Category: night hiking

You win some. You lose some.

So many exciting things have been happening lately.  October is my favorite month of the year.  First, because it’s my birthday month.  Second, the fall is so beautiful with the changing leaves and the earth is so fragrant this time of year.

Just to catch up on all the wonderful wins for me this fall:  I DID IT!  I finally finished the Allegany 18 Challenge!

My darling husband hiked the last 5-mile trail with me.  I literally skipped to the Registration Building after the hike to claim my winnings!  A very cool water bottle that lists all the 18 trails and a sweet sticker!  I put the water bottle in my china cabinet alongside Dave’s 300-game bowling trophies.  It deserves to be in a place of honor.  Hahaha!

Way back in March I signed up for the Allegany 18 Challenge because of a post by the  Outside Chronicles Facebook page.  After a bunch of us completed the challenge we were invited back to Allegany State Park for a bonus hike and social.  It was a lot of fun meeting everyone and making connections with people that have the same passion as me!

After that excitement, my BFF, Linda and I went hiking/geocaching in Letchworth State Park.  We hiked seven miles in one day on the Finger Lakes Trail – Letchworth Branch.  It was the best of times.  The entire week was cold and damp mostly but we managed to find a lot of caches and I may have seen Linda’s full moon during a campfire!  We even spent a few rainy hours at the Dunkin Donuts in town using the WiFi.

I just can’t help but take photos while hiking in Letchworth.  There is beauty around you at every step.  I even managed to catch the “Hidden Indian” looking out over the Genesee River from the Middle Falls.  Can you see him in the photo below?  In the other photos, I visited the Mount Morris Dam Visitor’s Center.  That is a dam photo from the Visitor Center side of the river.  I highly recommend checking out the dam visitor center and watching the short dam movie.  I learned a lot of dam things.  I also hiked a good portion of the Gorge Trail and the Wolf Creek Trail. The gorge trail is about 7 miles long and you have amazing views along the way.  There are helpful stairs to get you up and down the steep sections.  The Wolf Creek trail has a really pretty waterfall and neat bridge.

I visited Letchworth a couple more times and Allegany State Park too.  Nearby Emery Park has a few ski hills I’ve been hiking up and down.  I’ll hike anywhere on a dirt path. I can’t keep myself out of the woods for too long or I get jittery.

There was more fun in October! My birthday is the day before Halloween.  My sweet husband gifted me with a personalized hoodie with my “name” on it and an Italian flag heart!  Best gift ever!  And we had a Halloween party where I made an ashtray out of pretzels and white chocolate.  No one minded that everyone was smoking!  I even carved a pumpkin to celebrate my upcoming hike.  See I do more than just hike all the time!

One more extremely exciting thing that happened, that some of you already know, is that I booked my ONE-WAY plane ticket to Atlanta for March.  I even have my room reserved at Amicalola Lodge for the night before I hit the trail.  It’s really real, folks!  All in all, this Fall has been a big WIN for me!

But sometimes, you lose too.

Don’t worry too much and don’t start praying to St. Anthony to help me find what I lost!  I am proud to say I’ve lost 40 pounds.  Woot Woot!  My backpack fully loaded is about 30 pounds.  When I started my weight loss journey I wanted to lose the same amount of weight as my pack and I surpassed that because I needed to.  I am thrilled that I am healthier and more confident.  Heck, I even think I look pretty good.  Although I still have about 15 pounds to go to reach my goal weight before I leave in March, I know I will get there.  For those interested, I have been using the weight loss app Noom.  I found it very helpful.  If you want more information about it, I’d be happy to personally chat with you.

Here’s before:

IMG_20160425_132801610Don’t mind Dave’s finger.

And now.

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This month I will be back in the Smoky Mountains and plan to retake that before photo.

Happy trails!

 

What have you been doing?

There’s a question I love to answer!  The answer is – anything and everything to prepare for my adventure in the Spring!  I definitely have some kind of Appalachian Trail Fever.  I’ve been busy reading and researching the trail, gear, backpacking food, etc.  The most important thing I have been doing is – Hiking!

Over the past month, I have completed six more trails of the Allegany 18 Challenge.  For those of you keeping track, I have one more trail left.  I promised Dave that he could hike that last trail with me so we can celebrate together.

I spent the night in Allegany State Park at the Ridge Run Trail lean-to.  This is where I learned that my sleeping bag is not warm enough, that I can start a fire if needed and always remember to pack a little booze!

Typically, I hike solo, but two of the trails I completed were hiked with my good friend, Denise.  She makes me laugh as you can see from the video below.

She really thought she would fit in that tree!

My best friend, Linda also went hiking with me.  Well, I call it hiking, she calls it geocaching.  We celebrated her 5000th cache found by hiking to a cache that was clothing optional.  She was crazy enough to hike naked, so I did too.  Unfortunately, it was rainy and chilly so the naked didn’t last long!  Here are a couple of edited pictures.

The fun doesn’t stop there!

Of course, I am utilizing all the resources available to me to learn about thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail.  One thing I did was to join a group on Facebook specifically for people planning to hike the trail in 2020.  Since it’s such a small world, I met another hiker that actually lives in a town over from me.  Jim is starting the trail just before me and his brother will be hiking the first month with him.  Jim invited me to join him on a shakedown hike in the Allegheny National Forest.  A shakedown hike is where a hiker packs all their gear and sees what gear they used, what worked, what needs to be replaced or upgraded, and what gear they can live without, etc. My pack weighed in at 31 pounds fully loaded with food and water.  Jim’s was 23 pounds.  I would prefer to carry Jim’s pack, so I’m working on lightening my pack weight.  We hiked out to the Tracy Ridge Campground on Friday evening and I faced my first night-hike.  It was tiring and sometimes confusing because it was so dark, but we made it to the campsite and quickly set up our tents.

When I woke up on Saturday morning and finally saw my surroundings – All I can say is WOW!

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We hiked a little on Saturday and Jim also gave me a fire building lesson. He showed me how a water bladder makes filtering water easier (it’s on my Amazon wish list) and more little bits of backpacker tips and tricks.  It was so helpful!  We spent another night and hiked out to the car on Sunday morning.  Every mountain I climb makes the next mountain I climb a little easier!

Now, I’m looking forward to hiking in Letchworth soon and getting out for some fall hikes.  And biting my nails waiting for Spring!

 

Happy Trails!

 

Griffis Sculpture Park

Okay, okay.  I know I skipped a month of blogging.  Recuperating my eyeball and life gets in the way.  When I scanned my pictures recently I found photos of the fabulous time I had Griffis Sculpture Park and I never wrote about it!

This will be short and sweet as I have another adventure I want to write about!  (Sneak peek- Guess where this picture was taken!)

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My day hikes group took a NIGHT hike to Griffis Sculpture Park in East Otto, NY.  It is 450 acres and has over 250 large scale sculptures made of metal throughout the property.  It is open from May through October.  This year, for a few weeks during the Fall, they decorated a small portion of the park with lights and allowed people entry after dusk.

It was so much fun hiking in the dark with my headlamp on.  I wasn’t afraid at all because I was with a large group and my good friend, Richelle (who is in Central America right now having the time of her life)!  The moon was full or nearly full that night and I didn’t need to use my headlamp at times.

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Some of the metal sculptures were made so you could climb them, get in them or sit on them.  It was a little freaky walking the path in the complete dark with only a headlamp and BOOM! – come across a naked lady sculpture rising out of the ground!

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Or you come across a naked man sculpture!  Couldn’t resist this one!  Yes, my hand is on his butt.  You can see the forest lit up in the background!

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The lights made the forest surreal and like we were on another planet.

It was magical!

 

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