Bum Knee...

Since our last hike to Laguna de los Tres I have been stuck in close proximity to the house.  The night before the hike Susan, Kaci and I enjoyed a lovely evening at the Chocolateria.  While we were walking back I was running ahead to make a joke of something, tripped and landed face down on the gravel road.  I didn’t slide, just went from upright to flat instantly.  Susan and Kaci burst out laughing, I was laughing and crying and couldn’t get up.  Finally after about 5 minutes of this Susan helped me to my feet and we wobbled the few blocks home.  We woke up early as planned and headed out hiking to Laguna de los Tres where there are perfect views of Fitzroy.  This hike is beautiful and lucky for me relatively mellow except for a few steeper parts.  I loaded up on ibuprofen because my knee was bothering me a bit, but it felt alright until we were finishing mile 15 to bring us back into town.  Something was definitely not right.  Since then I have been stuck around town and in the house waiting for it to heal.  Trying to go climbing, bouldering, a short run (bad idea), yoga, and then yesterday I thought I was ready for another hike with the girls. 

We loaded up our packs again with some warm jackets, food and water and were off.  My knee was feeling excellent!  I thought for sure it was healed.  The first 7.5miles to the summit I felt fine and then on our way down there were extreme winds, keeping us from even being able to stand in one place.  So on the way down we were skipping and running through scree, propelled by the wind and doing what we could to stay upright and avoid slipping on rocks.  This of course tweaked the knee and I hobbled down the rest of the trail back to the house.  Looks like maybe I should study healing practices from Kelly Cordes as he has become a pro after a few unfortunate accidents recently.  Luckily some friends are in town, and our new friend Carsten (whose property we are staying in) has a foosball table, and I am in training.  Tommy seems to be passing me up, however.

In the meantime, Tommy has headed up into the mountains once with Jay, once with Mikey Schaefer and Jens, and recently with Colin Haley who has been keeping us entertained in the evenings with his endless jokes and accents and on afternoon bouldering outings.  Colin and Tommy climbed Brenner-Moschioni on Aguja Guillaumet in a day, and since then the weather has not been cooperating.  

Today is chilly with the wind blowing sheets of rain sideways.  We're off to meet Colin for a bouldering session at the "gym" in El Chalten.  If anything, it's been great training down here!  

Happy Holidays to everyone!  We are wishing we would have brought Elf down here to get into the Christmas spirit!