With a few minutes of free time, and not being able hike for at least a month and a half; I thought I would look back on 2018. The summer of 2018 presented a bunch of challenges that did not allow me to get out and hike as much as I would have liked – between hockey tournaments, college visits, and plenty of adverse weather, I spent many a weekends indoors or away from the trails.
2017 hikes: 12
2018 hikes: 10
2017 saw me return to hiking and many of those trips were to the local county parks, I wanted to tick them off the list. 2018 saw me traveling more to locations out-of-county and on my list. However, the challenges listed above limited my number of trips in the past year. Weather was particularly bad, particularly on the Jockey Hollow trail when I ran into a deluge.
2017 miles: 40.45
2018 miles: 41.54
In two less trips I was able to essentially increase my mileage by a mile. Of note, 2017 was spent in County parks, for the most part; where this year I traveled to bigger parks with longer trails.
Highlights from this year:
Cattus Island: Ocean County park. My daughter and I hiked many of the trails here for a long day. We hiked it in May before the heat, humidity, and insects took over. Lots of great scenery, especially by the water.
Watchung Reservation: Sierra Trail. This was a great hike, 7 miles in length. The day was HOT HOT HOT. I had planned 11 miles, but ran pretty low on water. Lots of great views while up on the ridge, and probably my favorite part was hiking through Feltsville, the abandoned town.
Jenny Jump State Park: An out-and-back. I liked the climbs, the walk on the ridge, Ghost Lake, the views from the lookouts, not seeing a bear (though I wouldn’t mind, from a distance), and not seeing ghosts. Lots of rocks here.
In 2019, I hope to get out more, expand the miles, and challenge myself with new, and maybe more challenging terrain. While I don’t have a bucket list, I do have plenty of trails I want to hike, both here and out of state.
See you on the trails.