When I chose “Verso L’alto” or “Higher, toward the top” as one of my themes for this year, I kicked it off with a challenge of hiking every day for a month. Part of the reason behind this challenge was to get me out of my normal hiking routine and explore new trails and new mountains! I thought maybe my theme for the year of hiking wouldn’t really count if I wasn’t always going new and flashy places. And it WAS wonderful to explore so many new areas, and I will continue to try and do that, but I have fallen in love with the Phoenix Mountain preserve and while I thought returning there again and again might get boring, I learned during that 31 day challenge that it is anything but… and that realization has only gotten stronger int he months that followed, so today I wanted to expand on that and share a few reasons why hiking at the same mountain preserve over 50 times in less than a year still remains anything but boring…. Continue reading →