Hiking Season

Good morning friends!

I'm making plans to do a long day hike solo by myself come this weekend. I'd rather backpack but with the one car thing, that's hard to swing as Mike always finds some excuse to need the car. :). But there is hope, as the gas prices continue to go down, my ability to drive anywhere of note for hiking goes up. So gas, keep going down! It's for my sanity!

When Mike was much more interested in the whole hiking thing, his idea of hiking season began with the first frost and ended with the first remotely warm day. he wasn't much of a buggy, humidity, hot day kind of hiker. Snow was good, ice too, and the colder the better at night. But to me...Hiking season is all year long, except for some of the coldest nights....brrrrrrr. I don't quite have the stones to spend any more nights out below 0*, even with double the ground pads and an expensive -15* sleeping bag. I've tried it, and spent several nights freezing to death and afraid to get out of my bag to answer natures call. I'm a cold sleeper. I'll get chilled no matter the bag. I don't mind sharing my sleeping bag with my bottles of water to keep them from freezing, but when it comes to warming your cold camp fuel in your armpit so you can start your stove for a hot breakfast is just too much :). So call me a wuss if you like, I don't like sleeping out in the below 0 kind of weather. But, I will still hike! Once you are moving and burning calories you stay fairly warm, so long as you don't slip into any icy streams and get your boots wet (In which case baggies over your feet, though annoying to hike in as you slip back and forth in your shoes, helps tremendously to keep you from loosing any flesh.....believe me....I know.) and once again, it is quite painful to put your feet into frozen ice cube boots in mornings! So I think camping out this winter is not on my list of things to do, but hiking, snowshoeing and things of this nature will certainly be on it.

But, as I said before I got off on the whole freeze your stones off tangent, I was going hiking. I'm thinking a nice long stay out all day Sunday hike, with a picnic for myself. Perhaps I'll even pack my pack (as I would for backpacking) just so I get that good happy feeling again as I step along the trails. I'm not sure where I'll go yet, somewhere with lots of colorful leaves of course. I may have to pick up a disposable camera so I can take some pictures. The colors seem very vivid this year and I'd like to share them with all of you.

Well, happy trails my friends!

Nickie