The Freewalkers Guide to the Milford Track: Day 4: Mile 32 is full of tricks, Part 2.

Once back on the main trail, the sky opened up and began to drizzle. After the downpours of the previous day, it was hard to get upset about a slight trickle of rain. We silently passed through the forest, spying various birds, and seasonal waterfalls. It was beautiful, but we were almost too tired to appreciate the scenery. Normally talkative, we kept our mouths closed and locked, as expelling words was an unneeded luxury. At mile five, my left knee began to throb. I guessed that I must have jammed or hyper-extended it somewhere along the trail on Day Three. Thinking about it, I vaguely remembered six or seven good locations where it could have happened. I also remembered that it had locked up for a couple of brief moments during the night before while I had sat around the fire.

After that mile-marker, each step was cartilage grinding discomfort. But, I wasn’t going to complain about it. I didn’t want to complain for two reasons. First, I was sure that everyone at that point had some sort of nagging ailment. Second, there wasn’t anything that I could do about it. What it needed was rest, and I clearly wasn’t going to be able to rest until I finished the trek. There was nothing to do but limp along with a water-logged bag, step after step until I reached the end of the trail.

At the eight mile point, we stopped for a quick lunch on the shore of Lake Ada. The clouds sat around the valley like forgotten brush strokes on the canvas of the sky. After two bites of lunch, the sandflies swarmed out of the brush, which made us head on rapidly. Right after lunch, we arrived at an uphill section of trail that was hewn out of the rock. However, I guess it is misleading to say that this part of the trail was “hewn” or “hacked” out of the rock, since we had been told by Ross that the section of trail had actually been blasted out with dynamite by former prisoners of the Milford Prison. That fact alone made the section of trail incredible; but even more incredible was the fact that heading up the narrow, rocky, slippery, dripping grade totally gassed what reserves of energy I had.

It wasn’t a very steep grade; in fact, it probably wasn’t even an elevation gain of more than forty feet. Even with that in mind, my body refused to shift into a lower gear and power up and over the sloping ridge ahead. I just didn’t have enough energy to surge over the crest like I usually did. The complete power drain wasn’t just a personal phenomenon. The members of our group that had been gaining on my wife and I fell permanently behind us as they moved like molasses. My wife’s pace, brisk to that point suddenly stalled out as well.

As I crested the rocky rise, and began to hobble down the pockmarked slope to the next suspension bridge, the weight in my bag suddenly doubled, then tripled, then quadrupled, sextupled, and exponentially increased until the entire Milky Way was rested on my shoulders. At least that was what it felt like. I wasn’t sure what exactly had just happened, but it was clear that all of the fatigue from the last three and one half days had just smashed into my body and sucked it clean of whatever fumes of energy it had left.