Hiking the bigger hill

Today I tried the bigger hill that I mentioned in my last post. I have hiked since then - it's been about 3 weeks since I've posted! However, we have had a lot of rain, so the amount of days I've been able to hike has gone down a lot. This weekend was beautiful, though. Yesterday I went on a similar hike as the one I posted last time - but I tried different paths. I ended up on a service road that had another entrance to the park, where I found some trail maps. Finally! Now I had some idea when I went in there of if I would need to turn back or if the path I took would loop to another one. Armed with my trail map, and a picnic lunch for myself (though admittedly I didn't eat it until near 6pm!) I headed back out again today. I am frustrated to report that I didn't quite make it to the top of dimple hill (the larger of two hills in this park) but I made it quite close. Another hiker told me it was about another 10 minutes to the top. I knew darkness would come fast, though, and I rightly guessed adding 20 more minutes to my hike wouldn't be good. As it is I just emerged from the forest at dusk and finished walking home after dark. The total trip time from my front door was about 2.5 hours but today I went at a brisker pace than I have been hiking. According to the trail guide I found online:

http://www.localhikes.com/Hikes/DansTrailMac_1890.asp

this trail should take about 3.5 hours and that's not including the time I spent inside my neighborhood since I didn't drive to the park. However, I was passed by a lady probably in her 50's who's pace on the trail totally smoked mine! We also saw several mountain bikers. When one of them passed me I was trying to keep Audrey out of the way so I told her to stay - and the biker replied "I can't stay!" It was pretty funny... My legs are quite tired now - and Audrey looks very calm - I think she enjoyed it!