You know that song by The Rolling Stones, it goes something like “you cant al-ways get what you wannttt, but if you try sometime, you just might find, you get what you neeedddd”. Its one of my favorite songs, (although my favorite rendition if by Rusted Root) not for the tune, nor the melody but for the truth that lies behind those lyrics. I sing it often to my friends, family and students that I worked with in wilderness therapy over the past 6 months. So often we cling to the way we envision our lives working out, the way we want things to go, the way we want things to turn out. Then life hands us something completely different and we are angry, sad, upset and therefore create more suffering for ourselves. I like to think there is a bigger picture to this whole thing, bigger than our puny brains can really comprehend.
In 2017, I took a gap year before going to university and I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail. I fell in love with hiking and the simplicity that the lifestyle provides. Before even finishing that hike I knew I wanted more, it then became my dream and plan to hike the Pacific Crest Trail as soon as I finished university. I graduated with my bachelors in Spanish and Social Work in August 2021, but one needs to begin the trail in April/May. So I decided I would check out wilderness therapy and save up some more money before being able to hike in April of 2022. So thats what I did, I got my permit all in order to hike the PCT starting April 11th and I had just finished up my last shift working as a wilderness therapy field guide near Salt Lake City, Utah. I was making my way from Utah back to Michigan, with some stops along the way to see friends. I would then see some friends and family in Michigan, ride down to Nashville, Tennessee with my mom for my cousins wedding, then fly from Nashville to San Diego to begin my 5 year dream of thru-hiking the PCT. I had it all planned out.
I stopped in Moab and got dinner with a friend, then went south to Indian Creek to go climbing with another friend, I then headed east to Eagle, Colorado to see some other folks. I had always wanted to check out riding a snowmobile and my old college friend, Jack, said he could probably take me out and we could ride around the state park where he was a ranger. I met up with him the next morning and after I helped him finish up some chores we got out the sleds and he gave me a rundown of how they worked and we were off. It was quite the bumpy ride on the road we were on and it took me quite a while to get used to this loud, big machine. It felt really unnatural, although I appreciated it for means of travel. How cool to be able to go to places that hardly anyone goes to, with minimal effort. After about 45 minutes the bumpy, well traveled road opened up to untouched fields of snowy mountainous hills. We went out a little bit into the abyss before taking a break, taking our helmets off and appreciating the view.
We were on top of an area called Lime Creek, a popular climbing area in the summer time, we decided we would go check out the crag before heading back so Jack could return to work. Jack took off and I quickly got my machine stuck in the soft, deep snow that surrounded us. I hopped off and did what I could to get it unstuck but I couldn’t do it alone. Luckily, he soon returned and we were able to dig it out and lift it to better grounds and he was able to drive it out and onto a better area. It was difficult to dig out because the snow was so soft and there was about two to three feet of it and we would just sink in with every step we took. We went back to the crossroads and crossed over a bridge to get to the climbing area, we took another break, chatted a bit and right before leaving, I got my sled stuck again in the untouched snow that surrounded us. We (he) got it unstuck and we were to start the journey back to the state park.
Approaching the bridge, I started too far left. I was aiming to get back into the middle more, but it was too late. The snow on the left side of the bridge collapsed and I was free falling the twelve feet into the creek bed below. This is it, I thought, in addition to as much profanity that could escape during my fall. A part of me really thought that that was going to be the end. Boom. There was a loud crashing noise and I was suddenly in the creek. There was about a foot of water, and the coldness felt amazing on a knee that had to be broken. I looked to my left and the snowmobile was lying upside down in the stream, luckily three feet away from where I had landed myself. My helmet had taken the worst of the fall but had popped off after the initial impact, there was blood everywhere. I stuck my face into the surrounding snow and noticed the blood patches it left behind, but the coolness of the snow felt so nice on my bleeding head. Jack was just up ahead and hadn’t noticed the fall. Right after the bridge was a series of trails heading off into different directions. I cried for help, for Jack, for anyone, I wanted to be rescued so badly. I quickly realized however that the Calvary wasn’t coming. It was up to me. I was in survival mode and knew I would need to get myself out of the ravine that I had fallen into if I wanted to increase the likelihood and timeliness of him finding me. I assumed falling off the bridge was the last thing he would think that I did. I mustered up all the strength I had within me and crawled through the stream, under the bridge to a patch of ice then began crawling my way up the snowy embankment that led down to the river. I would post hole up to my thigh with my good right leg then painfully drag my broken left leg up to meet it in the snow. I crawled hand over hand until I could get to where it evened out a bit and I could see more of the horizon. I was screaming for my friend, praying he would find me soon.
Jack came ripping back around on his snowmobile and upon seeing him, I gave up entirely. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry” I said while bawling my eyes out. Referring to his boss’s snowmobile I had surly just wrecked. “That’s not really what I am worried about right now” he replied with a terrified look in his eyes. We decided he would stand behind me and pull my upper body to the snowmobile while I pushed as much as I could with my one good leg. After many arduous minutes of this I was within reach of the snowmobile, getting up on it was another challenge in itself, but we got me on the machine. Jack went and retrieved my helmet from the stream and was able to flip the machine back upright again. “I don’t know if this makes you feel any better, but the machine seems to be just fine”. “Yes, a little thanks” I replied with as sheepish of a grin as I could muster. We mounted the machine and he was skeptical that it was going to work since the machines weren’t really designed for two people and the snow was quite soft, we didn’t have much of a choice though. Pretty soon after mounting the machine, it got slightly stuck and I had to dismount so Jack could get it unstuck and reposition it for us to get out of there. This time he would try standing up and I would do my best to not be a complete rag doll on the back. “I don’t know if this will work” he said with a look of dismay. “It has to” I stated, matter of factly “we don’t have many other options”. So we set off and successfully were able to get out of the deeper snow we were in and get back to the road that had been pretty well traveled. Well traveled, but with wave like bumps traversing the whole thing. My broken leg was floating off to the side and I dug the good side of my head into the back of Jack so to stabilize it as much as possible for the hour long bumpy ride back to the state park. We would occasionally hit a bump that would make my broken leg hit off the surface of the snow and I would scream in agony. We would stop and eventually I secured my foot on top of his and that seemed to be the best spot for it, then the journey had to continue. I was spitting up blood throughout and unable to blow the mucus/blood out of my nose because it was increasing the pressure in the wound behind my eye and it was making my eye feel as it could fall out.
After about an hour and half of focusing on my breathing throughout the difficult journey, we arrived back at the state park. Jack’s boss was waiting for us as he had been radioed when we got closer and back into service. They both helped me off the snowmobile and served as my crutches for getting into the vehicle. After getting off the snowmobile, into the truck, and one more step closer to a hospital, I let all my bravery go and collapsed in a fit of sobs. I sobbed for the pain, I sobbed for the fear that I remembered looking down at the creek bed below, I sobbed for my foreseen inability to hike the trail I had been dreaming of for 5 years. I also was sobbing because I felt terrible that I crashed my friends boss’s snowmobile. Despite all the grief and tears there was an air of radical acceptance at my situation and an intense gratitude for being alive. Jack drove me another hour to the hospital in Vail, Colorado as I reclined in the passenger chair and focused on my breathing with intermittent periods of intense crying.
Upon getting to the ER in Vail, Jack went in and got a wheel chair for me and quite quickly, about 15 doctors, nurses and other medical professionals were all on top of me, asking me questions, undressing me and taking control of the situation. I felt a rush of relief at finally being in a comfortable place where professionals could help me. I briefly told them what had happened and where the points of pain were and they were quick to start the X-rays and cat scans. As I had thought, I broke my knee, a complete fracture of my left tibial plateau, I fractured my left trapezium (the bone that connects the thumb to the wrist), I had to get some stitches on a “scratch” that was deep enough to see bone on my elbow. Where things got tricky though was I had also fractured part of my skull, the sinus behind my right eye was shattered and filled with air. The Vail doctors are experts at fixing my specific knee injury but they have no plastic surgeons for what I would need to repair my skull. So with that news they sent me off in a two hour ambulance ride to a trauma hospital in Denver.
After arriving to Denver Health, I was once again greeted by an army of medical professionals and they went to work on what needed to be done. I was told I would need a coronal flap surgery on my skull, they would place a titanium plate in place of the broken pieces so I wouldn’t have a dent in my skull. Then I would need a open reduction internal fixation on my tibial plateau, where they would put some screws and plates in to help my knee heal properly. None of them needed to be done urgently so I was transferred from the ER to another floor to rest for the night. I was in the hospital for a day and a half before they took me up to surgery. Luckily, they were able to do both surgeries at the same time. One long six hour surgery. It has been two days since and I am able to get to the real bathroom on my own, sit up, and move my knee up and down. The pain was quite intense and intolerable the day after but it has significantly subsided.
So here I am. On the road to recovery, with some new fancy bling installed in my head and knee. My knee will be unweight bearing for 6-8 weeks and will take about 3-4 months to fully recover. I will follow up with a doctor to take the staples out of my head (that expand ear to ear) in about two weeks. I don’t know what the next five months of my life looks like anymore. I imagine there will be plenty of hardship, grieving, pain, sorrow but also lots of gratitude, love, compassion, friendship and beautiful experiences to be had. I am confident that I will find and soak in all the silver linings. I look forward to observing what doors may open as a result of this experience and lessons that will come from it. Don’t get me wrong, I think there is still plenty of grieving and frustration for me to let out about not being able to hike the PCT this year. The trail will always be there though, and the timing just simply wasn’t right for me this year, and who knows why. Maybe I have more things to learn, more people to meet or things that I must accomplish or do before I undertake that journey. I have faith, I have trust in the way of the world. I have faith in being in the exact spot I need to be in at any given time and having the exact right experience that I need to be having. My heart is open to the process, to the world, and I am so damn grateful to be here and to be alive. I am also so damn grateful for all the care and love I have been receiving over the past week. My friends and family are amazing and I am so lucky to have so many people who love and care for me so deeply. Special shoutouts to my mom for handling the logistics of my follow-ups and my current hospital stay, to my dad for flying out to Denver just to drive me home, to Meg and Dave for driving 5 hours round trip to retrieve my car, to my Aspiro community for sending me fruit in the shape of flowers and 5 pounds of gummy worms, to Jack of course for saving my life and to all the medical professionals who have helped me along the way. Cheers to the unknown, cheers to the process, cheers to recovery.
Lots of love
Lynne
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