Friday May 18, 2007
Hikers: Pat, Lincoln, Luna
Weather: 40s, cloudy, occasional rain
Miles: 10.0
Elevation Gain: 1400ft
Duration: 8 hrs
I took the dogs for my first trail maintenance session of the year. I was originally planning on doing an overnight so that I could get more maintenance time on the trail, but it was a relatively cold and rainy weekend and Jodie couldn’t come, so I ultimately decided on a day hike. It takes about 2.5 hours to drive to the trailhead, pick up the tools from the Crawford Cache, and get packed up for the trail. It then takes another 2 hours to hike the 4.9 miles along the Dry River Trail to the beginning of my section.
On the way to my trail, I fell during a river crossing when a rock that I lunged to rolled over. I fell in the river and hit my head on a log near the riverbank. I hit my head pretty hard, but fortunately not too hard. I took a minute to collect myself, and then decided to continue on with my hike. I was about 4 miles from the trailhead on a lightly used trail on a rainy cold Friday in May. I was certainly lucky that my fall wasn’t worst; help would have been a long way off. I am pretty careful when I hike, especially when I’m alone. I had actually crossed the stream twice already, but was trying to find a location that the dogs were comfortable with. The rock I stepped on was about 2 feet in diameter, and rocks of that size are typically stable. The rock was a little outside a comfortable stepping range, so I was forced to jump to it. I jumped out with my left foot, intending to immediately to step to shore with my right leg. As soon as my left foot hit the rock, it rolled to the left, giving me no time to recover. The fall was so quick, there wasn’t much I could do. I took the force on the fall along my left side, with my left forearm, elbow, and head taking the brunt of the blow. I immediately scrambled out of the ice-cold water onto the bank and sat down on a log to collect myself. A wave of pain came through my left arm and head, but subsided fairly quickly. My arm actually hurt the most. After a few moments, I decided I was ok and continued with the hike. All future river crossings on this trip, I just walked through the water. Better wet shoes than a broken head.
The trail maintenance went pretty well. I planned on focusing on clearing the drainages, and then brushing out with the time I had left. I started working on drainages as I came to them, instead of hiking the whole trail first. I did some good work, many of the drainages hadn’t been cleared in a long time, but didn’t make it very far up the trail. I spend a long time reconstructing a short section of trail through a landslide area. It took some extensive side-hilling work to establish the trail.
My trail needs some more work. Obviously, I didn’t even cover the whole length of the trail. I’m hoping to go back next month and do an overnight. I’m also hoping Jodie will come. Another person would be a big help.
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