Elm Fork Trail 2/17/14

February 17, 2014

Hike: Elm Fork Trail, near Denton, TX

Weather: sunny, upper 60s-lower 70s, breezy, beautiful

Hikers: Ian

Length: 10.8 miles

I went for another solo hike on this President’s Day.  Court was a little sicky and stayed home, though I think she could have made it.  Biff is still recovering from spinal surgery and his hiking days unfortunately might be over.  But we’ll see.

I went back out to Elm Fork and did all of it this time.  I didn’t hit the trail until about 10am, but there was only one other car at the trail head when I started.  It was a beautiful day and one of the first days of the year where the weather felt like spring.  It even got a little warm, but I will take that over cold any day.  I only saw one other person on the trail today.  It was nice having it all to myself.

I got all the way to Sycamore Bend Park, which is the official end of the trail, and stopped to have lunch overlooking the lake.  It was very peaceful and nice to have that as a halfway point.

My feet did pretty well, considering this is the longest distance I’ve gone so far.  I got one tiny blister on the inside of my heel, but nothing to complain about.  I also got to rock my new Dirty Girl gaiters today.  These are super light and certainly do their job, along with having some awesome designs.  Of course I went for skulls.

I told Court she has to come out on the next hike.  While solo hiking is fun, I would much rather have her out there to share it with me.  I wanted to end this post with a quote from John Muir regarding the word “hike” that I tried to emulate today as much as possible.

“I don’t like either the word or the thing.  People ought to ‘saunter’ in the mountains – not hike!” – John Muir