Hiking Goals in Review 2024

, , 5 Comments

As most everybody knows, we hike to live and live to hike. Each year, we create goals as a family for the coming year. Our hiking goals go from Thanksgiving to Thanksgiving, and restart on Black Friday. This started years ago as part of the Black Friday #OptOutside movement and my discovery of the 52 Hike Challenge. It really evolved into something so special and important to us. And every year, we review our goals and accomplishments and look to make new ones for the coming year. Which we did over Thanksgiving dinner the other night.

Last year, we did a countdown from 10 list of hiking goals. Here’s how we fared.

  • 10 pre-baby hikes ✅
    This felt like a big ask at the time, and it kind of was. But we did it! and then we started taking the baby!
  • 9 dog hikes. ✅
    • After we lost our dear Marge, I did take Jeff on many more hikes. Marge enjoyed walks, but as she declined into her illness, she was not able to do many walks. Jeff gained a lot of weight during this time, and once she was gone, I took him along with me quite a bit. I don’t really do solo hikes anymore without Jeff since I had a couple weird incidents, so he’s my buddy. Something I especially like doing is going out with him at/around sunrise early on a Saturday or Sunday before the world (or at least OUR world) is awake.
  • 8 hikes with friends ❓
    • I mean, I have done a bunch of hikes with the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts. Do those count? If so, then yes we did it. Actually, when I think about it, between the scouts, my cousin, and a couple former students, I definitely achieved this. The spirit of this goal was to be intentional around sharing time with friends and other families, but we really didn’t. So I would say yes we did it, but also not really.
  • 7 kid-chosen hikes ❓
    • I would say we weren’t as intentional as I had hoped (what’s new) but we did go on many hikes the kids chose. Elephant Rocks, JSI, “blue hiking.”
  • 6 hiking dates ✅
    • We did fit in several hikes. It was not just the two of us- it was typically the three of us- but that was still some good time to get that hiking therapy, the talks, and the connection.
  • 5 new national or state parks/historic sites. 👎
    • this past year was very difficult financially, to be honest. We did not get to travel like at all. We didn’t even get to camp as much because we were very busy. Not to mention I started the year super pregnant and then delivered a baby. So this didn’t work out, but we are looking forward to adding new places this coming year.
  • 4 special snack hikes (like the hot chocolate hike!) 👎
    • Better luck next year!
  • 3 water hikes. ✅
    • Water hikes are definitely a fave in our family, so this one was easily in reach.
  • 2 new state hikes 👎
    • We didn’t go anywhere. Except like Illinois once or something.
  • 1 overnight hike 👎
    • This is like my one and only wish!! Can’t wait.

So all in all, we did not meet all our goals. But this year had way more in store than we ever anticipated so I think we did pretty good. There are two main things I’m grateful for as I reflect on my past hiking year. First of all, that we did get out there with our family more than we didn’t. And second, but most importantly, adding our little hiking buddy!