Our international travel this winter will take us to Argentina and Chile. My idea of hiking is 2-3 hour walks of easy to moderate difficulty with comfortable overnight accommodations. Paul, however, prefers 6 plus hour hikes including lots of elevation change and primitive overnight accommodations. As such, Paul is leaving this week and will be joined by two friends from the Midwest. Together they will make their way to some of the more remote areas of both countries for three weeks of serious hiking. At the end of their trek, I will join Paul in Buenos Aires and we will commence a month of more civilized sightseeing and walking/hiking in popular tourist destinations.
Paul started training for his hiking trip by walking at the lake this fall and almost daily hiking once he got back to elevation here in northern Arizona in mid-November. I have been preparing by going to the local YMCA 2-3 days a week spending at least an hour on either the elliptical machine and/or recumbent bike. I also attend Silver Sneakers classes and do some strength training on the machines. I have been feeling proud of my progress so decided to join Paul on a three hour hike in the Sedona red rocks this past weekend. Oh boy, was that a mistake!
It started with a 6:30 am wake-up call which means with coffee in hand he gently nudges me awake and high tails it out of the bedroom. This occurred after maybe 4 hours of sleep given my sleeping patterns. We are dressed and on the road before it is fully light outside because we have a 45 minute drive thru the Oak Creek switchbacks after which I am treated to an early morning breakfast which I consume while still half asleep and which becomes a faraway memory by noon. Once we get to the trailhead and I convince him to hike my choice of a moderate trail instead of his, off we went into the bush (i.e. manzanita, scrub oak, agave, aloe and prickly pear cactus). It’s a beautiful day and the first half of the hike is lovely which for me translates to “fairly flat.” We then intercept a forest service road reached by vehicles and lots more people and start a slow ascent on a wide rocky red dirt trail. The trail slowly narrows and about two thirds of the way up the hiking becomes about scrambling up over rocks to reach the top to an area called Devil’s Bridge. As beautiful as the massive rock bridge at the top was, it was definitely a crowded hellish ascent.
Did you know that lung capacity goes down up to 1% a year after age 25 which means that by age 65 you could have up to a 40% reduction in VO2 lung capacity and a heart (pump) which is a former image of itself. This is without discussing all the other stiffer and more flaccid components of the respiratory system that become compromised with age. Well, let me tell you knowing it and feeling it are two very different things with the latter being both humbling and painful. Each 12-15 inch rock step brought increasing aerobic difficulty and I had to stop numerous times to recover before I finally made it to the top. I have not been so aerobically challenged since my early running days and on a few hikes in the Grand Canyon decades ago. We spent about 30 minutes at the top enjoying the view but I never did fully recover before we started our descent. Think lots of forward scrambling on loose rocks on your back side with shaky exhausted legs. It’s a miracle I didn’t fall! After that came over an hour of hiking with very painful hips resulting from trying to control my leg movements so I didn’t somersault forward on the descent. I had numb legs and several numb toes on my right foot by the time we got back to the car. Paul broke out the Gator Aid and although I felt pretty good on the drive home, my quads started talking to me and continued their painful banter for 72 hours. This is all with lots of Ibuprofen before and after the three hour hike. I did find out the Sedona Marathon was scheduled the next day so I think lots of those young fit smiling helpful folks we were hiking with were marathon runners. Paul keeps reminding me the number of people our age who could and would do such a hike is in the single digits which makes me feel a little better. Mostly, I’m just glad I’m not joining him for the first half of our upcoming winter trip!