Mini-vacation on the Chuck Keiper Trail

Just a warning:  this Post has absolutely nothing to do with ultimate.

I just got home last night from a long weekend in the woods on the Chuck Keiper trail.  I know many ultimate players share my love of backpacking so I thought I'd just post a few pics.  I was on the trail 4 days.  It rained nonstop for 2 of them.  Sounds like a recipe for misery but it's hard not to have a good time with so many fungis around!

Thankfully, I was able to hide in my tent with a good book on the rainy evenings

Okay so there's ultimate in this post after all.  I had at least one ultimate dream per night-perhaps because of this book - including a bizarre dream featuring cameo appearances by Brodie Smith, Tony Leonardo (though I don't know what he looks like), and an Asian Seth Wiggins.

Anyway...

In waking life saw many pheasants, a turkey, a deer, and a reminder of why you should hang your food in a bear bag at night.

Also somewhat ultimate related - I seemed to have worked out a kink in my hamstring.  I've been struggling with it for two weeks unable to figure out what, if anything, was wrong with it.   Lifting didn't hurt it, playing was fine. But it hurt walking and sprinting and felt like it wanted to cramp up.  And the pain moved around a lot.  I tried rest, I tried massage, I tried ignoring it.  Somehow four days of walking on it seems to have magically made it better.  No complaints!  I guess I forced it to decide it was either going to be really injured or stop complaining.

The CKT is a great trail with some challenging climbs.  The only thing it really lacks are good vistas since you're almost hiking in the woods.  I have no glamorous shots of mountain ranges, but here are a few other random sights.

  the swamp

the rain made everything very green overlook at the trailhead

My mini vacation was awesome!
I'll be back to posting more ultimate training content next week.  Btw in case you're looking for something to read and missed it, I wrote this article for Skyd last week.  I've been amazed at the response it's gotten!  Lots of comments and over 100 people liked it on Facebook.  I hope you like it too!