Crooked River practice

High in the Boise Mountains north of town, the Crooked River runs clear and cold through a canyon of ponderosa pine, douglas fir, and black rock outcroppings. I followed the narrow path along the stream, carrying my full backpack. No one else was about.

Just a week before leaving home I bought a new pack, after deciding my old one wouldn’t do. The main problem is the large bear canister I have to carry for the first portion on the Pacific Crest Trail; I couldn’t get it to fit in my smaller, old pack. I’d been trying for the last months to whittle my gear down to the smallest load possible, and a larger pack worked against those efforts; but I couldn’t figure out how to otherwise carry ten days of food (as I have to on the first section) and the canister….

(Hard bear canisters are required through portions of the Sierras, in particular in Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks. In part, I suppose because much of the hiking is above treeline, so there’s no possibility of hanging up one’s food. The bears are all of the black variety (who will take one’s food but who only very rarely attack humans); though the grizzly is on the California state flag, there are none remaining in the state. If there were, I would be hiking elsewhere this summer….)

The pack was heavier than I could’ve wished…. I hiked two and a half miles downstream, making adjustments, trying to get the right fit…. I discovered the water bottle is very difficult to get out of the left pocket when I have the pack on….

I’d thought I might go out overnight, a shakedown hike, but I wasn’t up for it…. Too impatient, or not ready, I don’t know. After an hour and a half I stopped and sat on a log and ate a snack and read the first pages of Don DeLillo’s The Body Artist, but the main event at the start of the novel was a suicide, and I decided that that subject was not a mood enhancer, and soon I packed up and started back…. I’d gotten in enough time with the pack on to know that it would work. Good thing, since I set off in four days….

Still, back in Boise I stopped at the REI and wore the pack inside to get some adjustment advice. Usually at an REI one is swarmed with salespeople, but this one was rather lonely…. The first person I got to help knew less than I did…. But she took me to Susie in footwear, and I benefited from her expertise. She made a few minor suggestions but said the pack seemed well fitted to me. I guess I just want it to be perfect right off, or maybe less heavy. But that last is not really a matter of strap adjustments.

From REI I drove to the rehab center. Grandpa was tired today, not as strong or alert as he has been for the last week. He sat in his wheelchair and I pulled up a chair and sat across from him, next to the bed. He kept his head bowed mostly, rubbed his forehead…. “I just can’t seem to get going…” He sounded angry, frustrated. “If I could just get a good night’s sleep….” He’d been up most of the night, exhausted but unable to sleep. Apparently he’d been given some sleeping med, but he was too anxious and it hadn’t worked. He’s been insomniac for years, but it’s taking a particular toll now, when he’s trying to heal….

He blew out a long breath, a fatigued sigh, grimaced as he shifted in his chair; he lifted his right leg and put it over his left. I asked about his physical therapy, and he waved a hand dismissively. “I told her I was going to do it my way or I wasn’t going to bother.” It seems he prevailed. Instead of going to the gym for exercises he had gone outside and shuffled about the grounds with his walker.

We sat through several long silences…. But he eventually he fell into anecdote and that perked him up a little…. We moved from the broken hip to other injuries. For example a broken arm he suffered in his mid-sixties, in a roller skating accident. He’d gone to a local rink with some friends. At first he refused to skate—it was a new sport for him. “But they kept needling me….” Once he got out on the rink, he went around, holding the rail. “And I thought I was doing pretty good,” he said. But back at the entrance to the rink, he tried to cross over the open space, to talk to someone on the other side. “And my feet just went right out from under me, and I put my hand back to… you know…. What do call it?”

“Break your fall?” I suggested.

“Yeah, break my fall…. And I broke it all right."  

I asked if he tried to break his fall when he fell off the ladder. It took a couple repetitions to get him to understand the question, but then he said, no. “No, I didn’t have any time for that.”

We drifted into other accident stories, and he told about a near-miss on a drive from LA to Mojave, forty or fifty years ago. A woman had passed out at the wheel, pulling hard right on the wheel as she fell over, bringing her car around in a tight circle, and Grandpa was just able to avoid her by swerving into the median. His mood and energy brightened with this tale of agility, of trouble successfully avoided….

Still, when dinner time arrived he didn’t feel up to a visit to the dining room. I went and talked to someone in the kitchen, and his meal was brought to the room. When he lifted the lid off the plate he made a small noise of happy surprise: a piece of steak and a half of baked potato. “Well,” he said…. He unwrapped the silverware from the cloth napkin. “But no butter,” he noted.  I pointed to a small metal bowl on the side. “Okay,” he said, seeing it; then added, critically and waving his knife, “all those chives.” I thought briefly of scraping them off the top of the butter but decided, no, he could deal with it himself….

Before I left I said, I hope you sleep tonight. Grandpa said, “Boy, I don’t know…. But I’ll give it all I got.”