Medical Issue

For those just following me here on the blog site I needed to give you an update. On my crossing of Holter Reservoir I started having lots of pain in my groin area. I was able to get assistance off the lake with about 5 miles to go and I was able to continue the next day and complete the following section to Great Falls in 3 days keeping my time on the river as short as possible each day.

Once arriving on Great Falls I continued preparations for the next section of river which included returning some additional gear home. At the same time I made an appointment with a local clinic. In the afternoon of my recovery day I had my visit to the clinic and learned the bad news that I had a hernia and should not return to the river.

With great disappointment I arranged for a rental car and returned to Colorado Springs the following day, May 24. This week I was able to see a surgeon and was scheduled for hernia repair surgery yesterday, May 31. With the surgery now complete I am looking at about a month until full recovery. This puts my full recovery and about July 1 which is really too late to return to the river for the full through trip. It would put me in Montana and the Dakota’s during the peak severe summer weather season. I am planning on a shorter 2 week Missouri Breaks trip sometime towards the end of the summer and then a redo of my through trip next year.

Having never kayaked, the 10 days I spent completing the Chain of Lakes section and the upper upper Missouri has given me a much better understanding of the gear required for a successful through trip. I got a lot of things right and a few things really wrong. I will be posting some discussions of gear in the weeks and months to come.

With the Missouri River now always a part of me I will not be able to stay away.