Preparing

  This weekend I took my Cub Scouts to the annual Klondike Derby.  For those not familiar, the Klondike Derby involves a dog sled type sled that the scouts pull around to different stations where they need to work together as a team to accomplish the tasks involved.  At the end of the day, they work together to pull the sled in a race.  It was a fun day, but that's not really what I was focusing on here.  Because there was so much walking involved, I decided to work on breaking in my new hiking boots and wear my pack.

There isn't really much time before we head out again to finish our first section hike, so I used my scout weekend as a "get ready for my hike weekend".  There was a lot of snow, a lot of mud, a lot of mucky water and a lot of change in the temperatures (cold in the morning and night, warm in the afternoon).  I'm happy to report that the boots worked beautifully.  Other than about 20 minutes of feeling a little cold in the morning, my toes were fine.  I trudged through melting snow, mud and a few inches of water and my feet stayed dry.  I didn't have any issues with my pack, and I'm sorry I didn't add a little more weight to it.  I only had a few pounds in it and no where near the weight I know I'll carry on the hike.

All in all, it was a good day.  I was exhausted and my muscles ached, but it felt good.  And it was great being in the mountains close to the Appalachian Trail (the trail actually passes by the Camp's property).  Soon I'll be taking sunset photos from the AT!

MIA

I feel like I've been MIA on this blog for a long long time.  Heck, I feel I've been MIA in everything lately as I'm pulled in all sorts of different directions and activities and jobs. 
I just returned from a week long Scout Camp with my son which explains my lack of blogging since I can't very well drag along a laptop with me. And while I wasn't able to blog about hiking, I was able to do a lot of hiking/walking in those 4 days.  I probably hiked/walked miles over the week that I was there.  My biggest concern was how I'd manage with my injury/piriformis syndrome.  I had to carry the daily necessities (sunscreen, water bottles, rain ponchos, clipboard, etc.) in my back pack all day traveling back and forth from camp to the different program sites.  Surprisingly, I managed okay without the benefit of any heating pads or massages to help ease the muscle tightness.  I wasn't carrying around a 30 pound pack, but I was carrying several pounds in the pack I had for 4 1/2 days.  My muscle was very tired and sore still.  I'm hoping that it will continue to improve or it will be a very slow hike I do in October. All in all it was nice to spend the time with my son and be outdoors, but I am glad to be back home.  Hopefully I can get things organized and back to a more regular blogging schedule (and maybe get everything else to fall into place).

State of the Butt Address

So this is what I did this weekend:

 

I was camping with my son's scout pack for their annual Spring Camporee.  It involves a lot of walking the whole weekend along with camping things like setting up tents, sleeping on air mattresses and walking around with a backpack.  Basically everything that normally makes my hip/butt injury hurt pretty bad.  I was concerned about how it would hold up over the weekend.  I was pleasantly surprised that it barely even ached.  Granted I only had a first aid kit, a bottle of water and a clip board in the back pack, but it was still more than I had in a month.  I made sure I stretched when I could and sat down when I could.  I even felt good enough to try my hand at the rope bridge the boys had to do (not too shabby in my opinion).  So some of my anxiety over this injury is gone and I'm thinking I might be okay after all. In the meantime, I'm continuing all the stretches and exercises from PT and this week I'll try some light hiking but without a pack.  I don't want to over do things and end up worse than before.  

I can do this!

Weekend Hike With the Scouts

 This past week I wasn't able to make it to the gym, and with a weekend camping trip planned with the Cub Scouts, I wasn't sure I would get a decent hike in either.  Luckily, the weather cooperated, and we were able to get out on the trail.  Our Scout District's local camp actually has part of the Appalachian Trail running through it.  I had plans to try to hike to it, but the boys were cold and the snow got deeper and harder to walk through the higher in elevation we got. 

I love taking the Scouts on hikes.  Most of them are so eager to learn and see hikes as a mini adventure.  Because of the snow on the ground, I was able to point out deer, rabbit and racoon tracks.  We also worked on identifying different tree species. But mostly the kids were interested in finding "hiking sticks".

 We hiked for a while until the majority of the group pleaded to head back to camp (there were some who wore sneakers instead of boots), so we decided to turn back.  Though my son, in a rare adventurous moment, asked to hike to the next bend in the road because he saw something interesting he wanted to check out.  We hiked until the snow became a little too deep to walk through comfortably (especially for a smallish person), but we were able to see that the area of interest was the Boy Scout Shotgun Range. 

 All in all, it was a great hike 

and it felt good to be outdoors.