Surprisingly, even though I’ve spent 14 or so of my 20 years of life in Scouting I had never gone backpacking until this past weekend. My Troop kind of fell away from it just as I bridged over from Cub Scouts and I never had any friends outside the Troop who were really into such things until the past couple of years. Thanks to their incessant nagging though I did manage to make time for a quick 10 mile weekend in Zaleski State Forest last week.
Armed with a 30-year-old pack that I made far too heavy with non-essentials I set out for a two-day one-night trek with my good friends Kevin and Ben. We had an excellent time and saw a very different side of Appalachia than what we typically see in and around the Ohio University campus here in Athens, Ohio.
This short little trek has already awakened a new desire in the three of us to do bigger hikes in the future leading up to Kevin’s through-hiking of The Appalachian Trail after graduation. While I’m not sure I’ll be in for that I’m certainly pumped about upcoming treks to Red River Gorge and The New River.