At Bearwallow Mountain trail

It was a major achievement day for me!  I hiked in the mountains of  North Carolina on Bearwallow Trail.   Two miles!     Thirteen weeks from the day I broke my ankle in two places.    

 This trail is one mile up over a rocky ridge with many steps cut into the hillside.   The going up did not feel too hard or taxing for me as I am used to steps here at home and was pacing myself on the straight level parts to walk slow.  The elevation gain was about 580 feet with the mountain top at over  4200 feet.  My friends R and R were huffing and puffing more than I was so we stopped for rest breaks a couple of times.  Which really made me feel good about the condition of my old body and my ankle after two + months of doing minor exercises and only two full weeks of walking again!   This was my first time on this trail and not knowing what to expect my friends were not really prepared for the roughness of the trail in shoes or stamina. wanted to walk the trail.  But I did tell them I did not know how rough it would be and they both wanted to try it to get to the view at the top.       I feel like they will be hurting tomorrow.     

   Going downhill was harder on the ankle but we were able to walk down a gravel access road to the bottom of the hill so that we did not have to go down all the steps.  This probably would have been a bad thing. 

We drove over to the apple orchard nearby to get apples and then went to get a very late lunch at the Moose Cafe in Asheville.   Yummy comfort food...chicken and dumplings for me!!     A long day but I feel like I am getting back to my hiking stride!     I am not ready for anything more than two or three miles but I know I will get back to where I used to be!!  

My ankle is sore but not even worth taken any pain meds.    I will probably feel it tomorrow but I will just keep walking!