I grew up in a heavy metropolitan area so nature wasn’t really accessible – especially mountains. We had a few local parks consisting of walking trails through some woods but they were nothing major and relatively flat. My family wasn’t a hiking/camping family either. The only camping experience I had camping as a kid was twice through Girl Scout camps which were permanently set up tents with cots. The camp itself was not my favorite. We had to sing everywhere we walked, there were strict rules about which doors you could enter, and since the tents/cots were permanent there were spiders making homes in every corner. This left a bad taste in mouth to experiencing nature for many years.
In college, I took an internship that was closer to the mountains. My partner and I wanted to give hiking a go. He also didn’t have an experience hiking and would only occasionally go car camping with his family as a kid. We didn’t really know what we were doing so we figured we pick a trail and give it a go. We picked a park, Worthington State Forest in New Jersey and said we’d find a trail when we got there.
We wore t-shirts and strapped up our sneakers, packed a total of four standard size plastic water bottles (16 oz.) for the both of us, and then hit the road. When we got to the park, we parked, hopped out of the car and went to the trail map. We saw a trail that ran up to the Appalachian trail, which was the only famous trail that we heard of so we easily decided that this was the best one to tackle. We knew nothing about paying attention to trail length or marked elevation change. We just snapped a pic of the map on our phones and hit the trail.
This trail combined three trails to make make a loop. We took Douglas Trail (1.7 miles) to the Appalachian trail (the portion we hiked: 3 miles), which went by sunfish pond, to Garvey Springs Trail (1.2 miles) for a total of 5.9 miles. All in all the first trail, Douglas Trail, takes on a 1,200 foot elevation gain through switchbacks which translates 100 feet elevation change per 0.1 miles or 528 feet. That is quite a feet especially for total flatlanders like us, we have never experienced this kind of elevation change before. We were wildly unprepared. We made so many stops just trying to get up the mountain. It was mid July so the heat really started to get to us. We also started to get nervous since we easily drank through the first three plastic water bottles before making it up the first trail. We had to start rationing our ill prepared water, but were also too stubborn to turn around (I don’t recommend this).
When we eventually made it up to the Appalachian trail, the hiking did get easier since the elevation leveled out and we kept moving until we got to Sunfish Pond. We found a nice rock, flopped down, and pulled out the small snack we packed. At this point we were exhausted and hungry so the small snack did little to satisfy us, but was a much needed break. We stayed for a bit, sipping small sips on our last water bottle before hitting the trail again.
Luckily, the decline is way easier on everything (but your knees). The remainder of the trail flew by and before we knew it, we were back to the car with empty water bottles. We jumped into the car, grabbed for any half drunken water bottle littered in my car, and sat there for a minute. We were sweaty, exhausted, sun burnt, and never felt happier. Even through all of that we had such a blast! It was crazy and we were definitely unprepared but we knew we were hooked and couldn’t wait to hit the trail again. We drove off into the sunset and straight to some restaurant where the food never tasted better!
Our victory picture if you will:
Since then, we learned the importance of having enough water, snacks, and invested in some gear to help along the trails. If you’ve never hiked, I highly recommend giving it a try! Just pick a trail that doesn’t have such an intense elevation gain if you’re not used to it! And pack plenty of water! Happy Hiking!
