SundayHikers: Circle Hike

With most hikers still busy biking, traveling and engaging in other activities, three of us continue our Sunday hike tradition last Sunday. We choose the old stand-by circular route from our driveway since the Xterra trail has been cleared recently.

Peppy arrives at 6 am, but Chops takes the 6:15 starting time more seriously and arrives exactly then. We three take off up the potholed Savana Road. With much catching up on our various updates, we keep a good pace through the chicken farm and old Esco, down Talofofo Road. It is a cool and breezy morning so we are very comfortable even on some of the steeper hills. After beating through wet and tall grass last week, keeping our legs clean and dry now seem like a luxury. We reach Kingfisher golf course entrance quite a bit sooner than we expect. We take a short break at the base of Xterra trail and get acquainted with the barking dogs, roaming roosters, and a show-off turkey.

The Xterra trail has indeed been cleared, and judging from the amount of cuttings on the ground we can see how much it must have grown in before the clearing. Just as we come to the end of the flat pathway, we all spot a fresh lime lying in the middle of the path. As we raise our eyes, we see the beautiful kaffir tree is loaded with plump round lime fruit. We of course have to stop and pick some of this rare find. Having hiked past this tree many times over the years, this is the first time we find it fruiting.

Further up the trail, we are quite shocked to find that the trail has been eroded and rutted severely during this year's many heavy rainfalls. One section of the trail has not only dropped off precariously, nearly cutting off the trail, the remaining section is also uncomfortably undermined. We can see how the water has rushed down the side of the trail and washed off the weak section. The trail continues to show deep gouges all the way to the round-about section. It appears that some of the mountain bikers would really enjoy such a challenging trail.

We end the hike at CC's back deck to enjoy a cup of coffee. We agree that the hike is a good one to stretch out our legs and exercise our lungs.