Good Hair and a Great Hike

Today was a paradox for me: 2-1/2 hours at the salon getting my hair seriously chopped, followed by a 5-mile, pack-on training hike at Blendon Woods. The new hair worked fine, the pack worked well, the clothes worked well--and the jury is still (ugh!) out on the shoes. After 5 miles carrying 15 lbs. total pack weight, I wasn't tired and the rest of me was feeling just fine, but my feet were bugging me in my new Merrells. Dang. (My pack in June will be 26-30 lbs. including food and water. This is not a bad weight for a noob.)

So it turns out if you hike every trail in Blendon Woods it totals about 5 miles. That is, not including the paved trail to the pond--I was not going to hit that with my pack on. I looked goofy enough as it is!

What I would have liked to see on those trails was a little bit 'o green. It was still very much brown today. In one area, a little bit of spring beauty sprouts were just peeking above the leave litter. Maybe there is hope!

There have been some new developments with the AT trip in June this week. On WhiteBlaze.net I've been lucky to stumble upon three other folks hiking the same section in June and we're working on plans to meet up. Should be fun! It'll be unlikely the group will can stick together all the time, and that's not necessarily the spirit of a hike on the AT anyway, but it will be great to start together, make some new friends, and know there are people you know out there with you.

Well, thank you, Thomas Edison for your wisdom about failure not being failure at all: Tonight I found one way that doesn't work to make a freezer bag meal! I know those guys on the trail are freezer bagging Knorr sides, but my experiment today didn't work. I'll have to get on my favorite hiking forum and see who can tell me a way that DOES work. :)