Promises to my feet

In 2001 when I first hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, almost immediately, I had terrible pain in the balls of my feet.

By 78 miles I had already taken the bus to a nearby town to buy new shoes. The next section was the San Felipe Hills which got a lot of ink as being torturously hot and without water. I started hiking it at 5pm when the bus dropped me back at the trail. The new shoes didn’t help, maybe even made things worse. I hiked until 10pm and had to stop for the night, not because I was tired but because of my feet. I lay down, just off the trail, and the pain started shooting through my feet and would make my whole body shudder. I was worried that my feet wouldn’t get me out of The Hills before the sun got high in the sky. I said, “Please feet, get me out of here and I will take two days off and give you anything you want” Pretty much the whole trail went like that— bargaining with my feet.

Last year they did pretty well, as long as I carried two pairs of shoes, kept the callouses down, grease them up with Carmex, Super-Glued the cracks together, massaged them, and kept them elevated while on breaks and while sleeping. I had some problems but a good improvement.

This year, for the past few months, I have had a new foot problem. At first I thought something was broken . Now, from reading stuff on the Internet, I think a hammer toe is the problem. I have been taping it down, splinting it to an adjacent toe with a rubber band and wrapping in an ace bandage. I think it’s getting better, but today I purchased a gel hammer toe straightener, hopping that I might experience a quicker recovery. If it doesn’t work I might seek out a foot doctor.

Already the bargaining has begun. Hiking with my feet is like hiking with a whining 5 year old.

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