Had a followup visit with my OS a few weeks back to make sure everything was still in place before I start the summer hiking season.   Everything looked as good as could be expected and I'm not a candidate to have the hardware removed.  The pins were still where they were supposed to be and I've got a minor amount of arthritis in the foot. 

The only real outcome is that he recommended taking Glucosamine suppliments.

The project that consumed most of my summer has (finally) come to a close and I should hopefully now have some time to get back to the trails.  Heading out to Mt. Diablo tomorrow for a warmup hike and then hopefully a few late season backpacking trips over the coming weeks.

Spent last weekend in Arizona visiting friends from my Intel days and watching the Steelers get their asses handed to them by the Cardinals.  Flew from AZ to PA on Monday for a solid week of sleeping in and generally de-stressing.  Caught the Roger Clyne concert at the Pittsburgh Hard Rock on Tuesday (good show, but not one of their best),  Visited the Grandmothers on Wednesday and Thursday, saw 3:10 to Yuma on Friday, Went to the Penguins Home Opener on Saturday and finished off the week with the Steelers shutout of the Seachickens on Sunday.  

Weather in Pittsburgh was in the 80's all week, which is more or less unheard of for Pittsburgh in October.

By now, most of you have noticed that I haven't been hiking all that much this summer.  Its been all work and no play as of late.

I'm finishing up a major project at the end of September and (hopefully) will be taking some time off in the fall to get back on the trails.

Hard to believe that its been a year since I broke my ankle and its hard to describe how much of a defining moment a serious leg injury is on ones life.

While nowhere near back to 100%, the ankle is more or less back to normal for day to day activities.  On the trail, it will start to ache after about 10 miles and will tend to swell for a couple days after an outing. 

For an anniversary, I went back to Yosemite Valley for the first time since the injury and did the hike that got interrupted when I got hurt.  Here I am sitting on the same rock that I occupied for 2 hours while waiting for the SAR team a year ago.  (Wearing the same shirt even- the pants got cut off prior to the surgery).  I opted to avoid the specific route down the rock that caused the mishap.

It was an absolutely beautiful day to be in Yosemite and good to be back.  The waterfalls were in full flow and my travels today took me past most of them.  I did the basic Nevada Falls loop (Up the Mist trail and down the JMT) with side trips to visit Sierra Point and to summit Liberty Cap.

The full set of pics (took a ton today) are here.

Long, long, long overdue cleaning of my garage this afternoon. 

Simply frightening how many pairs of dirty hiking socks I managed to accumulate. 

This site gets a fair amount of traffic from people looking for broken ankle information so I wanted to repeat/bump up a link that I mentioned a few months back:

The discussion forums on MyBrokenLeg.com have an enormous wealth of information on all things leg injury related.  I didn't discover the site until about 5 weeks into my injury and wish I had found it sooner.

Good luck with your recovery.

Had my final doctor visit for my ankle on Monday, about 4 months after the injury.  The Xrays were clean with a little bit of osteoperosis in the lower ankle.  This is supposedly common and one of the things that takes the 12 months to heal completely.  Unless I have complications there will be no more doctor visits.

He commented that my recovery time was remarkable given the extent of the injury.  I don't know if my routine had anything to do with this, but here's a summary what I did for rehab: 

- Nothing but bed rest while in the cast.  Started going to the gym once I was in the "Darth" boot at 6 weeks.
- Calcium suppliments and multivitamin daily, extra hydration
- Recumbent exercise bike from first day after getting cast off week 6.  Once daily 30 min sessions w/ gradually increasing resistance.  (This did wonders for the initial strength, range of motion, and provided a gentle return to cardio exercise after being more or less houseridden for 6 weeks).   While still using the boot, I would wear it to the gym and take it off to use the bike.
- Lightweight compression sock for once I returned to the office.  Sitting in a desk chair for 8 hours was causing a fair amount of swelling and the sock help prevent this.  Also iced the ankle every evening for about 20 min.
- Physical Therapy twice weekly starting week 8.  The best exercise I did at the PT sessions was to stand on the injured leg and bounce a ball off a trampoline that had been angled into a backstop.  At first, just balancing on the ankle was enough effort to break a sweat. 
- Trail hiking starting with 5 mile outings at week 11 and working up from there.  This did wonders for my over/under pronation range of motion.  Theres all sorts of stabilization muscles that you don't work until you're walking on uneven ground.   Wore (and still wear) and ankle brace for these trips and used hiking poles for extra stability help.
- Single leg Rotary Calf Presses srarting about week 10.  My gym has a nice machine for this, which helped.  I'm still missing an enormous amount of strength here-  I can do 300/10 with the injured leg but have been slowly working my way up from 120/10 to 160/10.  Hoping to get to 220/10 so so I can lift my full body weight on the ankle.

(Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, talk to your OS/PT before planning a rehabilitation srategy)

Clouds Rest has always been one of my favorite Yosemite hikes and has been the subject of some of my more memorable outings over the years.  It was my first hike in the Sierras outside of Yosemite Valley and (with Half Dome) my first hike of over 25 miles.  It had been a few years since I had last been to the peak, so I decided on it as my destination for my first trip back after breaking my ankle 14 weeks ago.

Its almost exactly 200 miles from Mountain View to the Sunrise Trailhead (on Tioga Road just past Olmstead Point).  This was my first long drive since my injury and my first time above sea level in 3 months.  The drive didn't bother me at all, but the elevation gain was bothering me a bit over the course of the day. The weather was nearly perfect and there were zero mosquitoes.  (On prior trips on this route, the mosquitoes were bad enough to make standing still impossible and I've been snowed on Clouds Rest in the summer). 

My ankle held up admirably today-  Almost no pain for the first 12 miles or so.  The final mile or two descended a series of rocky switchbacks that tended to hurt my knees even before the injury.   For this section, I just slowed down and made sure I was leading with my good leg on the downsteps.  Once back on flat ground I was able to pick up the pace again and finish without issue.  My stamina didn't fare nearly as well- I'm relatively out of shape and had to stop frequently on the uphill sections of the back half of the hike.

Pics and commentary are here.

I had my final physical therapy visit this morning, having reached the point of diminishing returns with the biweekly visits.  I've made a substantial amount of progress since starting PT (and still feel that I have a fair amount of recovery needed) but the remainder will be without professional supervision.

For most daily activities I'm back to pre-injury levels.  Squatting still is a bit painful-  I don't quite have the ankle flexibility for that motion this is the same motion that occasionally causes me issues when walking down stairs.   Other than that, things are pretty much back to normal.

I'm still missing an enormous amount of strength in the injured leg, and the muscle isn't returning as quickly as I had hoped.  I'm able to calf press ~225 lbs with my left (uninjured) leg where 120 lbs is my maximum on the injured right leg.  

Next up for the leg is my (final?) exam with the Orthopedic Surgeon on September 18.

For my third broken ankle recovery outing I headed down to Butano State Park along the Pacfic Coast between Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay.   BAHiker.com gives this park a less-than-glowing review, but I found it to be quite enjoyable.  Not as impressive as Big Basin (mostly due to Big Basin's waterfalls) but a definite number two for local redwood forests.  The ridgeside slopes in Butano tended to be very gradual allowing you to see much further than in Big Basin's comparatively steep and narrow canyons. 

My ankle held up well for about 7 of the 10 miles and was causing me a rather substantial amount of pain on the back end of the trip.  Downhill still hurts much more than uphill and I still am missing quite a bit of range of motion.  I held an average 2mph pace for the outing for the first time since returning to the trails.

Pictures and commentary are here.