Week 30: Day 6 - July 28, 2017

• hiking with meetup group = 10.7 miles total; time = 4:34:09
• easy walk with dogs (@ home) = 1.3 miles total

My longest hike BEFORE today was seven miles. Today was my longest hike ever to which was 10.7 miles. I like challenging activities and I've done half marathons, so I've figured I could handle this hike. I went on this hike with a hiking meetup group. I think I did pretty good on the hike, but I'm a little sore (surprisingly not that bad) and I'm sleepy!

For those who live locally (Los Angeles area), you will know this hike as "Bridge To Nowhere". If you don't know this piece of history, the bridge was built in 1936 over a gap carved by the East Fork of the San Gabriel River. The bridge was built to serve as a link in a roadway between the San Gabriel Valley to the south and Wrightwood to the north. However, in the Spring of 1938, a massive flood changed the landscape of the canyon and washed out the road leading to the bridge. The road was never restored and construction was abandoned due to lack of financial investment. This is normally an even ten mile round trip hike, but my group decided to hike alongside the river and we took the "road less traveled" by literally walking in the river as we headed up to the bridge. We took a small detour to see a waterfall and a mine (we do not know what was being mined..coal? Gold?) on the way, so the hike was little longer than expected.

I had my garmin watch set to record time, distance and gps for the hike, but between normal mode (while I was sleeping for six hours) and the hike, my watch couldn't last the entire hike and completely died when we got to the bridge (halfway point). The battery could only last a total of eight hours when gps + heart rate is being used. The total time of our hike was 7 hours and 23 minutes which included snack/lunch break and stopping (so stragglers could catch up). I think the next time that I do a really long hike, I should turn off my watch while I sleep and turn it on when I get to the destination. Surprisingly my phone lasted the entire hike when strava was being used.

We'll see what tomorrow brings. I am a little sore, but I hope not so sore that I can't manage an easy run.