Kerry and I decided to explore Great Wass Island today. The weather was perfect and we wanted to get out of the house, as well as get some exercise. My inlaws and Kerry had gone to this island last year but I never made it. It definitely ranks up as one of my favorite trails to hike.

The trail included several varieties of terrain, from roots and dirt, to boardwalks and several large boulders. I love the trees through these island landscapes, they’re small and scraggly growing in directions clearly blown by the Atlantic wind. In the woods the temperature was perfect, we worked up a good sweat. Along the trail I managed to scare a red squirrel and a spruce grouse.

At the terminus of the trail we got an incredible view of the Atlantic Ocean. We had the whole beach to ourselves for quite a while.

The rocks were wonderfully sun baked and kept us warm as the wind picked up and made for a chilly but sunny lunch. We were able to keep with our vegan eating packing left overs. It was a great way to spend the afternoon. According to the LoseIt app, our 2.5 hour hike totaled 1100 calories burned.  We spent a total of 3.5 hours out on the island.

Onto tomorrow and more adventures!

In my efforts to lose weight and get my health back, I opted for an impromptu hike nearby last weekend. We’ve tried to hike at Black Rock twice before but our timing wasn’t the best (frigid winds in the winter). I came armed with my map found at the CT DEP‘s site. We headed up the blue trail on the western side of the park.

As usual with CT, it starts off gradual for about 50 feet and then up! This is a deceiving “short” hike. The funniest part was on the way back down we passed several people in their 20-30′s who said, “good grief I feel old”. I’m guessing too many of us sit behind our desks and computers too much. Then there was one guy who was pretty lean and limber and was doing the loop, up and over the mountain and back down, he passed us 3 times. Pretty damn impressive.

I’ve kept up with eating vegan and exercising minimally 3 times a week. My total weight loss is 12 lbs so far. My short term goal is another 8 lbs. The next goal is 45 lbs from that point. The final goal is another 25 from there. I’m sure there will be plateaus and I’m preparing already to mix things up.

Sunday we revisited Cobble Mountain in Kent. Craig and hiked back here in April on Earth Day. Over the summer Craig made it part of his weekly trip over to that area and had gotten a fairly good time at going up and down.

This time we had Kelly and Scout along. Currently, and probably for a while, I’m the anchor of the group. What takes them 1.5 hours takes me 3.5. But like Craig reminds me, “Your doing it though, which is more than most can say”.

The weather was great, it looked like rain but the sun kept peeking out and made for some beautiful colors in the woods. We met a trail angel along the way. We called her trail angel because she told up little bits of advice that were exactly what we were thinking but had not said out loud. She recommended I take up snow shoeing come winter. Which pending the arrival of actual snow, I’m all for it.

I uploaded several pics to Flickr.

ecto