Rolling up that hill #3: Pilot Hill (first attempt)
Pilot Hill is the highest hill in Hampshire. My first attempt led to two falls, climbing the steepest incline I have ever attempted, getting rescued by carpenters, doing a wild wee, nearly passing out from dehydration, speedrunning new friendship, and the most refreshing drink at the pub imaginable.
In our ‘rolling up that hill’ series, this was our first failure. But it was so much fun I'd happily fail it again.
I do my best to keep other people private on this blog, but I was joined by a new friend who saved me on this attempt. A lot. With water, kindness, companionship, unfailing enthusiasm. We did this thing together. Or rather we abjectly failed to do this thing together. And I am beyond grateful to have found such a friend and to have shared this experience with her.
We began our adventure at a car park in Faccombe just outside a stunning pub in sunshine so strong it could melt concrete, so strong it could illuminate Saggitarius A, so strong that you could cook churros in the seat of my wheelchair.
We looked at the map. The route to Pilot Hill didn’t look prohibitive. It was a few miles in a big circle through fields and alongside roads. The inclines were steady, steep at the start and manageable the rest of the way. We were confident. We set out. We immediately arrived at an unexpected crossroads. Left turned us up a road, right promised a footpath. The route planner seemed to suggest we head right. We double checked. We went right.
We should have turned left.
The right and deeply wrong footpath broke into fields and tractor paths not at all designed for a wheelchair. I stood and used the Roci as a walker as much as possible, sitting where I could and standing where I needed to. The first mile was challenging but manageable. The paths were difficult to navigate by chair but not impossible with my trusty MKII flywheel attached turning the Rocinante into a three-wheeled offroad machine.
But even the Rocinante has her limits.
I hit a large stone on the path with my central flywheel. The Roci bucked and turned suddenly into the grassy verge on the side of the path. The verge picked up my main right hand wheel. And it threw me off the left side of the chair. I hit the ground and rolled onto my back, the Rocinante tipping onto the dusty ground with all the pomp of a dry fart. I tested my movements. I had no major injuries with the exception of my pride, that for sure would take some time to heal in front of a new friend. With no injuries I pulled myself back into my chair. Not deterred, we continued on.
Without a toilet within range my bladder decided that now was the time to pee. Like a nuclear reactor in perpetual crisis, it indicated that it was probably about time to go with a sudden yet familiar meltdown alarm. There being no toilet on this route, I decided to try my hand at wild weeing. This was an adventure in itself. I have weak legs, which means that crouching is challenging. So I leant my back against a tree, bent my legs, and went to squat and squirt. But the heat meant that the messages couldn’t get to my bladder to open. Ironic, really, that I’m at risk of wetting myself while also being unable to pee. I can’t catheterise out here, I can’t sanitise my hands, so I attempt my best move ‘the jiggle’ to get my bladder to open. So there I am, trousers around my ankles, squatting against a tree, agitating my bladder with my hands to get it to open to squeeze out just enough liquid that I’m not at risk of wetting myself spontaneously en route.
It had become abundantly clear that we had taken the wrong route to the summit. The journey West was a fairly straightforward trip up to the hill, with the majority of it featuring smooth road. The Eastward route we had taken was a good couple of miles longer and across fields and paths, with steeper inclines and declines, and all challenging walking terrain that was basically impossible to wheel on. The forward progress we were making was slow and difficult, taking more energy, making us sweat in the heat, and pushing my legs more than anticipated. We decided to stop in the shade of some trees, work out our location, and decide where to go from here. We gave our animal companion water, rested, and took in the rather breathtaking sights.
The green of fields, farmland, rolling into the distance, broken up with trees slowly filling in for spring, a blue sky overhead.
We worked out we were totally in the middle of nowhere. And we started to identify a problem. Our supplies were designed to last us the shorter route, not this longer and much slower trek. Our water was running low. My legs were in some trouble too, having used more of their limited energy resources than planned, which meant more rests to recover their strength, which used more supplies, which we didn’t have.
It was at this point I realised that we were in some danger.
I’d like to say that the vigilant part of myself drew her sword, but I couldn’t find her anywhere I looked. Instead I was met with a slowly rising panic that we might be in genuine trouble. The heat was too high, the distance too long since our initial wrong turn. Our water wouldn’t last. My legs wouldn’t last. We were in farmland and there was no one around. Whether we survived this adventure would depend entirely on our next moves.
But this was also the moment I craved. My life is always in danger and MS imposes a consistent threat that is usually abstract, the hypothetical danger of an imagined future that absolutely threatens your quality of life, but that isn’t physical enough, immediate enough, to fight here and now. If I relapse today my life as I know it could be over tomorrow, but what would take its place is entirely unknown.
Knowing that my legs failing means genuine risk, knowing that the lack of water and the need for more rest creates a perfect storm in which we might actually be unable to reach safety, is a very tangible kind of danger. And this kind of danger is one that I can fight. We were out in the wilderness with only our problem solving, only what we had with us, only the strength we could muster, only our laughter and companionship and the strength we could summon in one another, to survive. The risk brings my whole world into focus. I might die out here. But not if I can help it. And out here, I can help it.
Our wrong turn took us back upon ourselves accidentally, and we found an earlier part of the trail we recognised. So we decided to follow that trail back to the car. Miles further offroad. With a wheelchair.
Somewhere around mile 2.5 I fell from the chair again.
Somewhere around mile 3 we ran out of water.
Somewhere around mile 3.5 we found the steepest climb I have ever attempted.
At this point we should have failed. My legs should have been made of sponge and forcing the legs to climb that hill when they were overextended should have been an act of paradoxical futility, like trying to harden glaciers by leaving the freezer door open. But something happens in moments of genuine urgency. The adrenaline, the impending disaster, forces power through legs that would otherwise surely fail. And I found strength. I mustered all of it and forced the Rocinante uphill. My companion and I pushed each other onward, against all expectation, against near-inevitable failure, rolling these final dice against impossible odds.
And somehow… we made it.
We continued the incline toward the road. There was a pub up there, I remembered, and the car, and safety and water and success.
We climbed the last of this hill.
And there was no pub.
In fact, as we crested this hill we realised that we had no recollection of this little summit at all. We checked our maps, tried to get our bearings, and realised that somehow we had arrived at a totally different place on the route, somewhere on the path we should have taken by turning West at the start of the journey.
We hurried to a group of carpenters nearby, they were working on a house, and we asked for directions. The pub wasn’t too far, but we had to travel down the road to get there. I asked for water. I knew I was badly dehydrated and with that climb, pushing 25kg of wheelchair uphill, I was overheating. Parts of me were worrying that we were at risk of heat exhaustion, heatstroke, or rhabdomyolysis (they catastrophise a little). These kind men found us a bottle of water and while my companion wasn’t dehydrated much at all, even though she had shared her water with me, quite possibly saving me, I drank hungrily.
Quenched and with a downhill roll toward the pub, we arrived at our destination somewhat giddy, got ourselves drinks, and laughed loudly at how much fun we had nearly slipping into genuine crisis. There’s nothing like a shared endeavour to bring people together, and my friend and I are speedrunning friendship, she’s suddenly my ride or die… literally.
And we failed. We didn’t make it up pilot hill on this run. But we did learn some valuable lessons. First, I need to take more water, a lot more, to manage unexpected eventualities. I’m so grateful for my friend, for those craftsmen, and without them I might have genuinely not made it back. I enjoy being spontaneous, but I could plan a little better. OK I could plan a lot better. I also need to invest in a route map on my phone, Google maps just doesn’t cut it on these profoundly offroad endeavours. And I need to get stronger. My legs are clearly strengthening, and I’ve no idea how, but that gives me opportunity to become even stronger, to go further, to discover what I’m truly capable of.
For now we rest. We recover our strength. We let our wounds from the falls heal. We get stronger. We plan.