Ward Pound Ridge, Orange Loop

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
9/25/2016	1.5 miles	54 minutes

Parking: Enter park, pay for parking and keep driving straight until you see a sign for the Meadow Picnic Area on your left.  There is plenty of parking. Cost is $10 without a Westchester County Parks Pass. $5 with a Parks Pass. I went on a weekend, when they do charge. In the winter we haven't been charged on weekday evenings.

I haven't been hiking due to continuing issues with my hip(s). I've now had 2 MRI's (hip, lower back) and have a 3rd one (hip with dye contrast) scheduled this week. I stopped working with my personal trainer in case any of the training I've been doing is aggravating my hip (we stopped lower body work months ago, but there is a chance some upper body/core work might be making it more sore). I've seen 2 orthopedists now, and neither recommended surgery. One thinks I have FAI (femoral acetabular impingement), one doesn't. And I still have pain. Some days not too bad, some days it is distracting. I have always despised doctors asking my pain level from 1-10. But I finally found a description of the pain scale with makes sense to me. I can now very easily rate my pain level. So, I would say most of the time it is 2-5/10. I'm hoping to try a cortisone shot in my hip socket (the one in my greater trochanter bursa did nothing) & go for more physical therapy at a different place and for a longer period. In the meantime, I'm working on keeping a daily log of what I do physically & my pain level. I'm trying some things to see if it helps - in order to try to come up with patterns of what aggravates it versus what helps. For example, right now I'm working on not sitting with my legs crossed. I'm also sleeping with a pillow between my legs to try to change my hip angle while I sleep. To me it seems strange that I never had hip issues before, and then in March of this year out of the blue I started having pain from sitting. Reading about FAI is discouraging. Pain can be aggravated by sitting, walking, standing. So, that would seem that the only thing that I can do is sleep? I do have to say in the morning as soon as I wake up I feel the best. And then I sit down. Most of my pain is in my right hip, but my left hip also doesn't feel right. And now my left knee is making cracking sounds - no pain luckily - but I'm assuming it is related to my hip pain.

I hate not hiking. Hiking means so much to me, so much to us as a family. Even though I've been very sore for the last month, I decided I really needed to go hiking. I was ready to drive 2.5 hours to the Catskills to do a 2 mile round trip hike up a Catskill 67 peak. Yep, 5 hours of drive time for a hike that would take less than an hour. But, we ended up settling for a local flat hike. The orange loop at Ward Pound Ridge is such a hike. 1.5 miles, mostly flat. It isn't my favorite loop at Ward Pound Ridge, but it worked for what we were looking for. The trail starts to the right of the visitor center. If you walk behind the visitor center, head towards the sign for a wildflower garden, you'll hit the orange trail (turn left on it).The hike goes past some campsites and a playground. The very end of the loop however is more wild - the trail is not very well maintained at the end (the area it goes through looks like a microburst hit it). When you complete the loop & end up back on the road, take a left and you'll return to your car. It's an easy hike, and I took it slow, just to savor it longer. Lots of ragweed (I assume) made for pretty yellow color. A few trees are starting to get some color, but not really much now. Since it was such a short hike we were able to bring Moxie with us. She has hip problems as well. She did great, and wasn't limping after.