Rolling the Dice on a Walk in the Woods

I laughed after it happened.

My sister and I were hiking a downhill section of Black Balsam—my favorite trail, a high-elevation loop featuring thickets of wild blueberries and grassy summits that offer to-die-for views of the surrounding Blue Ridge—when my foot caught on a rock. 

I tripped. Next thing I knew, I was lying on my back at the bottom of the hill, amazed that I had somehow escaped without so much as a scratch. My sister asked anxiously if I was OK, and I just laughed. I was fine. We hiked out, picked up some delicious-but-terrible “Chinese” food for dinner, and spent the rest of the evening binging episodes of Parks and Recreation.

If I’d known then how long it would be before my next hike, I might have found Ron Swanson and Leslie Knope a little less entertaining. A few days later, a mysterious pain appeared in my right foot, and I soon found out the fall had damaged both a ligament and a muscle there. 

Thus began one of the most frustrating summers of my life. I was on crutches, then off them, then back on them again, and finally in an ankle brace and on anti-inflammatories. In the meantime, I had just closed on my first house and was forbidden from doing any of the things typically associated with moving—like, for instance, carrying or unpacking boxes. My poor dog, who under typical circumstances is probably one of the most-exercised canines in town, had to settle for evenings attached to a metal lead tethered outside the back door.  

Hiking and running, it’s safe to say, were out of the question. It made me more than a little grumpy. 

Fast forward two months and I was finally, gingerly, beginning to do some of the things I’d taken for granted before that rock jumped up and bit me. I started taking my dog on walks again, gradually increasing the distance, and eventually, ankle brace carefully attached, I began to attempt some short hikes, focusing on my foot as much as the scenery, ready to bail at the slightest tinge of pain. 

It was nice to start spending time outside again, but it certainly wasn’t the same as it had been pre-injury. I felt so fragile, and I hated it. 

Finally, in late September—more than three months since I’d stupid fallen and stupid injured my stupid foot—I decided that it was time to test myself. It was supposed to be a beautiful fall weekend, and I would spend it outdoors, doing exactly what I wanted to do: run, hike, and hike. 

The run came first, a pleasant lope through the park Friday after work that cleansed me of the week’s stress and prepared me for an evening of relaxation. But when Saturday morning came—and with it, a strenuous 5-mile hike to one of the most beautiful high-elevation overlooks on the Blue Ridge Parkway—I was feeling nervous. That weakling muscle in my foot was slightly sore from the previous day’s exercise. I iced it while I waited for my boyfriend to come pick me up, stashing the pack before he reached the door. I wasn’t in the mood to be worried over. It was time to roll the dice. 

It really was a gamble. The hike in question was perhaps my favorite in the area, but also one of the most challenging—a semi-official route that departs the Blue Ridge Parkway just under 20 miles from its southern terminus to scramble through high-elevation spruce-fir forest that smells sharp and fresh on even the hottest days of summer. Between stands of forest are high grasses, blackberry cane and glimpses of the valley below. Eventually, the trail reaches a large, flat rock atop which waits a 360-degree panorama of the surrounding mountains and valleys. 

As someone who loves nothing more than spending time outdoors and pushing against my own physical limits, it’s impossible to describe just how frustrating it had been to spend the previous three months as a quasi-invalid. For a while there, even walking to the end of my short little driveway to pick up the mail or take out the trash felt like an Olympic feat. Walking through actual woods on an actual trail—and sweating, working hard, pushing against the complaints of muscles other than those in my traitorous foot—felt like coming alive again. 

But still, in the back of my mind, I wondered. Did that stubborn pang of discomfort mean I was about to send myself back on crutches? Or was it just the result of the brace poking into my skin? Should I turn around? Or should I keep walking?

I kept walking, and the next day, I walked some more. This weekend was going to be sink or swim. 

Sunday’s adventure was definitely—purposely—easier. This time the crew also included my favorite 10-year-old kid, and the mostly flat 4-mile roundtrip waterfall hike I’d planned pushed her limits about as far as was wise. And, of course, I was still wondering how far it would push mine. 

As it turns out, I needn’t have worried. We made it to the waterfall just fine, found some cool salamanders hanging out in the pools below, took the requisite look-at-me-I’m-standing-in-front-of-a-waterfall selfies. Then we turned around, hiked out, and celebrated our accomplishment with ice cream. 

The smell of the woods still filled my nostrils, and I felt human again.