Sunday January 6, 2007 Skinner State Park and Mt. Holyoke, Hadley Massachusetts

Okay, so we suck, we only made it 4 miles, but in our defense it was a grueling 4 miles... and I'm ashamed to admit it we went west instead of east. When we hit the bottom of Mt. Holyoke we realized we were only 1/2 mile from our starting point and chose to go back to the car and not trudge another 4+ miles over two more mountain peaks; we just didn't have it in us yesterday but am pleased with the 4.

It started with a good even incline that within minutes had all of us breathing quite heavily but luckily it flattened out for a bit just as we needed to take our first short break. It was at this point we were laughing at ourselves for being "old" but also congratulation ourselves that we were at least out there trying to conquer another mountain. The first third of the mountain was quite nice with good inclines and sections where it leveled out in-between for a little bit of a break. The second third of the walk was along a paved road... good, even, and easily navigatable inclines; all this was, was a precursor to the hell section of the mountain. The last third, or little bit more than a third was what felt like straight up the side of a concrete building... it wasn't really all that bad but it was extremely rocky and quite steep. Once we reached the summit the fun began... we literally walked across the very top of the mountain; some of my very favorite kinds of hikes. It's not difficult by any means but for me it's an incredible feeling knowing I am walking the top of the mountain.... slopes to the left of you, and slopes to the right... just plain fun; I could do it all day long if they let me... but they don't let me often as they are always afraid I'll fall over the edge. My husband doesn't understand my need to look straight down at how high we are up; I have a fear of heights for crying out loud but it doesn't seem to bother me up there. I can't tell you how many times I'll step back from an edge and realize there was silence behind me and a deep sigh of relief as I stepped back; you'd think they'd get over it by now and realize I'm not going over. The walk down the mountain was mostly uneventful but rocky, muddy and steep in some areas but not very difficult. So a total of 4 miles hiked with a final total of 146.5 miles still about 3.5 miles short of where I would have liked to be.