Cautious Creature

In the final stretch of the Sierra’s, there I was enjoying the trail more and more as the amount of snow covering the trail became less and less. I had noticed that somehow overnight my Garmin inreach became damaged. My daily messages would no longer send because the device could not detect any satellites. I made Energizer aware of that so he wouldn’t leave me miles behind in something sketchy alone. Him and Improv didn’t typically do that anyway, but if by chance they were just grooving and wanted to get miles I didn’t want them to think my SOS button was my saving grace.

Energizer’s friend from Germany just arrived and joined us so our paces were more mild. We were hiking along and slipping and sliding on the snow patches for our entertainment. It is really fun! I came down a slope and found the 3 of them standing at the bottom watching me. There was a log at the bottom of the slide and they were wondering how I would tackle the situation. I walked side hill until I could just step over the log. Improv gave commentary to the other boys, “Cautious Creature”, he said. I didn’t give them any sort of performance and we hiked on.

Later we were in another area of downhill snow gliding and I was keeping up with them for the most part. I was still taking the more cautious routes than them at times, but still gliding a lot. I watched the 3 of them all glide down the snow and walk onto a dirt path between 2 trees. I followed suit. However, I didn’t make it through the path between the 2 trees. Out of nowhere, waist height barbed wire snatched me and flung me into the air. Before I could realize what was happening, I face planted right into a rock. My face went numb. Instantly, I started to shriek but I couldn’t say any words. I was trying to call out help but my mouth was numb. So instead, I tried to shriek louder so that the boys ahead could hear and come to me.

Meanwhile, the boys just barely ahead, heard the sound and spent a solid 20 seconds or more wondering what it was. Energizer’s friend asked them when he heard the sound, “What kind of animal is that?” Improv said, “I think that’s a Shannon!” They all thought I was laughing and enjoying the snow gliding. But when the sound didn’t stop and they realized the glide wasn’t very long, they stopped. While they were still trying to figure out what it was, Energizer saw me back laying on the ground. He ran back to me and found me rolling on the ground holding my face covered in blood. Calmly, he said, “Oh my God!”. Because he was calm, I remained calm.

The other boys came back also and discovered the barbed wire that none of them saw or even were affected by. They grabbed all of their first aid supplies and together Energizer and Improv cleaned up my face. Another hiker that was going southbound also ran back with his first aid supplies, when he heard the sound. Together, they closed down the piece of trail with the barbed wire and put heavy logs over the wire. Improv and Energizer comforted me after they cleaned me up. It looked a lot worse than it was. I just had a few scrapes all over my face. However for me, I had an instant headache and my nose and upper lip were numb. Ouch!

Within 20 minutes, I was good enough to keep hiking. The headache and the numbness of my face took the entire next 24 hours to go away but that didn’t affect my legs. Haha! I did take the uphills at a slower pace to keep good oxygen flow to my brain. The boys constantly checked in on me and made sure I wasn’t crazy in shock or have a concussion.

I definitely got rocked and rolled. The Sierra’s certainly have not been an easy feet, and no matter how cautious one is, anything can happen!

On that note, does anyone else think or notice that these types of things always happen to the females? You don’t really hear about males getting evacuated from the trail from injuries or dieing from not surviving a stream crossing. But what’s a statistic anyway?