naners and mountains

s4 is here for a wedding so i dragged her out for hiking (i'm trying to get out as much as possible before school/rain/snow/craziness keeps me away!) but before i took her to see the view above, i made sure to feed her goodies:) 

trying out gluten-free goodies w/ no dairy (my nose is still causing problems) and gluten-free for s4. these are adapted from The Everything Cookbook (have i mentioned how much i love this book?). see below for the full recipe! it came out pretty awesome if i do say so myself. 

but back to the hike, we went to sugarloaf mountain out in dickerson, md which is about an hour from ec. it's privately owned so don't get thrown off by the sign to drive up the mountain to get parking (like catoctin mountain, coming earlier means better chances of getting parking- we got to sugarloaf around 9:30). we took a combination of orange, blue, red, and white to round out to 8 miles or so. we hit the top of the mountain on our first part and then hiked up and down on the second part, and at the speed we were going i was very happy we did the extreme uphill part on the first part! i only fell once, and just to warn you, this place is sandy and has lots of smaller loose rocks and rocks that jut out to trip you or play havoc with your ankles so i definitely wanted hiking boots here. we finished fast enough that we picnicked in the trunk of my car (i wish i had a pic of our asses stuck in the trunk as we ate our food) and then headed back out to get sidetracked a bit:D

an adorable farmer's market on the same road as the mountain. we grabbed some jonagold and mutsu apples. anybody heard of mutsu apples before? or know how to pronounce it? s4 and i think it sounds too much like the dog breed shitzu to be very appealing but they look and taste sort of like granny smith but not quite as tart. we also got a half gallon of apple cider (you can buy cups of cold cider, but it was starting to get really cold so we were craving some hot cider!) 

Gluten-free Banana Pancakes (aka instant delicious bfast)

(adapted from The Everything Cookbook Cornmeal Pancakes)

Makes about 8 cakes (for 3-4 people i would say)

1/2 c instant oats soaked overnight in 1/2 c plain soymilk

1/2 c corn meal

1/4 c instant oats (+about another 1/2 c)

1 T baking powder

~1/2 tsp salt, i was just using a salt grinder w/ sea salt

~1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 c soymilk (i think if this is decreased to just 1/2 c then additional oats don't have to be added, but i will have to test it out)

1 large egg

2 bananas, sliced

Combine the corn meal, 3/4 c dry instant oats, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a bowl and then make a well in the center. In another bowl, beat the egg and soymilk together and then combine with the dry ingredients, adding in the soaked oats as well. Batter should be runny but not overly so (if too runny, go ahead and add more oats or corn meal).

Preheat a buttered skillet over medium-high heat. Cook on the hot griddle, using about 1/4 cup batter per cake. Lightly press banana slices into the top of the poured batter into whatever shape you like. Cook about 1 or 2 minutes on each side; pancakes are ready to run when the tops have broken bubbles on the surface (or you lift an edge and it is golden brown on the underside).

*these are amazing if you like a bit of texture to your pancakes! not gritty, but still some more crunch to them, but still really soft from the soaked oats i think.

some adorable squash at the farmer's market!

fall strolling

i apparently have 2 hiking speeds: speed walking and jogging. the concept of strolling and soaking in your surroundings is lost on me. sure, i can get to an overlook and ooh and aah and sit for 5 minutes but then i zip right along again. but that's not the point- the whole idea of my hike was to just get away. ever get that antsy feeling where you just want to get away from yourself but then have to settle with just being by yourself. it's not so bad. rather relaxing and all sorts of chances to just be you. it was one of those weeks where nothing was going right, so being outside and active was just the sort of cure-all i needed.

Chimney Rock, my favorite part of the loop

i picked catoctin mountain state park b/c i  remember liking it back when i was little. their website has all their trail maps (read: for free!) and parking at the park is free as well (woot woot). i got there around 9 am and there were only about 3 cars parked at the visitor center (visitor center not only has free maps, but water fountains and bathrooms!) so all around i was a happy camper. i asked the park ranger at the desk where i should start to take the 8 mile loop. i picked the longest hike b/c i figured i'd get to see everything and i wanted to be away for as long as possible. he pointed the way and even gave me a hint about the trail signs. for those of you who want to go hike the 8 mile loop or hike catoctin mt in general here are some things i found out:

Blue Ridge Summit Overlook,
this is where I started seeing lots of other hikers

- no sign will mention the blue ridge summit overlook, just go towards hog rock if you are coming from thurmont vista
- go early on the weekend, parking gets crazy
- none of the trails are marked with trail names or blazes (athough they are very well maintained so hard to get lost...although there was the one time when i was trying to find chimney rock...)
- on the 8 mile loop you take the handicap access trail to cunningham falls and there is no way out to the falls without climbing over the observation deck fence (it's fun, trust me, just know that you will have to do some spidermany kind of moves to get back onto the observation deck, or you can just keep walking down the water until the platform opens up, but where's the adventure in that!)

Cunningham Falls

- you have to park somewhere else to take the lower or cliff trail
- i started towards chimney rock and ended at cunningham falls, i don't know if it was b/c it got more crowded or b/c i like big views better, but i much preferred chimney rock.

now, back to whole speed walking thing. i always walk fast. it's just the way i move. maybe it's b/c i had tall friends growing up and had to keep up w/ them but i enjoy racing up terrain. the 8 mi loop said it takes 4 hours and 45 min, adding on the mile-mile and a half i got lost on, it took me 3.5 hours to do it. and i spent a a little bit of time at every point of interest (some more than others when there were too many people).

Thurmont Vista, there was a pretty sweet bench here,
except it was really narrow

since it was still early early afternoon i wanted to check out cat rock (the description says "beautiful overlook" so i knew i had to check it out since i was already there. so i drove to another parking lot by park headquarters, squeezed into a grassy "parking" space and hiked up the 1.4 miles up. it ends at a sign post that says "cat rock- 1546 ft" (i'm not entirely sure about the exact number but it was in that range) and there was NO other sign. i had no idea where to look for this view. all the other trails had signs that pointed the rock formation to climb to get the view so i looked around and started going up this huge rock structure to the right of the sign and then got stuck on how to get to the top. luckily, met another hiker who was familiar with the overlook and he pointed out the route to take through the rocks. hint: go a little past the sign and climb up. it takes a bit of leveraging but the view is totally worth it! oh, and the hike says it takes 2 hours round trip, it took me an hour and i spent a while at the top until i got too cold to stay up there.

Cat Rock Overlook, the view I almost missed,
and boy was it high up and windy to get this shot

*just as an fyi, these pictures are not in order of how i hiked to them. the actual order i went was: chimney rock, wolf rock, thurmont vista, blue ridge summit, hog rock and cunningham falls. but i took some artistic pleasure in ordering them the way i wanted. i also didn't include pics of wolf rock or hog rock b/c that would be picture overload:)