my pack and needed the shells, so it was a pain to dig them out. At some point, I took my googles off, and forgot to put them back on. I'm not really sure how long I had them off, but I didn't seem to burn my retinas, so it must have been thankfully short.

I took a few silly pictures of myself up top with my camera in the self-timer mode balanced on my snow shovel which was on top of a mound of snow. I set up my hammock and laid around for a while looking up at how crisply green the trees were above me (in retrospect, it was probably the tint of my googles that made them look so good), and then headed back down. Descending the trail was a lot more treacherous than ascending it had been, but I made it.

I took pictures, but I'm not sure any of them are interesting enough for a follow up post, but I might put some up anyway.

Two Weeks Have Passed...

Two weeks have passed, and the only pain I've had was when I had a misadventure with the corner of a box. I went on a vigorous walk a week ago, and there was no indication that it aggravated my surgery.

I shall soon be trying again for more adventures in the mountains. I think I'm finally recuperated enough.

Still Not Better

I suppose I should keep this somewhat up to date.

Me and my surgery are still at odds against each other as to whether or not I'm better. Someday I'll be able to stand up and walk without pain...