Post 900 Hike #105: Rainbow Falls (6.0), Bull Head (5.9), Old Sugarlands (0.4)

After my air conditioning was fixed ~17:45 this passed Tuesday and I was freed for hiking on Wed., I called Vicki Watkins to see if there was a space for me in her Newfound Gap to Cosby Hike (~25 mi.) relative to logistics. There was and I was ready to go; however, when my wife returned home later that evening she reminded me tht one of my two local granddaughters was in her school play on Wed. evening; had I gone on Vicki's long hike I would have been far too late to see any part of Marilee's play. Fortunately I had also made arrangements with John Hutsenpiller to do Rainbow Falls and Bullhead on Friday. John needed Bull Head for his 1st map; I had done both trails for my 2nd map but needed both for my Geezer Map (i.e., trails completed after age 75).

John picked me up at Lakeside Market at 07:30; we started on Rainbow Falls at 09:00 and we would have ~2700 ft. of gain by the time we reached Bull Head junction. The parking lot was relatively full, but evidently we got ahead of most. The first picture in my not too good picture taking day was of Rainbow Falls. Subsequently we met a father and two sons (possibly we saw his wife too) and later two couples, all who had spent the night at LeConte Lodge.



About one half mile of reaching Bull Head, I put it in what was my highest gear in my endeavor to reach this trail by noon. I got there at 12:01; however, I only got my HR to 146. (I wanted to get to 150 on my new Omron HR monitor.)



Both of us aired our feet at lunch; mine were sweaty and I put talcum poweder and fresh socks prior to our departure at 12:30. Much to our surprise we saw much more traffic on Bull Head than Rainbow Falls (two couples going up, ~10 at the Pulpit (not sure which way they were going), and a couple taking some "serious" photographs (assume they were doing and in-and-out on just part of Bull Head). At 14:50 we had finished Bull Head and had ~0.4 mi. to go on Old Sugarlands to get to the parking lot.

In addition to my new HR monitor (which seemed to work great on my hike today and on my treadmill Wed.--my old one would often show spuriously high readings particularly at the start of running workouts), while ordering it I also ordered an Omron pedometer (HJ-72ITC). This one does not rely on the pendulum technology seen in most; moreover it can be placed in a pocket (as well as on the belt) and collects data that can be downloaded to a computer. (For those who have followed this blog for some time, I also had one of these ~one year ago but lost it after a hike in Colorado.) The data that it provided me on today's hike were: Steps--28205, Aerobic steps--26238, kcals burned--1041, miles hiked--13.35. (I may have to tinker with stride length; however, I may have had it on when I walked my dog prior to hiking this a.m.)