Strawberry Hill Nature Preserve Green Trail

I am finally caught up with blogging our hikes.  This Sunday marked our 10th hike of the 52 hike challenge.  We chose to head out to the Strawberry Hill Nature Preserve to do one of their trails.  We have gone to this place a couple of times.  It has several trails to choose from that allows you to tailor your hike to your preferred length and difficulty.  I was happy taking our usual trip around the Swamp Trail that follows Swamp Creek, but my mom and husband wanted a longer hike (I'm still worried about the shape I'm in which is mostly roundish), so we ended up deciding to take the Green Trail which is longer and a little more difficult.  It branches off of the Swamp Trail and heads up on the ridge.





The weather was sunny but a little brisk at 40ish degrees with a steady wind.  I brought Lucy along on this hike to keep working on her hiking skills.  There were a lot of blow downs in the area, including one that was nearly impassible.  Luckily (I guess), there was another hiker coming up behind us who had been through the trail before and knew how to get around the tree.  Lucy learned quickly how to jump over the fallen logs.  It got to the point that she was trying to go off trail to jump random logs.  There was one blown down that was pretty high off the ground and was two separate trunks that she nearly flew over using one trunk to springboard over the other.






Though she learned to enjoy log jumping, Lucy seemed to be quite skittish on this hike.  Tree branches moving or snapping freaked her out.  It was like she was waiting for them to grow teeth and attack her.  Walking in deep leaves freaked her out too, though later she was chasing leaves that blew across our path.  She also doesn't like mud, so she cleared mud puddles with huge leaps.
Oh, and she doesn't really like stream crossings.  She dislikes them so much, she willingly used a fallen tree to cross the water.  Hopefully she gets over that, or trips to the beach and kayak rides are going to be really interesting.





Despite not really wanting to take the longer hike, I was glad that I did.  I've managed to lose a little over 13 pounds, and it's made quite the difference in my hiking.  I'm able to do hills without stopping every few steps.  I'm still fighting through aches and pains from my hip, knees and foot, but it's manageable.  Hoping to plan some backpacking trips once the weather gets a little warmer.  In the meantime, I'll keep building up my endurance, and then come home and crash- much like Lucy.