Today started one of my Non-New Year's-New Year's Resolutions. I'm sure that sounds like it makes no sense, but it does. Basically, I didn't make any New Year's resolutions because I either never have any good ideas or I never seem to follow through with them. This past week, I decided that I wanted to go hiking more. Today, I decided that I would try to go hiking at least once every week.
In central PA, there are dozens of trails around, from short hour long hikes to all day (or multi-day) hikes. As part of my plan to keep from getting into (or possibly get out of) a sedentary lifestyle, hiking seems to fit the bill. Sure, I'm back to going to the gym during the week and I still help out with SCUBA on Thursdays (and the occasional Tuesday as necessary), but I've also noticed that the weekends are usually filled with sitting around the house mostly doing nothing.
I had decided on Friday that I wanted to hike the Indian Steps trail this weekend. I don't really need to do a full write-up on the hike, you can find much more information than I feel like typing here. I did post a couple of pictures to my album that you can find by clicking on the picture to the right. The drive in was interesting. From where we started the hike, you turn of PA-26 onto a dirt road. Because of the snow we've been having, it was a packed snow covered dirt road... through the woods... up and down hills. It was an awesome drive. I *almost* got the snow chains from the trunk just to put them on, but the SAAB wound up handling just fine without them.
After finding the start of the trail, we found a large enough area off the road where we could park (see picture). Mike and I loaded up and headed out up the trail. The steps were not created by Indians (as the name would suggest) but they are old and steep. The hike starts off going right up the mountain, so its a good kick in the pants. Once up, you follow the ridge westward for a while before looping back to where we'd parked. There were a couple of nice flat spots on the ridge with some picnic tables and a couple of fire pits. As the top of the ridge is along the Mid-State Trail, I assume they are places for overnight campers (as we also saw a trail sign that just said 'H20'). We were afforded some pretty nice views from the top; unfortunately, both Mike and my cameras' batteries had died so we didn't get many pictures. I did bring my GPS along with me (as I like to do for my travels) so you can see the track/stats here.
On the way back to the car, Mike and I got talking about various meats that we'd eaten or desired to eat: bison, kangaroo, alligator, rabbit, etc. After all this talk about meat on top of a good hike, we both were craving some steak. With no great steakhouses in State College (that I know of), and my talking about cooking some good steaks over the summer while at the beach, we decided to make steaks for dinner. After getting home, I headed out to Wegmans for my weekly grocery run and picked up a sirloin steak and some potatoes, also. Cut up the sirloin into a couple of steaks and hit them with the dry-rub I'd picked up over the summer. We fired up the grill and roasted the cut up potatoes and grilled the steaks to near perfection. He, Justin, and I feasted while watching some football and then parts of Transformers on TV. Truely a "manly" day.
In central PA, there are dozens of trails around, from short hour long hikes to all day (or multi-day) hikes. As part of my plan to keep from getting into (or possibly get out of) a sedentary lifestyle, hiking seems to fit the bill. Sure, I'm back to going to the gym during the week and I still help out with SCUBA on Thursdays (and the occasional Tuesday as necessary), but I've also noticed that the weekends are usually filled with sitting around the house mostly doing nothing.
I had decided on Friday that I wanted to hike the Indian Steps trail this weekend. I don't really need to do a full write-up on the hike, you can find much more information than I feel like typing here. I did post a couple of pictures to my album that you can find by clicking on the picture to the right. The drive in was interesting. From where we started the hike, you turn of PA-26 onto a dirt road. Because of the snow we've been having, it was a packed snow covered dirt road... through the woods... up and down hills. It was an awesome drive. I *almost* got the snow chains from the trunk just to put them on, but the SAAB wound up handling just fine without them.After finding the start of the trail, we found a large enough area off the road where we could park (see picture). Mike and I loaded up and headed out up the trail. The steps were not created by Indians (as the name would suggest) but they are old and steep. The hike starts off going right up the mountain, so its a good kick in the pants. Once up, you follow the ridge westward for a while before looping back to where we'd parked. There were a couple of nice flat spots on the ridge with some picnic tables and a couple of fire pits. As the top of the ridge is along the Mid-State Trail, I assume they are places for overnight campers (as we also saw a trail sign that just said 'H20'). We were afforded some pretty nice views from the top; unfortunately, both Mike and my cameras' batteries had died so we didn't get many pictures. I did bring my GPS along with me (as I like to do for my travels) so you can see the track/stats here.On the way back to the car, Mike and I got talking about various meats that we'd eaten or desired to eat: bison, kangaroo, alligator, rabbit, etc. After all this talk about meat on top of a good hike, we both were craving some steak. With no great steakhouses in State College (that I know of), and my talking about cooking some good steaks over the summer while at the beach, we decided to make steaks for dinner. After getting home, I headed out to Wegmans for my weekly grocery run and picked up a sirloin steak and some potatoes, also. Cut up the sirloin into a couple of steaks and hit them with the dry-rub I'd picked up over the summer. We fired up the grill and roasted the cut up potatoes and grilled the steaks to near perfection. He, Justin, and I feasted while watching some football and then parts of Transformers on TV. Truely a "manly" day.
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