Tag: sunset

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:

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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!

 

My goal is still 2020!

I announced my intention to thru hike the Appalachian Trail in 2020 WAY back in July of 2015.  Some people seem to be assuming that I have given up on it.  What???  No.  I still intend on starting my hike in April of 2020.  Ready or not here I come.  This summer I will be buckling my pack and staking my tent even more; going to places I have never been and gaining some valuable experience.  And I’ll even write about a few of those adventures.  Plans are in the works for a trip to the Maryland section of the Appalachian Trail, and a possible trip to Maine.  I’ll, of course, also keep hiking around Western New York.

Right now though, Mother Nature has not yet received the message that Spring is about to be here and has been unleashing some serious snow and cold around here.

I’m not letting that stop me though.  I revisited an old favorite place to hike, Tillman Nature Preserve.  The last time I visited there was a monsoon!  (Read about it here.) I was up past my ankles in water while hiking in my work boots and a skirt! (This was back when I didn’t prepare very well.) It was a little different this time.  The weather was cool, but it had just been raining so the trails were mushy and muddy in places and downright ponds to walk through.  The boardwalks and waterproofed boots were sure handy!

Of course, I always say – It isn’t a truly good hike unless there’s a little mud!

Before and after of my boots.

Tillman Nature Preserve has a great loop trail that is just over 2 miles.  It crosses and recrosses a road and is completely and utterly FLAT.   There were a few interesting photo ops though.

Some kind of fungus, a neat little bridge and it seems as if someone built a couple “shelters”.  Only one seemed to be big enough for me to get in, so I did.

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As you can see by the sunshine over my shoulder the shelter is not very weatherproof, but it’s still fun.  I cleaned up some litter around the shelters and on the trail.

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There must be at least a six pack of Bud Light and a couple Gatorade bottles.  What a shame.  I’m glad I brought a bag to collect it all in.  I actually washed and kept the orange shaker bottle.  It looked brand new!  I’m guessing it fell off a fat-tire bike rider.

A week later, my big green pack was looking sad, so I packed it lightly and buckled it up to revisit Hunters Creek Park.  I was worried about the snow in the parking lot, but I didn’t need to be.  So many people love this park it must have been plowed.  I put on my micro spikes for a short hike around the most used trails.  The trails with no human tracks made me nervous.  I didn’t want to blaze my own trail yet and I had left my snow shoes in my car.

It was not even 30 degrees, but I was plenty warm with my layers.  I was confident hiking on the icy paths with my micro spikes.  I had my taped together, well-used map, so I didn’t get lost.  Although at one point I thought a blue dashed line was the creek when it was actually a trail.  Oops.  So much for having a map.  I am seriously considering taking an orienteering class this summer.

I love this picture below of the brilliant sunset (my AT dream) behind poles (work, life) with a directional sign (chose left or right).  I don’t want to go left or right; I want to go straight into that brilliant dream!!!  Those poles can just get out of my way!  When I’m on the AT, I will take many photos of the sunset I am sure; and NONE of them will have poles in the way!

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See you on the trails!

Peace Bridge Sidewalk

I almost missed this!

Once in a while I have to push myself to do something I just don’t feel like doing. Our day hiker meet-up was going downtown to a little park and I didn’t feel like going. I almost called to cancel, but I didn’t.  My bff, Linda, wouldn’t have let me anyway.

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Driving down the thruway, I would see people walking on this strip of cement in the middle of the Niagara River and wonder about it.  I thought it would be cool to walk “in” the middle of the Niagara River on that strip of cement.  I didn’t even know it was a park!  You see, there is a long cement pier that splits the Niagara River and separates the Black Rock Canal and the Niagara River.   The pier is very narrow and runs about a mile and a half.  It goes under the Peace Bridge that connects the United States and Canada.  Now that I made up my mind to actually go on this walk, I was really excited to check it out!

History lesson time!  The Native Americans had their own name for this island, but back in 1812 the English called this island Squaw Island.  That was the name that was used until last year when a Native American woman petitioned the Courts to change the name because members of the Seneca Nation of New York felt the name was racist and derogatory to Native American women. It is now called Unity Park.  The island is home to two parks – Broderick Park and Bird Island Pier – and you get to it by crossing a drawbridge.  Bird Island Pier was built in 1860 and there are a lot of people that fish here.  Apparently, you can catch some really big fish!  I only saw a dead one on the sidewalk, sorry no pictures of that!

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Broderick Park was the location of the former Black Rock ferry.  It linked Buffalo and Fort Erie, Ontario until the mid 20th century.  The ferry’s dock was used as an Underground Railroad station.  Escaped slaves would take the ferry or other boats across the Niagara River to Canada to their freedom.

This is also a great place to watch the sunset.  From my last post, you know I love the sunset on the water!  The evening walk began with a little geocaching, of course!  I was with Linda and when Linda is around, there’s a cache to be found!  The cache was in dire need of maintenance!  Which reminds me, I still need to log that!

We walked through Broderick Park and approached the narrow entry of the Bird Island Pier and looking to my left I could see the concrete thruway that Buffalo thought would be so smart to put right on the water. How beautiful.  NOT.  But, in the canal were crew boats.  The men rowers were grunting and rowing so fast!  The lady rowers were almost as fast, but not quite!  It was quite a sight.  We also saw the Edward Cotter Fire Boat.  This fire boat was built in 1900 and is still in use by the Buffalo Fire Department.

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I glanced up and noticed the Peace Bridge looming large above me.  I was going to walk right underneath it!  How cool is that!

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There are many birds that hang out along the rocks on either side of the pier.  Some even managed to leave their feet print on wet cement, leaving their permanent mark on Bird Island Pier!  Walking on the pier you had better watch where you plant YOUR feet!  The bird poop was everywhere! Although we noticed that they liked to poop on the left side more than right!

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At the tip of Bird Island Pier stands the glorious United States Flag.

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It was a gorgeous evening for a walk on the pier.  This wasn’t my favorite hiking destination; as I like my trails without cement.  But, it was fun to finally experience a place I’ve only looked at from a car window traveling down the thruway.

Now, back to the woods for me!

 

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