What I've Been Up To, Lately

   It's been a little over a month since I've last posted so I thought I'd take a little time today and do an update on what I've been up to lately. There HAVE been a couple of things go on worth talking about but I never had the energy to sit and write about any single one of them so today, perhaps, a summary is in order.
   One of the most significant things which happened is that I received a new running watch, for my birthday three weeks back! I guess I should really call it my hiking watch, though,

New watch!

as this is what I'll be using it for the majority of the time. Compliments of my beautiful wife, Doralyn, I received a Garmin Forerunner 35. All I really wanted was a watch with a longer battery life, a GPS, and connectibility to a tracking app. This watch does all that for me! I've taken it on three or four hikes now and have figured out how to connect it to my phone and afterwards see all these amazing (for me) stats. I realize I'm probably a little late to the game here but better late than never. The biggest problem with my old Garmin was that the battery was not lasting to the end of a long hike and so was kind of useless.
   I've stayed pretty close to home for most of the hikes, heading to such places as Warbler Woods and Kains Woods right here in London. The week before last, though, I got a message from my friend, Heather, asking me if I was interested in hiking a section of the Avon Trail with her. I hiked the Avon end-to-end last summer and Heather is currently trying to do the same thing. She has a website called Exploration Project and in it she talks about her many hiking adventures in far-flung places. She also does amazing photography, samples of which have been published, so you should check it out! I was quite happy to say yes to her request so we met last weekend at a section of the trail, left my car there, and then drove back to the beginning of the 12K section we wanted to hike and set off!

Heather, farther up the icy hill than me
and going nowhere fast!

   And it was an adventure! Our part of southwestern Ontario was in the middle of a freeze/thaw cycle and most of the snow in the forests was gone. Where the path had been trampled down by hikers, however, was a sheet of ice. On level ground, not too much of an issue. Climbing and descending hills in dark forests was a whole other challenge!

On easier terrain!

   At one point, Heather and I found ourselves on an uphill stretch through pine forest and basically had to resort to crawling on our knees---there was just no way to maintain our footing. Much laughter accompanied all this, thankfully, and soon we were able to get back upright. After that, the only real issue was mud---tons of it. There were several farmers' fields we had to skirt and the land there had us sinking in to the tops of our boots. Easily we were carrying an extra three or four pounds of muck on each boot! Finally, though, we made it back to my car and I was able to then get us back to Heather's. A quick stop at Timmie's in Stratford and we were on our way home!
   This past Monday, I made my way to the local MEC store. As I may have mentioned occasionally here in the past, I suddenly have this desire to do some thru-hiking. I have absolutely no idea why I suddenly feel the need to do this but, a couple of years ago, I also had no idea why I was suddenly taking up hiking, either. People change!
   

New backpack and tent!

At the MEC, I corralled one of their staff and she helped me get fitted with a backpack designed for thru-hiking. I had already fairly extensively researched this and had picked out a Gregory Stout 65L backpack. It had the features and price range I liked. I then picked out a MSR Elixir 2-person tent (my idea is that I might try and talk Doralyn into some camping---shhh----don't tell her). These things together were the single largest investment in my thru-hiking dream and they are now out of the way. Odds and ends now...
   So there you have it, all up-to-date. Spring is here and one of my fervent wishes is that I'll also be running some trails in the near future! Cheers!