Pain(e) Grande

The Patagonian summer light stung as I emerged from a feather-filled cocoon. My nose crinkled from the pungent flatulence of one of my hiking partners.

“Oh for God’s sake, Sexy,” I groaned.

As loud as I could, I released the air in my sleeping pad and stared at the culprit.

Wisps of greasy blond hair was all I could see. Chris cinched the hood of his sleeping bag tighter, determined not to wake up for another fifteen minutes.

Back in Vermont at college, Chris Adamo was a high-achieving math major who assisted professors in their research and had already taken a job offer for employment after graduation. Here at Campamento Italiano on the Torres del Paine “O” circuit, I could only think how he refused to admit he was lactose intolerant. Alec Fleischer, our other hiking mate, and I had to suffer the consequences of his determination to eat Poptarts, instant mashed potatoes, and cheesy Knorr Rice Sides. We’d’ nicknamed him “Sexy.”

I stormed out of the tent in a not-so-subtle display of annoyance. Outside our nylon shelter, and away from my semi-conscious companions, I dropped the act.

Gingerly, I lowered myself onto a decaying log. I prodded gently at the swollen mass of flesh on the inside of my right knee. Slowly I flexed my leg out straight.

It hurt. A lot.

A low rumble brought me back to my surroundings. I looked around for the cause of the commotion. The rumbling grew louder as I turned to see massive chunks of ice and snow tumble down the steep sides of Cerro Paine Grande.

From our campsite at its base, the mountain looked like glaciated fortress. Instead of maintaining the typical conical structure of a mountain, with sloping flanks and ridges that rise to create one distinct summit, Paine Grande seemed more of an amalgamation of granite cliffs and glaciers. Its peak, or collection of peaks more closely resembled like the top of a spiky pinecone, with cliffs jutting out in odd angles, than the traditional rolling Green Mountains I was accustomed to seeing in Vermont.

Paine Grande had inspired generations of mountaineers. Though it existed on one of the most traveled hiking loops in South America, only four teams of climbers had successfully scaled the mountain’s 3,000 vertical meters of ice and rock to reach its summit.

Instead of filling me up with a sense of wonder or awe, the mountain cemented a feeling that had been growing inside of me for a few days: fear.

.  .  .

Within a half day of arriving in Patagonia, we made the first change to our planed itinerary. Instead of recovering from the 48 hours of traveling we had completed the day before, we elected to take a morning bus an hour and a half north-east to the entrance of Torres del Paine national park.

Disregarding our reservations that did not grant us park entrance until the next day, we snuck into the preserve. Inside, we walked and hitch-hiked our way to a remote lake on the edge of the park. There, far from the crowded buses or demanding park rangers, it began to sink in. The trip that the three of us had been planning for months was actually happening. We were in Patagonia.

Hidden underneath a dense tangle of curly brown hair, Alec beamed. The serious demeanor he maintained at school was gone. In its place was the giddy excitement of a toddler preparing to play with new toys for the first time. He paced restlessly up and down the pebble beach drinking in his surroundings. The lake was surrounded by arid rolling hills covered with brown and yellow scraggly shrubs. A few guanacos, the larger relative of llamas, grazed in the distance.

Suddenly in a flurry of activity, he stripped down to his underwear and sprinted into the water. Chris and I, who had been watching him quietly for a while, turned to each other with smiles. Silently, we too stripped down and followed him into the water.

The water was frigid, and after a short bout of splashing each other, we charged out of the lake to dry off and warm up.

“Four days ago I was cramming for an exam as it snowed outside” Chris mused as we basked in the 70 degree afternoon sunlight.

We carried our bubbly energy into the next day as we started our trek. Though we had less than 10 miles to cover that day, we maintained a fast pace and reached our campsite by 3:00 pm.

Over the next few days we fell into a routine of hiking quickly and taking long breaks. We fell into the habit of taking naps after lunch before continuing to hike. The seemingly endless amount of sunlight left us feeling no sense of urgency—if we accidently took a longer siesta than expected, and did not get to our campsite until 7:00 or 8:00 at night, we still had 3 to 4 hours of sunlight to enjoy before sunset.

As we continued, the terrain changed dramatically. The arid rolling hills we had first seen were replaced first by patches of dense leafy forests, glacier-fed rivers, and eventually high mountain passes and snowfields.

I recorded as much as I could in my journal: The trail has become much less flat. Today we continued onto a pass which was made up largely of lose rock. The saddle was situated between tall mountains that looked more like needles than anything else. None of the mountains surrounding the pass could be summited without serious climbing gear and experience navigating glaciers with deep crevasses. We admired their beauty from a distance.

Our style of hiking evolved over the first few days as well. While we had hiked as a team in the beginning, always within earshot of each other, we naturally spread ourselves out the further we went. Soon we got to a point where we hiked almost exclusively solo, meeting up only when the person in the lead of our three-person caravan decided to stop for water or a snack.

The trip became more serious and personal. We had fewer conversations as a group, but the discussions we did have were more intense. We had all been good friends before the trip. Alec and I had spent countless number of days hiking together in Vermont and interacted daily back at school. Chris and I had been roommates for the first two years of college and knew each other almost too well. Still we reached a new level of familiarity on the trip. No subject was off limits to discussion, and the three of us grew closer than ever before.

Hours spent hiking alone meant I was also closer to myself. No longer protected by a busy schedule or the normal minutiae of life, my mind was let lose to wander. Feelings were heightened, good thoughts turned into incredible highs, while negative thoughts were magnified and at times felt all consuming.

Quietly, I noticed my inexperience in long distance trekking in comparison to my two hiking partners. Over the previous summer, both Chris and Alec had hiked the Long Trail, the nation’s oldest long-distance hiking trail that snaked from Williamstown, MA through Vermont to Jay, VT on the US border with Canada. The 272-mile trail required weeks of continuous thru-hiking. On the Long Trial, Alec and Chris had both already experienced the feeling of being left alone to your own thoughts for hours at a time. They were both used to the routine of hiking full days, eating strange, calorie packed meals before quickly going to sleep only to pick up your same heavy backpack the next morning, cinch your hip-straps tight over your perpetually bruised pelvis and get back to hiking the next day.

Alec and Chris spent more time reminiscing about the Long Trail. They swapped stories of misadventures and compared experiences staying in various shelters and meeting various people. As they talked, I sat and listened, feeling sidelined without anything to add to their conversations. Though I was just as good shape as they were, and was able to hike the same distance as them, my mind slowly developed the notion that I was the weakest link. More and more I felt that I was in some way holding back the group.

Instead of vocalizing these thoughts, I kept them to my journal.

Previously, though I have put in big mileage days and summited relatively technical mountains, most of the trips I have been on have been day hikes or single night overnights. In many ways, I am looking at this trip as a proving ground for myself to do bigger hikes like the Long Trail or even the Appalachian or Pacific Crest Trail. Sometimes I feel like the odd-man out on this trip, or a person who needs to hide their inexperience from the others. The good news is that I have been able to keep up with the others without too much trouble so far, let’s hope that continues…

It didn’t.

I had noticed my knee almost immediately on the trip. In the beginning it was nothing to worry about. Every so often I would get a slight twinge in my right knee. As the days progressed, my knee started to hurt more often, and the pain became more acute. I spent more time everyday thinking about my knee, but I didn’t say anything to the others about it.

I’m starting to think my body is not cut out for thru-hiking. Though it has not yet affected my hiking, my right knee is in pretty bad pain when I move it. My mind wants to hike but my body is definitely in pain.

I wrote that the day before we got into Campamento Italiano. Now, as I sat on that decaying log looking at Cerro Paine Grande. I was worried.

The pain was bad. Really bad. I could hardly walk.

That morning, while we were eating breakfast, I finally told the others.

Alec and Chris were silent. There was nothing they could do, stuck half way through an 9-day backpacking trip. Chris broke the silence.

“Have you tried taking Advil”

“Yeah, I’m already taking twice the recommended amount.”

“Shit.”

“I know.”

 

Silence.

 

“I think I’m just going to hike a little slower today, feel free to hike ahead.”

“Okay, let us at least take your food.”

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

We packed up from breakfast and silently broke camp.

As I watched their two figures become small dots on the horizon, I felt even worse. Now Chris and Alec were carrying heavier packs because of me. As I hobbled along the trail, my mind spun.

My knee really hurts. I’m scared, mad and disappointed.

I think I somehow reinjured my meniscus and MCL that I partially tore in 8^th grade. I have never had issues with it since, but then again I have never hiked for 6 days in a row carrying 40+ pounds either.

My thoughts became darker.

Mentally I want to hike and physically I am in shape, but my body hurts with every step—especially downhill. It’s tough because I am in the most beautiful place in my life doing what I love to do the most, but I am limited by my body.

Finally I admitted what I was actually most afraid of.

I am also really worried about preventing Chris and Alec from fully enjoying their Patagonia experience too.

Somehow, by hurting my knee, I had ruined the trip. I ruined the trip for myself, for Chris and for Alec.

Before this trip, hiking had always been a release for me. Hidden away in the woods, or high up on a mountain, I found a place where I felt comfortable and free from the stresses of everyday life.

Comfortable. Comfortable mentally, not physically.

But though hiking could be physically exhausting, I loved the discomfort associated with the sport. I found that all of the pain my body endured while hiking was a product of my own doing. When struggling up a steep mountain, the only force that kept my body moving upwards and forcing my limbs to experience pain and fatigue, was me. In hiking, controlled my footfalls. I controlled my pain.

This control was calming to me.

My knee hurts uncontrollably. I hate it.

In a way, my knee broke my rules of hiking. My knee had ruined hiking.

.  .  .

Three days and many doses of Advil later, the swelling in my knee was starting to go down. I was now able to walk without a limp and felt much less pain with every step I was taking. I was on the road to recovery.

Only, I had an issue.

It was our last day in the park, and we had to catch a bus that left at 1:00 to get back to Puerto Natales where we could resupply and eat real food.

It was also our last opportunity to see the Torres—three fingerlike granite towers that protruded 1,500 meters vertically from a rocky basin filled with a glacial lake.

Park Rangers we had spoken to recommended we allocate 4 hours to hike up to the basin and 4 hours to hike back down to the park entrance where we could catch our bus.

We didn’t have 8 hours to allocate.

We were going to have to trail run—I was going to have to trail run.

So we did. I gulped down more tablets of Advil than I would care to admit and proceeded to trot after Chris and Alec who were already disappearing up the trail.

At first the running hurt a lot. I loped up the trail wincing with every step. Soon, however, an old welcome feeling set over me. My body went completely numb and a soft smile set over my face. I felt in control of my pain. I felt the runner’s high.

Realistically, I was feeling an Advil high, but in either case, for the first time that trip, I felt like I belonged. I felt capable.

We reached the base of the Torres in a little under two hours. There we cooled off from our run by swimming in the lake, and spent 2 hours sitting in awe of the powerful mountains in front of us. Sooner than any of us wanted, we decided to leave and trotted back down the trail. We made our 1:00 bus with 4 minutes to spare.

Though I could barely walk the next day, I knew I had overcome the barrier in front of me. By trail running the day before I proved to myself that even while injured, I could continue to hike. I could keep up with Chris and Alec. I belonged on the trip.

My knee continued to bother me for the remainder of the trip, but it never scared me again. By the end of the trip, my chief complaints had returned to the not-so-sweet smells of Sexy.