On August 4th 2003 I felt severe shooting pains down my legs. Fortunately the pain disappeared when I was sitting or lying, but I was incapable of walking (or even standing) for more than five minutes at a time. My condition was soon diagnosed as being due to a herniated disk, and after much testing and consultation I received an injection of steroids in my spinal column (technically called an intrathecal injection). By October 19th the pain started to recede, vanishing one week later.
During those eleven weeks I tried to go out several times a week, choosing a place where I could walk slowly for a few minutes (rarely more than five before the pain became intolerable), then sit on a bench until the pain went away. I would repeat this two or three times, getting up to 15 minutes of total walking time. I called these trips "bench to bench hikes", a lighthearted comparison with the more serious "hut to hut hikes"!
I am in my mid-sixties, and have been hiking regularly (both days of most weekends) for the past ten years. I retired early in 2001, partly to be able to devote more time to hiking. I do not claim to be a strong hiker, and cannot keep up with many of my near contemporaries. But I could, before my illness, do twenty miles hikes (such as all three Bonds in a single day), and on a good day I could hike a trail with good footing (such as the Osseo or Mount Garfield Trails) in slightly more than half of the "book time" given in the White Mountain Guide. I now faced the daunting task of regaining my fitness after eleven weeks of near complete immobility.
That was, to a degree, a familiar task. I hike year round, and have found that I must take a couple of annual breaks from strenuous hiking. These breaks have always caused a loss of fitness, requiring a period of graduated training before I regained my normal fitness level. But these breaks consisted three or four weeks of limited hiking, not eleven weeks of immobility!
Phase One: Walking on Flat Ground
On October 19th I went for my usual bench to bench hike, and found that I did not need to sit at the first bench. Encouraged, I continued, and ended up doing a 15 minute non-stop loop in the neighborhood! I breathed a deep sigh of relief; the steroids had finally started working! Next morning I repeated the same loop, and since I felt almost no pain I went for a second, slightly longer, walk that afternoon. For the rest of that week I gradually increased my walking from about fifteen minutes at a time to an hour, walking in the streets of Brookline (Massachusetts).
At the beginning of the second week I started going for longer walks along the Charles River, doing as much as 4½ miles. I then went to my New Hampshire home in Thornton, and on November 1st I went for a walk in the woods, along the East Branch Road, going about three miles in each direction. That logging road has a couple of tiny bumps that reminded me that I had been walking on the flat so far.
By the middle of the third week I did a real hike, a loop of about eight miles on trails with almost 1,200 feet of elevation gain, all of it gradual. That night I copied Winston Churchill's famous quotation: "This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning" into my diary!
Phase Two: Reaching the Summits
I knew from long experience that there is an immense difference between walking on the flat, or gently uphill, and really climbing a mountain, so I expected the next phase to be slow and at times disheartening. To my amazement it was short and easy.
It started inauspiciously, when I attempted to climb Mount Pierce on a cold and blustery day. I only managed to reach the junction with the Mizpah Cutoff, 1.9 miles each way with 1,450 feet of elevation gain. A few days later I was, however, able to do a delightful bushwhack to a subsidiary peak of West Tecumseh, with almost as much distance and elevation gain as the main summit.
On Nov. 16th, one week after the failed attempt on Mount Pierce, I managed to climb Mount Tecumseh, a distance of 2.5 miles each way with 2,200 feet of elevation gain. I did it much more slowly than I had in the past, and was much more tired than I would have expected, but I had finally, after almost one month, succeeded in doing a 4,000 footer (albeit probably the easiest of the lot). I was not exhausted, but it had clearly taken a considerable effort to do it.
Phase Three: A Disheartening Plateau
As fall changed into winter the weather deteriorated, creating many excuses for not hiking. I also went to Boston several times, both for doctors and Symphony, adding to the non-hiking time. Most hikes during that period were on familiar trails in my area, but one day I did go to Vermont to climb Gillespie Peak, the highpoint of Windsor County.
I did maintain the ability to do a little over two miles each way with a couple of thousand feet of not terribly steep elevation gain, but went little further. Of course I was now doing them with full winter gear, hence carrying quite a bit more weight, but progress was slow. On December 21st I went to Greenleaf Hut, with more distance and elevation gain (2.9 miles and 2,450 feet), that trip included a few really steep sections on the Agonies. While it was a bit more than anything I had done previously, it was not much more, and I complained about the slowness of my progress in my diary.
After Christmas my friend Joe C. came to New Hampshire for some peakbagging, I joined him on my first two real "intermediate" hikes. On December 31st we did Mount Moosilauke by the Glencliff Trail, 3.9 miles each way with 3,300 feet of elevation gain and on January 2nd we did Mount Lincoln up and down the Falling Waters Trail, about the same distance and elevation gain. Both trails have sustained steep sections, I felt that I had finally broken out of the rut of minimal 4,000 footers.
Unfortunately that was followed by a frigid January, which discouraged me from hiking alone. On a mid-month AMC weekend to Harvard Cabin I only did one hike (the Imp loop, 6.1 miles and 2,100 feet), as contact lens problems prevented me from hiking the second day. Towards the end of the month I decided to look for hiking partners, doing Mounts Tecumseh, Moosilauke (almost, strong cold winds turned us around a few hundred yards from the summit), Hale and Liberty in the period between January 24th and February 2nd. In addition I joined a beginner hike to Lonesome Lake Hut on January 28th, a short hike but better than staying at home!
Phase Four: Hoping to Rise Above the Plateau
In the ten day period from January 24th to February 2nd I had hiked five days, three of them being what I would call "moderate hikes", albeit at the lower end of that class. I was beginning to feel much better, and went to bed after the hike up Mount Liberty planning to do something more substantial the next day.
On February 3rd I hiked Sandwich Dome by the Drake's Brook Trail, a nine mile round trip with 2,600 feet of elevation gain at mainly easy grades. Shortly after starting I felt fitter than I had in a long time, and pushed the pace. I reached the summit in 2:50 versus a book time of 3:30, about 80% of book time. This was by far my best performance so far, and I felt that I had finally broken out of the long period of no progress.
Alas, once again weather and Boston commitments conspired to keep me from doing any hard hiking for a couple of weeks. All I did was a hike to Carter Notch Hut (7.6 miles and 2,000 feet) at a slow pace with friends on Sunday the 8th, a pleasant trip that did little to improve my fitness.
A weekend in Maine showed that I had not, in fact, made any great improvement. I attempted my first tough hikes of the season, and failed on both. On Saturday 14th I attempted Saddleback and its Horn, turning around mid-way up the Horn due to a combination of fatigue, bad footing and wind (in othe words, discouragement). On Sunday, a beautiful day, I attempted the Bigelow Horn, turned around at the Horn Pond Shelter due to fatigue. Both trips were longer than anything I had previously attempted.