Is It Possible?

When I was a classroom teacher I would always map out my curriculum for the school year. This was reassuring to me to know that I could cover what needed to be taught during the year and how much time I would spend on each topic. Approaching this task in the same way makes sense to me. Knowing there are more hikes than weeks in the year and other factors involved, I wanted to determine from a scheduling standpoint: Is it possible????

So, with book in hand and a word table opened on my computer, I mapped out the hikes. I started by making a row for each of the 52 weeks in the year. Since there are 60 hikes, I chose the months of May and June to add an additional hike to each week. Hopefully, May and June will provide good hiking weather and if not, this gives me half of the year to make adjustments.

 60 Hikes within 60 Miles of Cincinnati is so well laid out. Toward the beginning of the book there are a variety of lists to help the reader choose hikes: Hikes Under 2 Miles, Hikes 2 to 4 Miles, Hikes 4 to 6 Miles, Hikes of More than 6 Miles, Kid-Friendly Hikes, etc. I know that I will need to take in several factors like my experience (mostly lack there of), weather, and best seasons for the various hiking locations. I figured winter would be the most difficult season - I am definitely NOT a cold weather person! Also, I will still be building up my stamina, so I went to the Hikes Under 2 Miles and started there. I filled up the weeks in January, February and March with the hikes under 2 miles. Then I went to November and December and did the same thing. Next, I went to the Kid-Friendly Hikes list and put those hikes into my planned two hike weeks in April and May. My thinking here was that I would need to combine a shorter easier hike those weeks with longer hikes. I am fearful that if I over do it, I will give up! Mixing up easier hikes with more difficult hikes makes this seem more doable. Finally, I filled in the rest of the weeks with the 4 to 6 mile hikes and the hikes of more than 6 miles. I did a little bit of shuffling at this point. For example, my son is getting married in August.  That will be a busy time for me, so I planned a "hiking weekend" in June to go camping and hiking and get 4 hikes out of the way. This allows me to take off from hiking the week of the wedding. I left the weekend of December 30 without a planned hike just in case I need it to serve as my "last chance hike out"! This boils down to only one week this year without a planned hike - this goal is pretty tight!!! So, from a scheduling standpoint it seems possible...taking into consideration other factors...the goal is challenging.

Next step: Planning for my first hike to Boone County Cliffs State Nature Preserve near Burlington, Kentucky. More to follow soon in case you want to join the fun!