I’ve gone hiking less than a handful of times in the past 5 years. I would describe myself as someone who likes the outdoors, thanks to summer sleepaway camp. I guess other indoor activities were on my agenda like brunch, bars, movies, shopping, and museums. If I am really honest the fact that I would be out late on the weekends didn’t make hiking any more appealing. Alas, the times we are in has encouraged me to join step challenges, which in turn got me back into me hiking. I use AllTrials app, which provides the driving directions to the hiking trials as well as a real-time trial guide. It was really simply and I love the fact that each trial is rated in terms of difficulty and includes user comments. In the beginning of lockdown I gave myself the goal of hitting 10K steps a day. Hiking knocks my step challenge goal out of the park. I track all my activities with the Garmin vívoactive HR watch and all my activities feed to the Garmin Connect app on my iPhone. It’s motivating to visually digest my weekly activity levels. As we transition into a new season, I know that hiking will be a lasting activity. (Dare I say, PSL is here).

We choose the Blue Hill full loop. It requires work, but the view at the top is beautiful and the way down is surprisingly flat allowing for moments to recover and eat.

Having been hiking in Cold Spring, NY via Metro-North Rail before, I knew this was a good option because the town is so adorable. I opted to drive, which would give me the ability to not only hike, but to walk around the town and browse the shops. #suporrtsmallbusinesses

I am happy to report that the shops in the downtown area were all opened and people are wearing masks.

Happy September.