On July 4^th, 2020 near the start of his goal of “52 hikes in 52 weeks,” Ken Hanh, a long-time Washington State outdoorsman experience a serious injury.  During a hike on the Pacific Coast Trail with his family, while stepping off the trail to avoid a snow field, Ken suddenly felt his right knee give out and heard a loud SNAP emanate from his leg.  Falling to the ground in immense pain, he found himself unable to move his leg.  Overcome with pain, five miles from the road, out of cell phone service and fearing he’d broken his leg Ken used an emergency beacon to summon help.  Due to his location and injury a decision was made to medivac him to the hospital.

It was later determined that his quadricep – one of the leg’s most major muscles – had completely ripped from his knee – meaning he had no ability to walk and requiring an operation to repair.

After his operation Ken began rehabbing and resumed his hiking goal….  But there was far more going on, and his story is reprinted here as an example of the type of emotional, physical and spiritual journey that any large goal – the good goals – create, inviting us outside of our comfort zone, forcing us to confront fears and creating growth.

Here is his story:

It’s been 7.5 months since my backpacking trip last 4th of July that got me my first helicopter ride (and hopefully my last, of this nature). Sadly, that trip was to the ER in Renton. It took until yesterday for me to finally feel some sense of normalcy. In fact, I thought “normal” was never going to come.

[After injuring myself July 4^th, 2020] I watched last summer, what was to be my “come back” year for readying myself to be rope-ready for the 2021 climbing season, melt away in a locked full leg brace. The rest of July was a blur of hope that it was just a bad sprain, but an MRI showed the real problem:  my quadricep, [one of the leg’s largest muscles and necessary for walking, much less hiking] had completely ripped from the bone.

Emergency surgery soon followed. August was spent mostly in horizontal mode looking at wonderful weather out of my window. I did manage one 3-mile hobble on a level trail in the Glacier Peak area, but it felt like Everest in effort.

I spent the fall still in some form of a restrictive brace and managed to somehow plow through the remaining 17 of my 52 hikes in 52 weeks, including somehow finishing early on November 29th. The superficial goal was complete, but the underlying goal of getting “rope-ready” was sadly missing.

After the short-lived elation of completing [my goal of 52 hikes] was over, I realized I was probably in worse shape than I was in November of 2019. Even though I was in hard core PT, it really didn’t seem to help very much. I fell into a deep depression over my condition. The holiday funk didn’t help.

Free of a brace in late October (except for hiking trips) I promptly fell hard in my living room, with flashbacks of my fall on the day of my injury. In late December, I was finally able to actually climb a flight of stairs. This was exciting, but my leg certainly still felt wonky, however it was progress. Sadly, trying to play late-night Santa while holding an armful of packages climbing up the stairs out of my basement on Xmas eve, my leg gave out and I fell down the stairs backwards. Miraculously somehow unhurt, and after punching a hole of frustration in the stairway wall, I dusted myself off and fell deeper into my depression.

In January this year, I continued dabbling in hiking, if for any reason to get the kids out of the house and get my nature fix. I had to give up my hinged soft brace for hiking because for some reason it started giving me a bad rash. Unfortunately, this just accentuated my sense of instability, and underscored my limitations. I started feeling like I’d never be able to deal with uneven ground… ever – even if that meant wading into a lake or river simply to cool off and enjoy a swim. I felt like walking down stairs normally (I’ve had to back down stairs in reverse to descend) would never come, and trying to go down facing out was a horror show.

I stuck with physical therapy (PT), and with some stretches of self-pity have managed to keep up home sessions of PT and back to my beloved keto diet since the middle of January. In late January, after completing 4 hikes, I sort of accidentally slid into deciding I was on the path of another 52 in 52.

I was realizing the only time I really felt better physically (and mentally) was the day after hikes:  regardless of my predicament, “forest bathing” [just being out in nature] certainly brought benefits, so why not continue to do it, even if it is on a lesser than grand scale?

A couple of weeks ago I was dropping a package off before my evening PT appointment. I was in a hurry because time was tight, and without thinking of it, I simply took a step off the sidewalk into the parking lot onto my “good” leg, which means my “bad” leg needed to support all my weight, as well as “brake” my delivery onto the downward leg.

Mid-stride, I realized the “mistake” I had made and – in that split second – lost my breath anticipating the inevitable “give out” and tumble to the hard ground.

I was shocked to find myself having transitioned the step without falling. For the first time since July 4th, I had taken a step down using the “bad” leg to do the work!

At the PT appointment, I relayed this news to my therapist, and being the forever pessimist, proclaimed my “luck” in surviving this “mistake”. She looked at me and simply said “Well, have you tried going down a flight of stairs yet normally?”

My response was a self-dismissing laugh regarding how “silly” a suggestion that was, because “obviously I’m nowhere near ready for that.”

She repeated her suggestion/question in a dead-serious tone, and suggested I at least consider doing that on the last few stairs of a flight, whereas my “bad” leg got 2 reps down to the landing below.

I did this several times and after conclusion I wasn’t going to face-plant, began going down stairs leg-over-leg facing down. I certainly held the banister for dear life, but for the first time since July 4th, in late February I was walking down stairs almost normally.

Yesterday I did a 5.4 mile hike with ~800′ of gain. I’ve done some hikes in the mid 400′ gain range, but usually very tenderly uphill and tiny downhill steps, always terrified I would lose my balance from my rickety stance.

Yesterday, after about a mile in, I realized going uphill no longer felt like my knee was doing all the work. I was actually feeling my quadricep awake and alive for the first time in 7.5 months. What was even better, is with the improved mobility, I felt my cardio conditioning awake and alive as well. I’ve been doing high-intensity, interval training (HIIT) workouts on my road bike on a trainer for about 8 weeks now, and that certainly has helped. I felt like a locomotive going uphill and was surprised by my level of endurance. Most exciting on the downhill trek yesterday, for the first time since July 4th, I was able to rely on my “bad” leg taking steps downhill. I found with my muscles now alive, the leg would support a good-leg stride forward downhill without buckling.

Yesterday, in a beautiful place and on the most sunny and warmest day of the year so far, I went hiking. Like, normal hiking. Like, almost stopping worrying if I would make it out of the woods without falling. I was able to enjoy the walk in it’s simple and full form. I didn’t feel like a burden to my family in-tow. In fact, I encouraged them to leave me on the way down so they could walk at their own pace, and I could lay back to enjoy the solitude and confidence that I would indeed walk out. I would be OK.

There are much worse ailments someone can have and I’m lucky to not have a more debilitating disease or permanent disability. Until yesterday, I felt like I would not fully recover from this. After yesterday, I have hope, if not confidence.

Copyright © 2021, Ken Hahn. Reprinted by permission>