I think jet lag might be contagious.
How else can we explain the fact that we both went to bed at 8:45 last night? And while the truly jet lagged individual woke up at 3:15 this morning, I, who have been in the same time zone for the past 3 months, awoke at 4 am. This is a problem.
It could be because we went on an 11-mile hike yesterday.
Originally, we were hoping to hike the South Sister yesterday. But with rain, rain, and more rain, in the forecast, we thought camping, hiking 12 miles on a mountain, and driving 2.5 hours didn’t sound super awesome.
(As someone who relies on sunshine for general happiness, it’s pretty easy to get in a funk when the weather turns bad around here, so we’re forcing ourselves to make an effort again this year to get out and about even when the weather is lame. Luckily, it didn’t actually rain during our hike.)
So we stayed a little closer to home and hiked Eugene’s Ridgeline Trail. The trail travels the edge of South Eugene, and while we’ve hiked almost all of the segments of the trail at different times, we decided to hike the whole thing at once this time around. We think it ended up being around 11.25 miles, and it took about 4.5 hours, including a stop for lunch at the top of Spencer Butte.
We started our hike at Hendrick’s Park. The trail travels through the woods for a while before you come out onto Spring Blvd. At this point, we hiked 1.7 miles through a neighborhood. Not quite the wilderness experience you’d expect while hiking, but Spring Blvd is home to a lot of wealthy Eugenians, so we got to see a lot of cool houses with nice views of distant mountains. And I’m sure we looked awesome walking through the neighborhood with our hiking pack. I’m hoping our athletic wear assured people we were simply happy hikers, not hitchhikers hoping for a ride.
From Spring Blvd, we hiked up Mt. Baldy, and then did a little more road walking on Dillard Road. The trailhead from Dillard Road wasn’t super well marked, so we actually passed it up and had to walk back a bit before entering the Fox Hollow area of the hike. From there, we hiked up Spencer Butte, where we enjoyed the view from the coveted top rock, which is always taken when we get there. It was fun to stand on top of the highest point in Eugene. It was less fun to fight off the fat squirrels trying to steal our lunch. There was much screaming, water bottle slinging, and kicking to keep the squirrels away. Eventually they moved onto some girls eating lunch at the other end of the area, and we got to enjoy their screaming and jumping for a while. Those squirrels are the worst.
We hiked back down Spencers and finished our day with the Blanton Ridge section of the trail, which we remembered was our first hike when we moved to Eugene last year.
And with that, we finished our Ridgeline Trail hike. I kept calling it “our Appalachian Trail” (which I would love to hike one day). But we were both pretty tired after hiking 11-ish miles in 60-degree clouds, so I think it will be a while before we’re up for conquering something as awesome as the Appalachian Trail or Pacific Crest Trail.
-Ally
Betsy Ringer says
Well…since you rely on sunshine for your mood….I offer sunny southern California for a place to live!! We still have mountains you can hike in within an hour’s drive. And BIG mountains just several hours away!! Just sayin’…..
Ashley Morgan says
Speaking of the Pacific Crest Trail, have you read “Wild”? I am listening to it on audiobook (I drive a ton for work). It’s really good. Makes me want to do some awesome, intense hiking.
ericandally says
Ashley, I read “Wild” a few months ago! It definitely made we want to hike the PCT! You should check out Bill Bryson’s “A Walk in the Woods” about hiking the Appalachian Trail. It’s great!