winter hiking at its best

I just love it when January is warm enough in this part of the country to hike in shorts, short-sleeves and barefooted. On this particular hike, I did a 6-mile loop through the South Lucius Burch Natural Area, which is just north of the Wolf River in Memphis. There are several trails in the natural area. You can hike as short as 2 miles or all long as 8.5 miles or combine several trails and hike 13.5 miles. There's also the North Lucius Burch Natural Area which connects with the south trails. In the north area you can hike about 8 miles before the trail intersects with the paved Memphis Greenline. I haven't been on the Greenline but my daughter has been biking there several times. From the eastern terminus of the south area trails one can connect with the North Bluff Trail and hike 12 or so miles east to the town of Collierville.

I tend to stay in my comfort zone and hike the Wolf River Trails of South Lucius Burch most of the time. Now when I get an opportunity to go out of town that's a whole different story. I love to explore trails native to the area I'm visiting. You can see by my list of "Trails I've Hiked" that the list keeps growing. I always carry a pair of slides or minimal shoes in my pack when I visit a trail I've never been on before or that I know has the potential of being difficult to navigate barefooted. This spring I hope to climb Pinnacle Mountain in Arkansas barefooted for the first time. I've been there probably a dozen times and I know the trail pretty well. I think if I do this one before it gets too hot, I shouldn't have a problem. It's a difficult trail, with many sections which require a bit of scrambling [using both hands and feet] and several spots that are near vertical. Anyway, I hope to have some Pinnacle pictures to post in 2 or 3 months.