Sora Hike #1 - Wissahickon Valley Park in Philadelphia

Finally did my first hike in the United States. It's really an easy hike, but for someone who hasn't done that for a while, the feeling is sooo good.

The park we went to is Wissahickon Valley Park at Valley Green Road in Philadelphia city. I don't know how far we hiked, so I did a google map to try to get an idea of the distance. I think if we had gone the "strolling" route back and forth, the whole hike maybe just 6 miles total. But I think we definitely went a little more than that.

We started at Valley Green Road, at the Valley Green Inn area and hiked leisurely to the intersection of Lincoln Drive and Forbidden Drive. It was strange along the way because we did not see any of the listed "point of interest" such as Devil's pool that we wanted to see, but didn't really bother us since we were talking all the way.

The hike was so leisure that when we reached the intersection and look at the map of the park, we were thinking we could have gone further. Then we started looking for the "landmark" called the "Lover's leap". It is said to be the place where the Indian chief's daughter and her lover had leaped off the cliff.

That was when our hike really begins. We started going deep into the trail (the real trail). Kept walking and wondering where is the place where they leaped. Apparently... we still have no clue till now what we are looking at... There were a couple of places we thought might just be the place. So we have decided to simply assume that one of the sections we went to is the Lover's Leap! =D

The hike back from Lincoln and Forbidden Drive intersection was the true hike. We were walking among trees, on rocks and logs and water and whatever. But we were kinda rushing because it was getting late and we did not know how far of a walk it was to get back to the starting point. But it was only on the way back we saw the various "point of interest"... The Monastery on Kitchen's Lane (believed it is the monastery), Fingerspan and Devil's Pool, crossed a pretty nice covered bridge etc.

Overall, nice hike! I am guessing we hiked at least 7 miles in total (with all the detour we took) and it took us a good 5 hours with some stops in between to snack and take photos.

On the difficulty scale with 10 begin the most difficult, I think this hike is probably a 1-2 kind of thing. Good start I guess... Need to start exploring more!!!