Blackfoot Figure Eight Loop Hike to Meadow Shelter
Beginning in mid-July, 2025 I decided to work up a walking schedule with the ultimate goal of walking a half-marathon, 21 km. The schedule involves walking progressively longer distances each week to gradually build up to walking the entire half-marathon distance.
Sundays are the “long walk” days and today the requirement was a 15 km walk.
I’d used mapmywalk.com to work up various hiking routes at varying distances and the Cooking Lake - Blackfoot Recreation Area (Blackfoot for short) is ideal for longer walks because of the variety and sheer length of trails and roads within the park.
After parking at the Waskahegan Staging Area, I set off at 8:50 am to do a “figure eight” style route with the goal of resting at Meadow Shelter around the half-way point and returning to parking lot via a boundary trail called “Ed’s Way”.
If you squint really hard and use your imagination, you can conjure a figure eight from my route today.
I felt sheer joy to be out on trails that hadn’t had my feet on them for years.
