yo, still around

Looks like I'm on a month-long sabbatical or so.  Between graduations, weddings... it's a busy summer.  What can I say, my family's growing up!

Went camping last week... hiked 38 miles.  I went to McCormick's Creek State Park, Shakamak SP, Cataract Falls, and Cagle Mill SRA.  I camped at McCormick's Creek and they have some nice trails (although no warnings about fording creeks on the map).  At one point, I was trying to pick my way across a creek but got stuck in the middle.  I didn't want to just push through and get my shoes wet, so I went back.  Then, a guy with a one-year-old (or so) baby on his back comes bounding along and crosses within 10 seconds.  He got his shoes wet.  :)

Shakamak SP was nice-- they have a 4-mile trail that goes all the way around the lake (um, Shakamak Lake).  It's a great trail that follows the shoreline pretty closely and is mostly wooded.  I saw 3+ pileated woodpeckers, all in one area... couldn't tell how many there were because they kept flying about.

books... hiking... and the AT

A Walk in the Woods is the one that started it all.   I read this and thought "I really want to read more about the Appalachian Trail."  So, I did.  Oh, and I also read almost all of Bryson's other books, too!

I read:

A Walk for Sunshine, Jeff Alt
A Woman's Journey, Cindy Ross (very light, not many details, with her illustrations)
Barefoot Sisters: Southbound, Lucy and Susan Letcher (started this last week! and have the sequel, too.  I think this is the only SOBO book I read, and it's messed up my internal map a bit. I feel like they're doing everything backward!)
Bearfoot: A Northbounder E-mails from the Appalachian Trail, Patrick Pittard (very good... a slightly different corporate-lived perspective)
Blind Courage, Bill Irwin (yes, a blind man walks the Appalachian Trail.  If you only read one book, I'd recommend this one)
In Beauty May She Walk, Leslie Mass (LOVED this!  she hiked the AT at age 60! I believe this is the first book I read after Walk in the Woods)
Long-Distance Hiking: Lessons from the Appalachian Trail, Roland Mueser (still reading)
On the Beaten Path by Robert Aldin Ruben
Walking Home: A Woman's Pilgrimage on the AT, Kelly Winters (I have to admit, I like books by women hikers the best)
Walking the Appalachian Trail, Larry Luxenberg



Books I still want to read: too many to list, but I have at least a dozen on my amazon.com wishlist!
Oh, I also read a few trail journals during the summer.  That means, in the past year, I've read at least FIFTEEN accounts of hiking the AT.  It doesn't get repetitive, either!

Then, I decided to start reading about another trail, the Pacific Crest Trail.

A Blistered Kind of Love, Angela and Duffy Ballard
The Cactus Eaters, Dan White
Journey on the Crest, Cindy Ross  (I also have her CDT book)

Other trails:
Crossing Arizona, Chris Townsend (Arizona Trail... very good!)
The Man Who Walked Through Time, Colin Fletcher (walks the floor of the Grand Canyon...still reading)
Where the Waters Divide, Karen Berger (Continental Divide Trail)



There might be a book or two that I've missed (no, I'm not kidding!).  A few of them are on loan to my friend and sister.


The exciting thing is that new books have been published since I was looking these up last summer, so I have about two dozen new books to read!  :)

Newest Obsession: long-distance hiking

Since the original title of this blog is Newest Obsession, I thought I'd tell you about one of my newest.

Okay, it's a bit of a repeat from last year, just picking up on an interest that was in hibernation over the winter.  Last year I read many books on the Appalachian Trail-- and hiking in general.  If I can find my reading list, I'll post it here.

I've been researching that again.  While a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail isn't possible for me right now, I realized today that I can thru-hike another trail.  Now I have to find someone with whom to hike!

The trail I really want to hike:  Metacomet Monadnock Trail, 110 miles through Massachusetts and a bit of New Hampshire.  It goes around and up Mount Holyoke (the history of Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary is another long-standing obsession of mine), so that makes me veeerrry interested.

Now, I haven't actually done any long-distance hiking.  I did a few 10 and 11-mile hikes last summer: 10.5 miles on the North Country Trail in Michigan with my sister, 11.5 hike at Clifty Falls (all the trails except one), and a 13-mile hike at Mounds State Park.  All of these were completed within four hours, so I was only out an afternoon, really.

Long-distance hiking gives a completely different feeling from regular hiking... that's fun and all, but you don't get that "high" you get from finishing a long hike.