Starting Out...

I just picked up hiking again. When I was a child, my family used to go out to the Rocky Mountains (from Indiana) and hike some of the more well-known trails up to mountain lakes, tundras and rocky peaks. When we moved to Florida, we pretty much stopped hiking.

A few years ago, I fell on a staircase and most likely busted my tailbone. After that was a year of intermittant pain that would curtail my activity for days at a time... I had what I called a "weak hip" that would start to hurt about 3 miles into any walk, and if I bent over too quick, something in my tailbone would pop and walking was very slow and painful for several days after. Finally this year, after a few episodes of back pain and being sent home from the theme parks by really painful back spasms, I decided that I would make walking a daily regimen in hopes of strengthening the muscles and stopping the pain.

I started with short walks with the dog and slowly increased the walks to 7 miles... then 12 miles... then 19 miles with barely any sciatic or back pain at all. Once I got to 7 miles, I started thinking about building my endurance so that I could possibly go back to the Rocky Mountains if the opportunity presented itself. Once I got to 19 miles (two weeks ago), I decided that my back was probably stable enough to get a pack and start taking some hikes into the woods.

I got one of our old hiking packs (circa early 1980's REI rucksack), some old 1 liter water bottles, replenished the safety gear, and got some athletic clothing that would keep my cooler than my usual jeans and cotton shirt. I took my first real trek into the woods with full gear and water last week (although I ended up using my backbrace to help stabilize my lower back) -- about 2.5-3 miles. I am hoping to take more and longer treks into the woods... hopefully getting outdoors every Saturday for at least a little time.

As I take different treks, I will try to pop back in here and make reports on Central Florida trails so that others can know the condition of different parks at this point of time, and what these parks are like at different times of the year. I am finding that the conditions are often different from any info I find in books or on the web, and hopefully the information may be useful to other travellers who are interested in trying different places.