Around 4 am last night while on my first night camping I woke up overheating in 30°ish temperatures and with a pain in my throat I knew meant I had a infection, someone had stuck a red hot poker into the side of my neck and it hurt. Swallowing felt like someone was taking that same poker and pounding it out into a flat shape while it was inside of me. Even breathing hurt a little. I knew from experience that it was not going to get better.
So in the darkness of predawn I got up, I packed as best as I could and put a light on my chest so I could see and started back to where I came from, due to how late I had gotten into the park I hadn’t gotten more then a couple of miles from the start point. Knowing that I was running a fever (when I got medical treatment later it was 102.7°) and if I fell I was not getting back up I went very slowly. At that point I couldn’t even sit down to take a break because I wasn’t going to have the strength in my legs to get back up. The day before I had done the same hike in maybe 30 mins, it took me at least an hour and a half to get back down. I did have my emergency signal, but I don’t have the $5000 to $10,000 to pay after my insurance paid for most of it. So I walked, once I got to the bottom of the trail I sat down on a bench fully geared up and started trying to flag down help, I was expecting other hikers but it turns out there is still a construction crew doing something with the Mexican American boarder wall.
The first 3 people either didn’t see me or thought it wasn’t a big deal. I started down the road, because I assume they didn’t see me and it’s hard to miss someone in a bright red sun hat on a one lane road. The fourth guy in theory called boarder patrol for me but wasn’t willing to be late for work to take me down the mountain itself. I sat on that road waiting for border patrol for around half an hour and had 5 cars from that same construction company past by me even with me trying to flag them down. I decided that either BP hadn’t been called or were not coming. (I had chosen my place to sit both because it had clear visibility from both directions of the road so I wouldn’t get hit, and because I could see cars coming up the road about 20 mins before they got to me).
Refusing to cry because when I sat down I spilled most of my water and I didn’t want to risk serious dehydration before I got to help. I got up, I started down the road. At this point I knew I was about a hour from actually passing out and I already had spots in my vision, my plan was to make it too the visitors center at the bottom of the mountain where I knew there was a spigot that was on to fill up my water. It was apparently only about 30 minutes before a good samaritan who wasn’t as worried about being late for work stopped to pick me up and take me down the mountain to the highway where I could call an Uber. I can assure you that last half hour felt much longer and while it won’t make it into my list of top bad shit that I have experienced it is likely in the top 20. By that point the fever reducer had likely run out, I was alternately so hot it felt like I had a serious sunburn everywhere on my body and so cold that the shivering kept me from being able to see straight, on top of being exhausted, in pain, and still seeing spots. While I wouldn’t suggest the experience I will admit that it had a zen quality to it, it was taking all my focus to keep putting one foot in front of another, I didn’t give a damn about anything else because I didn’t have the energy to do so. I wasn’t worried about my lack of water, I didn’t feel like crying anymore and everything more complicated the looking for the next piece of gravel that might slip out from under my foot was just gone from even the further reaches of my mind.
Like I mentioned someone did end up giving me a ride down to the highway where I was able to get an Uber half an hour to the nearest hotel, after getting a room booked I got medical help. I have a bacterial throat infection for which I have been given antibiotics, it’s a 7 day course and my stomach will be screwed up for about 14 days after that, so this trip is cancelled. I will finances depending try either the Colorado trail which has a season of mid June to mid September or try the southbound route of this trail this fall.
For today however I am going to pass back out in my hotel room from a mix of the fever and the painkillers. Hopefully tomorrow morning the antibiotics will really kick in and I’ll feel better enough to get beyond thinking about the next hour maximum.
Adventures of an NPC 