An Urban Boychick Takes on the Outdoors

Sometimes the easy things are hard and the hards things are easy. Imagine a group of 9 people converging from almost as many different cities over two days all hoping to meet up with each other in a wilderness area based only on the knowledge that the first arrivals had plans to make camp somewhere near the intersection of two particular trails. Finding each other turned out to be easy. Now, imagine a backpacker picking up a pack and hiking down a trail. Or, imagine experienced campers making sure they had the basic gear that they needed with them for the trip. Those turned out to be harder than one would have thought. Here's the story: My kayaking friend Peter H1 (there are two Peter H's in this story) raised the idea of a backpacking trip into Dolly Sods and got a very positive response. Personally, I was a little hesitant because it had been many years and several orthopedic injuries since I had been backpacking, but after some hemming and hawing I decided to join in. Th...

As is usually the case when I stay at my mother-in-law's in NY, I took the opportunity to go for a run in Central Park. As I walked over to the park I noticed a pair of crutches abandoned against a tree. Had there been a miraculous healing on 79th Street? Like the single abandoned shoes one sees on the streets of NY, it is a mystery. The streets of New York were quiet at 7 AM on a weekend day. I have lived so long in Washington's early morning culture (it's the military/government influence) that I'm no longer used to the late-to-bed, late-to-rise schedule of NY. My run was uneventful. I started out heading downtown, keeping my eyes open for signs of an outdoor Zumba class that was scheduled to be held in the park that day and that I knew my friend Alison would be attending. As I expected, since it was two hours before the start of the class and it's a big park, I didn't spot anything. The park's main roads are reserved for pedestrians on weekends, so wh...

Last Sunday I participated in another kayaking trip with the NoVa Kayak Meetup. This trip was led by two of the organizers of the group, Randi and James, who it turns out are husband and wife. Both seem like competent kayakers, however the group as usual contained a range of paddlers from someone in a Tsunami 12 (one step above a rec boat) on up. The first part of the trip involved a roughly two mile crossing of the Potomac in somewhat choppy conditions - nothing dangerous, but enough to keep you on your toes. The woman in the short boat had a slightly hard time of it but perservered and made it across. Once on the Maryland side we headed into Mattawoman Creek where we met up with another trip from the same Meetup. This group, headed by Andy (the Meetup's other organizer) had taken a shorter route starting on the Maryland side. The two groups stopped and chatted for a while then parted ways. We continued on to a park where we took a lunch break; Andy's group headed towards ...