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AT – MD Post Training Hike…Feeling good!!!

I met my hiking pal at the West View parking lot on Sugarloaf Mountain in Montgomery County, Maryland for our training hike.  I had everything in my pack except food in the bear vault.

We started downhill with full packs hoping to make this loop before the heat set in!  Temperatures were to soar to 85 degrees on this sunny October day.  The pack felt good…actually better than I anticipated.  But then again, I was going down hill, and a nicely graded downhill at that!

After dropping about 500 feet we crossed Mt. Ephraim Road and started up!  I kept waiting for the worst, but it didn’t come and we made it easily to the view from White Rocks after a rocky climb of 300 feet.

Sugarloaf Oct 2013And then came the roller coaster as we traversed another 200 feet up to one of the lesser summits on the blue trail at an elevation of 1015 feet, down to 750 feet elevation, then back up to another lesser summit at 995 feet!  After that the rolling is a little less intense.  The last hill was hot and slow as the heat had really begun to deliver a beat down.

Final verdict…great training hike!  And glad we got done before the real hot afternoon heat set in!!

 

 

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AT – MD Pre-Backpack Notes

Tomorrow is a training hike.  Not even remotely prepared for this!  I have been taking care of a litter of feral kittens…from bottle feeding to socializing.  As I write I hear the patter of little kitten feet in the room above me.  They are about seven weeks old now and will be ready for adoption through the Animal Welfare League of Frederick in a few weeks…but I digress. 🙂

Back to the training hike.  I ran around tonight just gathering my back packing gear.  Where did I put the pack again?  Oh Little Caesar moved it into the storage room.  I have all my gear stored in the pack for easy access.  Carried it downstairs to organize.  Sleeping pad…check, tent…check, first aid kit…check, new pillow (in my best happy squeeky voice 😀 )…check, sleeping bag…uh…sleeping bag…WHERE IS MY SLEEPING BAG???  My stuff sack is here, but where is the bag?  Crap!  Okay…calm…maintain…Little Caesar in her gestapo cleaning mode probably put it up in the storage room…  Went back to the storage room.  God, it’s hot in here tonight…oh there it is…whew! relief…exhale!

Okay so in the pack so far is:

Sleeping Bag

Sleeping pad/pillow

tent, first aid, hygeine, compass, pocket knife, bandana (1), fuel, water filter, stove, cookware/bowl, headlamp, pack cover, rain poncho, and bear vault w/o food

Tomorrow I will add water and some clothes for weight.

Doing a 5.5 mile loop up and down a mountain.  Should be humbling! 🙂 🙂 🙂

 

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AT-MD Pre-hike Well, Here I Go Again…but this time it’s Backpacking

In a few weeks I will take to the AT through Maryland.  Now, I will tell you straight up that I need to hike Maryland again like I need a hole in the head! 😀  But…This time I am backpacking it from PenMar to Harper’s Ferry.  Mainly, my impetus for hiking it is to accompany one of the women I hiked with in Georgia.  In addition, Boomerang and another woman from Trail Dames are coming along.

We will do this hike in 4 days stopping at the Ensign Cowall Shelter, Pine Knob Shelter (on a weekend night…yikes!),  and Crampton Gap Shelter before hiking into Harper’s Ferry on the 4th day.

Planning thus far has resulted in a new backpacking pillow, my travel pillow bit the dust in Georgia 🙂 , exchanging my sleeping pad at REI  and investing in new long underwear.  I need to get some orange bandanas or a vest as we will be hiking during hunting season.

I am excited to be going on a backpack!  The colors should be at about peak.  Maryland is truly beautiful in the fall!

I also need this backpack.  My mom is in the hospital right now after suffering a double stroke, one on either side of the brain.  I think the worst of it (and maybe the best of it too) is that I live so far away that all I can do is talk on the phone with her.  I have eight brothers and sisters, two who live near to my parents and are shouldering this responsibility with what seems to be super hero powers.  Getting out into the woods will allow me to work through life with my mom and how life might be without my mom.  We haven’t really been that close…I was the one who caused problems.  Always too independent, always a little too much just like her!!  She is an amazing woman and did much incredible trail blazing in the field of computer programming during the 1960s through the 1990s when she retired.  So smart.  So pretty. So everything!  So this hike is in honor of Thelma!

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9/21/13 Maryland Heights, MD

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As a teacher, Septembers are packed solid and there is not much time left over to breathe, let alone get out and hike.  But yay! I was getting out on this chilly, cloudy morning and doing something besides grading! besides planning for student learning! besides working on my portfolio!  …which by the way quickly became […]

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AT – PA Shippensberg Road to Pine Grove Furnace SP 9/8/13

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So a little overlap here on the AT mileage…but picking up where I’d left off on Woodrow Road wasn’t really possible. Woodrow Road is pretty far back on a gravel road. This was a Trail Dame hike and I didn’t want anyone to get lost on the way to the trail head! The day started […]

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8/24/13 A Great Day on the Mountain

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I didn’t know for sure when I left the house with Sidekick Pauli where I was going to go. I just knew I was headed to the mountains. Turns out my car followed the well worn road to Catoctin Mountain Park. This is definitely my goto place to find solace. It never disappoints. We started […]

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8/14/13 Quick, Before He is Gone!…A hike with Logan (Great Falls, Md)

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I wonder if you know what it is like to have your only kid grow up into an amazing person of the world. I could not have dreamed my son, Logan, would be so smart, savvy or sarcastic! …well, the sarcasm kind of comes with the territory… Anyway, Logan is home for a week before […]

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8/1/13 Afternoon at Bear Branch Nature Center

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I went out to explore the Bear Branch Nature Center in Carrol County, Maryland.  The nature center is part of the bigger Hashawa Environmental Education Center.  This was a day in which the temperatures and humidity level had started out rather nice so I was looking forward to good weather as I explored the trails. Boomerang met me […]

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The Tuesday Stomp! Little Bennett Regional Park 7/30/13

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Little Bennett Regional Park has a great trail system for both beginning and more experienced hikers.  Some of the trails are restricted to “hiker only”.  The majority can also be used for biking and horse riding.  Despite this, all of the trails are pretty well maintained by the friends of Little Bennett, http://www.friendsoflittlebennett.org/. Sidekick Pauli and […]

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Sugarloaf Mountain 7/25/13

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Oh! The orange trail is the most fun at Sugarloaf! But I am getting ahead of myself… At 6 pm I was sitting in my car at the Urbana park & ride waiting for Boomerang. Commuters were returning from the Washington, D.C. Area in cars, vans and busses. Everyone was moving, in transition from the […]