not so much cycling this year, but lots of hiking

[Eden]

I still bike commute, so I put in saddle miles, but a great deal of my recreation this year has been hiking. Yesterday the larches were outstanding.


DSCF3231
by jiggumbob, on Flickr
lots more adventures on my flickr account

[emily_in_nc]

How beautiful, Eden! I love hiking too but haven't done much for awhile. You really get to see the most beautiful spots when hiking, I think, since so many of the best hiking areas are not very accessible to bicycles.

After having a huge cycling year in 2014 (7500 miles, my most ever), this year since we've been in Mexico, I've been concentrating on walking, running, and yoga. I still ride but not nearly as much since the cycling isn't great --lots of traffic on the roads and only a couple of bike paths. It's nice to be able to do different things. Next year I'm hoping we'll do more cycling and more hiking too!

[Crankin]

That is a beautiful picture! I haven't ridden as many miles this year, either, but enough, just over 2K so far. I thought it might be a 3K year, but I'll be lucky to get to my lowest acceptable goal of 2,500. I love hiking, but we don't do any serious stuff, just local hikes and occasional smaller mountains in New England. I don't like technical, rocky descents (just like riding), but I could be convinced to improve. I find most of my hiking on bigger trails gets done on snow shoes in the winter, which pretty much makes me fearless.

[Eden]

We started snowshoeing a bit last winter - but the snowpack was so low it was actually hard to find places…. we had to go up to around 6000+ feet to find more than a couple of inches! In a normal year out here we unfortunately have to worry about avalanche danger and choose our trails wisely in the winter.

When it's not snowing we stay away from really technical rock climbing, but we've done a few trails that require a little bit of scrambling (you need to use your hands, but not ropes) Coming down, for me, is always harder than going up since I can't see the footholds. A lot of our hikes do include some ridge walking, but there's a limit to how narrow either of us is willing to tolerate and we don't go where there is a serious danger that a slip will send you down a cliff… Most of the time the scrambling is just to reach the very top of the peak and you can skip it without missing much anyway. Last weekend we didn't go to the summit because we would have had to cross a knife edge that neither of us liked the looks of. That last 2 tenths of a mile just wasn't worth it.

[ny biker]

A few years ago I went on a hiking trail that required scrambling from rock to rock, and I ended up turning back. I was scared I would fall and get hurt, because there was really nothing to hold onto at times. I was by myself in a park near here that I had been wanting to check out for a while. If someone had been with me I might have felt more confident. But there were other, easier trails to explore so I opted to do that instead.

[Crankin]

Eden, we were in the Methow Valley, in late February, so I know all about the lack of snow! The best experience of the trip was a snow shoe hike. Not a ton of snow, and if I had been at home, I'd probably would have been wearing my Ice Spikes, not snow shoes. But, the scenery was outstanding and so different than what I am used to. The nordic skiing was horrible. Still glad I went, and want to go back, when there's a normal snow pack.