I'm back and touched them all in April!

Well, I haven't taken the time to blog about all my hikes in April. I think the highlights were the weekend hike where Chelsea met me at Chestnut and we hiked alone with Sadie along Violet and down the Red Circle to home. The rest is a blur but the one the other night in a light mist as it got dark was memorable. I was picking up odd segments that I didn't have for April so I went up the Red Circle to Yellow to the Y/G Crossover to Green to Red Triangle and left on Blue. I needed the Y/G Crossover and that Blue segment which is short but steep up and down. I took a right on the Tower Path and wrapped around the hill I just climbed over. I hit Blue and a deer ran off into the mist in the fading light. I decided to just head out on the Red Triangle when a young couple approached from the left on Orange. I asked if they were headed to the college and told them that this was the shortest way down. They confessed that they weren't students and had parked at the parking lot so when we got to the Yellow trail I told them to take a right and I started down the ravine towards the street with hopes that Evan would pick me up. But he didn't answer his phone or I knew he wasn't out yet so I headed back up Yellow to go home. When I came down to the house out of the dark (at least I had my new flashlight and had used it) Pat was home and berated me for hiking in the dark.

So that brings us to today. The last day of April and I have 5 segments left - the 2 Blue and the 2 Violet from Chestnut and the B/V Crossover. I have a new strategy for the crossovers - go down them and continue on the other and loop back and go down again. Especially the B/V Crossover I would rather go down to Violet than up to Blue. So I started out with a little less than an hour and a half before I needed to be home. I made good time from Chestnut on Blue to the B/V Crossover but I wasn't sure I would have time for the loop to the Red Circle so Sadie & I took a right on Violet and followed a couple guys all the way back to Chestnut. There we saw the first of the only 2 dogs we had encountered all day. Fortunately, I saw both in the distance before Sadie did. We went past a couple sitting on the railing by the map with a pit bull and I told Sadie she didn't want to mess with that one. I decided it was just as quick and easy (and more pleasant) to go on Yellow to Blue and back to where the car was parked. Going down the Blue I again saw a dog ahead and put Sadie back on the leash as did they. It appeared to be another pit bull as they passed while I held Sadie off the side of the trail.

After supper, I decided to try for the small loop remaining out in the middle of the Giant. Looking at the map, it seemed the quickest approach would be the Violet and cross over to Green just before the bridge (there's a short unmarked trail there) and then take the Green to the unmarked trail on the map that is big enough to drive a truck down. It turned out to be a perfect approach to the loop I wanted to do. We got there in exactly 15 minutes and the unmarked trail was very easy to follow even with the setting sun in our eyes and it was obviously well-travelled. I went down the B/V crossover and enjoyed the waterfall embedded in the cliff at the Violet. We headed up and over to the Red Circle. I almost fell for a huge unmarked trail to the left but then realized you have to go all the way down to the river for the Red Circle. We went back up the Blue and along the cliffs with some of the best views on the Giant. We got back down to where we had hit the loop in 25 minutes. Back on the unmarked shortcut and then took the Green back to the car. We didn't see anyone on the whole hike, just under one hour. And this completes all the trails in the month of April, almost all this April.

Tomorrow I'll talk about my new strategy for attacking the Giant Master hikes. I think they could all be done in 8 reasonable length hikes with some customization possible. But that's for May - I only have one segment in all the Mays I've hiked on the Giant!