The Hike from Hell

@sunnflr (2767)
United States
October 7, 2008 11:02pm CST
This weekend we went for a hike on the Cave Creek trail. This trail connects to the Pinhoti trail and makes a loop back around to the parking area. The first part of the hike went well. I wrote about it in my last post. The second half of the hike was AWFUL! There is a switch back on the Cave Creek trail. You take it to the connector trail for the Pinhoti and then get on the actual Pinhoti trail and follow it back to the parking area. Well, we made it to where the connector trail was supposed to start and then everything went downhill from there. We saw the first blaze marking the trail. (The first blaze of the whole day by the way; they aren’t good at marking the trails here for some reason.) We followed what we thought was the trail but it wasn’t. We were never really lost because we had the GPS and compasses, but it sure felt like it. It took forever to find the trail again. There were no markings anywhere. We had to hike down the mountain after tromping around on the top for a few hours. I have arthritis and torn cartilage in my knees so this wasn’t fun at all. Every step I took was painful. I had to take a break at one point to eat something because my sugar was dropping. My husband took this time to scout out the trail. He found it and then we all set off. We finally made it back to the car. I could hardly walk and my husband and son were very sore. This was Sunday, today is Tuesday, and I’m still in pain. Hiking with fibromyalgia and diabetes is an acquired skill. When something goes wrong like this it’s not good. We ended up hiking 6.3 miles! I’m not ready for that yet. At least not up and down a mountain! I survived though, so that’s good. And we will be back hiking somewhere this coming weekend. It will be a short one though! If you'd like to see some pictures from the good part, you can go to my outdoor recreation blog. From there is a link to Our Hiking Pictures blog. It has lots of cool pics on it!
3 responses
• United States
9 Oct 08
Very cool, the hike pictures, not the backtracking that you did. You should call it the hike to hell. I've been on a few hikes where the trail is what you made it, we had to mark it with orange ribbons so we wouldn't get lost. Glad to know that you made it back.
1 person likes this
@sunnflr (2767)
• United States
9 Oct 08
Glad you liked the pictures. I love taking pictures when hiking. We read in a hiking book and figured out where we went wrong. We should have kept going over the mountain and the trail would have appreared again. Who knew!
1 person likes this
• United States
4 Dec 08
Thanks for the BR!
@PearlGrace (3171)
• United States
9 Oct 08
Hello sunnflr. Wow, the last half of that hike DOES sound like the hike in hell! Six miles is a very long way to be on your feet, particularly when you are going up and down a mountain. You must be in fairly decent shape to have been able to do that. Thanks heavens you made it back to your car. I hope you had alot, and I mean ALOT of water. I would have keeled over, no doubt about it. I overheat in about 30 minutes and when I don't have water, that's it. I will definitely check our your pictures. Hope nothing like that ever happens to you again!
@sunnflr (2767)
• United States
9 Oct 08
We had our water bladders, we always take them. We had everything we needed, thank goodness! I'm not it good shape, I just had no alternative but to get down the mountain!
@raclie (1732)
• Singapore
8 Oct 08
ouch... are you better now? that can be really painful and tiring!!! have had somoething like that before, was having a stomach when i was hiking a mountain with my family and a guide. so i just had to bear it... ugh... i felt really uncomfortable!!!
@sunnflr (2767)
• United States
8 Oct 08
I'm a little better. Still hurting most everywhere but that's cause of the fibromyalgia. It will take me longer to recover than the rest of the family. I would have hated if my stomach had been messed up! That must have been terrible.