Day 2
~10 miles
Half mile downstream of Junction Meadow to Road’s End.

Well, I was able to sit up this morning, so that’s a good start. But I still had a constant stream of “oh $#!&” going through my mind, my back still feeling precariously twingey.

Late morning we got down to Road’s End and were delighted to find my friend Helen on duty at the ranger station! We had a nice long chat with her and then hitched 6 miles up the road to Cedar Grove village to get lunch. At this point, I was still gulping down ibuprofen for inflammation control, which seemed to be keeping things in check, but I was still incredibly nervous about my back – we hadn’t even started the strenuous stuff yet. But I was so determined to do everything possible to make this hike happen that I decided it was a good idea to get off trail, hitchhike 90ish miles into Fresno and get to an urgent care where I could hopefully get a prednisone (steroidal anti-inflammatory) and Flexeril (muscle relaxer) combo to get my back under control. The prednisone is what seemed to finally get my back healing after 2 months of pain last summer.

We got pretty lucky on hitches and got to Fresno by 3:30, then Ubered to an urgent care where we sat in the waiting room for over 2 hours. In the end, I got 2 shots in the butt, a corticosteroid for the inflammation and something else for the pain, along with a very long winded lecture from the doctor about how women shouldn’t be out hiking alone because it was just a matter of time til they ran into the wrong person out there and got raped and nurseries and their body thrown off a cliff never to be found. I really wanted to just get my shots and get out of there, so I tried to mostly keep my mouth shut, but it was really hard.

I’m very lucky to have met lots of awesome people through the world of long distance hiking. One such incredible person is Bloodbank (Sara Fry) – check out her Sierra Mappin Project!) She lives in Fresno and generously offered for us to stay with her. We had a nice evening catching up before, over the course of which my back started to feel way better. Fingers crossed!