Paddling through the pain

Trevor Clark was never supposed to be able to walk without pain again. While a student at Hoover High School in 2002, Clark was in a car crash that broke his spine and left him dependent on a cane and pain medications.

“I was supposed to be in severe chronic pain and laid up in bed the rest of my life,” Clark said.

That cane has been replaced by a canoe paddle, as Clark is currently on a two-month solo trip to paddle the Alabama Scenic River Trail, a series of rivers creeks and deltas that run through the state.

As a former Eagle Scout in Bluff Park’s Troop 21, Clark always enjoyed camping and canoeing. When he originally heard about the river trail over a decade ago, he knew he wanted to paddle the 631-mile journey.

“I thought it sounded awesome and I wanted to do it,” Clark said.

He faced a long road, however, to becoming healthy enough for the trip. After spinal fusion to repair his broken spine, Clark graduated high school in 2003 with fibromyalgia and neuropathy, which is chronic pain and numbness caused by nerve damage. Pain medications weren’t enough to take away the pain or help him become more mobile, so Clark began investigating herbal alternative medications.

After trying a few different herbs, Clark found a medication that brought him “70 percent back to normal.” Soon he was able to surprise his doctors by walking on his own into their offices. Since 2006, Clark has been using only herbal medicines to treat his pain symptoms.

His own healing inspired Clark to continue studying naturopathic medicines at Bastyr University in Washington. Since his graduation in 2011, Clark has worked in research for Bastyr and with the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. He has worked on projects for naturalistic breast cancer care and treatment-resistant depression, and he plans to go back to school soon for his doctorate. 

“It’s hard to really get your own projects going without those little three letters: Ph.D.,” Clark said.

Clark decided this summer was the right time to make the canoe journey. He spent months fundraising, preparing careful calculations of his food needs and practicing to carry his canoe and gear. On May 20, Clark set off from Weiss Lake at the Alabama-Georgia border.

The trail has taken Clark along the Coosa River to Wetumpka, where it meets the Alabama River. From there, he is traveling to the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, which leads to the Gulf of Mexico. He plans to finish the trip by July 18.

Along the way, Clark is identifying and pressing wild plants and flowers that have medicinal value. He also collects mushrooms to use as part of his food supply.

“I found lots of amazing herbs and plants I’d been looking for, some I’d never seen before,” Clark said.

He is especially hoping to see a saw palmetto in flower and the yaupon holly, a southern Alabama plant that is the only native plant in the U.S. to contain caffeine. Clark noted that the yaupon is “supposed to taste great.”

From day to day, Clark travels between eight and 18 miles. The distance depends on the current, wind and whether he has to carry his gear around dams.

“Sometimes the river’s flowing downstream, sometimes if the dam’s been turned off the river flows upstream,” Clark said. “You never know what you’re going to battle.”

The frequent thunderstorms in late May were also a challenge. One night while camping near a dam, Clark woke up to find the river flowing through his camp. The dam had been opened and, combined with heavy rains, the river level had risen three feet – right into his hammock tent. Clark had to scramble to get his gear to dry ground.

“I was lucky I didn’t drown. I had to hop up and move all my stuff farther away and go to sleep in a wet tent,” Clark said.

When he reached Wetumpka in mid-June, Clark had the chance to see old friends from his high school and Boy Scout troop. They camped and paddled with him for a day before he continued along the trail.

The strenuous days of repetitive motion, however, have brought back old symptoms of Clark’s injury. The neuropathy in his hands has flared up into pain, numbness and swollen joints. Some days it gets so bad that he can’t hold a spoon and his bones feel like they’re “on fire.” He’s determined, however, to push through and reach the end of the river trail as a triumph over the pain that threatened to keep him from the life he wanted to lead.

“It’s just one of those things I’m going to have to put up with while I’m on the river,” Clark said.