To paint the picture for this story, one of my favorite stories to tell, the reader needs to imagine Erik as a thoroughly intense person. Like Jack Shepherd intense. When Erik got his first tattoo, he went right for his spine, because he heard it was the most painful place to get stabbed by a needle over and over again. It would be more meaningful that way, he felt. And when Erik learned about the early onset of arthritis nesting in his 24 year-old body, it didn't really occur to him to complain, or to alter any part of his lifestyle. He did things exactly the way he did before, only now they were harder. His sentiment was, "So there's pain - what of it?"
He just stretched several times day, took the multitude of pills prescribed to him, and ate a shitload of bananas. "The potassium" he explains, "is extremely important." Almost without exception, every time Erik walks into a store he walks out with bananas. He eats them in 2 or 3 bites.
So when Erik and I set off on our first "hard" back country camping trip, as rated by the Shenandoah National Park website, Erik's pack was stocked with plenty of bananas. And tuna and cliff bars and peanuts and a trowel and four flashlights and five knives and his tent and his 9 mm. Again, intense. My pack had some of those things, minus the firearm, plus a few gadgets like the expensive GPS unit and the water purifier, plus a journal to record mileage and wildlife and things.
The trip was planned for nine miles to the site and another nine back to the car, which isn't so daunting. Just a single night, and the Spring weather would be nice. But a couple hours into day 1, we began to notice how we'd been hiking downhill almost nonstop. Due either to hubris or ignorance, we weren't seriously concerned. It's not like we had to run back up the hill, we could go as slow as we needed to. How hard could walking get?
We found a place to camp on the crest of a hill, with a breathtaking view of the famed Shenandoah valley and plenty of flat ground to pitch our tent. We actually slept pretty well, and at first light we packed everything up, reset the GPS, and began the climb upward.
It was somewhere between steps 25-30 that I thought to myself, "We've made a huge mistake." My legs were crying out in pain from the downhill hike the day before, and I started doing the math. I considered how much food we had, our access to fresh water, and the remaining hours of daylight - to that I added the elevation deferential between us and our car: 5,186 feet. Not good.
I wasn't imagining our emaciated bodies picked apart by carrion, mind you, as on the way down we saw a troupe of cheery boy scouts who surely would have carried us back to our car like dutiful Oompa Loompas. But even still, for me anyway, the fear was real; we were 1/10th of the way up the mountain and my body was already begging me to quit.
I didn't say anything because I usually internalize my fears long before I express them. And Erik didn't say anything because he thinks and acts like a Combat Carl. So on we trudged for a little while, until I had my first breakdown. I leveled with Erik: "I'm going to have to leave my pack here on the mountain. I can come back for it next weekend. There's no way I can make it with the pack."
Erik was disgusted by my bargaining, and wouldn't consider it even for a second, even after I begged him. He said, "If you drop your pack, I'm going to carry it. But nothing is getting left on this mountain."
Combat Carl finds a way.
He told me not to think about the miles ahead, or the depressing nature of the elevation behind us and the elevation in front of us. "Just focus on your next step," he said, "and when it hurts, just scream." And so I started to scream. Which means on that particular Sunday I had cried and screamed before 9:00am. 4,000 vertical feet to go.
A mile or so later Erik sort of . . . crumbled. Not in a metaphorical way, but was walking and then like a sandcastle he just sort of crumbled onto his ass. Through a grimace, he revealed to me what he'd been hiding: his arthritis was acting up and his legs, as I understood it, were losing flexibility. I fished through his pack to grab his medicine kit, and he found the medicine he had been prescribed to fight particularly painful attacks,
"You should take one too" he said. "It'll help."
He was not wrong. The next 8 miles were still miserable - we ran out of both food and water, and at times we moved so slowly I was worried the sun would set before we made it up the mountain - but we made it to the top, packs and all. I was emotionally compromised and physically shaking, but we were back on asphalt. In the car, a left on Skyline Drive, and back to civilization.
Except that's when the next attack came. Erik's legs seized up and it was all he could do to veer off onto a clearing on the shoulder. He spilled out of the car and onto the ground, and I looked on in horror as he seemed to be fighting through a considerable amount of pain. He was telling me not to call 911, but it didn't matter anyway because we were still up in the mountains and my phone had no service.
Suddenly, a small Chinese man was beside me. Looking back, I suppose he must have seen us and pulled his car over, but at the time I could have sworn he emerged from the forest. He wasn't ancient, but he was very old, and he spoke in whispy, broken English - and he wanted to help.
Erik got out ". . . bananas"
The situation was already pretty absurd, so I just threw it out there. "Sir, do you have any, um, bananas with you?"
"Yes, yes, wait." He went back to his car, and returned with an entire sack of bananas. There were perhaps three or four bunches of them. Apparently unphased by the sheer improbability of his good fortune, Erik began crushing the bananas one by one and throwing the peels to the side.
Largely useless throughout this whole ordeal, I began collecting the discarded peels. I then took a bunch out of the bag, and tried to hand the rest back to the Chinese Banana Man, but he refused. They were a gift, he said, and as Erik - still flat on his back on the side of the road - regained his sanity and control of his legs, I thanked our hero and sent him on his way.
We made it back home safely. I'm careful to check for elevations now before embarking on a trail.
The moral of the story is this: Thank you Chinese Banana Man, wherever you are.
"You should take one too" he said. "It'll help."
He was not wrong. The next 8 miles were still miserable - we ran out of both food and water, and at times we moved so slowly I was worried the sun would set before we made it up the mountain - but we made it to the top, packs and all. I was emotionally compromised and physically shaking, but we were back on asphalt. In the car, a left on Skyline Drive, and back to civilization.
Except that's when the next attack came. Erik's legs seized up and it was all he could do to veer off onto a clearing on the shoulder. He spilled out of the car and onto the ground, and I looked on in horror as he seemed to be fighting through a considerable amount of pain. He was telling me not to call 911, but it didn't matter anyway because we were still up in the mountains and my phone had no service.
Suddenly, a small Chinese man was beside me. Looking back, I suppose he must have seen us and pulled his car over, but at the time I could have sworn he emerged from the forest. He wasn't ancient, but he was very old, and he spoke in whispy, broken English - and he wanted to help.
Erik got out ". . . bananas"
The situation was already pretty absurd, so I just threw it out there. "Sir, do you have any, um, bananas with you?"
"Yes, yes, wait." He went back to his car, and returned with an entire sack of bananas. There were perhaps three or four bunches of them. Apparently unphased by the sheer improbability of his good fortune, Erik began crushing the bananas one by one and throwing the peels to the side.
Largely useless throughout this whole ordeal, I began collecting the discarded peels. I then took a bunch out of the bag, and tried to hand the rest back to the Chinese Banana Man, but he refused. They were a gift, he said, and as Erik - still flat on his back on the side of the road - regained his sanity and control of his legs, I thanked our hero and sent him on his way.
We made it back home safely. I'm careful to check for elevations now before embarking on a trail.
The moral of the story is this: Thank you Chinese Banana Man, wherever you are.