Day 12

Today was not a good day, overall. But I guess we all have those. I unfortunately started to have shin-splint pain in my right leg, that got worse as the day wore on. Shin splints are a trail-ending injury for many.

We had many difficult conversations about the best way for me to move forward with this pain. I almost returned to Idyllwild, which would have been backtracking 6 miles, to immediately rest and ice my leg for two days prior to returning to trail. Instead, I decided to press on, using pain killers, a slow pace, frequent breaks, and regularly icing my leg as we hiked to calm the inflammation. The goal was to see how the pain changes over time, since it came on so suddenly, and to get me to the next place where I could get a hitch into a different town and rest if necessary. I still don’t know if this was the right choice.

By the end of the day the pain had subsided substantially. I don’t know if it was the ice, the massaging, the new shoes I bought, or just a happenstance of shin split pain. We’ll find out tomorrow!

But the other unfortunate occurrence of today was the Wind Advisory Warning that we thought would be hitting Sunday and Monday but started to hit Saturday night. We got into camp around 5:30 pm and immediately saw that the 3-Tent site we had intended to camp at already had 10 tents set up at it, with tents being blown over and people frantically searching for a spot to stake out and hunker down.

Our fourth attemp to set up our tent was a success, or as good as. But with gusts as high as 80 mph, we were certain we would not sleep a wink. Tim, the fearless boulder finder, found multiple large boulders to hold our stakes down in the soft sand. We can only pray they all stay in the ground throughout the night.

I ate cold mashed potatoes because there was a 0% chance I could light my camp stove and keep it lit long enough to boil water in the wind.

Isn’t thru hiking glamorous?!