[pct-l] San Diego Union Tribune Article

[brick at fastpack.com (Brick Robbins)]

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/features/crest_trail/20040626-9999-1mc26ouch.html

Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail
N. County hikers keep step ahead of injuries
By Elizabeth Fitzsimons
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

June 26, 2004

Editor's note: This is the fifth in an occasional series of stories 
following North County residents Paul Longton and Nancy Imbertson as they 
hike the Pacific Crest Trail.

Haul a heavy pack for 20 miles up and over mountains, from sunup to sunset 
day after day, and it's bound to take a toll on a body.

For the hardy souls bound for Canada on the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail, 
physical discomfort is as much part of the experience as the awesome views.

North County hikers Paul Longton and Nancy Imbertson, who began their 
journey at the Mexican border April 23, have been lucky. Their maladies 
have been mostly confined to their feet, and 900 miles into their trek, the 
"oohs" and "aahs" have far outnumbered the "ows."

Now Longton, 55, and Imbertson, 39, are navigating through snow and 
ice-cold streams of the high Sierra on feet toughened in the Southern 
California desert.

Lack of pain has become a source of pride for them, and even the subject of 
some playful bragging. They boast about the muscle growth on Longton's 
"gargantuan Popeye" legs, and his powerful posterior, which bounces his 
35-pound pack with each stride.

Others aren't as fortunate. Pain and illness can be a constant companion, 
and in some cases, will cut short a dream journey.

A hiker soon finds how miserable life is made by one small watery pouch on 
a heel. It's worse when there are a several blisters on each foot.

"They sound so trivial, but they can be debilitating," said Angela Ballard, 
who with her husband hiked the trail in 2000, then wrote a book, "A 
Blistered Kind of Love."

Blisters, swelling, shin splints and joint pain all are common. And weight 
loss and fatigue will make a hiker more susceptible to illness and injury.

Longton and Imbertson have learned the importance of listening carefully to 
their bodies, devoting at least 15 minutes of conversation a day, for 
example, just to the functioning of their digestive tracts, Imbertson said. 
They pay even more attention to their feet.

In a dim motel room in the San Bernardino County mountain town of 
Wrightwood last month, they sat on the edge of the beds, hunched over their 
feet.

They scraped the dirt from under their nails, inspected the blisters, 
swabbed their soles with wet wipes, only looking up when a point in their 
storytelling required eye contact.

As Imbertson washed their once tan, now gray, socks in the bathroom sink, 
Longton straightened his legs and considered his feet.

Several toenails were black, perilously close to falling off. When they do, 
he will wrap his toes in the hiker's favorite multipurpose tool: duct tape, 
the only material that will stay stuck to a hiker's sweaty foot.

"Buzz" and "Izzy", as they are known on the trail, carry only a Spartan 
first aid kit. They are unafraid of mishaps. A rattlesnake bite was 
unlikely if they were careful, they reasoned.

A breather
Two weeks ago, Longton, an Oceanside architect, and Imbertson, part owner 
of an Encinitas construction business, took a six-day break from the hike 
so Longton could attend his son's high school graduation in Oceanside.

With more than 700 miles behind them, their skin was tanned dark as 
pennies. Longton sported a white beard, and was eight pounds lighter. He 
recouped three pounds after a few days of good eating.

"We're built for hiking. We really are. Strong legs, lean upper bodies and 
a passion for it," Longton said, enjoying a cigar on Imbertson's deck.

"We talked about one of things we're very glad we did was start the trail 
in shape. We didn't have a lot of weight to lose, or any weight to lose.

"We were good for 20 miles a day. We had a sense of what it took to hike."

And, Imbertson said, "how to manage water." They carefully calculate what 
they will need for each stretch, depending on the temperature and available 
water sources along the way.

Back on the trail June 13, rattlesnake country was behind them. In the 
weeks ahead, they will venture into some of the trail's most treacherous 
territory. The high Sierras and northern Washington state are riskier 
because they are so remote, so far from medical care, said George Semb, who 
with his wife Patricia wrote "Day Hikes on the Pacific Crest Trail."

While hiking alone several years ago, a misstep sent Semb sailing down a 
mountainside, he said, where he landed bruised and bloodied. His wife knew 
something was wrong when he didn't show at the appointed hour. She went to 
Plan B, a second meeting place where she found him.

"If you take a bad fall and break something, someone's going to have to 
help you get out and take you to the nearest road," Semb said.

They couple now warns hikers to always make a plan and have someone 
expecting their arrival.

Thomas Kinzer barely began his Pacific Crest Trail hike last month when 
terrible knee pain ended it. Gulping Advil and fighting the pain, Kinzer 
knew his hike was over after just 32 miles.

"Well, it seems the knee is officially injured, so I am unable to return to 
the trail," Kinzer wrote May 22 in his Internet journal. He would let the 
knee heal, then begin a training regimen. "In the end, the opportunity was 
there, but I wasn't ready," he wrote.

In 2000, Karen Borski Somers (trail name: "Nocona") had completed 708 miles 
with her husband ? then her boyfriend ? and couldn't shake a cough that 
sent spasms through her chest until her ribs ached.

 From Independence in Inyo County, she phoned the hospital in Lone Pine, 
where a doctor offered a diagnosis: pulmonary edema.

"This means fluid was collecting in my lungs, and my body was not getting 
enough oxygen," explaining the tingling and loss of feeling in her face and 
hands, Somers wrote in her Internet journal.

"It would be extremely risky for me to be up at high elevation. The risk 
was life and death ? very serious."

Getting their legs back
For their part, Longton and Imbertson marvel at how well they acclimated to 
the altitude, such as at the top of Mount Whitney this month.

The week off, however, knocked them off kilter. Imbertson found herself 
battling sleepiness upon returning to the trail, where mountain peaks reach 
14,000 feet.

"Amazing how quickly the acclimation disappears," she wrote in her journal. 
"I think I stayed awake until 6 that evening, one tired girl . . . "

Five days later, at Muir Pass along the John Muir Trail, they reunited with 
Buck-30, a hiker they'd befriended before their break. They also found 
themselves falling back into the routine they had missed so much while off 
the trail. They were getting their legs back.

"People are amazed," Longton said recently, describing other hikers' views 
of him and Imbertson.

"At first it's in the pejorative sense that OK, I smoke cigars, she smokes 
cigarettes, we drink beer and we drink coffee. And people think nah, 
they're not going to last," Longton said.

"Nacho," a hiker in his early 20s, marveled at how the pair could split a 
six-pack of beer, then hike 30 miles.

"It's just beer, for God's sake," Longton said.

"Plus," Imbertson said, "a lot of them look at us as old. I mean a lot of 
people look at me as being older than I am, 'cause I'm hanging out with an 
old guy," she said, laughing.

How irksome it was to hear a young hiker refer to her as "that lady, 
meaning substantially his senior," Imbertson said.

"How about 'that chick?' " she asked.

To be continued  . .