I have been trying to get people to hike with me, but with little success. One night, I was sitting at a bar with my best friend and her boyfriend, and another friend who is bar tending. I decided to throw the idea out there to the crew.

“Who wants to hike with me on Monday?”

The only one who says yes is my friend’s new boyfriend, a man I barely know. I agreed under the conditions that if I decided I didn’t like him and he wasn’t good enough for her, I would bury his body in the woods.

And off we went!

We opted for something with less than 1,000 ft of elevation. Thanks to my wonderful AllTrails app, we decided on Ashland Lakes. We were happy to have his Subaru to get up to the trail head. I was also grateful to have his backpack and general outdoorsy-ness.

Little did I know we would also be mushroom hunting. Any guesses as to my depth of mushroom knowledge?

Zero. I could easily eat something that would make die a horrible slow death for all I know.

Ashland Lakes is an easy hike, half of which is boardwalks. Pro tip: hiking boots are not meant for slippery boardwalks. I was happy to have been wearing my sneakers. But you get multiple lakes in one hike which is a pretty good payoff for a small amount of effort.

At some point, I decided there was DEFINITELY another lake. And we were here for adventure. So we climbed up what essentially a waterfall/stream/cliff situation. This was not in the plans. We got to the top and looked around for a few. No sign of any other lake.

I apologized profusely for not only making us climb up, but for inevitably forcing us to also climb down said waterfall/stream/cliff situation. Not the most enjoyable part of the journey, but hey, adventure!

The trip was supposed to be just shy of 5 miles. But according my FitBit, we ended up doing around 8. I’m sure our little side adventure helped as well. We also found perfect camping in the area so that is getting added to the list for this summer.

And I didn’t have to bury him in the woods, so thats a plus.