Hiking

I didn't start hiking on purpose. I started hiking because I was recovering from a knee injury and just needed to get out and walk to rehab my knee and my soul. I was foundering in a deep depression. I started working with a friend of mine who was starting a wellness coaching business and she is such a fitness buff that she said she would take me on pro bono.
My walks started with using KT tape to give myself some extra stability and pain relief. I simply started with just walking around me neighborhood. Gradually I branched out to walking around town. Where I live in Oroville, California we have a lot of trails. We have a beautiful lake and a gorgeous river. There are trails everywhere. But, I didn't start there. I stayed on the road. I was too timid and didn't want to go too far from home because if the pain became too great it wouldn't take me long to get back to my starting point.
I finally became bored with the streets. I had heard my husband talk about the trails around Lake Oroville.  Potter's ravine, Saddle Dam, Loafer Creek Loop, Dan Beebe, Brad Freeman, and Bidwell Canyon trials. I wanted to explore these trails but being a woman traveling alone in the woods was something I had been trained not to do. Safety first. But I wasn't going to let the fact that I was alone stop me. I decided that I would try it.
I already had a camelbak and I borrowed my parents German Shorthair to help pull me up the hard hills that I couldn't ever manage by myself. I bought pepper spray and carried my knife and my walking stick. I was averaging 5 miles a day on my walks.  I had some experience with day hikes with my husband. We've hiked Feather Falls, Burney Falls, Moro Rock in Kings Canyon, Bald Rock in Berry Creek, Table Mountain in Oroville, parts of Muir Woods, and places around Fort Bragg, California.
Suddenly I found myself with the bug. But would my knee hold up? Would my fibromyalgia cause me such pain that I couldn't finish what I started? There were days that those things did interrupt my hikes but I plugged along.
Next on my list after a pretty good fall while on a 9 mile hike to Feather Falls was getting a good pair of hiking boots and trekking poles.
I got a lot of laughs from friends because of my trekking poles and I tried 5-6 different pairs of boots that ended up having to be returned to the store because they caused my Morton's Neuroma to act up.
Hobbling out of a 12 mile hike felt like razor blades were slicing my balls open. But I kept going.
I make a music mix on my iPod and I never wear my ear buds. I want to be able to hear a mountain lion or bear or the worse predator of all, man.  I downloaded some apps to my iPhone. The one I'm most partial to is Map My Walk. It shows GPS coordinates, a map of my journey, calories burned, pace and really motivated me to go further.
My furthest hike has been 16 miles in one day and my next goal is 20 miles in a day. I hike at a pace of 2.5-3.0 mph which is a good pace for me.
My advice if you're interested is get a camelbak, boots, and trekking poles and find a trail and just go. Hike your own hike. Set your own goals. Just do it.
I feel so much pride in myself  and have a new passion that I stumbled onto purely by accident.

This blog will contain pictures of places I like to go and recommendations for equipment that I use that I like. My advice is go to a sporting goods store like REI or if you are in the Chico, California area Mountain Sports and get fitted for a day pack. I had no idea that they really need to be fitted to your body and believe me it makes a huge difference. If you don't have equipment that fits you are going to be miserable. Check out some equipment by renting it and taking it for a test drive. See if it's something you want to invest in.
Now get out there and explore all the land you didn't know was there.