West Highland Way - completed!

Wednesday April 12. Kinlochleven to Fort William. 15 miles. Cold (in 30s), rain and snow, strong winds. 

It is just past midnight and I want to write about yesterday’s hike but also don’t want to. I think I am reluctant to revisit some of the difficult parts and unsure how to fit them into my story of what this walk is all about for me. I am also disappointed that the only photos I have are from my first two hours when I was climbing up away from Kinlochleven. The last one shows the trail ahead. It was a wet trail, so full of puddles and streams that all I could do was minimize the inevitable immersions of my feet by stepping in the shallowest places or where rocks lifted my foot at least part way out of the water. The downpour - sometimes rain, sometimes sleet, sometimes snow - was heavy and the winds strong. 

At one point I stopped to take out my phone from my pocket (a rather complex maneuver getting under and through the various garments of rain gear while juggling my trekking poles and rain mittens and regular mittens which have to come off do my fingers can feel their way in through the gear to the pockets). It sounds simple enough but in a sense it involves multi-tasking (hold onto sticks and mittens while reaching for phone) which my aging brain is not as skilled at as she once was. So I often drop things I’m holding when my attention shifts to the other thing I am doing. So plop goes a mitten into a puddle in the road and plop goes another mitten when I reach down to pick up the first. I actually did laugh out loud. I wring out the mittens as best I could and put them back on. The next time I took my mittens off my fingers had become so cold and numb that I literally could not out them back on. I struggled a bit, tried using my teeth, but could not. I wondered if this numbness might mean I was in or approaching early hyperthermia. I had not seen a single other hiker and wondered if it was a mistake to be out alone in this weather. I checked my phone to see if I had coverage (I was considering calling for help) but I had no coverage. At this point I realized that I might be in real danger. I found a way to get on partial mittens (I was actually wearing a double mitten, a small tucked inside a medium, to give enough warmth. I found I could persuade one layer - the medium mitten - to pull over the numb hand and tucked the smaller ones into my rain gear hoping they would stay there. I no longer could feel enough to find and use pickets. The next time I had to pee I discovered my fingers so lacking in strength and sensation that I could not fasten my snap or zip up my zipper (after many efforts using two thumbs and my eyes I managed to push up the zipper part way. 

At this point I was genuinely concerned. I judged from the serious hand numbness and also numbness in my legs that I might be in early stage hyperthermia. I realized that I was out there alone and the best thing I could do would be to walk as fast as I could to warm up my body, while also walking as carefully as I could to involve slipping and falling on the wet stones. My shoes - which were chosen to deal with several of my foot issues do not have the best possible grip on wet rock. I am aware they can slip and that I need to walk mindfully. It was utterly clear to me that a fall (when the trail was this deserted and there was no phone coverage) could end my life. I realized that I was in life threatening danger and recalled the time on the PCT when I was in similar danger and another hiker came by and helped me hike out of the danger. I prayed for help and I walked as fast and as carefully as I could. I was calm and a little bit happy - the adrenaline of danger does create happy feelings, including surprise at the rush of energy that enabled me to walk very fast (for me) and with gratitude focus on making each step as safe as possible. I found myself reflecting on dear friends facing life threatening illness and thought how my ambivalence about life vanishes when faced with danger. My commitment to survival becomes the one most precious thing. I prayed for help and I prayed for my friends to be helped. I kept walking. I could not imagine surviving six more hours of this do i imagined that I was walking so very fast they it would be less. 

I don’t know how much time had passed - several hours I would guess - when I came across other hikers taking down a tent. I realized that I really had warmed myself up by my chant to just keep moving as fast and as safely as I could. My chant That keeping moving could keep me alive. I considered asking them for help but decided I was not any longer in life threatening danger. Discomfort yes, but not the danger that justified calling for emergency intervention. My legs were less numb and my hands felt better too (though when I tried to use them I would discover they still lacked all feeling and strength for things like lifting an iPhone out of a pocket or unzipping a zipper). The campers called good morning and I called back that it wasn’t such a good morning - it was pretty cold and wet. But I began to feel secure that I was managing “normal” levels of discomfort and difficulty, not life-threatening danger. I even wondered if my earlier alarm had been exaggerated. 

At some point as the rain got gradually lighter and the temperature rise into the 40s i began to see how lovely the landscape was and regretted that my numb fingers made photos impossible. I think in many ways todays walk (I guess by now it is yesterdays walk)  was the one that moved me most with its beauty. Although I was in no state to feel it’s beauty since all I wanted was to get inside and get warm. 

When I finally did arrive - about five hours after the initial alarm - at my Band B I found that my socks and mittens were all soaking wet as were my pants and leggings and even my shirt layers. I wrapped myself in a blanket and watched my shivering increase and slowly subside. When the charming host returned and opened my room I was able to remove all the wet clothing and put on dry clothes. 

I don’t have much thought about how this day relates to my reflections and pilgrimage. I did find a strength and focus I needed - and didn’t know I was capable of st this stage in my life - and I think that will turn out to have been an important experience. I think also my unambivalent commitment to walking through danger and hardship and discomfort in order to preserve my life was an important experience. What that might have to do with whisky, the devil’s staircase (and climbing up the down staircase), and psychoanalysis I haven’t a clue. But I am open to the possibility that connections will emerge. 

After I had hung up all my wet gear and clothes in the dry room I found two women waiting for the host in the entrance to our BandB. I mentioned how numb my fingers had become and they said they had the same experience. I said I’d had numbness before but not this extreme. They smiled and said they were from Alaska. “But” one of them said “ It usually means it is time to turn around and go home. “

So maybe I will end with two nostalgic photos from early in the morning before I got scared. In fact  I was feeling a sense of reprieve (the weather forecast said 3 inches of snow had fallen and 3 more were expected. I didn’t know if I could find my way if snow was hiding the trail. I carefully waited for light to begin my hike. I was amazed to find no snow on the ground and felt like what had seemed like a very challenging hike would now be quite straightforward. )

This first photo is gazing back at the village of Kinlochleven from the trail and enjoying the memory (not so pleasant when it was actually happening!) of exploring the torn snd lake while waiting to check in at the hostel. 

The second photo is of a small tent I passed. Seeing that solitary tent tucked into the wildness of the landscape awakened both nostalgia for my backpacking days and relief that I was not trying to deal with the cold and the wet without the comforts of a room (and especially a drying room in which shoes, socks and mittens could become fully dry overnight). So here is the little green tent tucked into the landscape of mountains. 

Time to go back to sleep. My big job tomorrow will be 

to rest well and prepare myself for my next hike the Great Glen Way which will begin Friday. Weather forecasts suggest the weather will be merciful : warmer with quite a few days rain-free. 

I am wondering what it might be like for you to read. If you made it to the end you showed great endurance. I know part of trauma mastery can be telling the story in the presence of a caring listener. Part of me is of course self critical because this blog has little that is entertaining or beautiful or even funny. And yet when I think of yesterdays self tightening her resolve and walking as fast as she could through what she perceived as life threatening danger I feel proud of her strength and resolve. So maybe this part of the story isn’t all that entertaining or funny or deep or heroic. But maybe I can feel the stirrings of a tender and respectful self love. The strength she (yesterday’s me) found to press forward, to care for my life, to preserve and protect this increasingly imperfect self I become as I age. You know I have often felt grateful to my younger self simply for hanging in there, for staying alive. There was a time in my 20s when I felt very suicidal - I just wanted relief, wanted to end the pain of being myself in a painfully troubled world. When I think of all I would have missed (and what my friends and family would have missed) I am so grateful that she found in herself something she didn’t really know she had. The strength to go on. 

Thank you. I do feel more complete after telling the story though it was difficult to tell just as it was difficult to live through. I am glad that it is over and I am very glad I decided to come here and walk this walk. 

See you tomorrow or perhaps the next day when I start the next walk. Thank you so much for walking with ne.