Happy 8th Birthday to Wandering Pine! 

E I G H T . Y E A R S 🎉

Happy New Year! Thank you for being here, from Wandering Pine’s very first post to the 218th post! It’s time to break out the party tooters and root beer to celebrate! It’s always fun to look back on another year of adventure. I am grateful for your readership. Thank you for your support along the way!

Hard to believe that last post was exactly one year ago. Life took over this year and I wasn’t even sure I would write this post and continue the annual year in review tradition. But here we are! As usual, no grand New Year’s resolutions for this gal. But I’m kicking 2025 off right with a backpacking trip and spending “planuary” dreaming up new adventures for the year!

Ok, do you have your root beer and party tooter? Lets go! 🎉🎉🎉

2024 Fun Facts!

Annual Blog Stats:

• Number of posts:  1
• Number of visitors:  62,506 (+4,895)
• Number of views:  45,205 (+4,281)
• Total words: 1,911
• All-time views (2017-2024): 301.6k

Top 5 blog posts:

1. Hiking Bean + Bear Lakes 10.7k views!
2. Wheal n’ Flare! My Dance with Hikers Rash 3.3k
3. Backpacking Michigan’s UP | Pictured Rocks National Scenic Lakeshore 3.1k
4. What’s in My Pack? 5 Day Lightweight Gear List! 2.8k
5. What’s in My Pack? 5 Day Lightweight Gear List | Grand Canyon Edition 2.6k

Bonus Stats:

• Number of classes taught: 9
• Number of books read: 23
• Number of Academic Certifications/Graduations earned: 2

Looking Back

January

• 2024 Year in Review blog post
• 3 hikes
• 1st day hike at Afton State Park!
• First 10 mile hike of the year: Minnehaha to B’dote
• Kicked off my 6th 52 Hike Challenge
• Half-way through my graduate program!

February

• 5 hikes
• Kicked off another Groundskeeper season with 3 clean up hikes
• 2 frozen finger plein air watercolor painting sessions- Lake Superior and Elm Creek

March

• 3 hikes
• First bike ride of the year!
• Winter is almost over and we still haven’t had enough snow for snowshoeing!

April

• 3 hikes
• kicked off 30 days of biking! Started in the snow and ended with green grass and rain!

May

• 4 hikes
• Wet, soggy trails
• Started the garden
• New Hahnemühle watercolor sketchbook! I love the paper and size format

June

• 5 hikes
• Trip to Grand Marais!
• Painted my newest undyed Granite Gear art pack, representing the 4 seasons.
• Received a Grant and planted a BIG pollinator habitat using all native plants.
• Raised 4 monarchs from egg/caterpillar/cocoon/butterfly stage : Herbie, Lizzo, Prince and Fonzie
• GRADUATED from my Grad program!!!!

July

• 2 hikes
• Birding!
• Bike ride on the William Munger State Trail
• Bike crash 25 miles into a bikepacking trip
• weeks of painting with my left hand while my right elbow and wrist healed.
• First camper trip of the year to Whitewater State Park!

August

• 6 hikes
• Back on the Bike- all healed up, nothing broken!
• Camper trip to Moose Lake
• Tent Camping at Rice Creek
• Salvaged 21 canvases from the trash and finally broke out the acrylic paints.

September

• 3 hikes
• 2nd 10 miler of the year
• Family camping at Frontenac
• Organized another clean-up hike at Minnehaha Falls- 108 lbs of trash!
• More birding! I love the Merlin app and painting the birds that I see in my sketchbook.

October

• 4 hikes
• Taught my first zoom watercolor class of the year with the Kula Academy. Autumn leaves!
• Back to University for a 6 week masterclass!

November

• 5 hikes – January trip training begins!
• 2nd Annual Grand Rounds Scenic Byway bike ride.
• Taught a 6 week in person watercolor class in NE Minneapolis – full class!
• Played the fiddle 3 weeks in a row at church.
• Completed another educational milestone! Phew!
• Campsgiving 2.0 at William O’Brien State Park

December

• 9 hikes!
• Played fiddle at a holiday concert and both Christmas Eve services
• Art Booth– Mercy Holiday Market and Stillwater Art Center
• Training with a loaded pack – overloaded 10 lbs to simulate elevation
• Winter Solstice Luminary Hike
• Last 10 mile hike of the year on Christmas day!
• Finishing my 52 Hike Challenge with 2 days to spare!

Looking Forward

2024 was another full year of personal growth, adventure and adjusting with the ups and downs of life. I feel blessed to have been able go back to school, get back to teaching, focus on my personal art journaling practice and successfully navigate an injury and some pretty big life shifts! 

I’m excited to kick off 2025 with a backpacking trip, and hope to have more backpacking, bikepacking and birding in my future! My art practice continues to evolve and I hope to dig further into those acrylic paint and canvases I gifted myself last year! It was such a joy to meet so many of you in person and in online on the trail and in classes this year! Thank you for being here!

What are you looking forward to in 2025? Are you heading out on a big trip? Building your outdoor skills and spend more time outside? Cultivating your creativity? I’d love to hear about it! Drop me a note in the comments or join the Wandering Pine FB or IG to continue the conversation! Hearing from you is always encouraging and really keeps things going around here.

Thank you for being part of another amazing year here at Wandering Pine. Wishing you a blessed New Year full of good health, hope and new adventures!

~WP