When I first stepped foot on the Shoreline Trail a week ago, my goal was to be able to do a complete round trip. That’s 7.0 miles total.

Yesterday, I accomplished that goal!

I set out for my Saturday hike on the trail and was at mile 3.0 when I realized I only had .5 mile to get to the other end. Since I have hiked this trail from both ends, I knew it be a pretty easy hike ending with the last 100 feet through a very lovely cedar break. Now granted, I had the prospect of having to hike that same distance back, but I was feeling really good and felt I could accomplish it.

For today’s hike I started the trail from Ridgepointe Park. So that meant my break at the 3.5 mile point was going to be The Stewart Peninsula side. As I sat and ate my sandwich I had packed for the trail, I suddenly realized that there is no port-o-potty on this side of the hike. The port-o-potty is actually on the other side, where I started, at Ridgepointe. This was going to make for an interesting hike back!

I started back toward Ridgepointe. By this time the sun had started to climb and the clouds were burning off. I was heading right into the sun and could feel it on my face. I found a place to stop and reapply sunscreen. The heat was definitely building as there are several sections of the trail where it seemed that no breeze what so ever was to be found.

This entire hike back the only thing on my mind was how bad I had to pee. Stop to apply sunscreen, “Man I gotta pee”. Stop to drink water, “Hey…liquid…I still gotta pee.” Stop for a rest in the shade…you get the idea.

I finally got back to a section of the trail that probably in all likelihood was probably the worst place for me to step off the trail. It’s an intersection of sorts where an access trail joins the main trail. It’s sort of at the top of the hill, but it gave me a full view of anyone coming along the trail from either direction plus up the access path. At this point I was desperate, so I dropped by hip pack, stepped off into a clump of trees and answered the call of nature. Whew…that was a close call!

Finally being relieved, I could now focus on a more important task…finishing this hike! I alway find the last 1.5 miles to be the hardest. I was hot, tired, and my feet were none too happy! Rounding that last .25 miles never felt so good….but it wasn’t until my Jeep was in full view that I could finally let out a huge sigh of relief.

So what have I learned from this. For one thing if I do this round trip hike again, I need to start from the peninsula so that I at least have a port-o-potty to stop off at on the Ridgepointe Park side. Secondly, I’m going back to my baseball caps. I have a Columbia had that I wore this time…but it was too floppy…the wind kept catching the brim and instead of keeping the sun off my face, instead the brim would flip up and was more exposed to the sun.
Lastly, I did think I had to do more than pee. I seriously considered stopping by one of the pet stations for a bag; but luckily didn’t need to make that stop. So I may want to consider a plastic bag and a few squared of toilet paper…just in case.

Here’s the numbers from yesterday:

Miles: 7.27

Duration: 2:19:13

Pace Per Mi: 19:08

Calories: 998

I may stick with Shoreline Trail for another week or so and then find my next trail to start working on. Shoreline is a good trail to work with for training and of course I can’t been the location!

And for those of you interested in looking at a map of the trail, here you go!

Map of Shoreline Trail, The Colony, TX