Due to a variety of life circumstances, our original plan to hike the Current River Section of the Ozark Trail in Missouri this weekend, morphed into a hike on trails in SE Minnesota. SE Minnesota is less than 4 hours from DSM, whereas the Ozark Trail is 7 hours away. So we and our neighbors, Tom and Cathy, went with the flow and enjoyed a wonderful long weekend of back-packing together. Since we’re all newbies to back-packing, the point of this trip was to try out our new back-packing equipment and to see if we could tolerate carrying 30-40 pounds of extra weight. We all did well, up to 10 miles in one day, and had an enourmous amount of fun together.
Our neighbors, Tom and Cathy
Loaded up and about to start our 10 mile hike. It was SOOOO cold when we started, that we were wearing every single layer of clothing we had brought along. Lloyd and Tom and I are used to freezing together anyways, on early AM winter runs. We're also used to sweating together on hot humid run days and during our daily AM Farrel's workouts. So what's a little cold?????
By a good hour or so into the hike, we were already shedding layers. We're taking our first break here in a beautiful wooded area next to the Root River in MN.
Some of the terraine we encountered was really neat. Here are Lloyd and Tom and Cathy along a section of trail that included some unique limestone formations. The area where we hiked was quite hilly with numerous bluffs and most of all, explding with spring green.
By afternoon we were down to just one layer and our packs were starting to feel heavier. By the end of the day, I had a very sore bruise on my tailbone where the lower portion of my back-pack rested. I'll have to practice some more to toughen this spot up!
A stately oak tree near the end of our day's trek. What a beautiful tree! I think it really does have a soul!
We’re planning a few more weekend training hikes with Tom and Cathy on trails near DSM, in order to build our back-packing endurance muscles before we do our week-long hike together in September of this year on a section (still TBD) of the Superior Hiking Trail in MN. We’re really excited about this trip! There are many bears in the area, so we’ll have to perfect our bear-hangs before then! What a fun new sport this is! We find that all the running and core-strengthening we’ve been working on, is really paying off. The day after we hiked the 10 miles in MN, we (Lloyd, Tom and I) ran 12 miles in training for the Lincoln Marathon which we’re doing on May 2nd. We all expected to feel tired from back-packing the day before. However, we found ourselves feeling strong and of course very encouraged by this.
Meanwhile, life and work goes on……….
I’m glad you enjoyed your first backpacking adventure!! There is nothing like living out of a pack, hiking hard all day, cooking on a backpacking stove, and then crawling into a sleeping bag. Top 10 favorite things….EVER!