Pikes Peak Epic

WARNING: this story contains two mentions of vomit - I know, shock and surprise, a Franki story involving vomit

Just to confirm that irrationality does run in my family, my dad flew into Denver late yesterday and decided today would be the perfect day to get acclimated by climbing Pike's Peak by the hard route (24.6 miles, but very scenic and wonderful).

The day started out by me getting lost finding my dad's hotel. Then we hiked for about 30 minutes and HP decided he wanted to go up ahead of us (I somewhat suspect he was chasing after some scantily clad high school girls who would have been hard to pick up with my dad and I there to make fun of him or that he really wanted to play with a walkie talkie but that's just my opinion). HP got a little lost as he still hasn't mastered that important mountaineering skill that involves reading signs that tell you which way to go. That's how he ended up climbing what he later describe as the "stairway to heaven". My dad and I eventually got to Barr Camp (about 6 miles up) and decided that the weather was looking decidedly unpleasant and that we should turn around before we got stuck in a hail storm. I radioed HP and he started running down the hill to meet us. My dad and I had a nice snack of grapes that I accidentally put in my backpack instead of giving them back to him and I'm eating them as I write this. But seriously, it was an oversight and I didn't mean to steal the grapes.

Disaster struck after we had been hiking down for about a half mile. Unlike most people, I hate going down the mountain. It's a fairly painful experience because of my knee, even with a brace. I'm wondering if I might have twisted it or something (like when we were almost run over by two guys on mountain bikes) but nothing specific comes to mind. In any case, we were walking along talking about solar panels (normal people do this all the time) when suddenly my knee began to hurt as it has only hurt immediately after my surgery.

That's weird, I thought to myself, as I was also remembering that I had forgotten to bring any Tylenol with me. Then the pain got worse. It was as if someone had decided to open up a carnival in my knee. The scrambler machine was bashing into my knee cap and scraping against all the nerves in the back of my leg. The Ferris wheel seemed to be gouging my femur and then jostling against my tib/fib before ascending to do it all again. Then it seemed someone cranked up a barbecue to sell hot dogs to all the tourists who were trampling my meniscus and the heat was radiating up into my hip. My knee was starting to puff up like a big top tent being inflated.
We were 5.5 miles away from the parking lot. This is NOT good, I thought to myself. Maybe I should say a little mantra to take focus away from the pain. I started chanting my mantra in my head ("lalala my knee doesn't hurt") but it wasn't working. Then HP caught up to us. I couldn't even talk at that point because tears were running down my face and I was afraid I would start crying and never stop.

Finally I asked my dad for his walking stick. Much like a placebo, it helped for about 20 seconds. Then the pain got worse, on top of now being stuck carrying a stick that I was afraid to give back to my dad because a collapse was inevitable and I didn't want to get trail dust up my nose when I passed out. My subconscious was having an argument that any philosopher would have been proud of with my brain:

Brain: ow
S.C: it doesn't hurt
Brain: ow

The brain then decided to take drastic measures. Since no one was listening to her she shut down all systems. My vision went white and I managed to, in my usual graceful way, collapse on a rock. I looked longingly at the pine needles scattered on the ground near my feet and wished for Martha Stewart so that she could make me a pillow. But no. She's still in NY on house arrest. Bastard Manhattan attorney's office.

My dad was looking very concerned. He asked how much I weighed. I took that as a bad sign of what kind of state I must have been in. I got up, took 5 steps, and then vomited up all the Gatorade I had been drinking for the past three hours. As I put four times the recommended servings of Gatorade powder in my water it's less a liquid than a syrup and it was kind of gooey and gross, clinging to my face like an evil slime.

I managed to get down the mountain because of my dad's encouragement and HP's sarcastic remarks (e.g. "you aren't even drunk and you threw up"). Both were worried as it is usually bad when someone is in so much pain that they vomit. At one point when I didn't think I would make it my dad said "Oh look, there's a tennis court right there". No one dies in the mountains in view of a tennis court so I knew I would survive.

We finally got to the car and I figured the worst was over. We decided to get lunch, I popped 5 advils (my dad commenting to me "well, if you take those you won't be able to have a beer" at which point my brain decided that would be fine as long as someone who could have a beer hit me over the head with the empty bottle and put me out of my misery).

I drove to a parking lot and we were going to get lunch but as I stepped out of the car my knee was screaming with pain that was flooding into my foot and hip. My dad was standing at the parking pay machine getting ready to put some money in when I managed to limp over and say "wait! stop!" in my most dramatic death throes voice. He looked at me and said "It's okay. I'll pay for the parking. It's only $2." By then my brain was letting more vocabulary get through the pain waves and I told my dad that I needed to lay down immediately. We drove back to his hotel and I staggered into the room and climbed onto the bed. I thought I might pass out again from the pain. My dad ran down to the vending machine and got me a coke. He explained to HP (and this is an exact quote): "Franki has a pretty bad Coke habit." The boys went off to have a sandwich and I laid in the room sure that I was going to die.

Miraculously, after about twenty minutes of having my knee elevated, the pain carnival packed its trunks and went back to where ever it is that it had come from. I managed to join the boys for a glass of water and potato chips at the restaurant (after walking two blocks - a major accomplishment). My dad was so worried that he met me half way to the restaurant, probably to make sure I wasn't collapsing or vomiting on any strangers (if you've ever been to Manitou I think you would agree with me that the people there would not notice - they would probably put me in an art gallery, still covered in Gatorade bile).

So all is well that ends well. The best part of this story, besides my dad talking me down the mountain, is that I went to get the keys to my new place when I got back from Pike's Peak and it was clean! With two new screwdrivers as presents! And toilet paper!

So now I am going to drink some wine. I think my liver is safe now. Anyway, you only need 1/5 of it, so I have liver to spare.

In October of 2006 I did the Barr trail, walking through almost 3 feet of snow the last 2 miles. As I did it alone my dad felt the need to text me every hour to make sure I was still alive. And the honest truth is that if I had had any money I would have taken the train down rather than walking...