Two midnights after a fabulous hike, I’m awake having spent the evening writing about it, still unable to find a specific event that made the hike so fabulous. I quickly moved myself mentally along the mile and a half hike and still couldn’t find anything. What was it? After getting out of bed yet again, I returned several minutes later and closed my eyes. I’m not sure what my conscious state was when I suddenly saw black block letters on a dark green background.
The words spelled “Pounding the Air.” Of course!!! A phrase I have neither written nor spoken perfectly captured what I was looking for! I can still see those black letters. I probably will always remember them. I’ve never had that experience before.
Five midnights earlier, that would be three nights prior to this special hike, time I needed to be sleeping, I was again awake. With radiation therapy, my sleep was broken up into separate short chunks, followed too often with long periods of wakefulness. My mind worked nonstop during these latter times, and I learned to get up, walk into the living room, not to read, but to unload everything I was thinking verbally, giving each snippet brief light in darkness, talking to it, quieting it, putting it into snippet bed so I could then return to my bed and hopefully sleep. The heavy rain that night likely stimulated one of these snippets and back in bed, still awake, much later I thought, “Upper Trestle Falls at the east end of the Brice Creek Trail.”
I struggle to understand what happens in my mind to produce these connections, but the result is remarkable, and I like it. Here, my mind continued with: See the falls, soon. A year ago, I had stalled too long and missed the last big flow by a couple of weeks, but this was an ideal time to go, soon. The only day I had free in this tight interval was Sunday, three days later, and I had to move fast if I wanted company, which I did. So a couple hours later at 6:02, I fired off an email to Jean in Cottage Grove, subject line “Exit 174 visit.” I was unusually terse, only 101 words, which is terse for me, saying I would be at Exit 174 at 8:15 Sunday, heading east to Champion Creek Trailhead. I offered to take her, her Roy and anybody else who wanted to come, and I was also willing to pay for everything at Slabtown Coffee afterwards. I have learned from the many cats I have had that it never hurts to ask for what I really want. I left out the length of the hike. The two knew the distance.
Within an hour, Jean had accepted the whole package except for a time change of 9 am, which was even better, for it gave me a chance to drive to Cottage Grove High School and look at the quarter acre garden many of us Obsidians (hiking club) helped create a year before. I saw that before driving to Jean’s, arriving a little early. Before 9, I was driving east in the rain, Jean and Roy with me.
The rain let up before we reached the trailhead. The trail climbed steeply for a good half mile with many fallen branches of various sizes present. We all knew the route, and I used my walking stick to flick branches off the trail, occasionally picking up a few. The many I didn’t get were taken care of by the pair behind me. We had hiked this several weeks earlier after my 9th treatment; now it was after my 42nd. I felt better this time, encouraging, because I appeared to have avoided radiation fatigue. I was still breathing louder than I wanted to, but the idea of seeing the falls after a 3-5 inch rain moved me along. One 4 inch diameter log jutted out over the trail. I pulled it out barehanded, because I was too lazy to put my gloves on, dragged it across the trail, then two-handed it off the trail. I was acting like I had testosterone, when in fact that steroid was a distant memory to my body’s receptors. I was excited about what was coming.
I heard the falls a good five minutes before reaching them, got what I guess is called stoked, and when I had my first good look, threw my arms upwards and was pounding the air, I was so happy. I conceived this hike (with the help of a snippet), made the plans, drove everybody there, all of us then hiking in to reach this wonderful cataract to see it in strong flow. We made it!!! In my case, my body was telling me it was recovering and might be more useful in the coming months. Why wouldn’t I pound the air?
I can remember only two other experiences where was pounding the air. Five weeks earlier on Spencer Butte, I was so exhausted I rested my head on my walking stick six times in a quarter mile and sat down once as well. I thought I was better than that and hiked it four days later, and I was better. When I knew for sure, well up the top steps, I pounded the air. Ever since that time on the Butte, when I reach that same spot, my right fist is pounding the air to say to myself and to the surroundings “I am back, I am still here, I am going to finish this.”
The only other time I pounded air was when I skied a tough, steep mogul field perfectly, hitting every mogul, and only the mogul, all the way down, stopping only when my knees or lungs gave out.
The 20-25 yard falls was perhaps 3 yards across at the top and closer to 10 at the bottom. We took pictures then hiked back out, clearing a few more branches we had missed on the way in. As soon as we got into the car, the rain started but we were dry, other than sweat, and a bit cold, which heat could fix, returning to Cottage Grove for tea, cocoa, and cookies, all on me, with great pleasure.
After I dropped Jean and Roy off back at Jean’s house, I felt like pounding the air again. I pulled this off!!
Umpqua NF December 2025
Boreal B[l]og 
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