I was once a world class backpacker.

Now I’ve got a nerve disease that makes my legs so weak I can barely hike a few miles in a day, even without a pack.

And of course the world is closed down with COVID-19.

But I’d be miserable without my nature time and I’m happiest with a big project.  So my sweetie Geri and I set out to hike from our front door in Mountain View, CA, up into the coastal hills and maybe all the way to the Pacific.

In tiny chunks, of course.

First Steps

The day we started didn’t feel packed with portent or anything.  We stepped out of our front door, almost without knowing we were starting a months-long project.

On that day, Santa Clara County where I live was under strict quarantine: no driving out of the county and no driving to trailheads.  (County parks were open but people had overgrazed the commons, packing trails shoulder to shoulder, so now trailhead parking lots were shut.)

Perfect time to take a simple walk around the neighborhood.

So, out our front door and past the trees in the courtyard of my apartment complex, which was built in the ‘50s: nothing charming but nicely maintained.  (I could do without the palm trees: poor things are sickly with browning leaves because Silicon Valley is not their natural climate.)

Out of the courtyard and down my ordinary street, Geri with her camera and me with my walking sticks.

This is the kind of nice middle-class neighborhood I grew up in, except that this is Silicon Valley and rents are what you’d pay on Mars.

Masks weren’t mandatory yet.  Geri wore one and I put one on when someone approached.

We reached a corner where Hans Avenue met Gretel Lane.

“Look,” I pointed, smiling.  (I do that every time we walk past those street signs.)  Hans and Gretel.  Geri smiled back.  “Cute.”  (There’s no Snow White Court or Aschenputtel Drive, so the names must be a coincidence.)

We walked on.  My walking sticks clicked annoyingly on the sidewalk.  I wished I felt safe without them, wished that stepping off each curb wasn’t such a risk.

That’s life with Charcot Marie Tooth.

Shark Tooth and the Corona Virus

Somewhere in my mid-30s I noticed my legs getting weaker.  One day I couldn’t reach stuff on the high shelf anymore.  Why?  Couldn’t stand on my toes!  I finally asked my doctor, “Is that normal?”

The diagnosis was Charcot Marie Tooth, a degenerative nerve disease.  The funny name is from the two French doctors and one English doctor who independently discovered it.  The medical abbreviation is CMT but I’ve heard it called “Shark Tooth.”

There’s nothing wrong with my muscles but they’re the muscles of a couch potato because the damn nerves won’t stimulate them enough.  So I have weak legs and wear leg braces and trip over flat sidewalks and fall wailing to the ground if I get the least bit off balance.

That hasn’t stopped me from hiking.  I need my nature time!  So I hike almost every week, even if I have to struggle up steep hills and struggle even harder down them.  Yes, downhill is harder because you put a lot of weight on your forward leg and my forward leg is likely to collapse.

When I was a kid I remember cursing endless uphill stretches and making up stories that the evil trail would find ways to go up even when there was no more up: reach the top of a mountain and build itself a ramp to keep climbing just to torture kid hikers.  When I’d reach a downhill stretch, I’d run.

Now I look at endless downhill stretches and sag with weariness.  Walking flat city sidewalks is definitely easier.

City Sidewalks to Bubb Park

We walked past pleasant houses with all kinds of gardens.  Some people had traditional lawns and rose bushes but we saw several houses with native plant gardens.  The only problem on city sidewalks is the pound, pound, pound of the pavement.  Like the old saying, “It ain’t the ‘ard ‘ard pyvement as ‘urts the ‘orses ‘ooves, it’s the ‘ard ‘ard ‘ammering on the ‘ard ‘ard pyvement as ‘urts the ‘orses ‘ooves.”

And curbs.

When I step off a curb, my leg braces keep my foot flexed.  Normally that’s what I want: with the weak leg muscles, the foot drops helplessly and makes me trip over flat sidewalks.  But the trade-off is I can’t point my toe down and cushion the step down (my foot would be too weak even if I could flex it, of course.)  I’ve got to ease down with my back leg muscle, turn my hips and reach sideways with the down-going foot and transfer my weight carefully.

Leg brace (and unconcerned cat with mouse)

We passed Bubb School.  In this age of schools with security gates and metal detectors, Bubb looked like a sweet throwback.  Classroom doors opened directly into the parking lot with “Mr. So-and-So’s Room” in bright tempera colors on butcher paper or “Welcome to Ms. Such-and-Such’s Class” in letters cut from blue and red construction paper.

I thought shyly about how blessed I was to be stuck where I was during the pandemic.  Sheltering in place is tons easier when you feel safe.  An introvert like me is happy for lots of time at home, with occasional walks around outside.  If I had to walk through trash-strewn streets with tough guys smoking on every corner, I would never leave my house at all.  I only wish everyone had the option to live in a comfortable, safe neighborhood.

Just past Bubb School, and connected to it without locked gates, was Bubb Park.  We walked across a play area: springy rubber mats joined with tabs like a jigsaw puzzle.  Across sand and soft grass to an area where nobody else was playing or sitting.

We’d brought along white kitchen trash bags to sit on but it took careful coordination to get them out of the daypack and spread, letting only one side of the plastic touch the grass itself.

At last with a sagging sigh, we relaxed onto the plastic and felt the trees around us and heard the kids playing in the field.  Several fat squirrels raced along a fence between the park and people’s back yards.  It was hard to imagine that from here we could possibly reach a county park, let alone a trail into the hills and get all the way up to Alpine Pond and Summit Road and beyond.

But it was a start.  Next post I’ll tell you more about how we did it and what it’s like to hike with a disabling nerve disease.

More information about Charcot Marie Tooth.  Of course it goes without saying that if you have CMT you should check with your physician before trying any of the things I do with CMT!

Places we went on this part of the hike: Bubb Park