Father's Day Hike

On Saturday, my dad and I hiked from Ridgway to Brockway. No joke. We hiked 18 miles on the Clarion/Little Toby Rails to Trails . Of course, we originally were thinking of 9 or so miles on this trail, but considering both our personalities, I suppose it was inevitable that we were going to end up doing the whole thing.

It's a beautiful trail, going along first the Clarion River (this was slightly familiar to me, since this is part of the course for the Ridgway Triathlon that my husband has done) and then the Little Toby. We had good luck with the weather; there was a chance of thunderstorms in the forecast, but we never got more than a light drizzle, nothing bothersome. And the temperature was in the 70's instead of the 80's like last week! And as a side note, it started some heavy rain about 3 minutes into our drive home!

We had our fair share of wildlife spottings:

• a blue heron flying along the river
  
• mama deer and baby deer, very close to the trail. Mama kept an eye on us, but didn't bolt
  
• a raccoon, fishing industriously in the river
• several red-spotted newts crossing the trail. The one I took a picture of is in the eft or sub-adult stage. Apparently at the end of the eft stage, and about a week before they are ready to enter the water, its color will be darker, with the red spots along the sides. We saw some in that stage, too.
• my mystery animal... it was scuttling along the side of the path, and didn't seem too afraid of us... it was chittering at us somewhat angrily. We think it might be a marten or a fisher, but we couldn't get a very clear look at it. It seemed to have some stripe markings on its back.
  

The trail is punctuated with signs labeling where old towns and quarries and whatnot used to be, which made it very interesting.

We walked partway across the swinging bridge across the Toby, but we stopped partway over, so as not to disturb the fly fisherman who was fishing that spot. From where we were, we could see a very large palamino trout.

We had a great time, although my legs are feeling it a bit. There is definitely a different set of muscles for walking than for running! It makes me think of people who hike the Appalachian trail...they would do a day of hiking like that (but with hills!) and then get up and do it again the next day. And the next day. They must become so incredibly fit and strong.

And I am so proud of my dad. He had heart surgery last year, and got his pacemaker/defibrillator in just recently, and he pretty much just walked me into the ground! The only adjustment we needed to make for him was to re-adjust the straps on his camelbak so they wouldn't rub against his "appliance". He pretty much rocks.

It's good to have a long time to walk and to talk. It's a good thing.