Trail Magic

It's been since January 8 (hike #3) since I had the courage to take on the trail by myself.  This week's hike was a good opportunity to hike on my own and reflect about my hiking experiences so far while doing so. I went to Wilderness Preserve which is about 7 miles north of West Union. I had two short hikes picked out to do this day, but it took me an hour and a half to get to the preserve and an hour and a half to hike the 2.19 miles trail.  When I finished at almost 4:30 I need to start the hour and a half drive home for dinner plans with the family. The country drive was beautiful on this sunny 63 degrees day. What a perfect temperature for hiking! I had to stop at a Marathon station to find the roads to the park. This wasn't because I didn't have a co-pilot and it wasn't due to my poor navigation skills. When I realized I was having troubles, I turned on my GPS to use the map so I could get a better sense of where I was and it couldn't get a signal. I knew I was out in the boonies because of the long drive, but geez! To top it off there were all of these streets without street signs. I got as close to the area as I could and pulled into the Marathon station. As it turned out, I was only about 30 yards from the street on which I needed to turn, so my navigation skills were not as bad as I thought!  On to the park!

It was kind of timely that I was setting out to hike this trail alone on this day. The night before I finished reading the book Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed. My brother, Mark, told me about the book and it was a great read for me right now. In her 20's, Cheryl Strayed hiked a very long portion (over 1,000 miles) on the Pacific Crest Trail which runs from Mexico through California into Canada - ALONE! In the book she writes about her life experiences of growing up and becoming an adult who was faced with very difficult circumstances. She interweaves these memories with her experiences hiking the trail. It is a great book. I highly recommend it! As I prepared to hike Wilderness Preserve, I read in Tammy York's 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles that it is so quiet on this trail that you can hear your heart beat. I thought, "Yeah, right! That's silly." But, it was very true. Sorry for doubting you, Tammy! This hike was so remote and peaceful it was amazing. There were easy parts and there were some challenging hills. It was great!

When I found the trail head after parking the car, I could tell that this was going to be a densely wooded site.  This trail is managed by the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History for educational purposes. What makes it a great trail to hike alone is that it is very clearly marked. Frequently there are trees with yellow spray painted dots. This was definitely "hiking for dummies" as Cheryl would say.  After passing through some short stretches of meadows with some pretty spring flowers, the dense woods took over for the rest of the hike. This is when I experienced my first encounter with some "trail magic." It was so quiet that I could hear insects buzzing. It almost sounded like a constant hum as if there was a huge hive above me - slightly unsettling. A good portion of the trail follows a couple of creeks. At one of the bridges crossing a creek, I decided to sit down, dangle my legs and drink some water. I had just hiked some pretty good hills, so this was a good place to stop. As I sat there peering into this shallow, muddy creek I saw a huge crawdad (trail magic #2) moving around. I watched him for a few minutes. It was so shady, cool and peaceful.

After my short break with my crawdad friend, I got back on the trail. This second half of the hike was a lot of uphill climbing.  This is why I could truly hear my heart beating. There were some interesting trees along the hike. There was one that had some weird pointy pock marks all over it. There was another that served as trail magic #3 - the bark looked like it had a raccoon face in it - not carved - just a natural part of the tree. Take a look at the picture and see what you think.  Just a few feet after I passed this tree I experienced trail magic #4 - a white-tailed deer was spooked by my presence and starting running up the hill on the other side of the creek along which I was hiking.  It was amazing to see how gracefully this animal could move on such a steep grade. I kept trying to find it again as I walked, but never did.

At the end of the hike, there was a sign-in box. I was excited. This was my first opportunity to get to sign in to a trail. I felt like Cheryl Strayed who would meet people along her cumbersome adventure that would follow her and catch up to her after seeing her name recorded on the sign-in sheets.

This hike concluded my fourth month of hiking. Here are some things that I learned this month:

• Spring weather can sometimes be even more unpredictable than winter weather (at least in 2012 it has been!)
• Hiking socks may be as equally as important as the shoe choice - I learned this when hiking the mammoth hike of all so far this year to Clifty Falls.
• After trying to hike one really unkempt trail, don't forget to be grateful for the work that people do to maintain good hiking trails.
• Make sure you have a flashlight for late in the day hikes.
• Since this journey is also about the blogging - urbandictionary.com is a cool place to find fun words.
• An occasional hike alone can provide you with time to reflect and an additional dose of confidence knowing you can accomplish something on your own.

22 hikes down and 38 hikes to go!!! Setting out to hike today to Gilmore Ponds Interpretive Preserve; ready to take on month 5 of hiking.