Road Trips and Hike Reports

2018 Hike 2 - January 27th French Creek State Park PA Boone loop trail Posted by Chris 1/28/18 Basics: Length - 6 miles Elevation gain - Not stated in guide but I'd guess 600-750 feet Nearest city - Union Township (Berks county) Difficulty - State park rated 'More Difficult'.  Didn't seem difficult to us at all.  Not a completely flat hike but the climbs were mostly very gentle and only one was very substantial.  Navigation was mostly good but there were quite a few junctions to follow. The day: We were out a little late Friday night and we had an appointment in Bethlehem at 2:30 so the day didn't have a lot of slack in it for spontaneity.  We had an imperfect breakfast at the Panera bread in Phillipsburg then made a beeline for the trailhead using the handy GPS coordinates to the Hopewell lake boat ramp provided on the state park map .   The park office didn't appear to be open or attended but there were brochures and si

2018 Hike 1 - January 21st Evansburg State Park PA Shippack Creek loop trail Posted by Chris 1/22/18 Basics: Length - 4.7 miles Elevation gain - not much Nearest city - Collegeville PA Difficulty - Easy physically.  Following the trail guide in the book required some basic navigational skills and a few times wasn't crystal clear but worked out. The day: We're off to a slow start but we seized the first remotely decent weekend day we've had in months and after a delicious bagel we headed east on US 22 and then rapidly down the Northeast Extension of the PA Turnpike to PA 63 and in about 7 miles we were at the trailhead.  The 50 hikes in Eastern PA book said that Evansburg state park was extremely obscure and hard to find but the car nav took us right there and there were a surprising number of people throughout the park while we were there even though there was still ice on the trails. We arrived about 9 am and as we started out the ground looked  mud

52 Hikes in 52 Weeks 2018 January 22, 2018 We did 52 hikes a few years ago and it was a great way to motivate ourselves to get out and burn some calories on a regular basis.  When we moved to Scranton we kept hiking quite a bit but less than in Oregon.  Once we moved to NJ we hiked even less and for the last year there certainly have been some hikes but we agree we want to kick it up a notch. Hence this blog is coming alive again. Here is a random picture of our home here in NJ with me wearing a really ugly hat from last December.