5.5 mi Hike

No gym today - I'm in the mountains! Sort of. Or a valley. Not really sure which. But my friends and I rented a cabin in the Wilderness and decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather (and the fact the government reopened, thus reopening the national parklands) to go for a hike. Or a walk. Depends on how you look at it.

We started off strong -- had a nice mimosa breakfast, loaded up a backpack with beers, and set off for the trail! According to the map it was only like a mile, maaaaybe a mile and a half away. We could totally walk there, do the 2 mile trail around the woods, then walk home. Easy! Aside from the fact there are no sidewalks in the woods and we were walking literally down the middle of the road (CAR! *scatter*), getting weird looks from all the locals, everything seemed great. We did lose a party member about 150 yards from our front door, but hiking isn't really her thing, so we pushed on!

Fast forward an hour: we still hadn't reached the trail head. So much for maps.We also hadn't counted on the fact we were walking up a mountain. Slowly. Walking. So slowly.

We did eventually find the trail head, but at that point we were Done. And we still had to make it back. And the trail was closed! Regardless, we figured we were There so we should at least set foot on the trail -- we walked it about a tenth of a mile, climbing over felled trees and down a creek bed (maybe the trail blockade was right?) and actually ended up running into the Appalachian Trail. We took photos, someone explained to me at length that people actually do walk the trail for weeks at a time, setting up their tent wherever (why would you do this?). Like, on the side of the trail. Or in the middle of the trail. Am I the only one that thinks that's weird? What if there are other people and you're all camped out in the middle of everything, takin up all the space? How rude.

After we found the App Trail we turned around and booked it home so we'd make it there before dark. We made it, only to find out that we didn't have any electricity. So we ate chips and salsa on the patio until it came back and we could check on the crock pots. Not a bad day.

We mapped our walk when we got home and discovered it was actually over 2 miles from our cabin to the trail head, give or take. Plus whatever off-roading we did on the trail. And it was nearly 1000 vertical feet. No wonder we were tired!