oldslowchevy
06-20-2007, 11:49 AM
well as most of you know i made a failed atempt to hike the appaltion trail. well i left my home on may 18th to the base in southern georgia. at that time we did a last check on what we could carry and made sure our drop zones where on schedule, signed the books, chosse a route(there are 3) and on the 19th we were off.
we took our time and only covered 18.5 mile one the frist day so we could see who could do what, i am much better at medium inclines then others and some were much better when it came to shear wall climbing so the trail we took has alittle of both and before you say of couse you would be better at meduim climbing keep this in mind a 10 precent grade can be mostly rock very smooth and worn covered in algee and be wet with seeping ground water witch can make it slick as ice, where as most shear wall is dry but you need ropes and quite abit of rock climbing equip to scale and at 270 pound with out gear i am much to heavy to try this tpye of climbing in the remote areas of the trail.
the frist few days went fine covering 130 miles of trail in the frist 7 days, at that point we all relizled that we were going much slower then planed so we desided to step it up a notch and we were going to travel no less then 25 miles per day but no more then 32miles per day for the next 3 days then atempt to go 35 a day for the next 4 days to see who close we were on our plan. well 5 days in the second day i started getting blistters on my toes and my heel but like a dumby i kept my mouth shut thing that i would get used to this buy this time we were only 38 miles from the geogia, south carolina boarderand two days later i could bearly walk and now i was really slowing every one down so we stopped for to days as i was informed that if my feet don't get better that we would have to abort this trip but because we had made up some time that we could take 48 hours and see what happens witch of course means that we would have to bust butt to keep time. so that night all blissterers were popped and drained then wraped up in gulse pads with some neaosporain cream. and the next morning we were off again so we only lost 15 hours. i felt great and we were making ok time we werent gaining time but we wernt losing time either. south carolina is a bit tougher trail is starts geting steeper there andthe trail really twists and winds. on june 6-8 it rained well poured and didn't stop so we stayed tent bound and lived off of dinty more beef stew and campbells chunky chili. the temp was about 85-90 and on my god humid on the 9th the rain stopped and we packed up and about 9 am we were on our way again but my right foot was so swollan that i could bearly tie my boot by 4 that eveing it was litterly tearing the stiching in the boot and acording to the map we were only 15 miles(as the bird flys) from an hospital. we came of the trail at a highway as luck would have it a truck driver was there waiting on a repair man to come and fix his truck and he called 911 for me.
once at the hospital they thought my foot was broken cause of the swelling. they had to cut my right boot off of me in witch i knew at that moment the trip was over for me. what had happen (stop eatting now) is when i pop the frist bisters i did notremove the skin that puffed and filled i just put a small hole in there to drain it. what happened was this the holes healed/sealed due to the presurre of me walk the neaosporan and the gulze pads and when the rain hit my feet could not dry and had filled with more fluid then once i started walking again i had blisters on top of blisters(very very nasty and painful) the doctors did tell me this though, be glad it wasn't winter as the fluid could have froze and at the leaset caused frost bite at worst i could have lost my foot.
i guess toby keith said it best with this:
i am not as good as i once was, but i am as good once as i ever was.
we took our time and only covered 18.5 mile one the frist day so we could see who could do what, i am much better at medium inclines then others and some were much better when it came to shear wall climbing so the trail we took has alittle of both and before you say of couse you would be better at meduim climbing keep this in mind a 10 precent grade can be mostly rock very smooth and worn covered in algee and be wet with seeping ground water witch can make it slick as ice, where as most shear wall is dry but you need ropes and quite abit of rock climbing equip to scale and at 270 pound with out gear i am much to heavy to try this tpye of climbing in the remote areas of the trail.
the frist few days went fine covering 130 miles of trail in the frist 7 days, at that point we all relizled that we were going much slower then planed so we desided to step it up a notch and we were going to travel no less then 25 miles per day but no more then 32miles per day for the next 3 days then atempt to go 35 a day for the next 4 days to see who close we were on our plan. well 5 days in the second day i started getting blistters on my toes and my heel but like a dumby i kept my mouth shut thing that i would get used to this buy this time we were only 38 miles from the geogia, south carolina boarderand two days later i could bearly walk and now i was really slowing every one down so we stopped for to days as i was informed that if my feet don't get better that we would have to abort this trip but because we had made up some time that we could take 48 hours and see what happens witch of course means that we would have to bust butt to keep time. so that night all blissterers were popped and drained then wraped up in gulse pads with some neaosporain cream. and the next morning we were off again so we only lost 15 hours. i felt great and we were making ok time we werent gaining time but we wernt losing time either. south carolina is a bit tougher trail is starts geting steeper there andthe trail really twists and winds. on june 6-8 it rained well poured and didn't stop so we stayed tent bound and lived off of dinty more beef stew and campbells chunky chili. the temp was about 85-90 and on my god humid on the 9th the rain stopped and we packed up and about 9 am we were on our way again but my right foot was so swollan that i could bearly tie my boot by 4 that eveing it was litterly tearing the stiching in the boot and acording to the map we were only 15 miles(as the bird flys) from an hospital. we came of the trail at a highway as luck would have it a truck driver was there waiting on a repair man to come and fix his truck and he called 911 for me.
once at the hospital they thought my foot was broken cause of the swelling. they had to cut my right boot off of me in witch i knew at that moment the trip was over for me. what had happen (stop eatting now) is when i pop the frist bisters i did notremove the skin that puffed and filled i just put a small hole in there to drain it. what happened was this the holes healed/sealed due to the presurre of me walk the neaosporan and the gulze pads and when the rain hit my feet could not dry and had filled with more fluid then once i started walking again i had blisters on top of blisters(very very nasty and painful) the doctors did tell me this though, be glad it wasn't winter as the fluid could have froze and at the leaset caused frost bite at worst i could have lost my foot.
i guess toby keith said it best with this:
i am not as good as i once was, but i am as good once as i ever was.