Weekend Hike, High Point NJ

The view of the monument from the parking lot

This Saturday we planned to hike 3.7 miles on the Monument Trail at High Point. It was a beautiful day for a hike, perfect weather! High Point is the highest point of NJ, 1803 miles above sea level.

As we progressed along the trail, we found there was a small out and back trail of .7 miles (one way) out to Lake Steenykill. We decided to go since most of the monument trail was way overgrown and we spent most of our time bush whacking our way through! The views known to this hike were all pretty obscured by the bushes.

The ticks were outrageous, I've never seen this many on one hike ever! My husband and I used OFF but our friends didn't. They had many more ticks on them than we did. So we got to see first hand that it actually does help. Thankfully, they were wood ticks, though knowing that didn't make us feel any better when we were pulling them off our pants. You can see how stylish I look with my pants tucked into my socks in the pic below. I definitely knew I was more 'protected' by doing this. I'm getting itchy just thinking about those ticks while I write this!

first view on the hike, the Delaware River

We were glad we went out to the lake it was beautiful! There was a grassy open clearing at the end of the trail but still a lot of ticks so none of us sat down while we took our break. Sitting and resting would've helped me later on at the end of the hike.

Lake Steenykill

We ended up hiking a total of 5.1 miles! It took about 3.5 hrs, so we were walking at a good pace. We did hang out for about 15 minutes at the lake. The last half hour or so of the hike was all uphill and I was really feeling it, my legs felt heavy and I was tired. That extra 1.4 miles out to the lake was just a little too much for me, but worth it. We hung out at the monument and enjoyed the breeze after the hike. 

I SURVIVED! (i think!)

When I woke up on Sunday I was busted up! My feet and ankles were so swollen. My legs had a tingling sensation from the calves down to my toes. I elevated my feet and ended up taking a 3 hour nap in the afternoon because I was so exhausted.

I felt good and bad about how I felt physically after the hike. I felt good that I did the hike but I felt bad that I could barely function the next day. It was just a reminder of how out of shape I've gotten.

On Monday morning when I put my shoes on to go to work I had to loosen the shoe laces because my feet were still so swollen! I've never had this experience in my life! I took some Aleve to help with the swelling so I could get around at work.I was miserable most of the day. Today, I still have some swelling in my feet and some soreness in my calves. I hope that by tomorrow I'm all better.

I learned that I'm not the hiker I was last spring. I need to walk during the week to build up my endurance for my weekend warrior outings. To go from not much activity all week to 5.1 miles is a big feat. Could feeling so exhausted be the way I should've felt, was that normal? Maybe, I just wish I had felt like getting up and doing another 5 miles on Sunday too.