So Back to the Trip Report...

I made it to the car, I got some ice on my ankle, and I chilled in camp for the rest of the day. The weather couldn't have been better really. I turned in early and had a bit of a hard night's rest with the ankle hurting. I took one of my emergency vicodin, and some ibuprofin before I arrived at the campsite and it helped. But at some point in the night I woke up hurting and took more pain stuff, and was back to sleep fairly quickly.

The next morning my ankle was even more swollen and so stiff I could barely move it. But I managed to hobble around and get packed up. I was the first to wake and made some progress on my own. One of my hiking friends got up about an hour later and started packing up stuff too and then put all of my gear in the car for me. I did managed to break down and pack my own tent. The whole time I'm doing all this I'm thinking to myself, if I was alone, I'd be doing all of this loading myself and that would be doable, but not fun and slow going.

I've always known that hiking can be dangerous and have remained as respectful of that fact as possible. I know I'm not invincible, but I don't let the possible dangers scare me away from what I love doing so much. And, when I did my solo trips I was cautious, but knew I could be on my own in a bad situation and hoped that I was prepared for it after all the reading I've done, question asking, etc...

When I was on the trail and making my way back to the car after the sprain (I was crying of course and feeling like a big baby), I managed to get my emotions in check and made it back without too much incident. I had someone with me too and they kept me company. There were some tricky areas and I surely stepped down wrong a few times that made me cry out in pain, but other than that I did well and was so happy I wasn't further in on the trail. But I realized that if I had been, I would have dealt fine. I would have taken it incredibly slow, and careful, and would have made it out. And I realized that no matter what the situation, I would handle it.

I want to give a special thanks to the person who took care of me on Sunday...the one who loaded up all my stuff. He was very sweet to me and really stepped up to the plate to help...his new girlfriend was nice too. I have a few pictures of my trip and will load them up later. I obviously didn't get to take much, but that's the way it goes.