Gunstock-Belknap-Piper 1-5-16
Gunstock Mtn. Trail-Saddle Trail-White Trail-Old Piper Trail-Piper Trail
4.5 miles 1700' Elevation gain
Kevin, Judy Sabrina, Terra, Pemi & Gem
Eight weeks to the day. When you think of it is mind-boggling. Eight weeks after having hip replacement, I am hiking again, back in the hills and mountains of New Hampshire, my adopted home. Eight weeks since they split and spread my skin, thigh muscles and tendons to get in to where they could work on the real problem that had been plaguing me for the past seven or eight years. Injuries sustained playing softball and hockey in my youth had led to two knee surgeries, but the hip went without repair, getting worse and worse as the years and hikes rolled on.
Compensation for the injury and a compromised right knee had ground the cartilage out of my right hip socket. I was walking with it grinding away, bone on bone, and trying to compensate by limping. This threw everything from my lower back to my ankle out of whack. For the past few years I felt like a knife was sticking in my thigh/buttocks. There was no position I could be in awake or asleep where the sharp, nagging pain of the knife was not a constant reminder that sooner or later, I was going to have to do something.
I could still manage to hike, but it was painful, sometimes excruciating, and not much fun. Amazingly, I continued to play hockey twice a week, right up until about three weeks before surgery. While I was warmed up and skating and concentrating on the game I seldom thought about the pain, but I knew in the back of my mind that when the game was over it would be there waiting for me, and that the next 24 hours would be agony as my muscles and tendons contracted.
No amount of Tylenol or Advil would touch the pain, yet I kept playing because that's just what I did. I was a hockey player. We get knocked down and we get back up and keep skating. I finally reached a point where a decision had to be made, a decision I had avoided as long as I could. I knew that once the decision was made, there was no turning back. I was never so scared to make such a decision in my life.
Raising 3 boys, caring for sick and elderly parents in their last days… no decision had ever been so hard for me in all my life. I knew that taking this step would mean the end to hockey, and the end to downhill skiing, maybe an end to other things I had not even thought of or worried about yet. I hated making this decision, but I knew I had to.
Other people's input fell on deaf ears. "I knew so and so who had it done and he was tight-rope walking again the next day!" It's always so easy and simple when it's somebody else's body parts that are going to be cut out and not yours.
Eight weeks ago I drove to Portsmouth for an alpine start of 5am, by that afternoon they had me on my feet and moving with a walker, titanium and porcelain hip successfully implanted where the bones of my diseased hip once were. Bones spurs had tightened around my hip joint so that I had almost no rotation, but now all that was cut away, and a new artificial joint was in its place. I was astounded.
The days and weeks immediately following were tough. 3 days after surgery I had a bad reaction to the pain-killers and wound up taking a nightmarish ambulance ride to the ER, where thankfully they fixed me up pretty quickly, I'll spare you the details, suffice to say it was not a pleasant experience.
Of course the Physical Therapy was tough, knowing the people I was working with from the previous knee surgeries helped immensely as they were already familiar with me and what I was capable of when healthy.
In honesty, despite the much larger scale of having a hip-replacement as opposed to having arthroscopic knee surgery, the recovery pain and amount of time were far less than my knee was, with a far more satisfying end result. Somebody had finally pulled the knife out of my ass, and when the wound was healed I would no longer be in pain.
This was the promise I was given, I would be out of pain, and it was proven true not only by the surgeon and his OR crew, the wonderful staff that took care of me immediately after surgery and before I could go home, but also through the follow-up days and weeks I spent under the care of the great physical therapy crew while recuperating.
Over the weeks they worked with me until I could walk with balance again and began to regain my strength. Each week a new plateau was reached as they challenged me and I realized I still had a ways to go, but the following week I could see the progress in that I could now do the things I could not the week before.
What had been done was no small thing, but I was finding the recuperation time was flying by. I worked diligently on my own at home with the exercises they had given me. When I felt I could walk a bit I headed for Stratham Hill, up the hill, up the fire-tower, and a loop back to the car.
I walked dogs with Judy in the town forests and on Christmas Day I headed up to Pawtuckaway where we hiked South Pawtuckaway Mtn. to the fire-tower and did a 2.6 mile loop hike back to the car. I felt good.
Last week we hiked to Great Hill fire-tower where the views of the Sandwich Range stirred the longing within me to hike bigger things with more expansive views, something I have not felt in the last few years as the thought of the accompanying pain drove all thoughts of hiking out of my head.
I felt I was ready to tackle something a little bigger, so we made plans to hike a favorite loop in the Belknaps that would take us over three hills, Gunstock, Belknap and Piper. Many hikers ignore the Belknaps due to their low elevation, but the first trail we hiked was 1.1 mile and 1140' elevation gain, 100' of elevation every tenth of a mile, tougher than many White Mountain Trails.
It was 10* when we started, but warmed to 22* by the finish. I struggled and sweat and coughed up crap from way deep in my lungs. I had not worn a pack with any weight for quite sometime and the ten or so pounds was feeling pretty heavy, but I will not be out there with out the proper winter equipment, needed or not.
As we crossed from Gunstock to Belknap we crossed a small stream where in May of 2013 Emma had stopped to cool off and I took the last pictures of her on the trail that I ever would. As we rose through the woods to the summit of Belknap we came to a place we have been many time before with and without Emma.
We now call this spot Emma's Lookout and Emma's Cairn. There is a view from here northeast across Lake Winnepesaukee, across the Ossipee and Sandwich Ranges, all the way to Mount Washington, a place she was remembered well for all her ascents of the highest peak in the northeast.
Return trips to this spot bring moments of sadness for our mourning loss, and memories of joy of the days we spent together under the sun, pounding through the mud with light hearts and soothed minds. I felt her with me through the hike, coaxing me to the top of the next rise with her sweet smile as though she was still at our side.
Kind trailwright's raised a cairn here bearing a large yellow "E" for Emma in her honor as this was the last trail she ever trod in this world. We have brought many good trail dogs to this site, and were quite happy to be there with Sabrina and her dogs.
Of course the trail was more taxing than I had remembered it, but I managed it, and I had no pain, just fatigue. I am out of shape, but know from years of hiking that you don't start out hiking Mount Washington. The Belknaps and Ossipees will get a few more visits before I head further north, but I am certainly happy to be where I am at this point. There was fear going into this that I wouldn't be here at all...
Read More4.5 miles 1700' Elevation gain
Kevin, Judy Sabrina, Terra, Pemi & Gem
Eight weeks to the day. When you think of it is mind-boggling. Eight weeks after having hip replacement, I am hiking again, back in the hills and mountains of New Hampshire, my adopted home. Eight weeks since they split and spread my skin, thigh muscles and tendons to get in to where they could work on the real problem that had been plaguing me for the past seven or eight years. Injuries sustained playing softball and hockey in my youth had led to two knee surgeries, but the hip went without repair, getting worse and worse as the years and hikes rolled on.
Compensation for the injury and a compromised right knee had ground the cartilage out of my right hip socket. I was walking with it grinding away, bone on bone, and trying to compensate by limping. This threw everything from my lower back to my ankle out of whack. For the past few years I felt like a knife was sticking in my thigh/buttocks. There was no position I could be in awake or asleep where the sharp, nagging pain of the knife was not a constant reminder that sooner or later, I was going to have to do something.
I could still manage to hike, but it was painful, sometimes excruciating, and not much fun. Amazingly, I continued to play hockey twice a week, right up until about three weeks before surgery. While I was warmed up and skating and concentrating on the game I seldom thought about the pain, but I knew in the back of my mind that when the game was over it would be there waiting for me, and that the next 24 hours would be agony as my muscles and tendons contracted.
No amount of Tylenol or Advil would touch the pain, yet I kept playing because that's just what I did. I was a hockey player. We get knocked down and we get back up and keep skating. I finally reached a point where a decision had to be made, a decision I had avoided as long as I could. I knew that once the decision was made, there was no turning back. I was never so scared to make such a decision in my life.
Raising 3 boys, caring for sick and elderly parents in their last days… no decision had ever been so hard for me in all my life. I knew that taking this step would mean the end to hockey, and the end to downhill skiing, maybe an end to other things I had not even thought of or worried about yet. I hated making this decision, but I knew I had to.
Other people's input fell on deaf ears. "I knew so and so who had it done and he was tight-rope walking again the next day!" It's always so easy and simple when it's somebody else's body parts that are going to be cut out and not yours.
Eight weeks ago I drove to Portsmouth for an alpine start of 5am, by that afternoon they had me on my feet and moving with a walker, titanium and porcelain hip successfully implanted where the bones of my diseased hip once were. Bones spurs had tightened around my hip joint so that I had almost no rotation, but now all that was cut away, and a new artificial joint was in its place. I was astounded.
The days and weeks immediately following were tough. 3 days after surgery I had a bad reaction to the pain-killers and wound up taking a nightmarish ambulance ride to the ER, where thankfully they fixed me up pretty quickly, I'll spare you the details, suffice to say it was not a pleasant experience.
Of course the Physical Therapy was tough, knowing the people I was working with from the previous knee surgeries helped immensely as they were already familiar with me and what I was capable of when healthy.
In honesty, despite the much larger scale of having a hip-replacement as opposed to having arthroscopic knee surgery, the recovery pain and amount of time were far less than my knee was, with a far more satisfying end result. Somebody had finally pulled the knife out of my ass, and when the wound was healed I would no longer be in pain.
This was the promise I was given, I would be out of pain, and it was proven true not only by the surgeon and his OR crew, the wonderful staff that took care of me immediately after surgery and before I could go home, but also through the follow-up days and weeks I spent under the care of the great physical therapy crew while recuperating.
Over the weeks they worked with me until I could walk with balance again and began to regain my strength. Each week a new plateau was reached as they challenged me and I realized I still had a ways to go, but the following week I could see the progress in that I could now do the things I could not the week before.
What had been done was no small thing, but I was finding the recuperation time was flying by. I worked diligently on my own at home with the exercises they had given me. When I felt I could walk a bit I headed for Stratham Hill, up the hill, up the fire-tower, and a loop back to the car.
I walked dogs with Judy in the town forests and on Christmas Day I headed up to Pawtuckaway where we hiked South Pawtuckaway Mtn. to the fire-tower and did a 2.6 mile loop hike back to the car. I felt good.
Last week we hiked to Great Hill fire-tower where the views of the Sandwich Range stirred the longing within me to hike bigger things with more expansive views, something I have not felt in the last few years as the thought of the accompanying pain drove all thoughts of hiking out of my head.
I felt I was ready to tackle something a little bigger, so we made plans to hike a favorite loop in the Belknaps that would take us over three hills, Gunstock, Belknap and Piper. Many hikers ignore the Belknaps due to their low elevation, but the first trail we hiked was 1.1 mile and 1140' elevation gain, 100' of elevation every tenth of a mile, tougher than many White Mountain Trails.
It was 10* when we started, but warmed to 22* by the finish. I struggled and sweat and coughed up crap from way deep in my lungs. I had not worn a pack with any weight for quite sometime and the ten or so pounds was feeling pretty heavy, but I will not be out there with out the proper winter equipment, needed or not.
As we crossed from Gunstock to Belknap we crossed a small stream where in May of 2013 Emma had stopped to cool off and I took the last pictures of her on the trail that I ever would. As we rose through the woods to the summit of Belknap we came to a place we have been many time before with and without Emma.
We now call this spot Emma's Lookout and Emma's Cairn. There is a view from here northeast across Lake Winnepesaukee, across the Ossipee and Sandwich Ranges, all the way to Mount Washington, a place she was remembered well for all her ascents of the highest peak in the northeast.
Return trips to this spot bring moments of sadness for our mourning loss, and memories of joy of the days we spent together under the sun, pounding through the mud with light hearts and soothed minds. I felt her with me through the hike, coaxing me to the top of the next rise with her sweet smile as though she was still at our side.
Kind trailwright's raised a cairn here bearing a large yellow "E" for Emma in her honor as this was the last trail she ever trod in this world. We have brought many good trail dogs to this site, and were quite happy to be there with Sabrina and her dogs.
Of course the trail was more taxing than I had remembered it, but I managed it, and I had no pain, just fatigue. I am out of shape, but know from years of hiking that you don't start out hiking Mount Washington. The Belknaps and Ossipees will get a few more visits before I head further north, but I am certainly happy to be where I am at this point. There was fear going into this that I wouldn't be here at all...
