Two #hikes this week: Wednesday was the Forest Loop at the #LookoutMountain Nature Center, and yesterday was about half of the Davis Ponds trail at #Staunton State Park.
Lookout's an old friend. Staunton was new to us, and we'll definitely be back—it's spectacular, and highly recommended. Also, Becca added a whole bunch of species to her #iNaturalist life list.
Neither was challenging by our old standards—particularly the Forest Loop, which is about the easiest #mountain #trail in the state—and both kicked our asses. It's impossible to overstate how sad and angry we are about losing our ability to look at any trail on any mountain and say, "Let's do that!"
We know how and why this happened, and we know what we need to do to get it back. Or some of it back, anyway: in our mid-fifties, with Becca's fibro, and my leg reminding me of the Big Snap, we're not going to turn the clock back to our early forties. Half would feel like a miracle.
Yeah, it's not our fault. But it's not okay.
Our goal is to enter our sixties limited by time rather than space. Let the main question about any trail be "do we have enough daylight left to finish this hike" rather than "will search and rescue have to pluck us off the mountain if we try this?" Which doesn't seem like too much to ask.
Say, Echo Lake to Lower Chicago Lake. That's a most-of-the-day hike: seven klicks out and 250 meters up, with a whole lot of up and down on the way, and you're *starting* at an altitude where most people can't live comfortably long-term. But lots of casual hikers make the trip just fine.
That used to be well within our capacity. Mountain gods willing, it will be again.
An addendum: at Staunton, a young woman was running back and forth along the stretch of trail we were on. She passed us a couple of times in each direction, giving us a cheerful smile each time. At a guess, she was timing herself, maybe race training. Good steady #5k or #10k pace.
Each time, we smiled and waved back, and I felt a ferocious envy. #Running is the only exercise I've ever enjoyed for its own sake. #Weights and #martialarts were means to an end—get stronger, fight better. #PT and #roadmarching were not to get yelled at. But running was a gateway to a better world.
Never again. My leg won't take it. These days, the only world to which it would be a gateway would be the emergency department, maybe followed by the operating suite. While I miss the #ER too, for quite different reasons, I'm not in a hurry to get back to it ... like that.
Of course I enjoy #hiking for its own sake as well, but I don't think of it as exercise. It's the best kind of #medicine. Losing my gut would be a bonus, though.