Hiking Year in Review

I just took a look at my hiking year in review from one year ago, and I'm struck by how similar this year was to last. I simply didn't do a lot of hiking. There weren't any impromptu "take a day off and go" days, and no "get up at dawn on a Sunday and drive to a day-hike" days. I didn't do a fall day at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary either last year or this. That's not a problem, it's just a change from years past when I did that fairly frequently.

There are a number of reasons, some motivational, some logistical. I enjoy hiking and the outdoors as much as ever.

There were two main highlights this year:

• Our boys' West Virginia weekend. Since we couldn't do a big trip this year, we did long weekend at Seneca Rocks and the Dolly Sods wilderness area. We left on a Friday night and got back late Monday - so we had 2 1/2 days away for the price of one vacation day. The hiking, the scenery, and the camaraderie were fantastic.
• The overnight trip in April with Eric and John to Ricketts Glen State Park. The Falls Trail at Ricketts Glen has been on our lists for years, and it was great to finally hike it. It has a reputation as a "bucket list" hike, and it lived up to its reputation. The Sunday drive up to the area with Eric was also a lot of fun - we meandered around the countryside in search of geocaches and pretty scenery.

Our intention for 2015 is for more trips like the West Virginia weekend. A few of us have life commitments that will make a big trip impossible again - but the three- or four-day weekends are very possible. There are countless great hikes in a 3-5 hour driving range, and we just have to get some weekends on our calendars. If we don't, the calendar will fill up, and it won't happen.

We need to make it happen. That's my resolution for the New Year.

Marsh Creek S.P., 12/27/14

John told me about hiking plans he and a few buddies had for the Saturday after Christmas - a day trip to one of my favorite place, Harper's Ferry, WV. That's a long day trip, with 3+ hours of driving each way, but there's so much great hiking and scenery there. I was enthusiastically in.

Unfortunately, I felt very unwell Friday night, had a terrible night's sleep, and was unable to answer the bell on Saturday morning. Very disappointing. But I slept all morning and felt a good bit better by noon. It was a beautiful warm sunny day, so I looked for a nearby place to get outside - and settled on Marsh Creek State Park.

I parked at the west-side boat launch, and took the trail that follows the lake, crosses the dam, and continues on the east side. The trail was a muddy quagmire in many spots, but it felt great to be outside and on a trail.

Total distance: 5.50 miles
Elapsed time: 1:42

Inside the Tracker's Pack

Interesting article: Inside the Tracker's Pack

There's no getting around it - this hasn't been a particularly good year for me hiking and getting outdoors. But I'll save my year-in-review post for the end of the year. And it's possible that with a few days off over the holidays, I'll finish the year with an actual hike.

Stay tuned.

Thru-hiking the A.T.

A friend of mine has a 20-something daughter who completed a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail this past fall. We recently had dinner with the friend and his wife, and I peppered him with questions about the daughter's hike.

Backing up a bit, the Appalachian Trail is a hiking trail that goes from Springer Mountain, GA to Mt. Katahdin, ME - more than 2,100 miles along the crest of the Appalachians. Thru-hiking the trail means completing it in one year, which normally means starting in Georgia in the early spring and finishing in Maine by middle October (Baxter State Park in ME, where Mt. Katahdin is located, is closed for the winter on the first heavy snowfall, which is usually in mid-October.)

The upshot of our dinner conversation was that his daughter and her friend did great and had a wonderful time. A local newspaper did a feature on them, here.

The A.T. runs through PA, and its closest point to me is above Reading at Port Clinton - a little more than an hour's drive. I've probably day-hiked the majority of the PA trail between the Susquehanna and the Delaware River, and John and I did a memorable two-day backpack from Delaware Water Gap to Wind Gap in 2009 as training for our Grand Canyon backpack. (I posted trip reports from Day 1, Overnight, and Day 2.)

I've been asked, and have also asked myself, if I'd ever want to thru-hike the A.T. I can't say it's a burning desire. First of all, it's unrealistic. I can't just take six months off and hit the trail. And every time I've seen and talked to thru-hikers, they tend to be either recent college grads (i.e., haven't started "real life" yet and have no responsibilities) or early retirees (50's or 60's and reached a point in life where the kids are grown and they actually can take some time off.)

But even if you disregard that, I'm still not sure I want to. Everything I've heard is that a thru-hike is more a mental endurance test than a physical test. When it's poured rain for a week straight, and everything you're carrying is soaking wet, how badly do you want to continue? So I can't say that's a goal of mine - though hiking buddy Ted has stated numerous times that I will be joining him on a thru-hike one day. So we'll see.

One thing I definitely intend to do is to do more section hiking on the A.T. It runs the length of Shenandoa National Park, and I've only done a few miles of that. And it runs through Maryland near its narrowest point - just 24 miles. That would be a fun 3-day backpack to complete the A.T. in one state. I'd also like to complete the trial between the Susquehanna and the Delaware. These seem like much more realistic goals.