The weather here in Texas is FINALLY starting to cool off, so I went hiking yesterday at the Hill Country State Natural Area, which is only a couple of miles from my house. It was a nice cool 82 degrees in the afternoon, with dry air. I hiked a quick 4 miles without even breaking a sweat. Man, I love fall weather!

Anyway, I decided to wear shorts this time instead of a kilt, just to scope out the trails and see what I think about hiking kilted in the future (I plan to do a hike at least once a week over the winter). My observations:

1. There is a lot of tall grass to hike through. All I wore on my lower legs were short socks with my hiking shoes, and they ended up full of grass stickers and seed spears. Ain't no way I'd want to do this wearing traditional kilt hose, unless I had some sort of outer protection (like Oddern's in the pictures above). I'd never get the prickly things out of the hose otherwise. But I need something on my legs, to ward off scratches and scrapes from the overgrown parts of the trail.

2. Due to the high overgrowth mentioned above, there ain't no way I'd wear a nice wool kilt on the trail. It would end up full of stickers and would definitely snag on the brush. I'm thinking that possibly the best candidate for hiking is my Utilikilt, being that it's made out of heavy 'duck' canvas that won't snag or pick up stickers.

3. I need a good walking staff! Must search for one. I might just cut myself one from the woods on my property, but it's hard to find the time to make one that would look nice. Anybody got any leads on a place to buy online, or maybe even a cromach maker?

4. Within the first 15 minutes of my hike, I was wishing I had worn my kilt. It would have been perfect. My next hike WILL be kilted.