Next Hiking Goal - a virtual Around-the-World Hike

Here is where I hiked yesterday—the Blue Ridge of Virginia.  It's not just about the miles!

The distance around our planet Earth - its circumference - is HUGE - 25,000 miles, more or less.

The exact distance depends on where you measure it, and for us number geeks, the exact number matters.  It is defined by the current accepted standard, called WGS84 (The World Geodetic System, 1984 version), and it is what your GPS uses to tell you exactly where you are.  These guys measure this stuff down to an accuracy of 2cm—that's less than an inch. 

The bottom line is that the exact distance around the world ranges from 24,901.461 miles measured around the equator, where the centrifugal force caused by Earth's rotation bulges it out, to 24,859.734 miles measured through the north and south poles.  As of this morning, as I write this (13 December 2023), I have a documented total distance hiked of 23,098.916 miles.  

To complete my virtual hike around the equator, I have just over 1800 miles to go.  That's the distance between Miami and Minneapolis.  It's less than the length of the Appalachian Trail.  If I decided to do a NoBo (northbound) thru hike starting at the southern end at Springer Mountain, Georgia, I'd be celebrating completion of my Virtual Hike Around the World here:

That's Franconia Ridge in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, one of my favorite places on the trail, and a place I just hiked again back in June.

Since I was born, I've definitely already walked around the world virtually, and I'm on my second circuit.  But I'm only counting the miles I've actually documented since the day I got my first hiker's GPS unit, back on June 12, 2010.

As part of these 23,000 miles, I hiked the Appalachian trail twice in one calendar year and I've hiked to the front door of every place I ever lived—everywhere from Colorado to the beaches of North Carolina.  I've connected 28 states (if you count DC as a state) with a continuous string of footsteps:

I've hiked the Florida Keys, the Swiss Alps, the tundra of northern Svalbard less than 600 miles from the North Pole, and as close as 2433 miles to the South Pole at Ushuaia, Argentina on the southern tip of South America.  I've climbed a 20,000-foot mountain in Argentina, summited Pequeno Alpamayo in Bolivia and Huayna Picchu, the jagged peak overlooking Machu Picchu in Peru.  I've hiked Sankei-En Gardens in Japan, the Blue Mountains of Australia, and extensively hiked Easter Island for 11 days, the Big Island of Hawaii for two months, and much of the interior of Moorea, French Polynesia during a memorable week there.

Wildlife.  I've hiked with Walrus, musk ox, and reindeer on Svalbard, Polar Bears in east Greenland (not recommended - they want to eat you, and they will.  We beat a quick retreat back to town, our shotgun toting guide bringing up the rear), met the legendary Lagarfljót Worm of NE Iceland and one of their famous Trolls.  (I'm leaving the Troll story for the end of this post.)  I've seen Moose in Maine (including one this past July, which I didn't get a photo of), and in August I hiked literally under a bear in an overhanging tree just ten feet up, directly above the Appalachian Trail:

The day before yesterday I visited with a Great Blue Heron fishing.

I could go on.  You might say I've been around.  But not quite yet.  Not all the way around.  So that's my current goal.

Sometime in the new year, I'll cross the finish line.  It might even be in Madagascar, where I've booked a trip to visit the Baobab trees.  But more likely it will be closer to home.  Winter is here.  The leaves are all off the trees and yesterday I shot this one, generously dabbed by frost.

'Tis the season, as they say, and one of the trails I hike takes me directly beneath a three-foot ball of Mistletoe, perched high in its favorite host tree, a red maple.

So far, I've only walked here alone.  No chance to take advantage of the situation.  But be forewarned, ladies, if you get an invitation to take a hike with me!  LOL.

And now the Troll story from Iceland.  It's a seasonal thing too.  In the caves at Dimmurborgir, thirteen 'Yule Lads' seem to magically appear around this season.  The first appeared just yesterday, on Dec 12th, and the last will arrive on Christmas eve.  Each one can be spotted for only thirteen days.

And, although it was August (2022) when I was there, our group managed to capture one of them on video:

Quite the project - a Virtual Hike Around the World.  It's the ultimate circuit hike—the longest way home!  It's the kind of huge goal that obviously takes time.  I haven't set a deadline, *yet*, to get it done.  If I do decide to make it a sprint to the finish, you'll be the first to know.  Keep an eye right here on this blog.

I'm going to try to keep this post updated daily with my progress, then hand off to a new post after a week or so.  Please do stay tuned for the LIVE UPDATES (or nearly so):

• Wednesday, December 13th, 2023: 4.254 miles.  After I published this post, I went out and hiked some woods roads around The Cloister at Three Creeks, the destination being 'Half-Volcano Rock', where I once built a seven-stone cairn to top it off.  The photo was taken back in October.  Total miles: 23,103.170
  
  
  
• Thursday, December 14th, 2023: 4.536 miles.  Just a two-hour ramble during the best part of the day (11AM to 1PM) on some fairly flat territory, visiting an old homestead site for the first time.  This was a two-story house (note the second fireplace halfway up), probably abandoned no more than a century ago.  Total miles: 23,107.706
  
  
  
• Friday, December 15th, 2023:  3.006 miles.  A short ramble through my *infested* little valley.  The last weekend of deer hunting is here, so they'll be gone.  But bear hunters are the worst.  They hunt with packs of dogs wearing GPS collars and drive all over the place tracking them.  My peaceful little valley will not be peaceful until bear hunting season ends on January 6th.  I can't wait!  Meanwhile, here are some Osage Orange fruits under the tree that dropped them. 
  
  They just sit.  They will sit there all winter and slowly rot.  No creature eats them.  Their wood was prized by our First Peoples as the best wood by far to make bows.  Meriwether Lewis reported in 1804 that the people of the Osage Nation "So much ... esteem the wood of this tree for the purpose of making their bows, that they travel many hundreds of miles in quest of it." A good bow made of Osage Orange wood could be traded for a horse and a blanket.  Because no living animal consistently touches these huge fruits (the size of a softball), and because their range had become limited to east Texas despite it happily able to grow nearly everywhere in the US, it has been speculated that their seeds were once spread by one of North America's extinct megafauna species.  <<<That article in the link is a great read.  Please take a look.  Have pollen studies been done to establish the range of Osage Orange 15,000 years ago and longer?  I'd love to pursue this speculation further.  Total miles: 23,110.712
• Saturday, December 16th, 2023.  3.643 miles.  Just a relaxed early morning ramble in nippy, frosty weather.  Started out in the mid-20s F but was warming nicely under the bright sun.
  
  I wanted to get out early to beat the buildup of clouds and enjoy the prettiest part of the day.  There's a serious storm currently forming just north of the Yucatán Peninsula (southern Gulf of Mexico) that is going to rake up the whole US east coast bringing heavy rain and strong winds tomorrow and Monday.  The highlight of the morning hike was a close inspection of the important Monarch Butterfly attractor, Climbing Milkweed, also called Honeyvine even though it's toxic to humans.  The name refers to the fact that it often gets infested with oleander aphids, which do what most aphids do—secrete a lot of sugar-rich 'honeydew' that ants love.  Ants then protect and defend the aphids to preserve their food source.  The web of nature's interactions is just fascinating.  
  
  Here the climbing milkweed's dead winter vine sports its big seed pods under the bright blue sky with a seasonal color scheme.  Some pods have opened and released their seed, and others are still closed.  Each seed looks like a perfect little medallion.  Its fibrous 'parachute' strands seem spring loaded.  They spread out instantly once they are freed from the pod.  They are so light that they can drift on the wind for miles, and the geometric pattern the seeds create while packed into the pod is truly magical.  Total miles: 23,114.355
  
• Sunday, December 17, 2023.  5.571 miles.  Storm looming!  I headed out before sunrise and tried to beat the rain.  Didn't quite succeed, but only got damp.  I hiked under the open sky early on and captured a pretty good photo of a multiple-layer cap cloud.  Total miles: 23,119.926
  
• Monday, December 18th, 2023.  Today I concentrated on a photography mission.  It's fully documented in this new post. Just a reminder: I live within a couple miles of the Appalachian Trail, and in a certified Trail Community.  Miles hiked today: 3.562.  Total miles for this "new" project: 23,123.488
  
• Tuesday, December 19th, 2023.  2.112 miles, rambling around the Cloister at Three Creeks on a cold day.  Total miles: 23,125.600

Fall 2023 in pictures and videos

 

The most bizarre sunrise of my life, complete with sunspot (look in the upper part of the haze band, right of center).

My 75th birthday has come and gone.  2023 has been an eventful year.  As I've posted, I published my long-delayed AT memoir in April, and then my long-standing mega-novel in August.  Between those two projects I traveled to New England, where I spent a month and a half hiking, including touching base with the New England National Scenic Trail and extending my personal continuous footpath to the state of Rhode Island (connecting my 27th of the 50 US continental 'states' [counting DC]).

I also had the distinct privilege of helping the Dartmouth Outing Club maintainers repaint the summit sign on top of Mount Moosilauke.

I even got a stripe of orange paint on my hiking stick as a 'souvenir'.  Here's the video I posted at the time:

Since July, I've mostly been sticking close to home enjoying the sunrises and fall color.  The bizarre sunrise shown in the headline photo ought to be made into a video.  I took a couple dozen photos as it evolved.  It happened on November 8th, and not only provided an amazing distortion, caused by multiple stable layers in the atmosphere, but it was also the first time I've 'seen' a sunspot (with the aid of my 40x Canon Power Shot point and shoot camera).  Here's a look at a later image, with the sunspot very apparent, having moved above the haze layer:

The sunspot was a big one, at least twice the size of our whole planet Earth. When I noticed the spot on the images, I went to the internet to check.  Real time sunspot data comes from NASA's SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) satellite.  At that site, you can customize a video of this huge sunspot moving left to right - at least until the Nov 8-9, 2023 data are taken off the site and archived.  Here's the procedure:

1. Go to the SOHO Movie Theater link.
2. In the 'Image' menu box, select "hmiigr"
3. 'Resolution' 512 or 1024, take your pick.
4. Click on 'Dates' and a drop-down calendar appears.  Click first on November 8, 2023, then click again on November 9, 2023.  That fills the form with the start and end dates.
5. Click 'Generate' and the first of the images in the sequence appears.
6. Beneath the image click the 'Play' button and the animation scrolls repeatedly.  Customize as you wish.

The 'authorities' give each sunspot a number.   This one was number 3477, and here's SpaceWeatherLive.com's image with each sunspot annotated with its number.  I've rotated the image to appear as the sun appeared in my photos taken at about 40 degrees north latitude (i.e., with the north pole at the 10:20 o'clock position.)

The venue where I witnessed this exotic sunrise is the same one where, on the exact date of my birthday, I was treated to this spectacular display--one of the most outstanding sunrises of my life:

It truly was a special day.  Here are the two videos I took this day, no editing, just raw:

And as reported in the second video, I had just learned a few days earlier that I was going to be a grandpa for the first time (assuming I live until June 2024.)

At my age, I make no such assumptions.  Just look at this:

Falling (tripping, stumbling, losing my balance, etc.) has become an increasing part of my 'repertoire'.  This recent fall with face-plant on the ground gave me the honor of the first full black eye I've ever had.  It looks a lot worse than it feels.  But I've always said, with the miles of hiking I do on rugged rocky trails, and especially this time of year with the new-fallen leaves obscuring treacherous 'holes' and obstacles, that the way I will eventually die is by falling and cracking my head open on a rock.

The new Social Security Actuarial Life Tables tell the story.  We 75-year-old men are a dying breed.  And it is getting worse.  Covid has accelerated the process.  I thought I'd compose a little 'doomsday' message to myself, compiled from the stats on that site, just for fun:

But on a happier note, speaking of the new-fallen leaves.  The display here on the Blue Ridge of Virginia did not disappoint, as can be seen in the videos.  Color is all but gone now, as of the date of this post (which is the first day of firearms deer-hunting season).  Yesterday I went out and cherry-picked some of the last of the best:

Still life with purple wood aster and acorn shell on red maple leaf

And finally, I did do one walk that didn't feature autumn leaves or rocky trail.  It was a walk on water; and I've done it once before.  

Love that Chesapeake Bay Bridge 10K run.  It's the one day of the year when the American Discovery Trail can be walked between Annapolis, MD and Maryland's Eastern Shore.  In my new 75-79 age group, I finished 20th.  And there were 15,503 finishers (in all age groups combined).  It was a chilly day, and the hassle of waiting in line for transportation to the start and from the finish diminishes the experience.  But I will probably come back next year and try to beat my time.  Or maybe I'll be walking it with my new grandchild.  Never too soon to start the hiking life!

Eating Cedar Valley Nature Trail

Colorado or Bust, Days 46, 47, and 48:

It's harvest time.  Iowa's food basket is overflowing.  This means a lot of free, sweet, juicy treats along the trail.

After seamlessly transitioning from the Hoover Nature Trail, I was hiking the Cedar Valley Nature Trail through Iowa's second largest city, Cedar Rapids, and on north to Waterloo.  This is a popular, well maintained trail, running more than 60 continuous miles.  The only Hoovering here was me, sucking in all the ripe, juicy wild black cherries I could eat.

These were a bumper crop this year: surprisingly juicy, plenty sweet and with a balanced astringency (kinda makes your mouth pucker a little).  I stuffed my face with the plumpest, sweetest ones.  In places I could stand under one tree, reach up, and eat until my stomach was full.  Just have to put up with spitting out lots of pits.  The pits are more than half of these little fruit.

I passed just one heirloom apple tree in all these three days.  They were perfectly ripe, as shown in the photo up top.

This was the highlight of my day, on this hot sunny hike.  Super sweet, with all the flavor of the big industrial, market-ready apples, but packed into that little gem--juicy, and succulent.  Wish I could have found more.  Worms are not as big of a problem as you think, just eat around them or use your pocket knife and cut the affected parts away.

Mulberries normally bear fruit in June, but some trees here were bearing a second crop.

The mulberry is extremely sweet and packed with juice.  They make good wine.  My Great Aunt Ellen always had a couple barrels of it brewing in her basement.  But the fresh fruit has a strong grassy finishing flavor, just like you're eating grass clippings.

Blackberries--king of the wild fruit.

You have to get through the nasty brambles, but these are as good as any berry fruit on the planet.  No down side.  Just be careful not to eat too fast or you'll get a bug or two along with your punch of fruity goodness.  Even a stinging bee at times.  Yes, it has happened to me.

The wild plums here had a great taste, but were hard as rocks.

In Colorado 40 years ago I used to harvest wild plums in the washes and arroyos of the foothills and make jelly that was first class if you picked the right trees.  They had a lot of variability in flavor from tree to tree.

Last treat from the fruit kingdom along the trail was the wild grapes.

They were being stingy this year.  Something about the conditions that kept most vines from producing any fruit at all.  Maybe it was the Japanese Beetles, that were ravaging the leaves.  But the grapes that I found, the ripe purple ones, where nice and sweet, but with a mix of sourness that puts people off.  They're also full of seeds, of course.

Now... the food theme isn't over yet.  In downtown Cedar Rapids, the unexpected fare was trout!

The trail runs right through downtown Cedar Rapids, including railroad yards, the Quaker Oats mill, which filled the air with a wonderful toasted oat fragrance, and a nice up-scale downtown river-front.  It passes beside the right of the two lakes you can see in the aerial photo above.  Lots of variety.

North of town I had to bid farewell to the Fifty Trail route.  At the crossing of Lafayette Road, the Fifty Trail heads east to the Heritage Trail and then Dubuque, as it starts its swing east into Wisconsin, where it picks up the route I hiked and reported earlier this year at the Military Ridge Trail in Verona.  That route was covered in my Day 22 through Day 1 reports.  If I'm confusing you, just check the Fifty Trail guide info I've posted elsewhere on this blog.

Here is the nice trail rest area just north of Lafayette Road, and the trail underpass where the Fifty Trail drops down off the road via one of two 'ramps', one on either side.

Okay, one final note on the 'Eating the Trail' theme.

Ha, ha, ha.

Anyhow, here are the GPS Tracks for the three delicious days covered in this report.

Fruit harvest means fall can't be far away.  I can't wait until the weather actually begins to realize that.