52 Hikes Challenge (2021)

 

I decided to do a 52 Hike Challenge last year as a way to be consistent with my hiking. Since I organize a weekly hiking group, I figured it wouldn't be too hard to meet that goal. Even if we paused for the summer, I was pretty sure we would still make 52 hikes.

Well we did! As seen in my photo blocks, we actually did 81 hikes. We kicked off the year with our annual New Year's Hike. Then our hiking group completed 39 hikes in our local area. On average we hiked 2.5 miles on these hikes, but we also did several hikes that were five miles long.

Our family took a camping trip out west in March and April where we hiked in Colorado, Oregon, California, Nevada, and Arkansas. We completed 22 hikes as a family. The hardest for us was a 7-mile day in Yosemite where we made it to the top of Vernal Falls.

We visited 6 National Parks, 4 National Monuments, 7 State Parks, and made it to the Pacific Ocean – a first for our boys. Among other things, we experienced snow and incredibly big trees in the northwest, hot temps in Death Valley, and the lowest point in America at Badwater Basin.

Our camping friends did 7 hikes with us. I'm including our 11-mile bike ride around Cades Cove as a "hike" since it was in a National Park and we were experiencing nature firsthand, just a little faster!

I did two hiking trips with girlfriends. Jack and Daniel completed a five-mile hike with cub scouts. Isaac did his first 5-mile hike-and-bike to Edwards Point. We also did several hikes with local friends who aren't a part of our hiking group.

In October our hiking group did a corn maze – a first for my boys, and then one of our final outings for the year was actually ice skating, but I'm counting since it's my blog!

We ended the year with a final National Park hike in the Great Smoky Mountains with a quick hike to Laurel Falls.

 

I was trying to track my mileage and hikes for the year on Instagram, but my record shows that I completed 65 hikes with 177.5 miles for the year. I'd wager I hiked closer to 200. It was a good year for hiking. I'm looking forward to whatever hikes are in store for 2022!

 

Weekly Hike: Bee Branch

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A post shared by Cheree Voyles Moore (@mo_haus)

We kicked off our weekend with a hike with our small group. It’s always sweet to see kids bond on the trail, whether they are two or sixteen or somewhere in between. The littlest guy in our group was very concerned when the older boys started climbing the rock walls we came across. He kept saying that the rocks would fall down and we would die 🤣 This is my 44th hike for the year (44/52) and two miles walked bringing me to to 130 miles on the trails in 2021. 

First Hike of 2021: Signal Point to Rainbow Lake

Since moving to Tennessee we have always done a first of the year hike on January 1. Some years we are able to meet up with friends for this hike.

 

This year the first of January was rainy and miserable so we decided to be flexible and go on the 2nd when it was sunny.

 

 

It turned out that the weather was so nice that the entire mountain must have had the same idea! 

 

We met up with two other families at Signal Point (we couldn't fit in the parking lot so had to park on the street a ways out and walk to the trailhead). When we were all gathered we headed down all the stairs from the point making our way to the Julie Falls overlook.

 

Then we proceeded on to Rainbow Lake. This was a first for our family. We passed the Rainbow Falls waterfall (not the waterfall at the Rainbow Lake dam but the actual Rainbow Falls). Another time we will have to try the scramble down to the base.

 

We stopped at Rainbow Lake for snacks and a break. The kids played and the parents visited. Then we headed back up to the Rainbow Lake parking lot on Ohio and walked down the street to the car. Completing our first hike of the year. This was 1/52 for my personal goal for the year and five miles.