Thoughts on Hiking 100 Naked Miles (Part 1)

I have not hiked 100 naked miles yet; Im at 99.5, half a mile from my goal this year with only a little warm weather left. Now I am asking myself how should I finish it off, something epic like a peak summit, a casual walk to just get it done, or should I protest my own goal and not finish, fall just short? Maybe I should explain that last one: it was fun working toward the 100-mile goal, but it took away from the naturist experience of being naked in nature. More on that later, but first how did I get started on this quest? This spring I was enjoying a naked hike at Valley View Hot Springs on the 2,000 acres of private, clothing-optional land in the Orient Land Trust, and I came up with a plan, a goal. I have been doing naked hikes on and off for several years, and thought it would be fun to set a goal for miles hiked naked during the summer. I picked 100 miles, as that seemed difficult but obtainable, only difficult because I needed places free of the textile clad who would object. It seemed like the perfect goal, and after 32 hikes I am one hike away. The first batch of hikes at Valley View Hot Springs got me off to a good start. Really, what could be better than hiking naked along one of the beautiful mountain ranges of Colorado, in a place where the textile-clad must expect and accept the naked, and then soaking in a selection of nine different hot springs pools spread across a hillside. I did venture outside of the land trust onto Forest Service land, and this was the one time in all those miles that I ran into clothed people on public land. In both cases, a lone guy and a group of about ten young Buddhist looking for a place to do whatever young Buddhist do, I quickly pulled my running shorts on, but in both cases, I probably didnt need to. I must admit to wondering how the chanting and drumming young adults (young 20s) would have reacted to a naked person on the trail. We did talk about the trail, but it would have been fun to talk to them about why I was naked (I hadnt set the goal yet), and about their beliefs and what they were doing. After Valley View, I returned to my own territory in northern Colorado; the problem being snow persisted on most all my favorite trails, but there was now the goal. I would hike to and around the snow to get the miles in before the tourist began to fill the trails. I hike in thin Five Fingers shoes, so long hikes on the snow were limited because of frosty toes. As the snow melted, I was hiking off trail and on the unofficial trails I have found over the years, which are generally vacant of other hikers but not bear and elk. Somehow being naked around these animals in the wild feels special. I covered a lot of miles, saw a lot of wildflowers, streams, ponds, and summited one mountain. There was only one mishap when I fell into a scum covered bog. I was glad I was naked then, because had I been clothed, I would have been soaked. As it was, I washed off and dried in the sun. (Posted in 2 parts, because there seems to be a limit of about 750 word that will actually show up in some places.)