walking tour

Went for a walk on the Mt Wilson trail with Peggio (aka Mom) to break in the new hiking boots and begin our preparations for a week in Yosemite this summer. I posted about this trip a couple months ago along with a picture of some boots that some of you might remember. Then I freaked out about the boots and returned them and deleted the post/evidence – I have boot anxiety. Oh well, these things happen. But we are still doing the seven-day High Sierra Loop trip. Albeit, with a different pair of boots.

I’m afraid to post a picture of the new boots, though, because then I might jinx them and as they performed perfectly on their first real test (no blisters!) I’d like to keep them around. And besides, they’re all dusty now. Just imagine the classic burgundy all leather boots they’ve been making for decades. As I get older I seem to also be traveling backwards in time in my gear choices, leaning more and more towards steel and wool and leather.

We hiked up six miles and about 4000 feet and back down the same way over 8 hours. The trail is pretty steep with lots of changes in vegetation as you ascend. All the usual plant friends were out. Most notable was Dudleya (probably the cymosa species) – this particular colony was dark purple and star-like in shape, sipping from a seep of water in what looked like pretty much solid rock in the shade. (Similar to this.)

This is the same trail I’ll be running for the Mt Wilson Trail Race in a few weeks (although we walked up well beyond the race turnaround point.) It was nice to get a close look at the trail conditions at a slower speed than running and to mentally map out the route a little better. Maybe this will help in the race. It won’t help as much as training in the hills, though, which I’ve been neglecting. It turns out you have to do more than just write about your training intentions on the blog to make them happen – you actually have to go out and follow though in the real world – who knew?

Here’s a bit of history about Mr. Wilson and the trail. I haven’t bothered to read it yet, but maybe you will, anyway - what an endorsement…

(I’ll try not to delete this post anytime soon…)