Monday found us on a long boat ride with T, and after a bumpy and wet approach we were happily zoomin' up a river that was rumored to have fin. Not a hiking-friendly flow, this river is fast, high-gradient, full of logjams, slippery, and sports no trails on its brushy-as-hell banks - folks of lesser constitution generally don't see the better holes on the river.
About a mile upriver from high tide, the logjams start to wear on a fella. T had hooked a nice fish low in the system, and the prospect of "greener grass" kept us pounding through chin-high vaccinium and gnarly devil's club thickets.
We finally reached our limit...the best-lookin' water in the whole river was now downstream of us, and there was nothing but pain and misery on the docket if we chose to forge ahead upstream. Being the sensible types we are, we turned around and started down.
One of the beautiful pools, and the scene of the crime...
That's when it happened.
The dirt barely covering an upended rootwad that we were crossing decided to give way while we were on it. At this point, the options were pretty slim - fall to the right onto the rootwad, mebbe bust a rib or flip over and land upside down, or fall to the left feetfirst about 6 ft and hope we landed safely.
We went left, and we didn't land safely. The familiar "POP" sound from the ankle, and we knew that we had torn the bejeezus out of the ligaments. We yelled the appropriate expletives for awhile, then reassured T that he wouldn't need to carry us out of the woods (tho he was and is more than capable), we could probably make it to the boat - it would suck, and it would hurt like hell, but we could get there. T cut a wading stick, we laced our left boot up as tight as it would go, and started down.
The view for the next mile and a half, more or less.
Long story short, we got out of the woods. It wasn't pretty, and we probably didn't help the injury much, but after a few hours we were at the boat and got the first aid kit out.
We visited the sawbones today and according to the doc, we are the proud new owner of a grade III sprain. Not our first, so we happened to have the air-cast and braces handy and put them to good use.
Now, only 19 days to recover. We'll let you know why soon enough.
BTW - gifts, get-well cards, and beer are standard tokens of sympathy...not for our ankle, but because we can't fish for 3 weeks.
We'll expect some soon, dammit.
