19 Apr, 2005

Hiking

/ posted in: CTR

I went out hiking on the trails again today. Now I am possession of a printout of the arial photos of the park so I can mark the trails that I’m walking on. The trail I did today was really easy. Nice and wide with no sudden drop-offs.

I saw two deer out grazing near the trail. They bounded off straight through the woods. Eventually I caught up to them again so they took off again. This happened several times and I could tell they were starting to get irritated. I lost sight of them for a while until I turned around to head back to the car. When I met up with them this time there was no mistaking the look of disgust they gave me as they had their lunch disturbed yet again.

I also saw a garter snake. I have a severe wild snake phobia. Yes, in my job I occasionally handle boa constrictors, pythons, and anacondas but a garter snake will seriously freak me out. I think it is because they slither and they surprise you. Big snakes don’t slither much and in the office you generally don’t come upon them unaware. I was very proud of myself though. I jumped to the side of the trail and let loose with some bad language but kept going down the trail. I also had to walk back up that trail and I did that by never looking down in that area. That is terribly mature and rational behavior for me in the face of a known area of snake activity.

10 Mar, 2005

Hiking

/ posted in: CTR

Went walking about again today on the trails. The section I did today was a mess. It is the loop pointed out to me by the endurance riders that I met last time. They estimated it at 4 miles. I took my map with me to mark it appropriately because for some reason this loop does not show up at all on the official map given out by the park.

I set off and was horrified by the condition of the trail. There was garbage all over it. There was also limbs down everywhere. I spent some time pulling limbs off the trail to try to clear it. It ended up being about 3 miles by the notations on the park’s markers. The garbage lessened as I got farther away from the start of the trail. Now I have to figure out how to get it mapped more accurately. Lucky for me I had the foresight to marry a mapmaker but he’s not terribly thrilled about making maps for horses.

06 Mar, 2005

Hiking

/ posted in: CTR

I went hiking today at the site of the competitive trail ride I’m running in July. I ended up hiking about 5 miles down the trail that is labelled ‘for advanced riders.’ I’m not sure why it is considered advanced. On foot at least it doesn’t seem scary at all. I didn’t mean to hike that far today but I got carried away. I wasn’t wearing the best footwear for that so I’m going to have blisters on top of blisters by tomorrow. My quads are sore. This could be a good workout for this summer as I hike around the trails to learn about it.