I was doing some work in Hartford, CT, and decided I wanted to see a little bit of the surrounding area. As I hadn’t done any of the highpoint in the area, I figured I’d give it a whirl and see what I could see. Despite it being March, there was still a lot of snow (I picked one of the snowiest years), but I was determined to give it a try anyway. Straight from the airport, I picked up my rental car and drove to the highpoint. My guidebook said that it was on private property and that it was only open to highpointers a couple of times a year. It turns out that is no longer true. I pulled up by the highpoint sign, and while I was shooting a photo by it, I noticed another sign. Here I am by the highpoint sign:
me by the road sign indicating where the highpoint is
Luckily, I drove in from the west. There is a similar sign a hundred feet or so down the road coming from the east. If I had stopped by the sign on the east, I would have missed this second sign that is about 15 feet off the road and marks the trailhead to the highpoint:
map to highpoint; trailhead marker
If you look close, it says that the highpoint is open to the public everyday from 8am to 4pm. It was 4:45, but I’d flown a thousand miles and driven 60 miles to get here, so I went in anyway. From the trailhead, it’s maybe a 1/4 mile to the highpoint. The trail isn’t all that clearly marked, but others had been there before, so I simply followed their tracks. You walk through some woods, then walk into an open space and there is a sign that indicates that you’re at Jerimoth Hill. Here I am by the sign:
me by the highpoint marker
About 3/4ths of the way to the highpoint, just to the right of the trail, there is a rock with the USGS marker embedded in it. It took me a few minutes to find it, but it’s there.
There isn’t much of a view at the highpoint as it is a wooded area. The panorama below shows the view.
Panorama
This is a panorama of the open area by the highpoint indicator:
Toren and I went hiking again today. I’m constantly looking for new places to hike and found one using a hiking guide book some friends gave me (available here). Using the guide, I tried a new hike – the Tampa Bypass Canal. I didn’t realize there was a canal in Tampa that takes water from the Hillsborough and connects it with the bay. Anyway, because it is public land, it’s accessible for hiking. And since it’s closer than most of the hikes around here, I figured I’d try it.
One of the access points is supposed to be at Wilderness Park – Veteran’s Memorial Park. Since it’s a free county park, I figured we could park there and then hike up the canal. Um, yeah, easier said than done. First, Google Maps (i.e., my GPS on my phone) tried to send me into the park from the back, which, of course, is not an entrance (FYI, the entrance is off of US 301, heading south). Then, when I drove up to the park (after fighting the State Fair traffic), I found out it was under construction and completely closed. Even so, I saw an entrance to the canal across US 301, so I loaded Toren up and headed off.
My initial impression wasn’t very good as there was a fair amount of trash and the homes right around there were a bit sketchy. But once I crossed MLK, it got quite scenic. There was less trash and the homes were a bit nicer. It was also a bit more rural feeling (even though I was headed for I-4). Along the way we saw lots of birds (Great Blue Heron’s, White Ibis, Turkey Vultures, Ducks, and either Cormorants or Pelicans – not sure, but they were a diving bird and they dove a bunch while we watched). We also saw a horse, two cows, and a raccoon. Toren saw the raccoon before I did; it was only about 5 feet away before I saw it and then it ran off. Every time we would pass a bird, Toren would wave and say, “Bye bye!” He’s pretty good at that now.
I was planning on hiking to I-4, but Toren got a little fidgety just south of the freeway and wanted a snack. I pulled out his cheerios and a granola bar for him. He initially took the granola bar, but then when he saw that I was going to snack on some spicy Cheez-Its, he wanted those. I gave them to him and he munched on them (from the ziploc) all the way back to the car (hard to beat riding on someone’s back while eating and looking at birds).
I used a new map program on my phone since my old one is finicky, and this one requires that you purchase it before you can upload the maps (ugh). So, I recreated our route on Google Maps:
We didn’t hike a state highpoint in 2009 as traveling to one from where we were all living was a bit too far. But due a recent move for Mark (to Arizona), driving to Texas to hike Guadalupe Peak made sense. Tom and I flew in on the 13th, spent the night at Mark’s place, then we drove to the campground at the trailhead on the 14th. Here’s a photo of Guadalupe Peak Mark took on the drive in. This is about 20 to 30 minutes west of the trailhead:
Tom in front of Guadalupe Peak, which is the peak furthest to the right; El Capitan juts out to the right of the peak (email Tom to ask him what he was doing out there)
We spent the night at Pine Spring Campground, which is right by the trailhead. We had cell reception there, and I was even able to get internet access on my phone (which allowed me to download a Risk-like game for us to occupy our time in the evening – no fires allowed). The night was somewhat uneventful, but had a little commotion. We only had a 2-person tent, and Mark volunteered to sleep out under the stars. Temperature and weather wise, that probably would have been fine (and the lack of light pollution meant the stars were awesome). But bugs-wise, it was a bad move. Mark was getting eaten alive and it was too hot to slide all the way into his sleeping bag, so he ended up moving to the car in the middle of the night and spent the night in the car.
Mark woke Tom and I up fairly early, just as the first indications of light were peaking over the horizon (probably around 4:30 local time). We grabbed everything and threw it into the car, geared up, and hit the trail. Here we are at the trailhead:
Tom, Mark, and Ryan at the trailhead; it was still pretty dark when we started our hike
The hike starts out fairly level, then runs into some switchbacks as you gain elevation. We were headed up the switchbacks when the sun broke over the horizon, necessitating us taking a few pictures:
panorama of the sun rising from the eastern slope of Guadalupe (click to enlarge)
Mark in front of the rising sun on the switchbacks
We made decent time and the hike was not particularly challenging. Apparently the trail is horse-friendly, but there are parts that I would not want to take a horse on, as the trail is literally cut into a cliff face with rather steep drops, like this one:
Ryan and Tom on a cliff face in the morning sun
We stopped a couple times to catch our breath, but the hike was actually moderate enough that we were able to hold a pretty good conversation up the mountain. We contemplated hiking out to El Capitan from the summit, but the trails diverge near the campground, so we opted not to. However, we had good views of El Capitan from Guadalupe Peak:
El Capitan from just below the summit of Guadalupe Peak
We actually summited in just over 2 hours. I tried to use my phone’s GPS to track our route, and it worked on the way up, but died just after we left the summit on the way done. According to my GPS map, our total moving time was about 2 hours and 10 minutes (which probably includes about 10 minutes of the descent). We spent over an hour on the summit. Here are some summit photos:
Ryan pointing out the mini-watermelon Tom carried to the top; unfortunately it wasn't very good
While we were on the summit, some clouds rolled in from the southeast. They didn’t look very menacing, and it was cool to be above the clouds, but they did prompt us to leave a little sooner than we would have otherwise so as not to get caught in a storm. Here’s a photo showing us above the clouds:
The three of us at the summit, above the clouds
the summit marker, with one of our shirts airing out on it
panorama from the summit looking west (click to enlarge)
panorama from the summit looking east (click to enlarge)
We took a few more photos on the way down, but I really liked this one of Mark as he was on a promontory and it looked very cool:
Mark looking out over the valley to the east of the peak
We were off the mountain by about 10 am. We saw just three other people on the trail on the way up, and they had hiked up to a primitive campground the evening before (we saw them heading out when we arrived at the campground). On the way down we probably passed 20 or 30 people who were on their way up. It was getting fairly hot at around 10 am, so I think we made the right decision to hike it very early, as we had great weather and the trail to ourselves.
Here’s the GPS map of the trail from my phone application:
I was super excited to get out and do some hiking, since I don’t get to do much in Tampa and the little hiking I get to do does not include hills – seriously, not even like large piles of dirt. It must be the fact that I grew up on the side of a mountain, surrounded by mountains, but I love mountains. So, I couldn’t wait. We dropped Debi off at her work around 8:30 am then headed out to the Oregon coast to do a hike I was very excited for – Hobbit Trail.
I was searching for hikes in the Eugene area a few weeks ago so I’d be prepared for when we got out here. I looked, in particular, for hikes that you could do with kids. Most such hikes are for young children (i.e., 5 to 10), not for toddlers, but I figured that’s about all I could manage anyway with an extra 25 to 35 pounds on my back. One website recommended an Oregon coast hike called the Hobbit Trail. The description said that it was a short hike down to a secluded beach on the coast and that the trail was like a Hobbit hole – the trees and shrubs were so dense above the trail that it was supposed to be like a tunnel. That just sounded cool to me (and I love me some fantasy references, so I had a hard time resisting). Additionally, the website noted that there is a famous lighthouse near the trail, which seemed like a good dual purpose trip from Eugene to the coast – cool hike and a visit to a lighthouse.
According to the hike description, you could park in a little turnout on the side of US 101 and just hike the Hobbit Trail, but in case that failed, the site also mentioned you could park in the Heceta Head lighthouse parking area and hike to the Hobbit Trail, then hike the trail from there to the beach. The site did note that parking at the Heceta Head lighthouse cost money, but it was only supposed to be $3.00, which seemed like a small price to pay (actually $5.00 now). Toren was very accommodating; he fell asleep almost immediately after we dropped Debi off and stayed asleep the entire drive.
I originally tried to find the pullout so we could hike the Hobbit Trail directly and not pay the parking, but I’m actually glad I couldn’t find it because of the hike we ended up doing. After failing to find the pullout (the trail marker is on the west side of US 101, the pullout is on the east side, so you can’t see the trail marker easily from the pullout unless you know exactly where to look), I turned around and headed back to the Heceta Head lighthouse parking and parked. Apparently the Heceta Head lighthouse is quite the visitor’s attraction as the parking lot already had a dozen cars in it when we arrived (around 10:00) and by the time we left (around 2:00) it was completely full.
And what’s not to like about the lighthouse? Here’s the view from the parking area:
my poorly combined panorama from the parking area of the Heceta Head Lighthouse (click for a larger view)
Even the beach at the parking area was beautiful. I was excited. And Toren was ready to go for a hike. It was a beautiful day, about 70 degrees, little wind, with perfectly clear skies. Everything looked great.
We quickly hiked up to the lighthouse (about a 1/4 mile hike). The view from there was really stunning. Here’s a shot looking back toward the same beach in the panorama:
view of the beach/parking area from the lighthouse
Best of all, the whole area was fenced in and well manicured (as you can see in the photo below), so I could set Toren down and let him walk around. He didn’t do much walking, but he did get down and play a little. Some of the friendly people I met also volunteered to take a picture for us:
Toren and me by the lighthouse
Here’s a photo of the lighthouse:
Heceta Head Lighthouse
I also snapped a photo of Toren standing by the base of the lighthouse:
Toren at the base of the lighthouse
I thought it might be the case that there were tours of the lighthouse, but I actually didn’t look to see as I was there to hike. But it turned out there was a tour right around 10:50, so we waited around for the 15 minute tour which takes you all the way up to the top (well, almost). It is a working lighthouse, so you can’t actually go into the lamp room, but you can see it from just below it. It was cool and informative.
While waiting for the tour, I found what I was looking for – a trail map. It showed where I was and it noted where the Hobbit Trail was located:
this is actually a different version of the same map; the one by the lighthouse was stained and not easy to read, but they are virtually identical (click for a larger version)
Based on the map, I could follow what looked to be a relatively short trail to the Hobbit Trail, then follow that to the beach. When I asked the tour guide if that was the correct path, just to make sure, he looked at me like I was crazy and said, “You sure you want to hike it? It’s straight up all the way.” I laughed and told him I did a lot of hiking. He gave me a weird look, but confirmed it was the right path.
So, after the tour, Toren and I loaded back up and headed up the trail (it starts just below the lighthouse). Turns out it’s not straight up – it’s switchbacks up a very steep hill. It’s steep, but manageable. And the elevation gain is quick. I stopped once or twice to catch my breath as it was a bit more than I was expecting. But, it was soooo worth it!
As I worked my way up the hill, there were occasional spots where a short side trail (20 feet or so) would take you out of the thick forest and right out to a vista that was just amazing. Here’s an example:
view from a side trail
That’s a tiny little beach (not Hobbit Beach) about 400 to 500 feet below the trail. The trail is behind me about 15 feet and there was this little hole in the forest to look out over this. It was absolutely beautiful. Oh, and the forest was beautiful too. Old trees with thick growth at the top kept out most of the sunlight and the moss and light undergrowth made it feel like an old forest. Add to that the well-maintained trail (with wood chippings, making it very soft and a joy to hike) and I was in heaven: great views from the trail and on the trail itself. It was stunning.
At the very top of the hill, you finally see this vista:
Hobbit Beach from the top of the hill
There’s actually a bench right here so you can sit and just soak up this view (there are many benches on the trail, but this one was particularly well-placed). That’s Hobbit Beach, where we were headed. It’s an enormous beach that runs quite a ways into the distance.
It was right about here I saw the only other hikers – two women – I saw on this part of the trail (I saw more on the Hobbit Trail). They were panting pretty good coming up the other side.
From here, Toren and I made our way down the other side of the hill and eventually found the Hobbit Trail, which links up with this trail. With my nifty GPS phone, I tracked the entire hike and added a waymarker so people can see exactly where the Hobbit Trail starts:
From where you pick up the Hobbit Trail to the beach, it’s actually quite short – a 1/2 mile is all. And, frankly, the Heceta Head Lighthouse trail is more beautiful, but the Hobbit Trail did live up to its name with some very cool hiking as well, including the famed Hobbit hole portion that opens onto the beach:
the Hobbit Hole portion of the trail; this portion opens right onto the beach
I took a quick shot of Toren and I right after I shot the above:
Toren and I in the Hobbit Hole
You can see my headphone in. I listen to podcasts while I hike, but only in one hear, so I can talk with Toren at the same time (yeah, it’s multi-tasking, but it’s what I do).
Here’s Hobbit Beach:
looking south, at the hill we climbed
looking north; the beach was almost empty
While the hike was a bit more strenuous than I had planned (because of the elevation gain), I was feeling pretty good. I wasn’t sweating too much because of the weather and had just seen some amazing vistas and was surrounded by beautiful scenery. I periodically looked back at Toren while hiking to make sure he was okay, and he seemed fine (though, look a bit closer at that picture above). But, as it turns out, he wasn’t. Here’s where the story takes a dark turn…
I took the pack off and set it down in a little alcove in the cliffs to avoid the sun and wind. As I undid the straps to pull Toren out, I saw his chin quiver. I grabbed his arms and they were freezing!!! While I was staying plenty warm because of the hiking, Toren was basically in the shade (the backpack has a sunscreen) and wasn’t doing much besides turning his head here and there to see what he wanted to see. Given the slight breeze and the temperature, Toren had gotten really, really cold. I started to freak out! I was thinking this could be really bad. He was very cold (he was still alert) and we were over 2 miles from our car on a nearly abandoned beach. What’s more, outside of the trees, the wind was quite strong. Once I pulled him out, I immediately hugged him close, and tried to figure out what to do. It was about 12:15 to 12:30 at this point and Toren needed to eat as well. I hadn’t brought much along as I didn’t think we’d be hiking that long (I underestimated the steepness of the hike) and figured we could stop at a restaurant on the way home.
I did, however, bring along a blanket, which I had planned to use to let Toren sleep on while we relaxed at the midway point of the hike – in this case, on the beach. I pulled the blanket out, grabbed the bag of cheerios and the protein bar Toren was going to have for a snack, then found a leeward side of a rock that was still in the sun, and went to work. I wrapped Toren up (which he hates, and fought, of course), sat down on the sand with my back to the wind so I could block it out, put him on my lap straddling me so his core would be next to mine, covered all but the top of his head with the blanket, then broke open the bag of cheerios inside the blanket and started feeding him. The poor thing’s arms were still very cold and his chin would occasionally quiver. He also had snot all over from his poor nose being so cold. He was so miserable he didn’t even want to feed himself. So, I would reach down inside my make shift cover and feed him cheerios while trying to block out the wind. To add insult to injury, the wind wasn’t just cold, it blew sand around. I blocked most of it out with my back and the blanket (I didn’t care that I was getting a little cold and was uncomfortable from the wind and sand), but some still got in and got stuck in Toren’s snot. But I was determined to get some food into him and warm him up. There we sat, for about 30 minutes, me feeding him with one hand and rubbing his back ferociously with the other to try to warm him up. It was quite the pathetic scene – a 13 month old toddler, freezing on a nearly abandoned beach miles from help with only a dimwitted father, a blanket, and cheerios to rescue him. And yet, I couldn’t help but think about how much I loved him at that moment and how sorry I was that he was so cold and it was my fault!
Luckily, my pathetic fumblings worked. After about 30 minutes in the blanket pressed up against me with me rubbing him vigorously, his arms were warm, his legs were warm, and his head and face were warm. Crisis averted… For the moment. Phew!
(Aside: In retrospect, I think I know why I didn’t worry about him getting cold. The only place I’ve used the backpack is in Florida, and that’s just been since about April, when we bought it. I only worry about him over heating in Florida when we hike because it is so hot and muggy. I didn’t even think about him getting cold, let alone so cold that I would be worried about him. Lesson learned.)
He was clearly warm enough after 30 minutes that he was feeling good. He pushed the blanket off and wanted to go explore. With him warm, I figured a little movement would do him some good, though I was still worried about him. He couldn’t walk very well in the loose, dry sand, so I took him to some wet sand. He loved it. He started digging a hole:
He did this for a good 20 minutes before he decided to try eating the sand. He clearly didn’t like the taste, but that didn’t keep him from trying it a second time, which is when I decided we should get back to the car and get him completely warmed up. I did my best to get the sand off him (though it was still stuck to him thanks to his drying snot) and cleaned him up the best I could.
While the original crisis of Toren freezing was averted, I still had to get him back to the car, which was 2 miles away, over a small mountain (mountain to a Floridian, that is), upon which he froze the last time we climbed it. I was worried he’d get just as cold, but I did have the blanket, so I wrapped him up the best I could after putting him in the backpack and decided I’d really push to get back to the car on the way back. We made pretty good time, covering the whole distance in an hour. I stopped a couple times to check on him and he was doing okay, though he was a bit cold. He fell asleep the last 20 minutes, but was doing well enough when we got back to the car that he wanted to play. I was going to let him, but a nasty wind whipped up, blowing sand everywhere. So, I went with option number 2: Take him into the nearby town, find food, and look for a play area for kids. Turns out, there was a McDonald’s with a play area. So, we just ate there (Toren’s first time) and I let him play for a good hour before we had to head back to pick up Debi. Here he is in one of the tubes:
Toren in the McDonald's play area
Toren crashed on the way back to Eugene, so I thought he’d be up to going out for dinner. Yeah, not so much. We went out for dinner around 6:30, which is about 9:30 Tampa time. I think he had started to adjust at this point, but it was still too much for him – he was a nightmare at the restaurant. Though, that may just be the phase he’s in as he’s not doing very well in any restaurants at the moment.
Some additional videos added after I originally posted this. Here’s some footage from the trail of the beach below:
And here’s some footage of Hobbit Beach as you walk out of the hobbit hole portion of the trail:
Toren and I went for another hike last Sunday. This time it was to Boyd Hill Nature Preserve in St. Petersburg. I couldn’t really get a good sense of what to expect from the website. Basically, there is a learning center and a nature preserve on Lake Maggiore. Once you’re in the preserve, you’d never guess that you’re actually in the middle of the St. Petersburg peninsula, but you are:
a map of the Boyd Hill Nature Preserve and surrounding St. Petersburg
The preserve has several very wide trails that basically just form a loop, skirting the lake on one side, then wrap around another small pond. What’s cool about the preserve, however, is that you pass through multiple ecosystems – from willow marshes and swamp woodlands to pine flatwoods and sand scrub trail. You get to see all of these ecosystems within a couple of miles.
In a trial of my new phone, I downloaded an application that tracks your movements using the GPS device in the phone (called My Tracks – free). Not only does the app show where we travel, but it tracks your overall distance as well, all within about 20 feet of your actual path. It also allows you to upload your route to Google Maps. Here’s the route Toren and I took (2.42 miles):
hike route
The app also provides very cool statistics:
Total Distance: 4.36 km (2.7 mi)
Total Time: 1:06:17
Moving Time: 50:58
Average Speed: 3.95 km/h (2.5 mi/h)
Average Moving Speed: 5.13 km/h (3.2 mi/h)
Max Speed: 12.24 km/h (7.6 mi/h)
Min Elevation: -42 m (-139 ft)
Max Elevation: -9 m (-31 ft)
Elevation Gain: 188 m (616 ft)
Max Grade: 0 %
Min Grade: 0 %
Recorded: Sun May 16 14:58:44 EDT 2010
Activity type: hiking
The only thing that seems to be a bit off is the elevation, as I’m pretty sure we were not below sea level where we were. Otherwise, it looks pretty accurate.
Here are a few pictures from the hike:
Toren by one of the sculpted armadillos
Toren and I cruising along the trail at our 3mph pace!
the trail
We didn’t see much wildlife – mostly squirrels and a single alligator in the lake (not even on shore). But towards the very end we did see this turtle march out of the woods and start munching on grasses right next to the trail:
big turtle
Near the learning center they also have an aviary for injured birds. There were vultures and a variety of hawks and owls. I think Toren liked seeing the birds.
Anyway, the hike was fun and the app test was successful. I now have a very cool to document my hikes!
