My third outing with MAHG was a bit closer to home, this time at the Little Bennett Regional Park in northwestern Montgomery County. With the temperature in the low 50s and a cloudy, overcast sky (and no wind!), it was a good day for a hike — especially to burn off some Thanksgiving dinner calories.
As usual, the group attending met shortly before 10 am at a parking lot near a trailhead. This time, though, we had two people that cancelled, no doubt due to eating too much turkey yesterday!
read more (1241 words)
My second outing with MAHG was to the Susquehanna State Park in northern Maryland. I haven't been to this park before (at least, not that I recall), and while it was still a long drive to the park, it was closer to home than last week’s excursion into Pennsylvania.
read more (709 words, 4 photos)
Slightly restless (and having already gained back all eight pounds I lost on the Appalachian Trail), I decided I needed to get out hiking more often, especially now that my knees and feet seem to have recovered, and I can walk down the stairs in my house without feeling like I’m about to fall over.
While there’s still a few trails vaguely near my house I haven’t hiked yet, I’ve long exhausted most of the hiking trails within a half hour drive. Since I’d much prefer to hike something new than retread old ground, I decided the solution was to join a hiking group, With other people in the mix (and someone else doing the planning), it’s a lot easier to consider hikes further afield, especially point-to-point hikes (as opposed to loops or out-and-back).
read more (1134 words, 1 photo)
My Apple Watch Sport was one of the few electronic devices I brought on my Appalachian Trail thru-hike. I brought it mostly for the novelty and for the (expected to be inaccurate) activity tracking, but it actually turned out to be far more useful than I anticipated.
read more (1958 words)
When I decided to hike the Appalachian Trail, one of the choices I was faced with was what electronic devices I should take with me. The more I took, the more weight I would have to carry, and the more dependent I’d be on power outlets. As much “fun” as it might have been to have my laptop — which would have made writing blog posts way faster — it would have been entirely impractical weight-wise. After not really much deliberation, decided on five pieces of tech: my phone, my watch, a headlamp, a battery (and power adaptor), and a solar charger (and the necessary cables to connect everything).
read more (1294 words)