Walks in the Woods

Me and my pal Wally had a fine walk on a windy day yesterday. Wally knows these woods well. He grew up around here, and has spent a lifetime roaming these trails.

I grew up around woods, even though I lived in the city of Pittsburgh. We were on the outskirts of town, and not far from us, about a half mile, was Toner’s Woods, where I spent a good deal of time from ages 5 to 8. I don’t think Toner’s Woods are still there — progress has encroached upon them.

It’s nice to have these woods just a block and a half away. Wally’s mapped out a good 5 mile hike that loops us around in a big circle and leaves us back where we started, at the corner of Hilltop and Glyndon Aves.

Today, I went out and tried to follow the same path that Wally showed me on a couple of our walks. We have an A and B route, we did B the other couple times we walked together. I clearly didn’t pay close enough attention to direction on our hikes. It all looked like woods to me, and the trails go off in many different directions, many forks in the trail.

I could have sworn we went left there, but it brought me back down to the W & OD trail, and I knew that wasn’t right. I kept winding up back there. This was route C — for Circles! I kept going in them — but I didn’t mind. I still put in a good five miles of walking, and with all of the hills, up and down, my apple watch credited me with 48 flights climbed. Yesterday, with Wally, we made it 62 flights. That’s a good deal of climbing.

Today I found a perfectly shaped and sized walking stick while walking down near the creek, or the “run”, as they call them in these parts (thus, the Battle of Bull Run about 30 clicks west of here).

As you can see, a lot of trees got uprooted in the roaring winds that whipped through here for a couple of days. Today was much calmer. Yesterday, it was a-blowing pretty strong while we were on our hike.