Log for South Mountain Reservation Practice Walk - Prepping for L34 2011

This 5+-mile segment is actually the same beginning trail for the L34 and represents an immediate challenge as you ascend South Mountain for a couple hundred feet right from the start. At a little after 9:00 a.m. on Sep 25th the trail was quiet for most of the way. Between Risa Olinsky, Nadeem Firoz and myself we had enough collective experienced to remember the route, although the trail blaze markers looked like they were in good shape from last year.

Joining us was Charlena Sears and her daughter Jazlyn, and Deanna Johnson. Charlena and Deanna, are FreeWalkers who had experience walking our events earlier in the year. For Jazlyn, a sharp seventh grader with an interest in math, this would be new challenge of walking five miles in the woods. Lori Chessen Hinds was another great addition to our team as she’s an experienced and enthusiastic walker who  recently joined the FreeWalkers.

I’ll keep this post short as we’ve covered the walk in past posts which you can visit my blog on last year’s L34 walk and particularly in practice walk #1. But even on past occasions there’s been a few rough spots in these wooded areas where open sections make trail markers impractical as a guide so you need to know the general direction to follow and where to pick up the trail markers again.

After a few miles we came to our first major milestone, Hemlock Falls area for a break. The recent rains had created an active waterfall and changed the trail a little with a footbridge out. But Risa and Nadeem knew the way out and we eventually came to the open field area where we had to cross the intersection of South Orange Ave and Cherry Lane to get to the northwest section of the park. After a little confusion we found our way again and continued. The weather was somewhat overcast but was comfortably warm and made for excellent hiking.

Whereas the first three miles or so were winding the last two were mostly direct and headed north to a footbridge over Northfield Avenue then another ½ mile to our final destination. Our small friendly group managed to stay together and worked well to get us to our car or ride waiting at the Mayapple lot at about 12:30 p.m. – a little over 3 hours at an average pace. It was a good workout for all of us and an impressive start for our young walker, Jazlyn, who still looked fresh at the end.