Cruising, Bruising

We are still in Squamish; a place we are learning to love! There are so many places we want to get to in BC, but we're held here by the beauty of this place. I can't help feeling that as the Olympics highlight the beauty of this area, its face will change quickly in the next few years or so. Letters to the editor, in the local paper, The Chief, lament more development, more industrial zoning in beautiful rural areas, and spell out the need to preserve the natural environment that makes Squamish so special. But development encroaches everywhere, and competing with the mountains, oceans and rocks are the Walmart, mines and gravel pits, and the general muck and rust of industry's ever grinding wheels.

I was in charge of our hike yesterday. This detail alone might already have you smiling at our misfortunes. I somehow confused one hike's details with another, and instead of embarking on a 6.5 km round-trip (or was that 6.5 hour round-trip? oh well, no matter), we set off for Gariabaldi Lake, which was in point of fact, listed as a 30km hike. Hmmmm! Also, the declared 6 degree slope was really a 10 degree slope. If there was a bright side, it was that we were 5 or 6 hours in before we learned of my mistake.

I bought some hiking boots a few years ago which turned out to be a shade too small. I first learned this while going down a long, extended decline, and feeling my toes bang into the toe-box a few hundred times. Because I spent an annoying amount of cash on them, I have been punishing myself ever since, (for not properly assessing fit in the store), and I've been wearing these slightly too-small boots on every hike since. I figure I must at least "get my money's worth" out of them before wasting money on a replacement boot.

The hens came home to roost on Gariabaldi though. Maybe it was that 10 degree slope, or the sheer distance traveled, but my feet went from moderate discomfort to agony to excruciating quicker than ever before, and the beating lasted infinitely longer. I ended up hobbling down that trail forever and ever, toes relentlessly bashing into toe-box, and said toe-box gleefully imparting blisters, bruises, and what looks likely to be a dead toenail. It's darkening, it's numb, and somehow with every heart-beat, my toe floods with pain. Every now and then, I would stumble into a rock right into my toe, and out would hurl out a new epithet.

I look the perfect idiot today. I have a huge bruise from a protruding tree branch, smashed in toes, and some kind of knee/tendon issue that's crippling all by itself. I think I will now declare that I have officially got my moneys worth, and permit myself to buy some new hikers.

Naturally, the smashed in feet will preclude me risking other body-parts while bouldering, which may be the lesser peril after all. Of course my forlorn sighs will have to be endured, as I moon around in a mostly stationary position.

Here I am looking mighty pleased with my navigating to this point: