Testing My New Knee
Abby admires the scenery along the Boise River
Late last year I decided that I was going to get a knee replacement. My knee was getting steadily worse and last summer I had trouble doing moderate hikes. By the end of the year even walks with Abby in the neighborhood were painful. I didn't want to have the surgery but I figured that I had to do it if I wasn't ready to give up hiking. I had it done in January.
My knee recovered over the following weeks and months. After a few weeks I could take Abby for our regular walks in the neighborhood. These were usually a mile, sometimes two, and I could do them without pain. That was definitely an improvement from where I had been before the operation, but they weren't very long and they were on flat ground on paved sidewalks. Not exactly hiking in the mountains. At some point I knew that I needed to test my knee to see if I could do real hikes, not just walk the dog in the neighborhood park.
Entire hillsides were covered with arrowleaf balsamroot
In May Sandy went back to Illinois for a month. Shannon's maternity leave ended and Sandy wanted to help with the babies while she was getting back into work. Abby and I were on our own. One day the weather looked good and it was exactly four months since my surgery. Time to give my knee a real workout. We left early and drove down to the Greenbelt.
I got an early start so I was able to get a parking spot in the small lot just west of Glenwood. Abby was definitely excited so we hit the trail. It was a beautiful day so I figured we would just walk as long as we felt good. We reached the pedestrian bridge about a mile and a quarter down the trail and crossed over to the south side of the river. Last year we had done the trail on that side from the bridge all the way to Eagle Road and I thought we would try again. Unfortunately the trail to the west was closed for construction. At first I was going to loop back to the start, but I didn't really want to do that. That's only about two and a half miles, about what we do in the neighborhood on our long walks. Not much of a test.
The trail is visible across the valley traversing the hillside
Instead I crossed back to the north side of the river and continued west. I wasn't very optimistic because I had looked at this on Google Maps and it looked like the trail left the river quickly and went into neighborhoods. I wanted to hike along the river, not through subdivisions. But I was surprised. The trail did go into a neighborhood, but it was well marked and actually fenced off from most of the houses. Before long it turned and came back to the greenbelt. When it wasn't by the river it was going past a series of small lakes and ponds. It actually turned out to be a really good route. Abby and I walked all the way to Eagle Road before turning back. According to the markers on the path, our roundtrip was over nine and a half miles. Sure, it was all flat trail and about half of it was paved. It was still a lot of steps. My knee felt great. Much better than it had before the surgery. My new bionic knee had passed the first test.
Up on the ridgeline the views open up
Next I wanted to try a hike with elevation change. A few days later Abby and I were up early again and heading for the Boise Foothills. We drove to the trailhead for the Five Mile Gulch/Watchman/Three Bears loop. It's six miles long with a thousand feet of elevation gain (and more importantly, elevation loss, which is the real killer for a hiker's knees).
It was another beautiful morning. We had an early start and the first half mile up Five Mile Gulch we were still in the shade and it was a little cool. Eventually we came out into the sun and my light jacket came off. We had the trail almost to ourselves. We were passed by a couple of guys on mountain bikes but most of the time we had the hills all to ourselves. There were lots of wildflowers in bloom. In some places the arrowleaf balsamroot, the ubiquitous wildflower of the Boise Foothills, covered entire hillsides. There were lots of other wildflowers as well.
The Blond Wolf surveys her domain
The latter part of the hike has expansive views. We could see the city of Boise,which pretty much fills the whole Treasure Valley now. In the distance the Owyhee Mountains still had lots of snow on them. Abby would pose looking out over the valley, the Blond Wolf surveying her domain. Eventually we hit the downhill. It's reasonably steep, losing the thousand feet in the last mile of trail. I took it slowly but had no problem at all. We were back to the car and my knee felt fine. It had passed the second test. It looks like I can do real mountain hikes again.
I was so excited that I had done well that I did something dumb when we got back to the car. I set my trekking pole against the car, unlocked it and helped Abby to get in. She jumped in by herself when we left home, excited to get to the trail. After the hike, she put her front paws up and then turned and looked at me. Fine. I gave her a boost into the back seat. Then I got in the driver's side and was ready to go.
Abby takes a break on the trail
There was a guy sitting in his truck at the trailhead and as I started to back out he waved at me. I rolled down the window and he asked if I was leaving. He wanted our parking spot. I told him it was his and continued backing out. He suddenly started yelling and waving and so I stopped again. It turned out that I had left my trekking pole leaning against the car. Dumb! That's how I lost my favorite trekking pole a few years ago at the trailhead to Hell Roaring Lake in the Sawtooths. Obviously I hadn't learned my lesson. After retrieving my pole, we were off and heading home.
Two great days. I was pretty excited that my knee had done so well on these hikes. They were pretty good workouts for it. I think I still have a few more hikes left in me. I am definitely looking forward to this summer.
