Apple Canyon has 13 miles of hiking trails. They wind, dip, climb, stretch and tumble around the lake, giving superb views of the water, some of the fabulous new homes and the old cottages built in the first years when streams still fed the lake to its full 70-foot depth.

On Monday, I walked the entire route. It was one of those perfect days to hike … the first 60-degree day of spring, sun aloft in a blue sky, birds and beasts moving about. I had to get out there and explore. Winter was a killer out here, and if you didn’t have to hunt for your food (and I didn’t), the need to go outside to wade through three-foot snow drifts was not high on the chart.The easier route around the lake trails is counter-clockwise. It’s easier because you have fewer steep grades to ascend. Some hikers say the ascents and descents even out when looked at from a go-this-way no-go-that-way argument, but I’ve hiked (and ridden motorcycles) enough at ACL that I can visualize every one of those hills. I’m right, they’re wrong.

I packed my backpack with an extra windbreaker, gloves, and a wool hate (you never know what the weather is going to do); an apple, granola bar, pumpkin seeds for lunch; and 1.5 liters of water in my trusted thirst bladder that has the hose thingy with a nipple-like end that can stick out the back of the pack for easy hydration. Beats stopping to wrench a bottle from your pack.

Back in the day, let’s say 25 years ago, wood bridges spanned each of the feeder stream found around the lake. Not anymore. The bridges required too much maintenance, and so stones mounded over culverts replaced the bridges. All except for one stream, found at the north bay. Here the stream is a good 18 feet wide. The stream is shallow at the crossing, especially during the summer. A rock path spans the stream for an easy, if semi-acrobatic walk from bank to bank. In springtime, the water is about eight inches deep. My boots come up about six inches around the ankles, and they are waterproof.

I looked into the stream like a skier observes the mogul field he (or in some cases, she) is about to tackle like a mad Beserker. There looked to be about eight or ten rocks just beneath the water line that I could negotiate. The alternative was a round-about trek that would have sent me through thickets and shit, and why do that when there’s adventure to be had. I rolled up my pant legs, stepped out onto the first rock, with my arms out to the side like a tight-rope walker. My trusted boot tread got good traction; I stepped to the next rock, still okay. The water crested just below the rim of my boot. I stepped onto the third rock, and here things turned wet. The third rock shifted and my boot plunged below the water. “Fuck this!” I yelled. (Yes, I spoke to the wind). I did a Walter Payton high-step to the opposite bank (sort of… I wouldn’t want video to surface on how I actually looked).

The water had seeped down into my boots, but not as bad as I had feared. In about a hundred yards I was wet to the toes, but not sloshing in the boot. I would go on. I would persevere!

I figured, from past experience hiking around the lake with Dracula (my dog, not Transylvania’s most valuable export), that the hike would take four hours. My plan was to rest at the 2 or 2.5 hour mark — about halfway. My designated stop was a picnick table at a beach in the President’s Bay cove. I reached that just as the 2.5 hour mark struck. Instead of the beach, I sat on a bench installed in the honor of some dead Apple Canyonites, atop the ridge of a great big silt pond that overlooks the bay. A nice spot for resting, sure, but would you honor your dead grandmother or whomever with a bench at the edge of a dredging pond?

Here was my rest. I needed the rest. My legs hurt, I was just under 2/3 of the way home. My water would hold out fine. I decided to take 25 minutes, and perhaps dry my socks a bit in the sun and warm wind. I yanked my feet from the wet boots, pulled off the socks, wrung out a tablespoon-ful of moisture, and set them of the seat edge. There they swung in the breeze.

So I ate my lunch (after using a HandyWipe to de-soil my hands) and rested in the sun. The sun had only gotten warmer, but the breeze cooled the air, which had made the hike pleasant. When summertime comes I’ll consume nearly all the water in the hydro-bladder on an around-the-lake hike. Today it was a just a day of putting miles on the boots.

Speaking of which, when I put on the now-damp-but-no-longer-wet socks, my feet felt comfortable in the boots. On I went.

I spooked lots of deer on this hike; there are so many deer at ACL now, they just do what they want and hardly spook when humans are about. They’ve gotten used to us. I spotted many hawks along the way, too; one swooped from his high-limb perch for a kill of a small rodent. I saw no snakes, but stepped over millions of downs twigs and branches that constantly played with my imagination.

When I made it past the dam, up that hill and around to the golf course, I saw the end was reachable, even if my hips were now aching, and my step was a little less sure on the uneaven ground. The last hill up to the house, I wanted to run, but I got three steps and felt my knees wanting to give out. I figured that was a sign to not run.

Sitting in the sun, getting my wind back, taking my pulse, feeling the ache of my muscles as a badge of honor, I so wanted a nice cold Heineken. But I’m on this weight loss diet and decided the extra calories were not worth the celebration. Instead, I took a long, hot shower and moaned and groaned the rest of the day.

I figure if I walked the lake route every other week, I’ll be in good shape to pick up the pace and beat my three-hour twenty-five minute time.