It has been great to read Tony and Karl's blogs of their WHWRs. Highs and lows. The distances and the times you both covered were amazing. Brad and I walked the WHW many years ago and we thought we were pretty good being about to do it in 5 days....you guys were awesome!!
You inspired me to enter a bit mor than usual for a short vacation we had this week. I had been planning a family camping trip for a while and had chosen the Red River Gorge in Kentucky which is a 17.5 mile hike, however as the date got closer we could see that it was going to be very very hot and at the last minute we changed course and headed north instead of south to the north west of the lower peninsula of Michigan and I found a walk which was slightly longer (21.5 miles) but predicted to be about 10 degrees cooler than Red River Gorge. We backed all our gear for a 2 1/2 day hike and this was the first time we had taken the kids together on an overnight hike. I had pulled out our two old rucksacks and dusted them down and the kids had much smaller ones as we did not want them to carry too much weight and not enjoy their first long hike. It was a strange feeling putting on my 23 year old Mountain Designs rucksack...something like being reunited with an old friend after a long absence. So many memories came back to me. My last used of this pack had been to travel the world with Brad 22 years ago. After backpacking for 11 months straight we came home and were very happy to put our packs away for a while......well work, small children and life in general kept those packs away for the next 21 years.
The R365C had given me the cardio fitness I needed to do the walk but I was not as well prepared for the weight of the pack, especially with us carrying more so the kids could carry less. The pack felt just as comfortable as I remembered and I had not forgotten all the strap changes to shift the weight as we walked, however by the end of Day 1 we had walked 11 miles along the North Country Trail (part of a 4,600 mile walk from New York to North Dakota) and met up with the Manistee River Trail up and down along a very pretty ridge through pine maple and birch forests. The downside of this part of the walk was that there was no water until we reached our planned campsite, so we had to carry it and I was very relived to see Eddington Creek flowing when wee finally reached our destination. I used my iPhone to capture some of the walk and proved that I was there but I knew full well that the battery only had a bit over an hour and I was not going to capture much. So part of first day is what was on my phone:
Day 236/365 Challenge by margcurtis13 at Garmin Connect - Details
We ended up moving on a little further for our first night and there was an amazing thunderstorm during the night. And on the second day I captured the rest of the walking distance for Day 1 and 2 as a manual entry. Day 2 was along the Manistee River and it was spectacularly beautiful; crystal clear, cool and winding through the most beautiful, quintessential, American National Forest. Our campsite after our second day of walking was on a bluff overlooking the Manistee. The river was so serpentine that we could see 4 sections of the river at once flowing in alternating directions. We had the campsite to ourselves, bothered only by a family of racoons early in the morning that hope to find something edible in Brad's pack.
Day 237/365 Challenge by margcurtis13 at Garmin Connect - Details
On our last day of about 4 miles, we started early to give ourselves plenty of time for the 6.5 hour drive home. It was a really nice walk and I tried to savor every scenic view as I knew that we were unlikely to do this walk again. I will have very find memories of it and our time together as a family.I entered this morning's walk also as a manual entry but will also do a run tonight.
Day 238/365 Challenge - A by margcurtis13 at Garmin Connect - Details
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