Finger Lake Trail — Where I Became “An Active Person”
There’s a small state park about five minutes from my house that I drove past for four years without ever stopping.
I wanted to. Every time I passed the entrance I’d think I should walk those trails sometime. But doing things alone in the woods as a woman is a different calculation than just lacing up your shoes and going. So I kept driving past.
Then in March Christine was back in the area on a work trip, and “sometime” finally arrived.
Lone Star Lakes State Park in Suffolk, VA
This small state park has several hiking trails in Suffolk, VA. It isn’t dramatic. It’s not going to show up on anyone’s bucket list. But it’s exactly what I needed for my first real trail experience — accessible, beautiful, and just challenging enough to make you feel like you did something.
The route I did with Christine that first day was 6.12 miles. These days I typically do the 4.5 mile loop, and I’ve come to know every section of it like a familiar conversation.
Mile 1 is a gravel road that runs alongside a series of small lakes on one side and woods on the other. It’s open and unhurried — a good warmup. I use this mile to settle in, shake off whatever I was thinking about in the car, and remember why I’m here.
Mile 2 is where it becomes a trail. The gravel gives way to packed dirt, the canopy closes in overhead, and something shifts. The word that always comes to mind is peace. The greenness. The quiet. The way the light filters through the trees. This is where I pray, think, process whatever life is currently throwing at me. It’s the opposite of noise and screens and to-do lists.
It’s also where you have to watch out for horse poop. The trail is shared with equestrians, and they are not subtle about it.
Mile 3 is my favorite and my hardest. The trail narrows, gets more wooded, and winds along the lakes with a satisfying number of hills and tree roots to keep you honest. This is where I pick up the pace — power walking, and lately trying to jog stretches here and there. I haven’t jogged consistently in probably twenty years. I lost 45 pounds this past year, and somewhere in that process I started to feel like my body could do things again. Trying to run, even badly and briefly, feels like a reclamation of something I’d written off.
The fish jump in the lake sections. Turtles panic off their sunbathing logs as you pass — which never gets old. Turtles make me smile. Squirrels scream at each other in the canopy. And occasionally, if you’re lucky, a bald eagle watches you from a branch overhead with the energy of someone who is deeply unimpressed.
The wind, when it finally finds you through the thick tree cover, feels like a gift.
Mile 4 brings you back to the gravel loop and your car. On my very first time out, just a few minutes in, I rolled my ankle on the rocks because I was distracted by a podcast and not paying attention to where I was putting my feet. It felt fine after about 30 seconds so I kept going — but it swelled up later that evening and was sore for the rest of the day. Lesson learned: stay present on the trail. If I can’t stay focused on a gravel path in Suffolk, Virginia, the JMT is going to require a lot more attention than I thought.
The Thing I Didn’t Expect
I track every walk with the AllTrails app and my Garmin Fenix 8 Solar watch. I check my time. I compare it to last week. I watch my weekly mileage add up.
At some point in the last few months, I caught myself thinking: I’m an active person now. And it feels good. Really good. I haven’t been that person in a very, very long time.
I don’t have a great track record of sticking with things. Ask anyone who knows me. I’m an Aries. We’re known for starting things. And working hard at them. But not for finishing them. But something about being out here — in the trees, away from everything, accountable to nothing but the trail — has stuck in a way that aerobics classes and gym memberships never did.
I think it’s because it doesn’t feel like exercise. It feels like going somewhere. Somewhere I want to be. Catching up with the person I want to be.
Lone Star Lakes State Park in Suffolk, VA is where that started for me. Five minutes from my house, four years of driving past, one friend who finally made me stop.
Better late than never.
— Barbara
One Comment