Taking Longer than I Thought

OK, I'm unrealistic. I forgot that you can't just go up and hike any time and for as long as you'd like in real life. While I haven't completed all the trails in a week (this time), I have done 36 segments in 8 days. Even though we had a very busy day today, I found time to hike up behind the house and pick up one more so I kept the string of consecutive days hiking on the Giant alive. The weather has been extremely cooperative!

I won't list all the hikes but one that proves my obsession was a late hike starting around 7 PM up the Nature Trail with Sadie. We finished the whole thing in 30 minutes so I called Evan a little before the bottom and had him come and pick up Sadie. I started back up the Orange and when I reached the intersection with the White, I made the wise decision to go down the steep section of the White to the Red Triangle, rather than have to come back up it. I went up the Red Triangle and turned left on the remaining piece of Orange, then right on the rest of the White. It was pretty dark when I reached the top of the White and began my descent. On the winding section down to the Tower Path, I surprised a raccoon heading up the trail toward me. I was glad Sadie wasn't with me as it ran off into the darkening woods. The section below the Tower Path was pretty dark but I did hear some voices up the trail behind me. I was glad Pat bought me a flashlight and used it a few times until I got down to the Picnic Area. I was glad to see one other car remaining in the parking lot and the gate open and no ranger waiting when I reached the car around 8:30.

Yesterday Pat dropped Sadie & me off on Hartford Turnpike so I could hike the Blue trail. I had big dreams of hiking all the way past the tower and picking up maybe 5 segments. But those sections out there are a lot longer than I thought. Both the section to Chestnut Lane and the one to the Red Square trail took 25 minutes so at 50 minutes out I had to decide if I could do the next Blue section or not. I decided against it and simply hopped over to the Green. That is one of the shortest and easiest segments - it only took 10 minutes to reach the Red Circle but I decided to head for home, which took 20 minutes from there.

Tonight I headed up the Red Circle and the shortcut to Yellow, since I'd hiked the short piece from Red Circle to the top of the shortcut at least once in the past week. It had only taken 7 minutes to reach the Yellow so I decided I could turn right and finish that piece. I didn't remember the large rock wall to the left until we heard some deer and saw them up above. Sadie & I got to the Red Square in 11 minutes. I called home and decided I had enough time to get back home via the same route. The whole jaunt took 35 minutes.

Plenty of month left but I wanted to do them all in a week!