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tennet mountain
Anway, back on topic - I like to read up on finding different things to do each time I go. I want to learn the area and know my way around in the woods up there. The Art Loeb trail has always stuck out to me. I’ve read about it numerous times, but I had never hiked any portion of it until I went a couple of months ago. Since that trip, I can’t get my mind off of it. The only problem is that I don’t have the time to go enjoy it. I’m basically out of vacation time, and it’s hard to find some one who would want to spend 4 days hiking in the woods. I’ve read stories of people covering the 30 miles in 2 days, but I want to enjoy it. 4 days seems reasonable. That’s still an average of 7.5 miles per day which is a lot for someone who isn’t in the greatest shape with a 50+ lb pack on their back.
So here’s my invitation. If you have interest in something like this, let me know. It would be good if you had a better sense of direction than me, because mine isn’t very good (but I do have a handheld GPS!!).
Here are a few pics of the Art Loeb Trail from my last journey with Chester.
So, I’ll be heading to Charleston for 3 days to spend 3 days at the beach. I haven’t been in almost a year to the sand and salt water and all this talk of people getting bit by sharks in SC doesn’t scare me a bit. If only I could catch a couple fishing from the surf.
I love the beach, and this year is probably the least amount of time I’ve spent at the beach in a long time. We’ve made more trips to the mountains than normal though in the past year as well. I really can’t decide which I love best. I love to go to the beach, fish in the mornings and evenings, and sit on the beach ALL day and read 4 books during the week. However, I love packing up and heading to the mountains for some hiking and camping. So, this brings me to my question of the day.
Which do you like better? The beach or the mountains? If you have only 3 days of vacation, where are you going to spend it?
The summer before I started the 8th grade, I started running Cross Country with Spring Valley High School. How I got started running is really a crazy story, but I won’t go into those details here. Maybe another day. Running quickly turned into something that I loved and something that I was good at. It came naturally to me and I could easily see the progress that I was making. By my sophomore year I was the top runner on the varsity team in Cross Country and in the distance events for track. As a freshman I ran a mile in 4:48 and then as a sophmore I ran a 5k in 16:47. My junior year I had some knee problems and got more involved with church, and then I didn’t run at all as a Senior.
I learned a lot while running Cross Country. The most important thing that I learned is how to work hard to achieve a goal. I set goals to run long distances (the most I ever ran was 12 miles), to run faster, to run more often, and to be faster than anyone else on our team. I won a few races and finished top 20 in the state, and really achieved most of my goals that I set. What I loved about Cross Country is this: if you didn’t train, you didn’t do well. You literally only got out what you put in. You couldn’t just get by. You had to constantly and consistently run, run, run, run. If you didn’t train hard and push yourself to the point where you can’t push anymore, you wouldn’t improve. I loved to see the results from working hard. It’s great to be working hard and see immediate results. I honestly believe that I am who I am today because of the 4 years that I spent running Cross Country. I learned to set goals. I’ve learned to find ways to reach my goals. Unfortunately, it’s sometimes hard to see immediate results on those goals. For example, I’m saving for retirement, but I think I’m only like 1% to my goal after 2 years. But we will get there, it just takes a little more time.
On another note, I’m still trying to run, but it’s incredibly depressing. I still have knee trouble as well as problems with both of my feet going numb, but I love to run. I’m trying to take it as easy as possible so that I can get some exercise. I just clocked myself and realized that I am averaging about 9-10 minutes a mile for a 3 mile run. I can do this for 30 minutes (3 miles) and I am nowhere close to out of breath, but my feet literally give up on me. It’s extremely frustrating, but I hope to keep making progress and within the next couple of months be able to run 4 or 5 miles. I hate running so slow, but you’ve got to start somewhere, and if I don’t start now, I’ll just keep getting fatter!!
So, I encourage you to set goals. Work hard to reach them, and don’t give up in the process. There is no better feeling than setting a goal that you feel is impossible to reach and then a year or 2 later reaching that goal!
Here are some pictures from our recent trip to Brevard. Christian, Chester, and I camped for 2 nights near the fish hatchery and then spent Saturday hiking on the Art Loeb and Ivestor Gap trails. Somehow we never got wet the entire time we were hiking, but it seemed like it could rain at any minute. The temperature was in the 60’s the whole time which made for great hiking weather. We did get tons of rain, thunder, and lightning at the camp site for about an hour on Saturday night, but we survived. There is nothing like spending a weekend in the mountains in Brevard, NC. It’s as close to heaven as you can get on this earth.
I have been looking forward to this weekend for over a month now. I’ll be leaving right after work to head to the beautiful Pisgah National Forest. I’ve been listening to bluegrass music all week just to prepare and I feel like I’m ready to go.
We camp right next to the Davidson River about a 1/2 mile up the trail from the Fish Hatchery. However, it seems that about 80% of the time that I go, it rains. And a couple of times, it has poured rain (once was the outer band of a hurricane and it was miserable). It may very well rain from the time we get there tonight until we leave Sunday morning, but there is still hope. Even if it rains, there will no place I’d rather be. Right now it on weather.com, it says that there is a 40% chance of rain from the time we arrive until we leave.
The current header on the top of the blog was taken on my last trip. It’s a picture of the Davidson River as the sun was rising. Morning is by far my favorite time of the day while I’m there as you can see the sunlight coming up and through the trees. It’s absolutley beautiful.
If you’ve never been up to Brevard or the surronding areas, you’ve got to go. Even if you’re not a hiker, hit the Blue Ridge Parkway and drive until you just can’t afford gas any longer (which may not be too far since gas costs $10/gallon. The Parkway is awesome though and I really could spend hours driving along. One of these days I’d like to take a week long vacation and drive along the entire parkway from start to finish camping and exploring along the way.
So, pray that we don’t drown this weekend and that we have dry pillows and clothes. I’ll have some pictures up upon our return.
On this day 55 years ago, 2 people reached the summit of Mt. Everest for the 1st time ever. I have a slight fascination with this huge mountain that holds that highest peak on earth. I have never missed an episode of “Everest: Beyond the Limit” on the Discovery channel. “Into Thin Air” is a book written by Jon Krakauer that really got me interested in the whole thing though. “Into Thin Air” is where I have learned the most about what it takes to get to the top of the mountain. Basically, this trip was a disaster and the deadliest season of climbing. 15 people died that month and 8 of those died on the same day.
The elevation at the top of Mt. Everest is 29,029 feet. I had a hard time walking up a hill in Colorado without feeling out of breath at 14,000 feet. I couldn’t imagine being at 29,029 feet, even if I was breathing from an oxygen tank. Reaching the summit of Mt. Everest has to be a life changing event. The will-power that it takes to get to the top is something that only a few people have. What really stinks is that as soon as you reach the top, you can’t stay and celebrate for long. Your body can only keep functioning in the “danger zone” for so long. I am amazed at what people go through just to say they’ve been on top of a mountain.
The main thing the resonates with me time after time when reading about Everest is the lenghts people will go to in order to accomplish their goals. They train for years, some lose arms, some get severe frostbite, some even leave friends behind to die so that they can reach the summit. Blind people, teenagers, and even leg amputees have made it to the summit. It really is amazing. One of the craziest stories is about a guy named Beck Weathers. Click on the link and go read about him. He was literally left for dead mulitple times, but somehow lived to tell his story.
So, in honor of this anniversary of reaching Mt. Everest for the first time, what’s the hardest you’ve ever worked to acheive one of your goals? Leave some comments and let me know!
So here is the (not) highly anticipated PART 2 of our trip to Colorado. We woke up Tuesday morning, left Colorado Springs and headed north for Estes Park. Estes Park is right outside of Rocky Mountain National Park and it really is a very neat town with a lot to do. Our time in Estes Park was a lot more relaxed and we didn’t have a lot of stuff planned out to do. I also unfortuantely came down with a sinus infection or cold that had me feeling not so great for a good chunk of the time we were there. It still didn’t stop us from having fun. Here are a couple of highlights from Estes Park.
- We stayed in a cabin right on the Fall River which was really nice and peaceful. When we got there, Ashley and I sat out by the river for awhile - she slept, and I read some of my book.
- Wednesday was the best weather we had the whole time we were there. Storms (snow and rain) were looking very likely for the rest of the trip, and for once the weatherman was actually correct. So we took advantage of the good weather on Wednesday and went on a fly fishing trip with a guide from Kirk’s Fly Fishing Adventures. We actually had 2 guides come out with us for the first hour which was really nice of them. This meant we each had our own guide to teach us - neither of us had ever done any fly fishing before so this was great. It got ugly from the start though. Ashley caught 5 before I even caught 1. She ended up with 9 trout from the Big Thompson river to my 3. Ashley was a natural, either that or she had a better teacher. I’m not really sure.
- After we finished fishing, we had some pizza for lunch and then hopped on some bikes to take a 9 mile loop around town. We made it close to halfway and then turned around. I got killed on the bikes by my wife again. The air is so hard to breathe and a constant uphill climb wears you out so quick! The road we biked down provided an incredible view of the surronding snow capped mountains.
- Thursday and Friday are a blur and I really can’t remember what we did each of those days. We didn’t do a lot of hiking as we had hoped for 2 reasons: 1-We were tired and I was still sick 2- There was so much snow on the trails that you needed snowshoes to get very far.
- We were able to finally get to the top of Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park. The elevation only gets to about 12,000 feet up there. On our way up it was snowing off and on and the temperature was rapidly dropping from the upper 50’s to the 30’s and below. When we made it to the top, the snow blew in and created a complete whiteout. I have never seen anything like this before or been in this type of weather. The wind chill at that time was 5 but I think it got to at least -5 in the next 30 minutes as we drove to different places. On the bottom of the mountain, the weather was the exact opposite - sunny, but still windy. We also visited Bear Lake which was 90% frozen over still. This was one of the lower lakes in the park, but it was still frozen solid. It made for some beautiful pictures.
If you ever get the chance to head out to the western part of our country - you’ve got to go. It’s so different from what we are used to. It sure was nice to get home though and find it easy to take a deep breath again. Maybe you eventually get used to the thinner air with less oxygen, but I sure didn’t. Overall our trip was a blast and we made lots of memories to last a lifetime.
On May 17th we flew out of Raliegh, NC to head out to Colorado for the week. It was a fantastic trip where we spent the 1st half in Colorado Springs, and then the 2nd half in Estes Park (Rocky Mtn. National Park). Here’s a recap with a few pics for those who are interested.
Colorado Springs
- We arrived in Colorado Springs and went straight to P.F. Changs before we settled down at the Hampton Inn. This was my first time eating there and it was incredible.
- After eating we went to Garden of the Gods. It really is an incredible place that just doesn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the mountain landscape around. The best thing about it was that it was free (one of the few free things in the whole freakin state).
- Sunday we took a ride on the Royal Gorge Railroad and spent the day near Canon City at the Royal Gorge Park where they have a huge bridge crossing the park. The train ride followed along the Arkansas River which was full of water from the tons of snow melt.
- Sunday night I had one of the best dinners ever at Texas Land and Cattle. They have a smoked sirloin and I got the biggest one they have. It was out of this world. There’s one in Charlotte - road trip anyone?
- Monday we went to Pike’s Peak. At the top, the altitude is 14,100 feet. Let’s just say the air is a little harder to breathe up there. There was still tons of snow and it was rather cold. On the way back down I started to get a pretty bad headache followed by some serious nasuea. Yes, that’s called altitude sickness. It still was an awesome trip up and down the mountain.
Next up - Estes Park
