Adirondack Peeks Summer 2024

ankle stability. (“Knees,” he told me, “are more often the victim than the culprit.”) Over months, everything improved. Slowly. But the test would be the September backpack we had planned for that year. We had our diclofenac. We had our folding poles. And having learned from the Phelps, Street, Nye, Porter, and Tabletop hikes—all day hikes—that pack weight made a significant difference for our hip pain, we also designed an itinerary that minimized carrying full packs. We would hike into a basecamp and then spend subsequent days peakbagging with a much lighter load. Then, get in the car and repeat at additional trailheads. As we prepared for this two-week extravaganza, our living room was cluttered with boxes of food and gear labeled, “Phase 1,” “Phase 2,” and “Phase 3.” Having food and fuel for additional phases in the car also meant a lighter pack even on the initial hike into a basecamp. In Phase 1 we tackled most of the Dix Range in the High Peaks. In Phase 2, we had planned to do the Santanonis in two days but pushed ourselves to do them in one instead. We were five days into the overall trip, with no major complaints from any hips or knees—! But we want ed a rest day, which was not something we had hereto fore needed or desired. So we scrambled up the last of the Santanonis at 5 p.m., stopped for a handful of nuts and a summit photo, and made it to camp before sunset. The rest day—we called it “spa day” jokingly— was awesome. “It is everything I dreamed it would be,” I gushed in the log. We both mended our shorts; I cleaned out the fire pit and hung smelly sweaty clothes in the sun. “Bodies are resting up.” Phase 3 of the September 2018 hike took us to the Seward Range where the limits of diclofenac, physical therapy, and poles were reached, and exceeded. Coming down Seymour, my right knee (the “good” one) and left foot (the one with the tendinitis) were intensely painful. The next morning we made the decision not to attempt Seward, Donaldson, and Emmons, which I knew from my previous experience to be the single hardest day in an aspiring 46er’s quest. “The decision not to hike was hard, but right. Go ing down is so much pain for me,” the log said, “and some times I feel like I shouldn’t be here. Until I stop, and then forget all the pain and want to hike again. . . . So mixed feelings—relief, regret, rest, joy, restlessness—all good.” Back in New York City, after the diclofenac wore off, it took my knees a full three weeks to recover. Meanwhile, I continued with physical therapy and daily exercises. Every hike adds new lessons. The September 2018 hike taught me I needed to add “spa days” and limit the length of my overall backpacks. Those learnings added to the The Need for Spa Days Aging Gracefully Is an Oxymoron, but Aging Successfully Is Possible

Spa Day, 2020

physical therapy, diclofenac, and base-camping adjust ments. That same regimen got us through another week of backpacking in July 2019, a return to both the Dix and Seward ranges. We got chased out of the woods by the unrelenting bugs—but not by joint pain. (We returned with head nets.) In 2020, we bagged Blake and spent some time in the Great Range. It was not the best decision of my life to do this trip six weeks after breaking my elbow . . . but the knees and hips did well! Shortly afterward, we got a pandemic puppy and our priorities have since re volved around the dog. A return to backpacking awaits in another year or two, but in the meantime, lots of day hikes with Schnitzel are happening and ongoing daily exercises have made these mostly pain-free. Aging gracefully, I’ve decided, is an oxymoron. At least for me. But aging successfully I just might be able to pull off if I’m willing to adapt to the new realities of my body and keep working on it. I’m learning that there’s no destination, only an ongoing journey, with unexpected turns and new obstacles. But, like backpacking itself, though I may not know what lies ahead on the trail, if I’ve done my home work, I can be confident that I am heading in the right di rection. Dorothee Benz #7178 is a writer who lives in New York City. * * * Winter 46ers: An Unexpected Story of Climbing and Friendship and Re flections on the Nature of Adventure Tom Knipe, #13947W Epilogue by Tim Logue, #13933W Climbing I grew up in eastern Washington and southern Oregon. I had my first experience climbing snowy peaks in the Eagle Cap Wilderness in the Wallowa Mountains in 1980. I was five. On summit day, my dad and I, with his lifelong friend Gary Moriarty and Gary’s sons Lynn and Rob, breathed heavily up through dense fog. We topped

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