The Start of My Hiking Career

So, I have decided to start a new category, series thing within my blog. I recently found that I actually enjoy hiking. Lol, I actually like walking around and exerting physical energy to hike up and down mountains. How did this come about…? Probably because I have a love of the mountains…which can be traced back to Germany and when we would vacation in the mountains. It then extended to when I visited Grandfather Mountain and Chimney Rock in Asheville. Not to mention Crowders Mountain near Charlotte.

This past school year… I found myself bored one day, so I downloaded in App called AllTrails. How it works is that it uses your location and finds nearby trails. You can, of course, filter the trails to be easy, moderate or hard; dog-friendly, off-trail, by distance, elevation gain or whether the trail is an out and back or a loop. I found my first trail, which was 25 minutes from my house, and I took my little one, Kiara, and went on our first adventure.

Alright but enough of the back story.

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This is how I plan to share with you my hiking adventures…pretty much the layouts of each post will follow something similar. All of the blog posts about hiking will be nested under TravelTyme in the Let's Go Hiking Section. And you'll know it's a hiking post because all my blog posts are color coded and these in particular will be orange. Now within each blogpost, I will start out with the

basics

: distance traveled, elevation gain, time (it’s actually going to be the moving time) and MY perceived difficulty of the trail. Every trail will have a

“Things to know”

section, which will discuss if it was dog-friendly, whether the trail was a loop or an out and back, was there any significant landmarks worth mentioning (like waterfalls), was the trail clearly marked, etc. Then to wrap up everything, I’ll give a

brief personal narrative

of the trail as well as factual information about the trail I think you should know. But by no means do I claim to be an expert hiker or even have the remotest clue of what I’m doing. Other things I think you should know because I’m not going to keep reiterating it in each blog post…

Apps that I use:

• AllTrails (where I find my trails and record them)
• My Apple Watch (hiking in the workout app)
• Relive (which is more of an after the hike app, where I can create a movie of my hike as you’ll see in future posts)

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I typically wear….

• Workout Leggings (optional with pockets) because I hate bug bites and if I have to walk through grass, I prefer my legs to be covered

• A regular t-shirt or a gym t shirt

• A dad hat to help with the sun and the sweat

• Since I haven’t invested in actual hiking boots, I wear my army boots along thick socks usually the ones that extend past the top of the boot.

• My camelback which is convenient because not only does it carry 2 liters of water, but it has pockets which have the

  • foldable dog bowls

  • water bottles for them

  • poop bags

  • deodorant

  • bug spray

  • my selfie stick

  • any snacks I think I might want to eat