North-South Trail - Hike #8

I would never have believed it if last April you told me that it would take me almost a whole year to finish my North-South Trail.  But with crazy schedules and other seasonal activities, that's the way the chips fell.  Being a relatively short segment to finish, I thought it would be nice to get a whole bunch of people together to celebrate the completion.  Alas, that was not to be  As it turns out though, with just Betsy and me hiking, this turned out to be the perfect finish.

It's Patriot's Day in Massachusetts.  In Boston, the 121st running of the Boston Marathon is taking place.  We're not doing a marathon today simply because 1)  we're not running, 2) we're not going  26.2 miles, and 3) we're not in Massachusetts.  Nonetheless, I do have the day off from work, a delightful surprise from the company that recently acquired my employer.  We just enjoyed a wonderful Easter with family yesterday and considering all the running around we've done in the past week or so with end of Lent and Easter, Betsy suggested that we take this free day and go for a hike. 

Okay - let's go!

To begin, I offer Betsy a patriotic plastic rose (found laying by the roadside).

There are boulders everywhere, but this is an especially big glacial erratic.

This gives you a little sense of "boulders everywhere".  This part of the trail is quite similar to the Midstate section just on the other side of the state line.

Like most of the North-South Trail, the markings leading the way were excellent. 
The weather was around 71 degrees - perfect temps short sleeve hiking .

This rock cliff was quite impressive.  Lucky for us, we get to skirt around it rather than going over the top.

An additional motivation for our hike today was for Betsy to try out her new hiking boots.  These Hoka hiking boots look and feel a lot like sneakers and we're hoping they will provide enough comfort and support for an extended period of time.

There was a registration box along the path.  I recorded our names and this blog site in case anybody wants more details about how we did.

Here we are at the Midstate Trail stone marker in Douglas State Forest, Massachusetts. 
The last time we were here was 4 years, 4 months, and 9 days ago.  See Midstate Hike 17.

At this point, the hike on the North-South Trail is complete.  Unfortunately, we're in the middle of the forest.  We'll turn south on Benson Mountain Trail and head to the Buck Hill Management Area parking lot.

We cross over this dike and we've got less than 1/2 mile to go.  After that, I have to go retrieve the car.

This is my own version of the Marathon's Heartbreak Hill.  However, instead of rising just 88 feet in 0.4 miles,
I had to ascend more steeply:  191 feet in 0.64 miles.  I kept my head down and hoofed it up and over the hill.

It looks like we've got a new post-hike tradition - going out after.  Today we visit The Angler Restaurant in Westminster where all the fried specialties are cooked in a gluten-free batter on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Betsy successfully hiked 5.78 miles and I added another 1.04 on top of that for a total of 6.82 files, the last mile of it being the killer.  But by doing that extra mile, we only needed one car.  The best news:  the North-South Trail is done!  There's no patch this time, but just knowing that I've now hiked across two states is pretty cool in and of itself.