Trail Maintenance, Garenflo Gap to Bluff Mountain, Appalachian Trail

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
5/8/2026	8 miles	7 hours 36 minutes	2,151'	1.7 mph	135.3

Parking: 

• Garenflo Gap

Map:

• Gaia GPS app

Directions:

• Hike from Garenflo Gap to Bluff Mountain on the AT. On the return trip, we walked the woods road instead of the AT back to our car.

Out to do weed whacking. This is always our biggest trail maintenance job of the year. It typically takes 3 long days to complete. Today was our first day. I was able to hike to the summit, the first time in over a year. Yes, my hips did hurt on and off, but I was excited I could do it. We weed whacked on the way down, only getting 0.45 miles done in 3 hours of work. That's pretty typical. Weed whacking the top always takes the longest. We use a swing blade to cut the weeds. An electric trimmer would be nice, but I don't want to hike up 2,150 feet with it. We met a dozen thru hikers on our way up. Krumm loves to join us on trail maintenance days. We'll be back in a week once our bodies recover.

A low priority tree

We need to save this for a later day

Broken step that needs addressing

Another low priority tree

Bull Creek Preserve, Swannanoa

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
5/5/2026	3.6 miles	2 hours 4 minutes	206'	2.1 mph	127.3

Parking: 

• Riceville Road, across the street from Berea Baptist Church

Map:

• Gaia GPS app

Directions:

• Misc. trails

This has been an incredibly busy week, so we are again staying close to home to hike. Our normal swimming hole already had a bunch of people, so we chose a different spot for dog swimming.

Bull Creek Preserve Swannanoa

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
5/4/2026	3.7 miles	2 hours 1 minute	240'	2.1 mph	123.7

Parking: 

• Riceville Road, across the street from Berea Baptist Church

Map:

• Gaia GPS app

Directions:

• Misc. trails

Second hike after getting back from my National Park trip. Krumm was still so excited to go swimming again! He was making all sorts of excited noises as we started the hike until we reached our swimming hole.

Bull Creek Preserve, Swannanoa

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
5/2/2026	3.6 miles	2 hours 5 minutes	?'	? mph	120

Parking: 

• Riceville Road, across the street from Berea Baptist Church

Map:

• Gaia GPS app

Directions:

• Misc. trails

First hike after getting back from my National Park trip. Krumm was so excited to go swimming again! He was making all sorts of excited noises as we started the hike. Water levels are low - I heard we are in a drought. After not hiking this trail in a month, it's fun to see what new flowers are in bloom.

Mountain Doghobble

Solomon's Plume

Diamond Head State Monument, Oahu

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
4/28/2026	1.7 miles	1 hour 19 minutes	415'	1.7 mph	116.4

Parking: 

• Diamond Head State Monument

Map:

• None needed.

Directions:

• Hike the trail up the mountain in a loop.

We flew overnight from American Samoa to Honolulu. We arrived early in the morning, so needed something to do before crashing at our hotel. We got a rental car just for the day, and headed over to Iolani Palace, where we continued our Hawai'i history lesson.

From there we had booked a timed entry to Diamond Head State Park. It was hot & humid. I took lots of water. So, this is a short hike, and it shouldn't be hard, but it was. The heat was just hard and had us panting. There were a lot of steps and very little shade. The view at the top was worth the hike though!

After descending, we found a shaved ice place next to the parking lot. A perfect way to cool off. 

Next, we went to the Waikiki beach. Dian had warned me that it would be very crowded with wall-to-wall people, but it's a beautiful beach. It was busy, but not as bad as it sounded. Personally, I just wanted to be out of the sun, so I didn't swim. I just sat in the shade and sketched.

Tomorrow, we fly to San Francisco, and the next day I fly home.

Diamond Head State Park

The coolest spot (temp wise) on the hike

White leadtree

Summit

We found a shaved ice stand by the parking lot :)