July Hike

The day after the 4th of July (the third anniversary of this) we hiked the Appalachian Trail up to the summit of Mt. Greylock, the highest peak in Massachusetts at 3491 feet.  We started from Route 2 on the north side of the mountain, and hiked 6 very steep miles up to the top and 6 very steep miles back down.  Unfortunately, it was even more hot, humid, and buggy than when we hiked another section of the AT in June.  And hiking on an almost empty stomach after certainly didn't help matters.  It took embarrassingly long, but we made it through the 12 miles.  The 6 miles of trail added to the 15 miles we've done in Pennsylvania bring us to 0.96% of the 2180 miles of the Appalachian Trail.  Woohoo! The next hike is sure to put us over 1%!

After living in Tucson, 3500 feet seems like a really small mountain, but hikes around Tucson also didn't start well under 1000 feet.  Even if it was "only" 3500 ft, the views from the top of Mt. Greylock were beautiful.

Don't read this while eating lunch.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that we were going camping over the 4th of July holiday...and well...it could have gone better.  We camped at Clarksburg State Park in northwestern Massachusetts, and planned to hike the section of the Appalachian Trail between the summit of Mt Greylock and the Massachusetts-Vermont state line - about 20 miles total hiking.

We drove up the morning of the 4th, uneventful, easy enough drive.  We had planned to set up camp, have some lunch, then go hike from Route 2 in North Adams to the state line, which would be 8 miles round trip with a fair amount of elevation gain, but not a ton.  When we sat down for lunch, I felt kind of off, not bad, just not quite right.  We ate lunch and decided that we were too tired to hike, and really wanted to be able to hike to the summit of Mt. Greylock the next day.  So we went to Mass MOCA, a contemporary art museum in the area instead.  

That's where things deteriorated.  I actually really liked the museum - and I usually just think contemporary art is either weird or not art.  But my stomach was not happy.  I kept feeling more and more bloated, like my stomach was painfully distended.  Eventually it was just too much and I got sick.  Yeah, that kind of sick.  Thankfully I made it to a restroom - fortunately an unoccupied, single toilet restroom.  The short-lived upside was that I instantly felt better, so we continued to go through the museum.  But it only took about 20 minutes to feel miserable and distended again.

We headed back to the campsite and hung out - I managed to nap for a bit.  I could barely choke down a graham cracker or sit next to Boyfriend while he ate dinner.  The smell of his dinner was just awful.  After dinner he suggested that perhaps going for a walk around the campgrounds would make me feel better.  Well we got about three-quarters of the way around the loop before I was spectacularly sick on the side of the road.  Fortunately not in anybody's campsite, and hopefully it was dark enough that people couldn't really see (even though there was no doubt that more than one campsite of people could hear).

I felt tolerable overnight, but was ready to kill the large group of middle school age kids a few campsites over.  They occupied about 4 campsites, and at midnight they were still yelling back and forth between campsites and shrieking over who knows what.  Quiet hours started at 10.  I was pissed.  I got up around midnight to go to the restroom, and Boyfriend thought I was getting up to yell at the hoodlums.  I really, really seriously considered it.  But I didn't really want to go wandering in the dark feeling like crap.  Man it would have been so satisfying to tell those brats off though!

The next morning I actually felt decent, before and after breakfast, so we went hiking.  I'll blog about the hike in another post, but I made it through (very slowly) despite the lack of food the day before.  Anyway, everything was good on the stomach-issues front all day, and the hoodlums were gone the next night, so yay, at least one good day of camping.

Saturday morning we headed east to Amy's wedding, but that's a story for another day.  Unfortunately the stomach woes weren't over...

June Hike

We just managed to squeeze in a June hike on the last day of the month.  We did the 9 miles of the Appalachian Trail north of the section we did in April.  It's a nice, easy section, that's entirely flat and then downhill when you hike north.  The downside is that the day we hiked, it was hot with about 1000000% humidity.  I just dripped sweat the entire time.  But the worst part was the bugs.  I spent the entire 9 miles constantly swatting bugs away from my face.  The creek at the end of the hike was absolutely beautiful though, and the water was wonderfully COLD!

May Hike

Over Memorial Day weekend we went camping and hiking at Lackawanna State Park.  Holy $&!# was it cold overnight!  It was nice during the day, but overnight it was in the 30s, just barely above freezing.  We could see our breath when we went to bed.  A while ago we ordered a big 6 person tent so we could lazy man camp with the comfort of an air mattress.  While it was way more comfortable, sleeping pads and mummy bags would have been a lot warmer.  We hiked several miles around the perimeter of the lake and then some.  Lackawanna is a great park with lots to do beyond hiking - boating, fishing, and swimming (though oddly in a lake-side pool rather than the lake itself...).

April Hike

In April we hiked a section of the Appalachian Trail northeast of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  We'd actually hiked part of that section one of the times I visited Boyfriend before moving to Baltimore.  That time we did about 4.5 miles out and back, starting on top of the ridge.  This time we started down at the river, hiked up to the top of the ridge and along the top to where we started from last time, for about 14 miles total.  It was a beautiful warm day - some green had started to appear, though the trees were still mostly bare.  Not as bad as during/after the Grand Canyon trip, but my feet were in pretty bad shape afterwards.  Good thing I have such a great blister popper on hand. :)

March Hike

So I know I haven't posted in forever, so I thought I'd sit down in front of the TV tonight with my external hard drive and toss up some mostly photo posts.

In March we went hiking along White Clay Creek State Park in southeast Pennsylvania, right by the Delaware state line (where it meets up with Delaware's White Clay Creek State Park haha).  We hiked south along one side of the creek, and back up along the other.  Though when we got back up we couldn't find a bridge that we'd expected to be there...so we wound up wading across the creek.  Even though it wasn't particularly warm out, I was pleasantly surprised that the water wasn't nearly as cold as I expected.

I didn't take very many photos - the creek was pleasant and pretty, but the woods were still almost completely barren.

February Hike

We've kept up this New Year's resolution for two months!  Woohoo!  Sunday we went to Rocks State Park in Maryland and hiked around a bit.  It's not a very big park - we hiked nearly all the trail they had and probably came in a little over 3 miles, maybe 4 tops.  There's a ridge line in the middle of the park, with trails around it and up to it.  The park had some of the more ridiculous signs I've seen.  Fun fact, part of Tuck Everlasting was filmed in the park.

January Hike

A couple of weeks ago Boyfriend and I went hiking at Susquehannock State Park.  I've spouted a bunch of resolutions off, and one more that I made for the both of us is to get out for a hike at least once each month.  Here are a few photos...

Appalachian Trail

Over the weekend Boyfriend and I hiked the Appalachian Trail!  Well...4.5 miles of it just north of Harrisburg, PA...

We obviously only made a small dent in the trail, but it was nice to get out for a hike.  This section goes along the top of a ridgeline that leads away from the Susquehanna River.  The forest wasn't really green yet, just the floor.  And we got sprinkled on just a bit on the way back.  Quite different from hiking in Arizona...