Originally Posted by
wacocelt
What had begun as a cool, overcast day gave way to bright blue skies after lunch. We had just finished out lunch relaxation and drying out process at the Spec Pond Lean To and were proceeding South towards the Mahoosuc Notch, which is the hardest mile on the Appalachian Trail.
The Mahoosuc Notch is a solid mile of boulder scramble, clumbing over, around and through huge boulders which have been bared by the elements. Ice can be seen deep beneath the boulders all year round and extreme care and attention are required while traversing this section, so we were all excited and anticipating reaching this milestone.
My hiking companions were Hornz and Bandit, two eighteen year olds I had begun hiking with because they had informed me that they would be joining the Army and more specifically the Airborne Infantry, which I had also served in, when they finished their hike. With us also was Bouie, a young man from Alabama that was hiking with his brother Rooster, who had left a bit earlier than us and was futher ahead. As we hiked along the flat, open space of Old Speck Mountain, we were talking and laughing, truly enjoying the sunshine, gentle temperatures and gorgeous views we had been gifted with.
It was the mild conditions and flat, open terrain which lulled me into a sense of security and caused me to be just unobservant enough of my foot placement, that as I stepped off of a three foot tall boulder I heard a loud snap, like that of a pencil breaking, come from my lower left leg. All three of my companions heard it and we all voiced our dismay with various worried expletives.
Having sprained my ankle in the past I hopped on my right foot, stabilizing myself with my trekking poles, until I could survey the damage. There was no pain in my ankle so I gingerly rotated my foot to test it's mobility and found it to be fine. Using my trekking poles and hopping on my right foot I found a place to sit to further inspect the damage. My companions gathered around me, flustered and worried, as I removed my Keen sandal to see a protrusion, about the size of a number two pencil eraser, jutting up beneath the skin on the side of my left foot.
I had just broken a bone in my foot, on top of a mountain, in the middle of nowhere. There is a caretaker stationed at the Speck Pond campsite, so Booie hustled back to see what aid he might be able to render. Unfortunately, as helpful as he was, all he was able to provide was an Ace bandage and information about a logging road off the West side of the ridge which would be my quickest chance of securing a ride to a hospital.
Bouie continued on to catch his brother, who was miles ahead of us by now, while Hornz and Bandit volunteered to stay with me. They split the majority of my pack weight between them to lessen my load and we began our way down off Old Speck. No sooner had we moved back into the treeline and onto trail proper again, when the wind picked up and the clouds returned, causing the temperature to cool and the skies, as well as our moods, to darken.
The path which we were following isn't a part of the Appalachian Trail so was poorly maintained and then we discovered, much to our collective dismay, that loggers had been running cuts directly up the side of the mountain which ran perpendicular to our route. There would be a quarter, to a half mile of overgrown, poorly maintained trail, which would suddenly open onto a hundred yards of tilled, mangled clear-cut Earth which was almost impossible for me to traverse in my injured state.
After fighting our way over several of these, all of us cussing and complaining the entire time, we reached another and I delcared that we would just follow it down the mountain, to the logging roads below. So we set off down this uneven, loose earthed slope, all of us becoming more frantic as the time passed, however we finally found the logging roads and were relieved for a moment...
Until we realized that there was no rhyme nor reason to these roads, nor were there signs or the like to guide us correctly to the paved roads. We had just traversed three miles of bad trail and logging debris to find these roads, paved with railroad gravel, only to discover that not only weren't we "out of the woods" yet, but that we may very well be lost. Not only that, but it also began to sprinkle and as things are wont to do, it was quickly going from bad to wrose.
Through the process of elimination and being forced to backtrack a few times we finally found a road which we were convinced would lead us to pavement and thus civilization and a much needed doctor for my foot, which by now was aching, throbbing and doing what a broken foot is suppose to do when you're hiking on it, hurting like Hell. We had been on these roads for close to two hours at this point, so it was about four hours before that I had broken my foot, when it began to rain in earnest.
The three of us were setting a decent pace, despite my broken foot, Hornz beside me to the left and Bandit slightly behind and to the right. hornz had reached a point where he was griping, cussing and complaining non stop about the condition of the road were were on, the trail we had been on, the weather and pretty much anything else which crossed his mind when suddenly he stopped, tears rimming his eyes and said, "I am SO sorry dude!"
I stopped confused and asked him, "What are you sorry for man?"
"Here you are, hiking along with a broken foot, not saying anything and all I'm doing is bitching and complaining. If you aren't saying anything then I damn sure don't have the right to!"
I just laughed and shook my head, "I don't have time to bitch, I've gotta concentrate on the pain..."