“Holy crap my feet hurt.”

-MPD

I have been wanting to do a long(er) hike for a couple of weeks. With the exception of few hikes earlier in the summer, most of my excursions into the woods have averaged between 4-6 miles. As is usually the case, I know that physically it would not be an issue to do a longer hike, it always ends up being a mental one. Today, however, I really wanted to do at least ten miles.

I decided that I would hike the Red Trail twice with a little extra on a side trip on a connector trail. The trail was so nice, I had to do it twice! Storms had moved through last night so I anticipated the rocks on the trail being a little slick. Besides that, the humidity was pretty low and the temperature was around 65 degrees. Pretty decent hiking weather!

Back 20-25 years ago, hikes longer than 10 miles were not uncommon. At my advanced age of 52, however, I don’t want to do anything stupid to where I couldn’t hike due to an overuse injury. Since I really haven’t done any long hikes in some time, I thought today was the day!

Please forgive this first picture, but I was even a little shocked when I took my boots off and this is what I saw!

My crusty feet after 11.5 miles.

The first moment when I realized that it was daytime!

After hiking for about 3 miles, I thought it would be a good time to stop and eat some breakfast.

After I finished the first loop, I took some time to change my socks and air out my feet. I also used this time to get my feet and mind psyched for the next loop.

During the second loop, I almost stepped on this little guy. Luckily he didn’t run away until after I had snapped a couple of pictures.

Happy Hiking!!!

Summer 2017 Mileage:

8/23/17-11.5-136.62