My hike yesterday was a kick in the butt reminder that sometimes I still get into trouble with dehydration. It was my off-friday from work, the kid were in school, my wife at work and I had the day to myself to do whatever adventure I could think of. I had my eyes on a hike just south of Bandelier NP, up a desert peak called St. Peter's Dome. There were a handful of geocaches along a remote section of trail that I was targeting and I thought I'd tackle them as a trail run. I figured the total distance of my run would be around 12 miles, tough but doable for me. I had my standard running camelback which holds about 24 oz of water, and usually gets me through 4 hours of hiking/running pretty well. The first sign that things would be more difficult than expected where when I got to the Dome Rd, the first dirt road off the paved roads in Cochiti Pueblo. Last time I was here (previous summer) the road was open to traffic. Not today, a locked gate blocked the road and a sign stating the road was closed to prevent road degradation was what I was met with. So the first decision I had to make was... do I continue on with my plan anyways? Checking my map, it looked like I would have an additional 3 miles of running to reach my planned trailhead. That would add an extra 6 miles to my overall run, not an insignificant amount. And this is where I probably should have thought harder about what I was getting myself into... but I didn't and decided to go for it. I have been doing a fair amount of running recently, although usually only 1-1.5 hour runs... and was feeling pretty good about what I could handle. I figured I could fly up and down the 3 miles of road, and it wouldn't add that much to my overall trip. That turned out not to be true.
 |
| Early in the run at Sanchez canyon, still feeling good |
Actually, the jog up the road wasn't bad. This was when I was at my freshest, and despite the steady climb (XXX elevation gain) I was feeling pretty good about the it. I grabbed my first geocache,GC5TVKK ,and kept going on the actual dome trail. The sign at the trailhead said the Dome was 6 miles, and at this point I was feeling pretty good about getting there and back. After a little over a mile on the trail I came across another geocache at a small waterfall where there was a bit of water flowing. The water actually surfaced just before going over the edge of the waterfall, so I took mental note that this would be a good water source on my return, "just in case" I ran out. I scored another geocache here Through Fault of Fire, which was placed a year ago and still hadn't been found. Always a good feeling to get one of those. AS I kept going up the trail, the trail started getting fainter and harder to follow. It eventually turned up a canyon towards Cerro Picacho and once in the canyon became impossible to find. I slowed down a lot here, not just because the trail was hard to find, but also because I was climbing up the side of the mountain now and it was hard to jog. I was still making pretty good time though and arrived at my next two caches on Cerro Picacho which took me off the trail and up the steep slope of this ancient volcano. The actual St. Peter's Dome trail skirts around Cerro Picacho, but of course I had to get the geocaches, GCTYQH and GC5JF8R. The first one actually took me quite a while to find because the coordinates were on a rock out-cropping with a tall cliff, and I expended a lot of effort searching around the bottom of the cliff, when it turned out the cache was on top. This cache was a good old one though, and well stocked with toys. I left a nice entry in the logbook and made the steep climb up to GC5JF8R, which was at the summit. Nice views and all, and I saw a small herd of dear, but now I had to descend down to the saddle to the north. And I was starting to feel real tired.
 |
| FTF in sanchez cayon |
The trail between Cerro Picacho and St. Peter's dome was a bit easier to follow once I got back on it. It also wasn't too steep, and would have made for good jogging, but I was only able to jog portions of it. I was beginning to feel the effects of my earlier exertions. Still, I was feeling pretty good and simply hiked when I couldn't jog. I ran up and tagged St. Peter's Dome and ate the small snack I had with me, a handful of dried apricots and salted almonds. It was at this point that I realized my water was actually pretty low. The weight of my camelback was a little deceptive since I had a few extra items stuffed in there for my run. I also realized that it was more than 6 miles to the top of St. Peter's dome, since the trail ended nearly a mile below the summit, and the trail sign didn't account for this extra distance/climb. But I was already out there and there was only one more geocache to find, GC29EDH, which was another mile further away on mostly level trail. Really, alarm bells should have been ringing. I was almost out of water and I had a long way to get back, but I forged on jogging over to this last and final cache on Boundary Peak, a cool little volcanic mound overlooking the Bandelier NP. Looking at my maps, I noticed that there was a trail that went down into the national park from here, and that connected to a trail which would take me back to my original trailhead. I considered that the trail up Cerro Picacho was hard to follow and that this one would be easier and better maintained, being in the national park... and that it also looked to be about the same distance back. So off I went. Looking back now, it's hard to say if this was a bad idea. It certainly added more mileage to my route, despite looking like it was about the same as what I had come up. The trails were in decent shape though, but the mileage... oh that mileage... became a problem.
 |
| St. Peter's Dome Lookout Tower |
 |
| Looking out over Bandelier NP from the Boundary Peak |
I jogged down the boundary peak trail to the first junction within the park, Turkey Springs trail. I ran out of water here. The sign said Turkey Springs was 2.5 miles away and if I could have kept jogging I probably would have made it pretty quickly. But I had been rationing my water for a while already and despite only just running out of water, I was already on the edge of dehydration. To add to this, I had no idea what to expect at Turkey Springs, but the water source that I knew of was at Sanchez Falls, where I scored an earlier FTF, and it looked like that water was at least 5 miles away. I slowed down... a lot. Running along a trail dehydrates you much faster, and since it wasn't too warm out and the sky was a bit overcast, I figured I'd do better just hiking and trying to kept myself from sweating much. Even so, the signs of dehydration all started appearing, cotton mouth, dry skin, slight wooziness... and I was slowing down. To make matters a little worse, I was getting anxious about when I would get back to my car and Santa Fe. I hadn't thought I would be out so long and was planning on picking up my kids after school, and then resting up before my orchestra rehearsal alter that night. Looking at the time and my slow progress it seriously looked like I would not make it back in time for either. Luckily, my new GPSr allows me to contact my wife, which I did. I tried to convey as much as possible in a few sentences, telling her not to worry and that I was taking care of myself. Which I guess I was... but there isn't a whole lot one can do int this situation. Worse case scenario is I would have to stop altogether and call for help... which I could have done, but I wasn't too that point yet.
I pushed on and finally made it to Turkey Springs which to my great joy, was a nice bubbling creek of cold water. Normally I would never drink from a stream without filtering, but this was an emergency so I drank up and refilled my camelback. I was honestly expecting to bounce back after getting rehydrated... but that didn't happen. As I force marched myself down the trail again, I still was slow and woozy. I threw up two times along this section of trail, losing all my snack from earlier and also some of the water I had just consumed. It puzzles me why my body would react to dehydration by vomiting. I mean, wouldn't it react to my need of fluids by not expelling a bunch of them from my stomach? Maybe it has something to do with the rehydration process, as I only vomited after I was able tog et some fluids back into my body? I don't know the answer, but I did know that I was weak and going slow. I did not "bounce back" as hoped, and it continued to be a struggle to force myself to continue down the trail. But at least I had water now. I sipped and hiked, sipped and hiked... and eventually made it to Sanchez falls, where I was able to drink some more nice cool water from the stream there. I still had a good amount of water in my camelback, and it wasn't easy to fill without getting tons of algae in my camelback, so I decided not to refill here (mistake again). I still had 5 miles to go to get back to my car. It was getting later in the afternoon, but I felt that I would make it out. My wife had responded that she could get the kids, and I still had a glimmer of hope that I'd make my orchestra rehearsal.
That glimmer faded as I continued along the last 5 miles. I was still slow, and it hurt to walk. I am pretty sure my body was telling me to take an hour long rest, but I was afraid if I stopped moving my legs would seize up entirely and I would have to call for help. So I kept on walking. It was agonizing. To help keep my mind off how much I ached, I started listening to podcasts on my phone. This helped take my mind off of my misery a little bit. Funnily enough, one of the podcasts I listened too was about geocaching burn-out. Will this dehydration experience lead me to geocaching burnout? I think not, but I am definitely going to learn a bit about my hikes before heading out. This one turned into a much bigger fiasco/adventure than I had bargained for.
With two miles left to go, I ran out of water again. Should have refilled at Sanchez falls. At this point though I was less dehydrated from before, having consumed a decent amount of water. But I still ached something fierce, and my body was telling me to stop. Stop I didn't and eventually, my car came into sight, and I felt some relief that it was all over. The time was 5:45 pm. My 5 hour, 12 mile trail run had turned into a 9.5 hour, 24 mile fiasco. But it was done. I fired off an email to my orchestra music director, letting him know I would not be playing tonight. I was in no condition for that at the moment. I let my wife know I was out and heading to the closest convenience store to get some electrolytes and more fluid. And most importantly, I could let my body relax. No more slogging for now. Definitely some lessons learned on this adventure.
 |
| Just before reaching my car... dehydrated and exhausted and in oh so much pain, but safe at last. |
No comments:
Post a Comment