Location: Coopers Rock State Forest
Trails: Rhododendron Trail, Clay Furnace Trail, Ridge Trail, Rock City Trail, Rattlesnake Trail, Eagle Trail
Distance: 2.1 miles
Elevation: 422 feet

All pictures were taken on the Rattlesnake trail, because I like rocks.

GPS coordinates are available for all images.

You can’t really hike Berkeley Springs, as it’s tiny. But it’s still pretty.

Location: Cacapon State Park
Trails: Ziller Trail, Ziller Loop Trail, Central Trail
Distance: 5.0 miles
Elevation: 1561 feet

We hiked ALL the way up to the ridge line, but aside from one place on the way up (where we didn’t want to stop) there wasn’t much of a photogenic view.

That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a gorgeous hike, just that the forest isn’t generally photogenic.

These are what I found when as I wandered around my yard this morning. (I have a small yard, so it wasn’t a very long wander.)

Tulip!

Bluebells!

Rhododendron!

Saturday was gorgeous, so we went to New River Gorge. We’ve gone to Bridge Day in previous years, but hadn’t spent any time hiking the gorge, and so didn’t realize just how many miles of trails there were.

We are going back again, hopefully many times.

Location: New River Gorge
Trails: Kaymoor Miners Trail, Arrowhead Trail (Clovis)
Distance: 4.0 miles
Elevation: 1228 feet

The top part of this trail is steep and rocky, but very beautiful. The recent rains meant the creeks and streams were full and since we were going down the side of the mountain, there were plenty of waterfalls both large and small.

Because the trees are just starting to leaf out, you can still see the river and down into the gorge.

The lower part of the trail is all steps.

More than 800 steps.

But at the bottom, were the remains of the processing plant, coke ovens, and town, which were fascinating.

GPS Map

Elevation Chart:

(the place where it flattens out is where we took the Clovis Arrowhead trail, so we could stretch our legs)
How it came out on FitBit:

So, well, we’ve now been to Hawk’s Nest, and can check it off the list.

It wasn’t a bad park–though it is obviously long in the tooth–there just wasn’t any hiking there. Might be a nice place to stay, however, if you were hiking New River Gorge.

Michael snapped this pic of a hawk.

It was a pretty day, and you can see the trees are leafing out, but the New River was high and muddy.

There are steps going down to Lovers Leap Overlook. This was one of the places that the age of the place was showing. The steps are slowly crumbling and decomposing. There aren’t a lot of steps, so it isn’t a big deal, but it made the park look in need of upkeep.

Saturday we went to Hawk’s Nest State Park and New River Gorge National Forest.

Redbud was blooming everywhere–the roadsides were pink with it in many areas (including along the interstate).

Some Bleeding Heart at the bottom of the Kaymoor Miner’s Trail in the New River Gorge.

Sunday we went to Coopers Rock for a quick hike (it’s supposed to rain, but we’re still waiting).

There are violets everywhere.

Ferns!

Since Saturday was lovely, but low mileage, we went to Coopers Rock on Sunday.

I didn’t mean for our hike to be quite as long as it was, but 3:15 and 6.5 miles (closer to 8, with meandering) later, there it was.

Gorgeous day, and although the streams were all full, we avoided the muddiest trails.

Location: Coopers Rock State Forest
Trails: Clay Run Trail, Mount Chateau Trail, Rhododendron Trail, Roadside Trail
Distance: 6.5 miles
Elevation: 937feet

Clay Run Trail

At some point I’m going to remember I don’t really care for the Clay Run Trail. The first half (or even 2/3) is relatively open and sunny, on a right-of-way/maintenance road. It’s not terrible or anything, but it’s not what I really want when I’m hiking.

On the bright side, there are once again frog eggs to see.

Mount Chateau Trail

This is easily my favorite trail in the whole forest. It runs along a stream and it’s beautiful. You can take any number of trails to get there (Rhododendron, Clay Run, Iron Furnace) and when you get to the end, you can sit on the bridge and watch the water.

Once it’s warmer I plan to again start bringing my water shoes so I can hike the stream some more.

And you get zero pictures of the Rhododendron trail and Roadside trail, because at that point we weren’t stopping for much of anything.

But there is water running beside parts of the Rhododendron trail right now (and it is also muddy in spots, but not bad), which is always a draw for me.

Because the two state parks we visited didn’t have much hiking, after walking the boardwalk we decided to take a short hike on one of the close trails.

We got lucky in that it was the prefect hike for late in the day when we only had a little time.

Location: Cranberry Wilderness
Trails: Cowpasture Trail to Thomas Reserve Trail
Distance: 2.2 miles

(Pictures are mapped on Flickr; the mileage link about is a GPS map of the entire hike. If you want specific coordinates for a picture–email me.)

Since the day was lovely, and Beartown and Droop Mountain were very short visits, we stopped at Cranberry Glades.

Location: Cranberry Glades Boardwalk
Distance: 0.6 miles

Saturday was beautiful, so we headed south for Droop Mountain and Beartown State Parks.

Droop Mountain

Droop Mountain is the site of the last major Civil War battle in West Virginia.

I can really only handle a small amount of thinking about war and death and misery, so it was a short visit.

The view is gorgeous, though,

Confederate Graves

The museum is where I really started to get depressed.

Beartown

Location: Beartown State Park
Distance: 0.7 mile

Luckily, just down the road is Beartown State Park, which is a 0.7 mile boardwalk through some pretty fascinating rock formations.

The boardwalk is really nice.

This was a lovely walk.

And it’s time for the books of March! Spent more time (far more time!) out of the house this month, what with not being sick and the weather cooperating.

The best books of the month were the final two books in the Julian Kestrel series, Whom the Gods Love and The Devil in Music. As always, it made me sad to complete the series, knowing that the author’s life ended far too soon. And also Who Buries the Dead, the latest Sebastian St. Cry book.

Historical Romance

These Old Shades (1926) Georgette Heyer

Historical Mystery

Julian Kestrel
Whom the Gods Love (1995) Kate Ross (9/10)
The Devil in Music (1997) Kate Ross (/10)
Sebastian St Cyr
Who Buries the Dead (2015) C.S. Harris (8.5/10)

Mystery

Inspector Montalbano
The Fourth Secret (2002/2014) Andrea Camilleri translated by Gianluca Rizzo and Dominic Siracusa (7/10)

Supernatural Mystery

Felix Castor
The Devil You Know (2008) Mike Carey (8/10)
Vicious Circle (2006) Mike Carey (8/10)
London Falling audible version (2013/2014) by Paul Cornell, narrated by Damian Lynch  (8/10)

Supernatural Fantasy

Alpha & Omega
Dead Heat (2015) Patricia Briggs (7.5/10)

And now, the numbers!

Aside from one audio book (I really liked the audio version of London Falling) everything was an ebook, and I had seven re-reads, and seven books in multiple formats (either ebook and paper or ebook and audio).

The breakdown of genres was mostly mysteries, mysteries of all flavors.

Fantasy: 4
Mystery: 7
Romance: 1

And for author gender this month, an almost even split between male and female authors.

Male: 4
Female: 4
Initials: 1

Almost because the initials are (of course) a female author.

Another quick reminder of what I’ve been testing:

Accupedo
Garmin Vivofit
FitBit One
Omron HJ-323U

The Devices
The Software

Now for my FAVORITE PART! DATA!

I tracked the output of the various devices for three weeks, noting steps, kcal, and miles at various points of the day, including immediately before and after exercise or hiking.

Here’s what I found.

Steps

As I’d found previously, the FitBit overcounts steps. Accupedo and the Omron are generally pretty close to each other, and typically had lower step counts than the VivoFit and the One.

HOWEVER.

On days when I was doing things like cleaning house or baking, the VivoFit had a much higher count than any other device. (I also threw out the Accupedo data on several of these days, because I didn’t have the phone in my pocket for several hours.)

I’m not terribly distressed that the VivoFit had a higher step count on days when I was baking or cleaning, because I’m active during those times, just not moving from one place to another.

Calories Burned

Not only does the FitBit overcount steps, but it also generally overcounted how many calories I burned during the day.

Here you can see that during periods of exercise, the FitBit gave me a far higher calorie burn than any other device–including the Garmin Fit, which should also have been taking elevation and pace into account. (Note that for walks, the Omron and Garmin Fit had very close calorie burns, but for hikes (where we were in steeper terrain) the Garmin Fit gave a much higher calorie burn than the Omron. I believe the Garmin Fit data should which should be fairly correct, although I know that using the heart rate monitor would make it more accurate. But I find it uncomfortable, so you don’t get that data because I am unwilling to suffer that much for data.)

Putting that together, we can see how calorie burn and steps tracked for my lunchtime walks.

The step counts are all relatively close during these time periods, but the FitBit in general gave me a much greater calorie burn (I’m not sure what happened on that final Thursday–I’m guessing operator error in noting the counts.)

Yes, I do walk up and down stairs during my lunch walks, but I don’t think that’s enough to account for the FitBit calorie burn being that much higher.

Mileage

And finally, because I can’t help myself, I compared the mileage calculated by the pedometers as opposed to the distance given by the GPS for outdoor walks and hikes.

GPS readings were from the Garmin Fit, which tracks mileage using my phone, and my Garmin Oregon GPS. I’ll note that the Oregon GPS does tend to give me a slightly shorter reading than is probably true, simply because I meander. So fractally, the distance I walk is probably longer than the distance calculated by the GPS, but not by a large amount.

Also interesting, the Vivofit seems to underestimate distance when I’m hiking and walking, as compared to other devices, but not consistently so, which could be due both to the terrain, and to how frequently I stop to take pictures when I hike.

And to be fair, hiking is quite different from walking, since one’s stride is generally not consistent.

So there you have it: The FitBit continues to overcount steps and overestimate calories burned, but the interface and community are so much nicer than any other device, it’s still my current favorite.

If you do outdoors activity, the Garmin Fit app is very nice, and I can definitely recommend it.

And if you don’t want to carry around an additional device, the Accupedo app is a very good alternative to a separate pedometer (assuming you can correctly calculate the sensitivity).

Previous Pedometer Geekiness:
2014
2013