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Another geocaching story from Kabuthunk
It's been way too long since I last posted a story, so here's an interesting tale that came about this summer:
Today I had quite the agenda planned. It was June 14th 2009, and I had planned on attempting to beat my old single-day record for number of caches found. Now, given my previous record was a paltry 12 caches, this is still a fairly large number for myself. Regardless, I figured one of the best places to do this would be a large, provincial park near the city. Heading out in the morning with my bike in the car, I soon made my way over to Bird's Hill Park and unloaded my gear. Once I had the bike and backpack ready, I was prepared to begin.
Most of the day went my fairly smoothly, finding a relatively uneventful 12 caches and one DNF before getting to the cache that decided to test my endurance a little bit. Having just biked somewhere in the ballpark of 14 kilometers to get the earlier caches, I was understandably a bit tired, having been somewhat out of shape from not having done as much biking this year. However, determined to defeat my old record, I continued onward.
I had just finished finding the nearby geocache, and found that my next goal was sitting to the Northeast about 500 meters. Not bad, not bad, I thought. I should be able to snag this one and then head back to the car. The sun was slowly starting to set, and I had planned to hit several more caches on the way home to ensure my one-day record. Climbing onto the bike yet again, I headed down the awesomely fun biking path that twisted and turned through the wilderness of the park. But what's this... the path keeps on veering me further and further West... even Southwest at times! On the rare few times it curves Northwards, my excitement that I'm finally going the right way is quickly cut short when the path once again curves back West again. Several minutes later, I was dismayed to find that this path in question had added several hundred meters to the distance required, and I was now 700 meters from the coordinates instead of 500ish.
Deciding that this path would have a decent chance of just looping back eventually to the start point to the South, and with no guarantee that it would eventually hook North to the cache, I decided to go off-road a bit and cross a wide, rocky opening through the trees. Taking my bike off-trail, I followed an animal-path for a short distance. I quickly thanked my decision, as I soon ended up easily making it to another path. Following it back East this time, it was slowly meandering me back towards the geocache at last. But what's this... it's pretty much dead-straight, and never curving to the North that I need!
Another 5 minutes later, I decided another detour was required, and headed down yet another animal trail. Once again, my gamble paid off, and the path led me back to yet another trail. This time, the trail was leading me about 250 meters Southeast of the geocache. Hey, at least I had managed to hack off a good half-kilometer with my past few detours. However, seeing no change in the trail's direction, I decided that since two detours had worked wonderfully, let's give it another whirl.
Bad idea.
Swinging the bike down an animal trail going gently down a slope into the forest, the forest quickly closed up on me, making it walking-room only with the bike. Soon after that, the "trail" (if it could even be called that any more) closed up even more, making it "walking with the bike hoisted onto my shoulder" room only. And what's this? Oh, great... it's closing up even more! By this point, I was about 75 meters from the coordinates, and over 100 from the path I came off of. At this point in my mind... I had committed myself to this trail, and was past the point of no-return. I had a GPS... I knew which direction to go... let's just bite my lip and give 'er.
By the way... I was wearing shorts and was biking bareback. And had sandals on. Just for the record.
At this point, I had given up all concern for my leg's well-being. Not caring in the slightest how badly they were gouged, scratched, or otherwise bleeding, I just plowed through the very dense bushes, praying to find a trail. In the end, I did... but I paid dearly for it. I couldn't have counted the number of scratches over my legs, feet, and stomach if I had tried. The vast number of mosquitoes didn't help either, but I'm fairly certain I DID lead them up to my by way of the trail of blood on the tips of every branch between that 'bike on shoulder' point and the actual, correct trail. Six months later, I still have a few faint scars on my legs from where a particularly thick, pointy branch decided to gouge me.
At least the bike was still in good shape. It may have picked up a scratch or two on the way when the branches decided to get tangled amongst the spokes or chains, but it made it through the ordeal in a lot better condition than me. But then again, I had it held fully over my head for a few specifically dense bushy areas.
However... after breaking through the dense bush, I found myself at a trail... and then the cache. AT LAST! Terrain of 1.5? Oh, I cranked that fella up to a 4, minimum. And so, I proceeded to sign and drop my signature chainmail ball into the day's 13th find (lucky number 13, all right).
But the fun can't end there, now can it? After I had broken through the bushes to the correct path, my legs were understandably tired and in pain, but my right leg in particular was feeling more hurt than the other. I'm thinking my constant motion while hefting the bike over my shoulder had kept me going, but after my stop to sign the geocache and look through its contents, my right knee... simply decided that it had had enough. About 20 meters away from the cache with the sun starting to set, my right leg outright refused to support my weight. I tried walking while supporting myself with the bike beside me, but that only got me a bit down the trail before the agony started getting too great.
Quite worried now, I was a bit scared I'd have to call for help, or even crash in the car if I was unable to drive it home, assuming I got to the car! I noticed that my leg hurt most when it was fully extended however. Deciding to test a theory, I hopped onto the bike and slowly worked my way forward. Using my left leg as my main force, I let the right leg just follow along without using the muscle at all. It worked! Not only was this significantly faster than walking, but since I adjusted my seat to have my leg extend as little as possible, it hurt a lot less too! I believe it had an added benifit as well of getting some motion into the knee to keep it from seizing up. It must have worked one way or the other, because by the time I got to the car (a good half-hour later... MAN that trail just kept on going!), I was able to walk with barely a limp any more. I must have just pulled a muscle somewhat, and not actually torn any ligaments or anything worse. Well, except of course for the multitude of scratches and gouges across my legs... which continued to haunt me in the hot shower after I got home. Oh, the legs were not pleased with that, I can tell you that much.
In the end I was indeed able to snag another two caches on the way home after this one, making for a new one-day total of 15 caches (the logging of which probably took just about as long as finding them, since my online logs often need to be cut down to fit the 4000 character limit on geocaching's website). I was pleased at my success, and brought home a story that will stay with me forever. And one thing's for certain... I think I'll be cutting off future cachings to a limit of two detours.
Kabuthunk