We decided it was about time to try a hike. I picked Mountstberg Conservation area because its trails are reasonably flat (easy) and not too long. The Pioneer Creek Trail his about 7 km or 10,000 steps. My goal the last week has been 10,000 steps so it looked great.
This week I saw the surgeon that operated my knee to fix my severed quad tendon and he discharged me. He said I have about 80% of the range back and perhaps 50% of the strength. We packed a lunch, filled up our hydration packs and went to the physiotherapist. This was my last visit. After we finished there to Mountsberg we went.
We arrived to the Conservation Area. It was a glorious spring day. There werte lots of ankle biters around the raptor zoo and the ply barn. We had our lunch and crossed the train tracks to enter the trail. there was no one in sight on the trails. In fact we did not see a single person in trail. My bad knee was working very well when we started around noon. It is early enough that despite all the swamps around we did not suffer from mosquitoes.
Around 1:30 pm we were at the far back of the trail and starting the way back, there is a split on the trail, we had decided to go left so we would take a different way back, funny we thought, after the split we did not see any trail markers though the trail was well packed and easy to follow. That is until we found ourselves among some country houses and ended up in a paved road.
We decided to go right and after 20 minutes we crossed the train tracks. Well, the train goes through the Conservation area but that did not help since we could not walk following the tracks. A few minutes later we found a minivan loaded with teenagers. They told us we were very far from the Conservation area but told us how to get there. In fact, this little excursion ended with us walking 15 km instead of 7 km. Not exactly what I had in mind for my fist hike. We were both very tired.
I did get my reward. I had lost my Swiss army knife in our last trip to Mexico so we stopped at the Outlet Mall that has a Victorix sore I got myself a new beautiful knife.
We finished the day a Chinese dumplings restaurant.
I we keep this up I'll be ready for the 1000 km Via de la Plata very soon.
