Circa February 2011. I hit the PK hike trails with Steve Anderson of Pondera Properties. We'd recently met with the Trifecta folks and were certain we'd won their hearts in securing Possum Kingdom as the venue for their Olympic triathlon. High on all things outdoors that day, Steve & I formed the PK Hike Club. Two years later the club is still active and very much an integral part of lake living for some. Take Deb Chapman, for instance. Now here's a woman who was always outdoorsy prior to joining the club - she & her husband have owned a ranch north of Graford for years and they love to fish PK with their sons. A tumble on a bike a several years ago threw her off tracks in terms of doing anything routinely athletic outdoors. Until she joined the club! Now she is adamant about hiking every week, has become a kayak enthusiast, and even coordinates golf cart path walks with folks living in/around The Cliffs Golf Resort. Which has become fairly popular, in fact! We've had a dozen or more folks sometimes on these frequent walks! Check out her Cliffs Activities facebook page! Then there's Todd McCall. Todd is game for nearly anything outdoors, particularly when he can sweat it out. The hiking and cart path walks help to balance out his fabulous motorcycle trips he takes each year - Big Bend and the Appalachian Trail to name a couple - and his annual month-long visit to Michigan to check in with all his college buds. He calculates how much time he needs to spend on the trails in order to compensate for the impact of each trip away from PK. Things tend to get a little crazy on these trips so he hangs with the club to stay grounded. That's what I like about Todd, great balance!!! Linda Roberts is one of a kind. One day she opened her curtains to a new outlook on life and hooked up with the club. She's been with us ever since. Every hike, every cart path walk, every paddle excursion. Every everything! She would be doing something outdoors every day, 'cept for children and grandchildren. She looks like she's 39 so it's hard to picture her with grandbabies crawling at her feet, especially when she's clocking a 5mph pace on the trails ahead of us all! Doc. Not a doctor-doctor, but an airline pilot. A JuicePlus+ advocate. The guy who made me jealous for the first time ever in my life by getting the Tige guys to teach him to surf off the back of one of their decked-out ski boats. UGH!!! No matter his flight schedule or J+ commitments, Doc finds a way to hike with the club each week! Me, well, hiking to me is like sleeping... it's a must-do or I grow detached. And if it weren't for my hike buds I'd have no one to share the experience. It'd be like playing a round of golf by myself. It's OK but I can't honestly say that I enjoy it much, it seems like more work than fun. Gotta have my buds to keep my spirits high. So I'm very fortunate to have the club!!! That pretty much makes up the CORE group, the die-hards who have been out there each week the past couple years. We've picked up a few new folks who I believe will become avid members, whose lake lives wouldn't be complete without a lot of hiking. Another half dozen regulars meet up with us each week which helps to keep a nice rotating balance of skill levels and interesting chatter! And still others join us for the first time bringing a lot of fun to our outings as we're able to show them the ropes and wallow in their awe of the trails! We hike around 9am Friday mornings yet that'll change to earlier times as the weather warms; by mid-summer we're out there as early as 7am. We go whether it's 25degrees or 95degrees; the only time we don't go is if it's raining. Most times we go to breakfast afterwards and during the warmer months we tuck in a quick swim prior to breakfast or a kayak paddle after. It's a great way to start what is always an eventful outdoor weekend at PK and a perfect component of lake living.