February 5, 2020
Take a hike
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Photo provided by the St. Charles County Parks Department St. Charles County Park Ranger Abigail Chambers will help lead the Polar Backpacking Series, which has session slated for February 8 at Matson Hill, located at 670 Matson Hill Road, Defiance. The hikes through county parks provide participants 12-and-older the skills needed to tackle any winter backpacking excursion.
St. Charles County Parks Polar Backpacking Series gives hikers the chance to learn the ropes from a ranger with over 4,000 miles of trail time By Brett Auten Do not let the harsher temperatures curb your enthusiasm for getting outdoors. The Polar Backpacking Series, a hands-on backpacking class, resumes this weekend. If you missed the first session, don’t fret, as it returns on Saturday and there’s still plenty to learn in the final two outdoor adventures. St. Charles County Park Ranger Abigail Chambers heads the program. Chambers has hiked some of the most extreme trails in the country and traveled through the mountains, swamps, deserts, forests and on ice, to name a few. These experiences allow her to share backpacking with others who also have a
deep passion for nature and the environment around us. Chambers is a transplant from Florida with more than 4,000 miles of trail time in her back pocket. Chambers has had a love and a thirst for the outdoors since she was a child. She ratcheted up the backpacking notch in 2016 when she covered the Florida Trail. The Florida Trail is one of eleven National Scenic Trails in the United States and currently runs over 1,000 miles. “We saw different ecosystems after different ecosystems,” she said. The Pacific Crest Trail in 2018 was a different beast, stretching from Washington,
through Oregon, to California. The Pacific Crest Trail is 2,653 miles long and ranges in elevation from just above sea level at the Oregon–Washington border to 13,153 feet above sea level in Nevada. The route passes through 25 national forests and seven national parks. Like in Florida, Chambers was joined with her boyfriend, Cody Loucks. Chambers and Loucks took a much-needed physical and mental break with about 500 miles to go and when they finished, Loucks proposed and now the two are engaged. “It’s as simple as putting one foot in front of the other,” Chambers said. “Being with someSee’HIKE’’ page 2
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