On Jan. 1, I shared our Pine Ridge Hiking Club's winter hike schedule on 3 local FaceBook groups' pages. In the week since, we've had 993 views of our website. After answering many questions following those shares, I knew that some of those views would translate into new hikers. I gave our hike leaders a head's up to be prepared for an influx of new hikers. This hike leader took his hike to a new level: a bright sign at the road.
Nice job.
I believe we ended up with 33 hikers! That may be a new record.
John, from Oak Hills Farm, led us over trails that crisscross their tall grass prairie, soybean field and wooded areas. Every so often, we stopped to hear about how this property came to be so wonderful.
When we weren't deeply engaged in conversation with fellow hikers, and looked up, there were some really nice views of Rice Lake to be had.
There's something fun about photographing a line of 32 other hikers. You can photograph them going around a bend....
.... or peeking through tall prairie grasses.
There seemed to be some new signage since last time we hiked here.
As the morning progressed, the sun started to make an appearance.
Ahhhh! There it is!
At this point the conversation was how fortunate we are to be able to freely walk in lines in a woods for no reason except that we want to ..... not trying to get over a border crossing or fleeing conflict.
33 hikers and you can get some nice zig-zags on hills.
We passed a couple of roads less travelled.
And, made nice shadows on a soybean field.
Because it was somewhere around -10°C, and we'd been outside for over an hour, my camera was becoming reluctant to zoom. Without totally thinking it through, I put my camera inside my heavy coat.
Hmmmm.... zoom works... but....
Towards the end of our hike, we passed through a plantation of native trees. Can you imagine how beautiful this area will be in 20 years?
Does it look to you like these hikers are moving a little more quickly now? Could it be that they knew that there were two kinds of soup and home made breads awaiting them at the end of the hike?
Oh, and today's sponsor? Bright colours. From the Hike⇨ sign at the beginning to all of those wonderful red and purple and chartreuse coats along the way. Thank you, sponsor. We need all the help we can to get through the winter.
Welcome to all of our new hikers. Welcome to our hiking adventures.
I hope you'll come back.
“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”
Confucius
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