Drip, drip, drip…

For the not-from-around-here crowd: The Ice Age Trail is a 1,200 mile footpath meandering around Wisconsin, roughly following the leading edges of the last glacial push through our great state. Kind of a geologic trail of wonders. For the math majors out there, this is (very) roughly half of the miles covered by the Appalachian Trail, or the Pacific Crest Trail, and yet all squeezed into li’l ol’ Wisco. Oh, the places you’ll go!

No, we’re not through-hiking anything like freakin’ maniacs (though how cool is EmilyOnTrail anyway?) Don’t be ridiculous. We’re section hiking, one little bit at a time, some day far off into the future adding all those little segments up into the whole of the glorious trail.

And no, we’re not doing it, like, this summer. This is more of your bucket list variety of section hiking. As in, “You wanna try to do this before we die?” The slooow bucket, if you will.

We’re kind of excited. We’ve been saying for years that we want to spend a little more time exploring our own back yard. We could never leave WiscoSota again and be happily occupied for life, I’m sure. But yet we seem to skip town more often than not, in search of far-flung vistas and ignoring entirely all that our home has to offer. When the idea of tackling the IAT came up, it seemed like a pretty good fit. Tether us a little. Bring some brilliance to our smaller free moments, the spaces between the big ol’ trips. Give us some local focus.

Well, the first drips have begun to fill the bucket. I am proud to report that we banged out segment numero uno last weekend. Western Terminus through St. Croix Falls to River Road… check.

Eight point nine miles on paper, but according to all of our tracking mechanisms, we managed to turn it into a cool 10.4. Because we’re cool. And easily distracted.

It should come as no surprise to you that our inaugural outing was not without incident, and there will, of course, be something of a recovery (and therapy) period before we set out for our next little chunk. And this is why we set ourselves a timeline of ‘prior to death.’

Now, to be fair to me, I went into this, the first segment, cautiously. Nine miles is a beefy hike for me and my tootsies. Actual trail, with all its dirt and rocks and roots, is far and away better than stupid hard flat road, but still, for the first big outing of the spring, nine miles seemed optimistic (especially when nine miles is actually 10.4). Also, this first bit holds a whole lot of up and down. I wasn’t just jumping in without a safety net. The last time we hiked nine miles we almost died on a mountain.

You haven’t heard about that yet? Yes. Well. That was in the midst of the blog fast, so it will take me a while to catch up. Be patient.

Now, clearly there are no mountains in the vicinity of the St. Croix Falls segment, and truly, I would be surprised to find any deadly treacherous bits along the whole of the IAT. My rational mind knew this was a different sort of hike than that, the nemesis of even Thoreau. Still, true fear for your life hangs on, and nine miles having such an association in the deeper parts of my addled brain… well, better safe than sorry, you know?

So we had a plan…

First off, I guess it is important to know that rather than driving two cars up yonder, the hubs decided he’d rather throw his bike in the back of the van, for he is cheap. And so, the poor man’s shuttle is born.

As this first bit spent a good deal of time winding through St. Croix Falls proper, we decided that rather than dropping Scott’s bike at the end of the segment, we’d drop it at a road crossing halfway along, a parachute of sorts. Five miles was a modest goal for the day, and if we made it that far sans threat to life or limb, and if the thrifty hiker was still up for it after his little pedal back to the van, we could consider finishing out the whole segment.

You already know this, but let me tell you anyway. When we reached the bike hitched to the post, I was feeling go0-od, and ready to attack the rest. When the man returned with the wheels, he, too, was ready for more. We deposited the bike at our final destination, shoveled in some lunch, and set out fresh. Ready to log a whole segment. Like the animals we are.

I did, however, add my trekking poles to my gear. Just in case.

Which turned out to be the sole reason Scott didn’t have to throw me over his shoulder and ruck me out of there.

The second half started out fine. All was well. Beautiful even. Perfect trail, perfect skies, perfect day. Unfortunately, three+ miles short of our end goal, something heinous occurred in the inner workings of my worst knee and it quietly declared itself unfit for descent. Furthermore, ascent was also highly discouraged. Level travel would be the only mode of forward motion that did not elicit electric shocks in the lateral knee of me. Looking at the map, level travel was not what was ahead.

This actually wasn’t an entirely unfamiliar sensation for me. When I was 10, they scraped the growth cartilage out of that knee to take care of a little leg length discrepancy. Fun fact: while my legs are now the same lengths overall, my knees are not in the same place on those legs. At all. There’s a full inch+ difference in my knee placement that has pretty well overhauled every part of my musculoskeletal physiology. You’d be amazed what kind of wonky shit that little change can cause.

All other bodily trauma aside, that knee itself was it’s own sort of problem from my tenth year on. Until about a decade ago, I didn’t really do downhills, for just this sort of pain. I never set out without a knee brace. If confronted with a downward slope of any decent gradient, as my fellow hikers of the day can attest with some cruel amusement, I would turn around and make the descent backwards. You do what you gotta’ do.

What happened since then? You know, I can’t really say. But soon after starting with my crazy chiro (craziest by far in a long and distinguished lineage of crazy chiropractors), I started walking differently, decidedly more upright, with less of a funky one-sided leg sweep (I noticed this first in my reflection upon approach at the WaalMaart one day, and then in my shadow, suddenly shape-shifting before my eyes. Man, the things you never expect to change.) Soon after that I found, with some surprise, that I could walk downhill facing forward. Like a normal person. It wasn’t much longer before the knee braces retired to the basement. Wild, I know. I only report the facts.

Anyhoo… back to me and the knee on the IAT…

As familiar as it was, I hadn’t felt that pain in a while, and this wasn’t the greatest time for it to make it’s encore appearance, particularly at it’s current intensity. I can say with total honesty that I have no idea why it did. I didn’t take a misstep that I can recall, didn’t jam into any undetected hummock. Didn’t roll the ankle or walk any consistently sideways slope. I didn’t twist in any irksome way, or jump off of any boulders like some young chick with functional knees. I cannot for the life of me fathom what happened between the step before and the step after, but evidence suggested that it was profound. Best I can tell, my knee took one look at the restart of the more serious ravine topography that lay before us on the way back down to the river and simply ceded from the Union.

This wasn’t tough terrain. But it is no good arguing with a knee.

The trekking poles were immediately deployed. With the help of these extra prosthetic legs, we soldiered on.

By the time we made it down to the river, I was thrilled to have the hills behind us and looking forward to the last 2 miles of flat ground along that river. Unfortunately for me and the knee, there were seven dozen streams wending their way down and into the St. Croix, and every one of them was a deep cut into the trail. Miles down. Fathoms back up. Craters to the center of the earth. Millions of them.

OK, fine. There were only a handful, and the gorges probably never dropped more than ten feet. Tell my knee that.

All that really matters is that I made it. And then I curled up in the leaf duff above the St. Croix River and took a nap with the ticks and the moss and the hepatica, while my sainted husband hopped on his bike for the second time that day to retrieve my chariot.

I suppose a fair and accurate accounting of Segment One shows not only Scott and I hiking 10.4 miles, but also Scott biking another seven over hill and dale, a proud, proud poor man’s shuttle. Not much can make this guy happier than a few pennies saved.

The next chunk of trail will have to wait a wee bit. For the knee hath gone for a full reversion into the days of yore. Therapy hath commenced. Progress is being made. We’ll be ready to go shortly.

So yes, old, old kid. I’d love to reclaim one of those knee braces. It seems it might be a prudent addition to the first aid kit.

If you need me, I’ll be dreaming of the slow bucket filling on up, one drip at a time,
KJ