Electrical, Mechanical, Emotional, Physical - How Hiking Effects the Body, Mind & Soul

The impulses that guide and direct us are a little closer than we might think. 
It's pretty amazing how we can take something from "out there" - a thought, a feeling, a perception - internalize it, manifesting it into a physical, tangible thing.
Emotions, as we know, are based on our thoughts and perceptions - mine are vastly different than most people's - I think :) 
I feel things more intensely, more intuitively, than the average person and am very much "in touch" with my body. I also have a great capacity to dissociate, distance and ignore. It's a great tool for pushing beyond boundaries and thresholds. It's also a fantastic method for exploration, and comes in handy as a journalist.

By way of explanation: In early 2015, while hiking, my left foot was damaged by frostbite. My three centering toes became nerve damaged and the flesh suffered from lack of blood flow and oxygen. I imagine this is what a sausage feels like in it's tightening casing when thrown into a frying pan turned on high heat. I wouldn't call it pain, exactly.  While xraying my foot, the orthopedic podiatrist discovered several broken bones in my feet that healed crookedly, in a haphazard, unsupported way. Jagged-edged jigsaw puzzle pieces of bone, forced together in an unnatural way.  I shrugged my shoulders when he told me. My more pressing concern was the word "amputation."  I only had one question ... Would I be able to walk without those toes? A lengthy explanation of unknowns, potential limps, gait-training and the like followed.  But would I be able to hike? If not, I told the shocked Doc, my preference was that they amputate the entire foot and fit me with a prosthetic. He called his nurse into the examining room, fearful that I was in shock, had lost my mind, or maybe that I was about to break into a crying fit.  I was serious. They set up a surgery for the following week and sent me home with TONS of pain killing, addicting narcotics. I took none of it. I called my acupuncturist and set up an appointment for that afternoon. I believed him when he said he could help me, so I cancelled the surgery and instead undertook a form of electric shock therapy - that regenerated most of the nerves and saved my toes.
I am uninterested in pain or discomfort and am good at ignoring both. I've been ignoring a breathing problem for years. It's a pain-in-the-ass shortness of breath that is brought on by minimal physical exertion - which is absolutely insane since I am pretty healthy and very fit - not just for a woman my age - but generally speaking compared with a large cross-section of the population. I deal with it.

Two weeks ago something odd happened to my heart. It didn't hurt but it did feel like the right side stopped, flipped over, filled up with blood and in an effort to "catch up" the left side started thundering, pushing volumes of blood so rapidly into the left side of my neck and ear that I was deafened. While it did cross my mind that it might be a heart attack, I just marveled at the experience, really paying exquisite attention so I could relay every little detail to the emergency room doctor.

Several hours later I was released from the ER, heart-attack free but with instructions to follow up with a cardiologist. (Getting an appointment with a cardiologist will be the basis of a future book on the failings of our medical system.)

I am now two-weeks post-incident having been to three cardiologist appointments and various hospital visits for blood draws and the like. I've been outfitted with a heart monitor and suffered the consequences of an underwire bra in proximity to electric leads and body tape. It's uncomfortable, inconvenient and NOT inconspicuous. 

I now know why I have that shortness of breath. My intake valve is faulty. Apparently hundreds of thousands of people have a similar condition. My initial thought was not one of fear, desperation or any other useless emotion. Instead, it was one of relief. It was an electrical problem, not necessarily a mechanical one. Likely it was brought on, in part, by emotions - or more accurately, the suppression of them.  Let's just say, I've discovered it's not healthy to hike out your anger. It can lead to frostbite.

I've once again turned to acupuncture. My amazing therapist has literally saved my parts - not just my toes, but in another instance a broken spine. He is humble and shrugs off praise, gratitude and appreciation like I shrug off pain.

While in treatment, I encourage him to talk about energy centers and how my fire and water are out of  balance. I subscribe to what Americans call "alternative" medicine, but what to me feels like ancient wisdom. I'm an advanced Reiki practitioner and a student of quantum physics. I understand that everything is energy. EVERYTHING. So, there's an imbalance in the energy of my heart.

I've asked the cardiologist what can be done to right the "wrong" or imbalance. He tells me that my insurance won't pay for the fix until the problem becomes worse. Our health insurance and medical system seriously suck. I'm not sure I would go through with the "fix" anyway, simply because it's so invasive and the risks are HUGE. One of them is death. I'm not afraid of dying, but I'm in no rush to check out of this lifetime. 

Today, I visited my granddaughter - Princess McGraw - and though she is only seven months old, she spoke to me through her mother's huge blue eyes. She is my only child to have gotten that trait from me - blue eyes; and passed that on to her own daughter.

Today while looking into her eyes, I felt as though I was looking into the future AND the past while at the same time looking into a mirror. The eyes are indeed the window to the soul and hers were filled with curiosity, trust, joy and surrender.

Tomorrow, I'll take what I THINK is my final heart test, an echo-cardiogram - or a sonogram of the heart. In addition to the other tests, this will tell if the block is a structural deficiency - a collapsing and weak vein or arterial wall - or a artery blocked by gunk. 

In addition to pain and discomfort, I am utterly uninterested in labels and diagnoses. 

I'm only interested in solutions. The solution to every "problem" - including this - is to hike (safely) as much as possible and look through the eyes of a baby into the future.

*Between hikes, Lillian Browne writes about the environment, politics, crime and business in Delaware County. She is a NYS licensed outdoor adventure guide exploring the world around her, one step at a time, with her dog - Charlie

Snow Sick in the Catskills

It appears as though much of the Catskills is experiencing an entire winter season in March. The month has come in like the proverbial lion and has not stopped roaring.

Many full-time residents, like me and Charlie Browne, have had our fill.
Just a few days before the calendar start of spring, the snow is still too deep to hike without tremendous effort on both our parts.

I've taken up snowmobiling, because if you can't beat 'em, join em.  As a newbie, and fast-approaching middle age, I am uninterested in the race-around, tear-it-up shenanigans of the younger and opposite gendered crowd who seem to cruise the trails to meet up at pre-determined rendezvous locations to imbibe. 

I'm without complaint at this point - desperate to get outside and play. Beside, I've been able to traverse a variety of trails that would have taken me nearly a full day on foot.  The stunning vistas in those hard-to-reach-by-foot places have made snowmobiling worth it for me.

Except, Charlie Browne can not accompany me on those outings, so, we've done a fair amount of snow-shoeing. 

Except, it's not much fun for him when the snow is still shoulder-high on him. 

It's exhausting and we're sick of it.

The Catskills were slated for another n'oreaster on Tuesday but the forecast has since changed and we seem to be in the clear as far as snow fall is concerned. 
Temperatures are getting down to the single and teen digits at night yet, and my seasonal four-tons of pellets are dwindling.

The two or three 70-degree days we had in February are a distant memory.
Maybe this seasonal shift of snowy and cold March weather is emblematic of (whispered in a hushed tone) climate change? 

In 2017, on the ides of March, the Catskills were walloped by Winter Storm Stella, who caused a three day stand still in Delaware County and elicited assistance from the Army National Guard to help dig us out.
Everyone in these parts is looking forward to March's frolicking lamb.

*Between hikes, Lillian Browne writes about the environment, politics, crime and business in Delaware County. She is a NYS licensed outdoor adventure guide exploring the world around her, one step at a time, with her dog - Charlie

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em

My thigh muscles are talking, my biceps are aching, my lower back is whispering and my throttle-thumb is whining.

Because .... snowmobiling.
I finally saw the entirety of Bear Spring Mountain. From astride a snowmobile and man oh man, was it fun!
To be clear, my top speed was 20 m.p.h, for a 50 foot stretch, and I almost lost my right ski to a maturing birch tree on trail no.1, and I wiped out in the unplowed, over-crowded parking lot ... but who am I to complain?

The photos don't do this place justice.
It is my home away from home.
Charlie Browne was not allowed. But I did take him on a very short snow-shoe hike after my three hour ride.

The snow was knee-high and I am out-of-shape, though in-pretty-good-shape-for-almost-being-50. The hike was short.

But the views were long... expansive...beautiful.

*Between hikes, Lillian Browne writes about the environment, politics, crime and business in Delaware County. She is a NYS licensed outdoor adventure guide exploring the world around her, one step at a time, with her dog - Charlie

Finger Lakes Trail in February

The Finger Lakes Trail, in the western Catskills, easily flows in companionship with the waters of the Cannonsville Reservoir in Delaware County.

As hiking trails go, the Finger Lakes Trail in the western Catskills is VERY well marked.

In late February, the still water near the intersection of state Routes 268 and 10, known to old-timers as Apex, makes for an inviting, moderate hike.
Apex, once a bustling hamlet, supported in part by the O & W Railroad in the town of Tompkins, disappeared with the demise of the rail road.
It was the site of the Delaware County's first acid factory, built in 1876. Quarrying and lumbering gave rise to Apex, and when nearby hillsides were denuded of their timber, industry faltered.
In the early 1960s, the construction of the Cannonsville Reservoir did away with neighboring hamlets like Granton, Rock Rift, Rock Royal and Cannonsville - their remnants now lie beneath the waters of the reservoir.
The Finger Lakes Trail parallels the reservoir, snaking through enchanted forests of managed Hemlock, Spruce, Birch, Oak, Beech and Maple stands. 
Hiking the trail with a dog is well-advised. My hiking partner, Nancy-from-Cadosia, and I, encountered several areas where a bear had recently awaken from its winter slumber and left a tell-tale paw-printed path that led, presumably, to a den.

I was definitely over-dressed for a late February hike in the unusual, but becoming-more-common, warm weather in February in southwestern Delaware County, NY.

Though we didn't actually spot wild life, other than early season songbirds, rabbit tracks, mole tunnels, coyote prints and deer runs were also visible in the melting snow on the 58-degree day.
Somewhere along the trail, before it merges to become the Rock Rift Rail Trail, there is either a tunnel or a blasted rock site that remains as a reminder of long-ago locomotive action.
We didn't make it there this time, but will when we next hike, giving ourselves more time for a leisurely exploration of life and the trail.

As usual, the trail was showing us some love.

*Between hikes, Lillian Browne writes about the environment, politics, crime and business in Delaware County. She is a NYS licensed outdoor adventure guide exploring the world around her, one step at a time, with her dog - Charlie

On Thin Ice: How A Winter See-Scape Healed a Childhood Trauma

January in the Catskills has proven itself, once again, the creator of mystical and magical see-scapes. 

Frozen cascading waterfalls simultaneously resemble Rubanesque figures leisurely lounging beside hungry, angular runway models who are peering beyond a veil of time. 

Ice has an amazing way of cusping a two-form existence - solid and liquid. It seems to be one thing, but is really another, depending on perspective.

Charlie and I were en-route for Saturday morning tasks and chores when I caught a glimpse of Tub Mill Falls, showing off - set back not even 100-feet from state Route 206, just north of of the tiny hamlet of Downsville. A mini-ice-capade nestled between sliced shale.

Ever eager to get the perfect photo, I tried many different angles stream side - kneeling, squatting, angled up and down, but none seemed to capture the essence of what I was feeling. I tentatively tested the ice against my 160-pounds, creeping, weight-bearing forward, while carefully balancing for an easy backward dash.

A trickle of icy water, unseen beneath crusty snow, slickened my step and was enough to send me unexpectedly, forcefully, full-weight forward through the ice. 

This is not the first time this happened to me. At the tender-age of 12, my older sister and my then-best friend, were walking to a relative's home to borrow ice skates when I spied a frozen pond. I was easily 50-feet ahead of them, anxious to retrieve the ice skates, when I spied what I now know to be a catch-basin, flood control pond. 

I approached the edge, which in similar fashion to the mini-ice-capade waterfall, was slick from sunshine and slight-melt. I slipped, skidded and sailed to the middle of the pond before the ice gave way ... and the gravitational pull of the underground, underwater drainage culvert sucked my body back to the edge of the pond .... beneath the several-inch thick ice.

I was trapped beneath the ice. Thirty-six years later, I remembered the moment like it was yesterday. I didn't panic - I still don't in moments of crisis. I just remember banging on the ice, from beneath it, trying to break it, with my skinny, little, ineffective fist ... and that's it.

What happened next was told to me by my sister and friend. They were at least a "few" minutes behind me in stride, leisurely walking and talking. When they got to the pond, though they didn't see me ... they saw my red knit hat (my mother made it for me) sitting on the ice in the middle of the pond.  It either got caught on the edge of the ice or was pulled off by the force from which I fell through the ice.  Either way, it was enough for them to linger another second to see my wet hair pop through the broken ice.

In a heroic rescue, the friend held my sister's 13-year old feet as she lay across the ice to pull me out of the pond.  They figure I was in the water at least 10 minutes, if not longer.

We never did get those ice skates. And I never ventured near ice, or swam with my head under water, from that moment on. 

Up to my waist, because of the way I fell, beneath the ice below Tub Mill Falls, I reacted in almost the exact same way, I did when I was 12. I did not panic. Whether a trick of the mind or one's ability to tap into a higher-power that has your back, time seemed to slow down. 

I felt the water fill my left hiking boot first. I felt its biting coldness grab my ankle. It felt as though my boot was cementing to the stream's bed. And then -  I was crawling to safety. Soaking wet from the waist down. It was eight degrees.

I never made it to the bank yesterday. Charlie and I didn't hike. Instead, he lay at my feet (which were wrapped in a heating pad beneath a down comforter) the entire day. He looked up at me every few minutes, with those acrobatic eyebrows of his (that make him look more human than canine!) which seemed to say ... be careful ... err on the side of caution and stay away from ice of any measure, especially when you are alone.

And in a way that is incredibly empowering, I've reflected on yesterday's events and the larger lesson. This time, I didn't need rescuing. This time, I rescued myself.

I survived.

The end.

*Between hikes, Lillian Browne writes about the environment, politics, crime and business in Delaware County. She is a NYS licensed outdoor adventure guide exploring the world around her, one step at a time, with her dog - Charlie

Ticked Off!

The 2017 hiking season ( the ENTIRE year) proved to be challenging if one was exploring with the hope of avoiding ticks.
The creepiest of  body-burrowing bugs, ticks, are not easy to kill. They have no known natural predators and have cold-insulating, life-protection tricks that would leave David Copperfield in awe.
They are wily. They can seemingly parachute from the towering heights of hillside trees, hitch-hike on dandelion seed or catch a ride across an overgrown pasture on a mouse's tail.

That's how I discovered my first burrowed tick of the year ... in January, in the Catskills, on a warm 50-degree day following a week of sub-zero temperatures.
Basking in the sun-filled warmth of a late-morning hike, it was only in passing that I gave my attention to a wayward briar .. easily two years old by the way it grabbed and gripped my leggings. The one thought that crossed my mind was "I wonder if that was a tick-pricker?" I immediately and foolishly dismissed the thought. It was, after all, the end of January in the Catskills and we were still on the dark-side of winter's hold. 
How wrong I was!
Ticks acclimate. Those sons-of-blood-sucking-guns move water out of their cells before a freeze can rupture them.
They use things like leaf litter and snow to insulate themselves. The nerve!
Despite my long pants, tucked-in-t-shirt and layered long-sleeve shirt and vest, an opportunistic tick swabbed my stomach with its built in anesthesia and burrowed into the sensitive skin on my belly.
I didn't follow my own rule of immediately disrobing and showering following a hike, because it was winter - January in the Catskills. 
I figure that little bugger got a three-hour long meal before I noticed it. 
Sadly, I was afraid to smush it -  and it felt cruel to burn it. Instead, after pulling it out, I counted body parts, multiple legs, and head - just to ensure a piece of it was not still munching away on my insides - and washed it, with hot water and a splash of Clorox, down my sink.
Knowing a tick's resiliency, I'm almost certain it will ride the wave of a municipal sewer into the mighty West Branch of the Delaware River.

*Between hikes, Lillian Browne writes about the environment, politics, crime and business in Delaware County. She is a NYS licensed outdoor adventure guide exploring the world around her, one step at a time, with her dog - Charlie

Two-Season Merge

In the same way that an intense dream is nearly indistinguishable from reality upon waking, the Catskills have merged the essence of before and now - or now and not yet. Autumn and winter or winter and spring.

Is it autumn and winter? Or winter and spring?

It's hard to tell lately exactly which season it is. Is it winter? spring? fall?
There is snow and ice, emblematic of a Catskills winter. Yet the climbing temperatures every other week accompanied by rain seem determined to announce an early spring.

This magical looking tree can be found at The West Branch Preserve in Hamden. It has withstood  many cyclical weather changes and is a thing of childhood dreams.

The seemingly wild fluctuation is nothing new - the Catskills have been experiencing this flip-flop pattern for the past several years. 
Fal-inter or wint-ring are the new normal.  And there is nothing new under the stars - weather patterns are cyclical. 

Is it fal-inter? Or is it wint-ring?  

We will have another "big snow" event before the next solstice. We will also have another 50-degree day before ... and after that.

"It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself." ~ Charles Darwin

Choose ...

#embracechange

*Between hikes, Lillian Browne writes about the environment, politics, crime and business in Delaware County. She is a NYS licensed outdoor adventure guide exploring the world around her, one step at a time, with her dog - Charlie