How Fibromyalgia Affected My New Year’s Goals

A year ago, I joined countless people in the annual rite of declaring my new year’s resolutions. However, unlike a lot of people, I had to do so in my characteristically overly-analytical way: I wrote them down, refined them, ensured they were clear and achievable, and then identified sub-goals feeding into them that were equally explicit and realistic. As a package of “resolutions”, I then validated that they were sufficiently comprehensive. Having finished that nerdy bout of planning, I committed to tracking progress over the year.  As I now watch 2016 finish its wind-down and begin thinking about 2017, it strikes me as important to review and reflect upon a tumultuous twelve months.

My goals were varied but comprehensive. In the past, I’ve thrived seeking out physically demanding adventures that create lasting memories with friends and family, which in turn scratched my creative itch by blogging about those events. At the start of the year, I believed I was enduring a series of injuries from those adventures that disrupted my whole cycle of fulfillment. As such, I sought to pursue healing. The “injuries” and my accumulating years left me wanting to get my figurative and literal house more in order. I also aspired to experiment with finding replacement creative outlets, and to seek alternate ways to bond with those around me until we were again backpacking off the grid or mountain biking all day in some other state. On the surface, my aspirations for 2016 ended with a combination of failures and mild successes. But, geek that I am, I updated that document religiously, and it now allows me to see my results as more nuanced, and as a result I choose to see a lot of successes.

The struggle to heal my injuries led to doctors who gave up on me, myopic specialists who wouldn’t look at me as a whole person or listen to me, an inability to return to my old self, and extreme frustration. But, it also led to finding a doctor who does listen, who kept working through possible diagnoses, and who established a diagnosis of fibromyalgia. As a chronic condition that is essentially established by ruling everything else out, that was not an easy feat. In actuality, it was the end result of well over two years of physical problems. This diagnosis will mean a lifetime of pain and impacts to digestion, cognition, immunology, sleep, and energy, so it’s not a pleasant end result. But my perseverance allows me to now know what I’m working with. This is no small comfort, and is a contrast to a point a little over a year ago at which I was struggling and looked despairingly at my partner, Sara, pleading futilely for her to tell me what was wrong with me.

My new eating habits led to losing more weight than intended!

The unrelated efforts to shed weight I’d accumulated from not exercising – but eating as if I still were – led me to an end result of a nutrition plan that turns out to be great for people enduring fibromyalgia. That has led me to take all of the desired weight off, along with another ten pounds to boot. This has since become packaged with a nutritional supplement regimen. An added benefit has been that as long as I stay on plan, I have no further digestive issues. Prior to fibromyalgia, I’d been someone who could practically eat gravel and wash it down with motor oil, with no ill effects. So, for all the negative aspects of this diagnosis, I’ve found one area where I can feel as if I returned to normal.

House projects never seem to go smoothly.
But, these days I really need to pace myself.

When it came to getting my figurative and literal house more in order, I can see a series of tasks that went undone. I can see rooms or a yard not as pretty as they should be. I can see paperwork that a lawyer never drew up. Instead, I choose to see someone who was dealing with a lot of challenges on a daily basis, yet still managed to chip away at everything. There are dangerous trees now removed, garage doors that work, shrubs that were transplanted, rooms that were painted, and finances put into the hands of a professional to help provide security for me and my family. Even though I didn’t finish all I sought to do, I had to persevere, such as squeezing in appointments amidst medical visits. I had to fight off the fatigue and allow for several days to complete paperwork I might have previously banged out in one late night. I had to learn to pace myself, such as after I literally almost collapsed from pushing myself painting all day without breaks. Previously, I would have expected to accomplish twice as much in half the time. But this year, the work I was able to complete took far more effort, planning, and perseverance. That hard work has already produced some results, helped me learn more about how I need to now manage myself, and provides a springboard for my 2017 focus.

Lastly, my adventures and bonding had nowhere near the volume and results I’d sought. I was never hurtling through the woods on a mountain bike, whooping excitedly alongside Sara. I never summited another mountain with my daughters. I never sat in a kayak, listening to the water lapping again it or the shore.  Lacking those adventures, I lost my creative outlet as well. But the limitations that fibromyalgia foisted upon me left me desperate to find some way to search for some sort of alternatives to still have new experiences with loved ones, as it also left me chafing at the lack of a creative outlet.

My girls rode and drove ATV's for the first
time, loving the adventures with family!

In order to not waste the year, experiments led me to help set up a wonderful family reunion filled with horses, ATVs, jamming on a porch with family members, daughters meeting far-away cousins, and countless laughs. I spent time at the beach instead of the woods, and my off-road beach permit allowed my girls an opportunity to host birthday weekends on Cape Cod that they could brag about. My family saw a wonderful play from the second row of an antique playhouse. I welcomed the holiday season with over a dozen good friends on Martha’s Vineyard. Furthermore, not all good moments were the big ones. I was driving home one day and pulled over, admiring a sun descending behind the trees, casting long shadows as a stone wall and dirt road stretched out towards it, and briefly lost myself in photographing that moment. Another time I paused in my errands and stand next to a salt marsh, capturing a sunset that was both scenic and a harbinger of the oncoming autumn. Those moments weren’t just visually serene but also mentally peaceful. Additionally, I rediscovered playing music, and sat in front of Sara on Christmas Eve, sharing a vulnerable moment as I played her some songs I’ve written but not shared.

Again, the year is now done and I can’t change the past. So, I can view the year as full of setbacks, lost opportunities, and wasted time. Conversely, I can reflect and see much effort and perseverance, dogged determination and courage. I can choose to see the progress towards managing my condition, the planning that better sets me and my family up for financial stability in coming years, the house that has a few more projects crossed off the never-ending list, the adventures that materialized, the relationships that deepened, and the experimenting with creativity that were fulfilling. I can choose to see failure or triumph. I can choose to feel frustration or pride.

As I turn my focus to 2017, I think it is important to choose the editorial that points at successes, not failures. Equally, I believe that I should leverage this as momentum for the upcoming year, to build upon these hard-won victories, and to continue converting limitations into opportunities. If I continue to work at setting realistic but aspirational goals towards becoming the best me I can be, I believe 2017 can be a year filled with promise and potential just waiting to be discovered.

The end of one moment is the start of another, so let's see what 2017 has in store.

For now, though, one step at a time.

Jay Bell

How a Chronic Diagnosis Leads to the Deconstruction of a Life

Looking back, it seems so innocuous: I’ve put a lot of wear and tear on my feet through my outdoor adventures, and I aggravated a prior plantar fasciitis injury. Two years later, I found myself stunned as I absorbed the reality that I had a condition that would affect me and impede me for the rest of my life.

A diagnosis of a chronic condition can be traumatic. No, not one like high cholesterol that requires swallowing a statin and then diving back into the steak tips. But a big one. In my case, fibromyalgia: brain function and chemical changes lead to essentially a permanent fight-or-flight response that often results in ongoing pain, digestive issues, cognitive impairments, weaker immunity, poor sleeping, low energy, and the list goes on. But whether it’s this or others that could range from multiple sclerosis to bipolar disorder, from ankylosing spondylitis to alcoholism, from epilepsy to PTSD, there is one very stark reality that accompanies the acceptance of that diagnosis: the need to deconstruct your life in order to reassemble it in a way that addresses your new limitations. 

Drawing my blood turned out to be the easy part.

Conditions such as these aren’t cured with a pill, a pat on the head, and going on your merry way. Instead, they inflict both obvious and subtle problems long after you’ve left the doctor’s office. The obvious struggles include experimenting to discover the medicines and treatment regimens that provide clinical relief to get you through the worst moments and to stabilize you. That requires time, side effects, setbacks, failed attempts, crushed hopes, and a diminished quality of life.  Sometimes, that seems to me to be the easy part.

The harder part is accepting that you can’t live in the way you’re accustomed. For me, I’d already spent years working to be the healthiest and best me that I could be. I’d established a lifestyle and life  that I loved. I was happy, and bouncing between living in the moment and dreaming of my next immersive adventure. But now that’s all gone. The only thing I know at the moment is that I can’t really live that way anymore; living in the moment is currently a fantasy.  I need to be cognizant of my condition – all the time: I need to carefully start the day off. I need to religiously take my prescription and supplements. I need to eat militantly. I need to exercise. But I need to not exercise certain ways. I’m stressed by my need to avoid stress whenever possible. After an exhausting day, I then need to sleep delicately to try to make it through the night.  The list goes on and on, and when I deviate I pay the price.

But, in addition to all of those efforts, I also need to now examine my prior lifestyle and find all the ways I’d now exacerbate my condition. I need to recognize how certain fulfilling activities will cause flare-ups so that I can now avoid them. I need to identify how certain tendencies got me this far in life but now become liabilities. I need to assess my personality, behaviors, and attitudes and hone in on the pieces that aren’t unhealthy under other circumstances yet now create risks for me. I need to analyze my relationships and determine in partnership with those friends and family how I need to modify them in order for them to remain mutually nurturing and fulfilling.

As I've learned from time on the trail,
it helps to break up arduous efforts into smaller pieces.

That deconstruction is painful and hard. Having slogged through it once before for other reasons, I know what lies ahead. It requires an introspection that most people don’t engage in. It forces you to analyze not just how you’ve lived, but to understand why. It inevitably drags some skeletons out of the closet, because no one lives perfectly, and everyone has some blind spots. It forces you so far beyond your comfort zone that you couldn’t find it with binoculars. It leaves you questioning your perception of yourself, your world, and your place in it.  That dissection and rebuilding also takes time; time that you feel you can’t afford because you’re already chafing at the wasted time it took just to achieve a clear diagnosis. For me, I now look back at a couple of lost years. Then I look ahead to a couple more years to attain a new rhythm to life.  As a 45 year-old smack dab in “middle aged” territory, I’m very conscious that our time here is finite and I loathe wasted days, let alone months or years. But, this is my inescapable reality.

But to not face up to the task at hand is a worse fate. To merely wallow onward substitutes a ore unappealing situation than grinding out this arduous self-appraisal. It saves the mental discomfort and avoids trials and errors. But instead, it does nothing to move me forward. In fact, it adds to the physical pain and mental stress by refusing to cultivate my ability to self-manage and maximize whatever potential I have.

I'm not sure about finding a great reward at the end of this,
but I'll tryto stay positive.

I didn’t ask for a life-altering diagnosis to endure for all my remaining days; I shouldn’t be forced to break down and reassemble my life. Nor do those around me deserve to become collateral damage from my new limitations. Unfortunately, these things are not up for debate. The only choice is where I go from here. So I will doggedly labor through that deconstruction, focusing on one brick at a time in the foundation of that new life, and believe that better days lie ahead.

One step at a time,

Jay Bell, AKA Rock Hopper

Fear of an Awesome Time

Fear.  It can drive people, and lately it has been more of a part of my own life than I’m accustomed to.

After enduring a couple years of physical problems that doctors couldn’t understand or fix, I wound up with a diagnosis of fibromyalgia; basically, a chronic pain condition in which your nerves are constantly over-reacting and the corresponding chemical changes in your brain lead to other challenges, such as digestive issues, lowered immunity, impeded thinking, and trouble sleeping. I’m just beginning to get my mind around it, let alone to understand how best to manage it.

Last year's holiday stroll on Nantucket was
one of the most fun group trips I've ever taken.

It should sound like a blast: being invited to join a bunch of other couples we’re friends with on a long weekend on Martha’s Vineyard for a Christmas Stroll. We rented out a whole bed & breakfast right on the water, and events will be going on all weekend long. It seems to also offer a nice diversion from my challenges, right? Yet, I’m a little more anxious as the time draws closer, and now am on the eve of our departure with so many thoughts racing through my partially-fogged brain.

What if my feet can’t hold up and I’m in agony but nowhere close to our hotel? What if my back seizes up while watching a parade or street performers? How will my stomach handle it if I can’t bring my refrigerated probiotic that’s helped so much? How much of a price will I pay from cheating more on my militant diet than I’ve done any week in the last nine months? Will I hit an energy wall and need to quit the festivities and go back to my room? Will I drag Sara down with me, ruining her weekend?

Either you conquer fear or it conquers you.

Thoughts such as these can go on and on. If it’s a first thought upon awakening, I can’t stop it. But I also know it’s not best to dwell on it. A particular challenge right now is finding the balancing act between ruminating and assessing the situation and appropriately self-managing: while some meals will be unhealthy, I can eat compliant breakfasts, and with a room fridge, I can bring hard boiled eggs. I can awaken early to ease into the day and enjoy a sunrise. I can hit the gym in the morning to get some endorphins flowing and loosen me up a bit if I'm going to be active. I can bring some healthy snacks on our adventures to nibble compliant, nutritional food if my energy wanes. Since we’re morphing into various groups and offering lunch and dinner as meet-up opportunities, I can integrate a little down time here and there, or get a coffee or tea to get off my feet briefly. I can hang with the group but not be among the last ones going to bed sometime after midnight.

A late-November view of Martha's Vineyard from Cape Cod.

The basic reality won’t change: I’ll be on that island off of Cape Cod for about 72 hours. That time will pass. I will be with Sara and some close friends. There are only a couple of (admittedly big) things up for debate. The first is how I manage myself: do I push myself too hard, or do I push myself to make the most of the adventure while accepting my limits? Do I seek out activities I can handle and advocate for myself, or do I quietly go along with the crowd and white-knuckle my way along unless or until I have a flare-up? The second is what editorial I choose to attach to events: if the weekend is great, have I learned the benefits of acknowledging my limits or of calculatedly pushing myself? Or was I lucky? If the weekend devolves into a struggle, did I see the penalty of not acknowledging limits or not speaking up? Or was the whole thing a stupid idea to begin with?

For now, the piece I believe I can control is articulating and then pursuing my goals: I want to have the best time that my body allows, and to recognize my challenges only to the extent that I can then minimize them by my resulting plans. So I’ll pack food accordingly, scout out potential plans and see were the bigger dangers are, and identify my "safety valves" if I need them. I’ll then try to assume that I’m going to have a great time with great friends, and back off to allow the weekend to unfold in its own organic way. To put it more simply, my goal is perhaps no different than everyone else's: to immerse myself in a great adventure this weekend that evolves into a great memory afterwards.

It's not always a fun reality, but it is a frequent one.

One step at a time,

Jay Bell, AKA Rock Hopper

A Birthday Wish

I’ve hit that point in life at which I don’t enjoy celebrating my birthday. I’ve also hit that point when most people suggest it’s not that bad, because the alternative is death. Somehow, I don’t find that to be a heartwarming way to embrace my inevitable decline…

When I turned 45 this week, it wasn’t fun. In fact, it was probably a fitting middle-aged birthday: I was forced to work late. My kids wished me a happy birthday, but with the obligatory tone that suggests they’d be much more excited if it were their own event. Sara was out of town because of her own career demands. Life wore me out that day and left me in bed well before ten o’clock. Wow… eesh.

This year, I felt like I was barely hanging on.
Maybe next year will be different.

It doesn’t take much reflection to conclude that 44 was a rough year. It provided many doctor’s visits, a lot of uncertainty and anxiety, and culminated with a diagnosis of fibromyalgia, which brings with it a lifelong pain management situation. For someone who happily lives a pretty physical life, this sucks. What’s to celebrate? Blowing out the birthday candle, it’s easy to wish for something different, or a return to the life I was enjoying.

Where will life
take me next?

Like New Year’s, a birthday is a chance to take stock of the last year and to ponder what the next year may hold, or to articulate the wishes for the next year.  I don’t know what the year ahead may have in store, but I know that whatever happens, it will unfold at its own pace. Maybe my pain is exacerbated; maybe I have the first day in well over a year in which the pain doesn’t forcibly alter that day’s trajectory. Maybe I can again indulge in some favorite activities; maybe I remain “on the shelf”. Maybe I find some new activities to love; maybe I find myself taking on new ways of challenging myself and being horrified to discover that trying my hand at being a street performer of interpretive dance was an extremely poor self-assessment of my capabilities… OK, maybe I should start smaller.

The point is, life doesn’t allow me to hit a pause button. The band keeps playing, the stone keeps rolling, the wheel keeps turning. It’s fair to need to grieve for a loss, to allow yourself the emotions that come with an involuntary life change – particularly one painfully imposed upon you. But it doesn’t change your reality.

The paths in life are rarely easy. Nevertheless,
you've gotta choose one eventually.

As I begin accumulating some days as a 45-year-old, my more immediate focus is to not waste the time. So, my priority is about allowing myself to process the emotions of a rough situation. But, it’s also to figure out how to maximize my remaining time and capabilities that this stage of my life affords me. I need to pointedly push myself out of my comfort zone and experiment, but not force a lifestyle that isn’t authentic and genuinely fulfilling. While not an easy task, it nevertheless is the task at hand. I believe that whatever your lot in life, the best aspiration and focus is to try to maximize the potential of your situation.

My last year was one spent amidst uncertainty, negativity, repeated setbacks, and stuck in a painful limbo. Given where I landed and the clarity I received, my wish for my next year is to begin climbing out of that hole; to begin to figure out how to be passionately engaged with a life and with relationships that fulfill me, and to allow me to somehow positively impact the lives of those around me.

As a new year of life dawns, it's my wish to live it fully and to squeeze the most out of it.

One step at a time,

Jay Bell

A New Journey

Nature and my feet, AKA Beauty and the Beasts

After well over two years of mounting physical problems, I finally bottomed out but emerged with a diagnosis: fibromyalgia. It’s referred to as chronic pain, but it’s much more: essentially, your body is stuck in a “fight-or-flight” response. Yes, this means nerves are hyper-reactive. But it also means there are changes to your chemical and hormonal levels, how certain parts of your brain functions, and this can have impacts to pain, energy, digestion, immune system, and sleep, which in turn can create all kinds of impacts. So… crap.

I’ve spent the last two to three years as a bit of a physical train wreck, and spent the last few weeks as an emotional one. I have lived physically and loved it. But, in some way, my life will need to change. Maybe much of what I did can be done again, maybe there’s some new passion to replace it with, but after some time to rage and grieve, a few nuggets of clarity emerge.

The outdoors have given me some great family moments.

Hiking, mountain biking, skiing, and all my time outdoors is a way of being connected with Sara, my girls, the world around me, and with myself. At its core, those are my goals and these activities were how I reached those goals. I’ll never stop being someone who loves the outdoors, who craves adventure (hey, I guess I’ve got an excuse for being an adrenaline junkie), who strives to connect deeply with loved ones. But now my challenge becomes figuring out how that will look.

Whatever the specifics may be, the goal remains to live vibrantly.

Sometimes the "cure" seems
worse than the problem.

As I begin getting educated on this stuff, there’s a bit of a contradiction that I feel: I’m supposed to stop living how I’ve lived but I’m supposed to work to get back as much of what I lost as I can. I know an expert would say it’s more nuanced than that, but it’s how I understand the therapeutic goals as I flail early on in this process.

When I started blogging about my hikes, my goal was not to delve into the topography or detailed explanation of the trail. For me, it was to chronicle how my life and the lives of those around me were unfolding. My stated goal was to hike the 67 New England high summits. But my real goal was to use that writing as a way to focus myself on what was unfolding for and around me over a longer period of time. I was interested to look back 67 months later to see what storyline would emerge. I got halfway through, on track, before coming to a crashing halt. This diagnosis may suck, but if it’s my reality, then the only remaining question is where I go from here.

What the... ?!?! I thought I knew how to navigate life.
But now I'm in uncharted territory...

So, now I see me repurposing this writing: to explore where this new life take me; to find what new adventures await; to see how I continue to bond. I feared that I’d need to reinvent myself. But with more reflection, I think I just need to figure out how I can continue to work at being my best self. I’ll undoubtedly have some trial and error, maybe with some epic fails. I’ll presumably continue to find nature to be soul-nurturing. For all the times I push my daughters out of their comfort zones, it’ll be time for me to model the way, which may be good for some memories to wince or laugh at. And, I’ll likely look back somewhere down the road and find I’ve taken on some surprising new ways of living that I’d never have expected.

If you indulge me the hiking analogy, I’m standing at the trailhead. I can’t see far down the trail and know this will be a challenge. But, as with past hikes, I start by putting one foot in front of another (albeit painfully). Eventually, it’s euphoric to stand on the summit and feel triumphant, proud of the effort, proud of the accomplishment, proud of who I am, and of who I’m with.

... So it's time to start a new journey and see where it leads.

One step at a time,

Jay Bell, AKA Rock Hopper

67 in 67: North Twin Mountain, Grafton County, NH (summit #31)

Hike: North Twin Mountain

Elevation: 4,760

Date: September 20, 2015

Location: Grafton County, NH

Distance: 8.6 miles

Time: 6:52 (47:54/mile)

Ugh. Blah. Congrats on being wrong, National Weather Service. It wasn’t a sunny start to part two of this unexpected hiking road trip. It was rainy and foggy, with a wet chill in the air. Our hotel window had a view of North Twin, today’s goal. Only, instead of sun and clouds, it was wet and we couldn’t even see the summit. If either of us pushed to cancel the hike, the other probably would’ve agreed to skip it, sleep in, and head home. But instead, we gamely got ready to tackle the mountain.

Sara's expression tells you all you need to know about the weather. Ugh.

We started hiking as the rain picked up, having to use the waterproof jackets. The hoods helped keep us dry but prevented conversation as we trudged along. The out-and-back route involved about two miles of flat terrain with three river crossings, a mile-and-a-half of uphill, a half-mile of steep uphill, and a half-mile of flatter trail to the wooded summit, with a great view shortly before the summit’s cairn.

After the prior day’s ten mile hike up Mount Carrigain left me with a second balky knee, we moved at a slower pace, with the wetness contributing to our slower pace. The stream crossings were running a little higher than normal from the overnight rain, and we needed some care in crossing them. But the flat leg of the hike still allowed for fairly good time. As predicted, the climb started right after the last crossing and we began sweating as we worked our way up the lengthy staircase.

Sara found her route across one of North Twin's three river crossings. Yay!

Luckily, we never noticed the really steep section’s beginning. So, before we knew it, we were close to the levelling off point. Time had passed more quickly than it seemed, and we found ourselves well over three hours into the hike standing on a rocky outcropping with an incredible view. Well, on a sunny day it would be incredible. Like the prior day’s hike. But on this day we were in the middle of a cloud, staring at an impenetrable wall of gray. It was like painting a windowless room all gray and then trying to find something to admire. So we trudged on to the summit, declared summit number 31 of our 67 4,000-foot New England mountains “bagged”, and returned to the alleged view to have lunch.

What a beautiful view... the sunny day before.

Alas, some wet wind had kicked in and we found ourselves cold and uncomfortable. We decided to get back below treeline to cut the wind and moisture before breaking for food. I only had one knee brace on as I only had one bad knee until the day before, so I switched it to the other knee as I began my descent.

The wet cold had penetrated us both, but Sara was having a tougher time with it. She had packed in some added layers and stopped to swap out wet clothes for dry. I gave her my gloves to warm her hands because I’m a fantastic hiking partner and an even better guy (if I do say so myself), and in no time she was toasty and comfortable.

We finally found a nice boulder to sit on and eat lunch. But the weather left us wanting to soldier on. My knees had this pre-ache feeling, as if they were just waiting to flare up again. Sara trudged on ahead of me, finding it painful to watch me. I used my hiking poles, limped, alternated which leg I’d use to take initial steps down, took weird lines to keep my legs as comfortably straight as possible, and even walked sideways for a quarter-mile to compensate for the movements that hurt the most. My wipeout protected my knees but left me with a wet derriere. With the weather and distance between us, we walked in much more silence than the day before.

Sara navigated all three river crossings really well. Me? Not quite so lucky (or skilled)!

We moved steadily along, and I found myself excited when we finally arrived at the first return crossing of the river. It meant we’d flattened out and my knees would be fine. We focused and found good routes across the river.

Arriving at the second crossing, I remembered a blogger I read the night before, who fell in on this crossing, with onlookers witnessing his fiasco. I used extra care as I worked my way along, but nevertheless slipped myself, and immersed my left leg. I hate-hate-hate wet shoes, with squishiness on every stride. I found myself stuck, on all fours, except for the wet one thrashing in the air as if I were a bucking bronco. But luckily my waterproof boot and the gator to keep my lower legs dry actually kept my foot almost completely dry. Sara laughed but luckily just missed capturing the fall on camera. She used to be more nervous on downhills and water crossings, but has grown a confidence that matches her skills, as evidenced by her effortless crossing and dry clothes.

We finished off the hike at a fast clip and without further incident. After high-fives, changing into dry clothes, cranking the pickup’s heater, and grabbing drinks at a convenience store, we headed home. Not every hike can be beautiful or phenomenal. But hikers hike, and we’ve now hiked 31 summits. We might have one hiking weekend left in the season, and are finding glad we made the most of our spontaneous trip into the Whites!

See you on the trail,

Jay Bell, AKA Rock Hopper

67 in 67: Mount Carrigain, Grafton County, NH (summit #30)

Hike: Mount Carrigain

Elevation: 4,682

Date: September 19, 2015

Location: Grafton County, NH

Distance: 10.0 miles

Time: 7:16 (43:36/mile)

Due to some unexpected events, Sara and I found ourselves with a completely free weekend with a beautiful forecast. So, clearly there was only one solution: road trip!

Good view of North Twin from the motel!

In our quest to summit all 67 4,000-foot mountains in New England over 67 months, we’ve accumulated a few loose ends. We wanted to cross a couple of single-summit hikes off the list. North Twin was orphaned from its South Twin summit during our Labor Day Weekend hike with the girls across Galehead, South Twin, and Zealand.  Mount Carrigain just sort of hangs out there, all by its lonesome. So this formed our itinerary for the weekend. We’d start with Carrigain, the longer, tougher hike, and follow it up with North Twin before heading home.

Sara helpfully pointed out the extremely large map. It was too big to fit in
my pocket, so we stuck with the small, folded paper version we'd brought.

There aren’t a lot of hotels in the North Twin area, even less that have a refrigerator or microwave. By process of elimination, we found a place, the Profile Deluxe Motel; despite being a 60-year-old motel, it’s clearly been upgraded while retaining a nostalgic vibe, and it turned out to be inexpensive but with some great touches. We set ourselves up Friday night, and Saturday morning we found ourselves at a crowded trailhead at 9:00 a.m.

The first couple miles of the ten-mile, out-and-back hike were easy, and we chatted across a mix of topics as we made good time. Then Carrigain began rising significantly from its immediate surroundings. It became an ongoing climb until we were half a mile from the five-mile halfway point. At that point, the trail opened up and we began to get great views. Two weeks earlier, we’ hiked the north side of the Pemigewasset Wilderness with the girls, and had views that were amazing, at times with Carrigain at the southern end. Most of the amazing views we normally have still include condos or towns dotting the landscape. But in the Pemi, the landscape is pure wilderness; nothing but nature. Now, we began seeing across it to our prior hike.

The views from Carrigain's Signal Ridge begin to show a slew of summits in the Pemigewasset Wilderness.

When we finally hit the summit and found a fire tower, we were able to sit on the platform and see for miles as we snacked. We spread out our map and Sara began pointing out the summits we’d already crossed off the list, as well as some in our future.

 

Looking back from the summit at the trail across Signal Ridge that would return us to the parking lot. 

The hikes we’ve done and those remaining were part of a meandering conversation that, for the first time, touched on what we might do after our “New England 67” personal challenge. We explored the idea of a hiking bucket list; no lengthy challenge but maybe a series of particularly interesting hikes, such as a Pemi death march across a slew of summits; a winter overnight hike; a week-long hike including stays at all of the AMC’s high mountain huts; a group hike with a couple of friends’ families… the topic made for an interesting distraction from the grind, and to think about how hiking might look after May of 2018. And then…

My knee flared up on the descent. Not my occasionally gimpy left knee. No, that would be predictable and mitigated by the knee brace I’d bought. Nope. Life throws you curves, and sometimes you get plunked by those pitches. At first I thought I was imagining things. But as it kept worsening, I soon realized my right knee was doing the same thing my left normally does. Seriously, this is ridiculous. I’m already trying to protect two bad feet, a bad knee, using hiking poles. Does it count if I just parachute to the summit, plant a “Jay was here!” flag, take a picture, and get airlifted out? I used to hate the uphill grind. Now it’s the only reliable part. It’s as if I’m part of some cosmic experiment, and I can only imagine what’s next: “let’s see what happens this time if we… dislocate his kneecap!” “How about now he rips his groin muscle off the bone?” By the end of the descent I could barely walk. Then I had a 1.7 (allegedly) flat hike back to the parking lot on the final trail.

Early signs of Autumn. Boo...

When we hit that trail intersection, we saw a guy sitting there. It turns out we saw him at the summit with friends, and he’d sped past them on the way down. He was waiting for them, as they were about fifteen minutes behind us. Sanjay had recently come to the U.S., was working on his doctorate from Dartmouth, and this was his first summit. One of the friends Sanjay was accompanying was finishing his forty-seventh New Hampshire summit, leaving just Mount Washington the following weekend before finishing all that were in New Hampshire. It was refreshing to see someone so excited by life, finding new ways to explore the world around him and making the most of his experience. He was so enthusiastic and optimistic that we couldn’t help but wish him all the best.

Fabyan's Restaurant at Bretton Woods was the
perfect apres-hike spot to enjoy a last touch
of summer and some laughs with Sara!

After lingering in a pleasant conversation, we headed on. Every little descent led to bone-on-bone shooting pains up my leg. Sara let me set the pace, but as we neared the end of the trail we heard some hikers approaching us. She noted them and we got a bit competitive, making a dash for the finish line. We had a great but stupid pace for the final stretch, bursting back into the parking lot and high-fiving each other before I limped to the truck.

We felt we’d earned a reward, and knew we’d pass Fabyan’s restaurant on the way back, across from the Bretton Woods ski resort. It appeared to be a good place, named after one of the prominent historical figures in the area and converted from a former train depot but retain that old-time feel. Although we hadn’t brought a change of clothes, Sara had some layers she hadn’t used that she could change into. I had to resort to hanging my sweaty, wet hiking shirt off the back of the truck to at least be air dried by the time we hit the restaurant. We sat outside, enjoying some great food and view, soaking in one of the last summer-like days of the season.

 

Another summit,
another problem.

That evening, as we laid in the hotel room, my legs a sore mess, we were still happy. We’d hit our thirtieth summit and had some great conversation along the way. My knee pain had subsided once we hit flatter terrain and then finished hiking, leaving me comfortable trying for a hike the next day. We knew the season was nearing an end, but had picked up some hiking momentum and now felt a renewed connection to the mountains. All in all, it’s hard to call this a bad day!

See you on the trail,

Jay Bell, AKA Rock Hopper