I once read an inspirational article, the gist of which was to create a list of 101 goals to help you achieve more in life. Sounds good, right? So, that’s what I did. It was actually MUCH harder than I thought it would be. Coming up with 101 different things that were worthy of being a goal was tough! However, as time went on I found myself adding to that list and (as you might have gathered from the title of this post) have now added to the original 101 goals list. It just continues to grow!
I have just completed my 40th hike and thought I’d share this goal with everyone. When I first moved to the Bay Area and started exploring North Cal I was in awe at how rugged and beautiful it can be here. It inspired me to want to explore more. So, I bought 2 hiking books – one specific to the bay area and the other more general to North Cal. In total, the two books listed 145 hikes. I decided that walking all 145 hikes would be a wonderful thing to add to the list. Achieving this goal would mean time outside in the fresh air, seeing places I normally would never go see and I would be getting some much-needed exercise!
Well, I have now done 40 of the 145 hikes and let me tell you it hasn’t been easy. It has not really been the hikes that have been the problem (although some have been much more difficult than others. Some are easy, ranging from less than a mile up to more challenging trails of 16 miles. The biggest problem would be not having done adequate research first. I found trails that had been closed due to fires, hiked miles up a mountain to find the trail deeply covered in snow, coastal trails totally covered with tide waters and, more importantly, running out of water and finding myself having to drink from the local stream. A rooky mistake I know! But in my defense I thought there would be water available at the trail head only to find out that the campground was closed and therefore the water was shut off. After driving HOURS to get there I didn’t want to turn around so I tried anyway, failed, and that is when I ended up drinking water from a stream…yeah, that was fun later. Its definitely been a learning curve.
Well, I’ll keep you posted on how the next 105 go.