Take a Hike - 3

I've recently had the opportunity to take a couple of photo hikes through Chickakoo and on someone's suggestion, look for mushrooms and berries. It's funny how you never notice what is there until you look for it. I've hiked Chickakoo about a dozen times this season and rarely noticed anything beyond a few Bracket Fungi. but on these trips, fungi, berries, flowers, and lichen abounded!
Gives a bit of credence to "Stop and smell the roses."...

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

Photos here

Session 2 - Week 5

Week 5 of Session 2 now completed! My schedule was as follows:

Sunday May 5th - Rest, sleep, fluids, & good nutrition. I'd come down with a bug or cold or something and was just tired all over.

Monday May 6th - A day of rest and catching up on the chores.

Tuesday May 7th - TRX Suspension training. The warmup itself was a workout! 30 Jacks, 10 Pushups, 7 Squats, 5 Pushups, 7 Burpies, 30 Jacks, 25 High Knees, 5 Pushups, 10 Squats, 30 Jacks (or something very close to that!). And then it was time to get to work! The fantastic thing about TRX Suspension training is that it NEVER gets any easier. You are working your total body, using your body as resistance/weight. And Sheila is always coming up with new tricks to wear you out! After this particular workout, I experienced some muscle fatigue in muscles that I'd forgotten I had - obliques and mid back muscles. It was great! Oh, and did I mention my poor glutes?

Wednesday May 8th -An evening hike at Chickakoo Lake! 1 hour of hiking the easy/intermediate trails with Ghiry. Read about it here.

Thursday May 9th - TRX Suspension training -This class included a lot of single hand mode work. This is where you have either 1 foot suspended in the TRX or you are using only 1 hand/arm to do the work. Plenty of single arm rows, bicep curls, single leg lunges, single leg squats, etc. Can you imagine doing a single arm bicep curl, using your body as weight? I couldn't imagine I would EVER be able to do it. But I can! :)

Friday May 10th - 2.5 hours of hiking at Chickakoo! Quickly becoming my favorite easy to get to destination for a change up in my routine. I'd been itching to get on the Advanced trail and that is EXACTLY what Ghiry and I did. Read it here (and see the pix!).

Saturday May 11th - Why, exactly do I wake up before my alarm clock every morning? *sighs* :D Butt & Gutt was held OUTSIDE today! We met at the Boxing Club and walked, lunged, squatted, and jogged to the outdoor destination where we would complete more donkey kicks (fire hydrants) than my bum cares to think about along with plenty of ab work. A quick jog back to the club and a long stretch and I'm ready for my next adventure.... another hike this afternoon!!


Have a super fantastic week and catch you on the other side of the hike! :D

UPDATE: 1 hour and 45 mins of hiking. Amazing how much time you can shave off of a hike when you aren't stopping to take pix every so often. :D We hiked the reverse of Friday's hike - Advanced trail first, then Intermediate, ending on Easy.  Beautiful sunny day (I think I got a tan), no bugs, a little on the dry side but wonderful. :)

Take a Hike - 2!

Chickakoo Lake is fast becoming a favorite evening destination! Out of work at 4:45 on a beautiful Friday evening and I couldn't think of a better place to walk the dog.

This time, I was determined to get on the Intermediate & Advanced trails that wander the perimeter of the Chickakoo Lake Recreation Area. I hadn't seen them before but ran into a couple of hikers coming off the Advanced trail who said it was ALL up and down hill. What fun! :)

Arrived at the upper parking lot at 6pm, leashed up the dog, and off we went. Here is the map again so you can follow along the trails. Jump below for the hike details and link to pictures.

The upper parking lot is the P surrounded by the grey lines. Ghiry and I got on the trail to the upper right of the P on the yellow/orange trail - Easy trail. We followed it until the point that it intersects with trail 2 - Intermediate trail - and heads south of Dog Leg Pond. This pond is full of PEEPERS ! Always a pleasant chorus to listen to on an evening hike. :D While I had seen only Greebs in the pond during the previous hike, there were a couple of green headed mallards last night as well.

Heading around Dog Leg Pond and continuing on the Red trail, we intersected with trail 4 - also intermediate. Here is where I have always chosen to go left and stay in trail 2. However, after a couple of pictures of a particular log I'd seen on my first hike, I headed off right onto trail 4 - Green line. This trail takes you around the end of Kettle Lake and onto the northeast side of the lake. Let me just say that with all of the ponds and lakes in the recreation area, you are never very far from a fabulous view!

Trail 4 intersects with trail 3 - Advanced!  - with the option to take a right and head back to trail 2 or go left and around the rest of the park. A quick check of the clock indicated it was only 7:30pm, there was plenty of daylight left, and as Ghiry and I were both in great spirits, left we went!

This part of the hike was the most fun as it really was UP hill and DOWN hill, steeply! Lots of hills! On several of them, I let Ghiry off leash so that he could make his own way up the hill as his long doggy legs carry him more quickly than my short girl legs can take me up the hill. He was great, stopping and waiting at the top of each new hill. We enjoyed the scenery and found ourselves at the parking lot at 8:30pm with sunlight to burn.

I took a lot of photos this time and will definitely be back to do this hike again (TOMORROW!) & again & again! Next time I want to go the reverse direction, my only complaint being that the whole hike is not on terrain similar to the advanced trail. Perhaps 2 loops around the advanced trail, 1 in each direction, are in order...

Stay tuned! 

Take a Hike!

I'm fortunate enough to live a mere 15 minutes from a wonderful set of hiking trails at Chickakoo Lake Recreation Area.

And so... Last night I loaded up the dog, grabbed my boots and drove on out. What a difference in scenery compared to only 2 weeks ago! You can find a link to the pictures from 2 weeks ago here. 

The weather was a beautiful 63F (sorry, my C translator is broken today...) with little wind and barely a cloud in the sky. Leaving the house at 6pm, I was ready to hit the trail by 6:30. A brisk 1 hour walk, stopping every so often for pix (much to the annoyance of Ghiry who just wants to go and go and go and sniff everything in sight) and we were out at 7:30. Ghiry and I picked the orange and red trails in the map above as I'd done them a couple of weeks ago and needed something within the 1 hour range as Ghiry is getting a bit older (Grandpa dog) and anything after 7pm is past his bedtime.

We saw many interesting things on our trip including a Squirrel, a Hawk, several Greebs (ducks), a Loon, 4 Beaver, a Muskrat, and a small herd of Deer.

Check out the new pix!

Ghiry and I enjoyed this hike very much. In fact, I think I'll do it again tonight - Green and/or Blue trail this time. Ghiry has opted to stay home and work on his chess strategies...