Every weekend, Mike Hughes puts on his hiking shoes and does what comes natural.

"I don't know. I started hiking 15, 16 years ago, and now I wish I had been doing it for 40 years. Would have kept the blood pressure down," said Hughes, 61, one of the volunteers on the weekly hikes of the Batona (as in BAck TO NAture) Hiking Club, a Philadelphia-based group.

"We don't go too far or too fast. It's not climbing up Mount Kilimanjaro," Hughes said. "We go at a reasonable pace, and we have never lost anyone."

Batona keeps its hikes as convenient as possible, Hughes said. The club starts them near both parking and public transportation and generally has one hike of about four to eight miles and another of 10 to 17 miles each weekend. Connect with the club at www.batonahikingclub.org.

The point, Hughes insists, is just to get out and hike in natural surroundings. It is peaceful and energetic all at once, and there are plenty of places around that welcome it. Here is a sampling:

Batona Trail. Back in 1961, the early members of the Batona Hiking Club started clearing a trail in the Jersey pines, culminating at the historic site of Batsto Village in the Wharton State Forest.

With the cooperation of the New Jersey State Park Service, the well-kept trail has grown to 50 miles, with spurs and shorter loops all around.

The best place to access the trail is at Batsto, a restored old bog-iron mining village and company town last owned by Joseph Wharton, the benefactor of the University of Pennsylvania's business school. There is a visitors center on-site for both the village and the forest and trails surrounding it.

Batsto is on Route 542 in the Wharton State Forest, Washington Township, Burlington County. For more information, go to www.batstovillage.org.

Wissahickon Gorge. There also are 50 miles of trails in the 1,800-acre Wissahickon Creek area of Fairmount Park. The gorge is magnificent, and it is hard to believe that such a natural wonder is embedded in one of the great urban centers of the world.

The Friends of the Wissahickon share maintenance of the trails on a volunteer basis with the Fairmount Park Commission and always are looking for new people to help out (www.fow.org). There are maps on the Web site and directions to starting places including the Wissahickon Environmental Education Center on Northwestern Drive and the Valley Green Inn on Forbidden Drive.

Hikers have to share the trails with equestrians, who need permits, unlike the hikers, but given that horses presumably like nature as much as humans, that is a small inconvenience to bear.

Cape May Point State Park. The trails aren't particularly long at Cape May Point State Park, but real Jersey Shore addicts believe the best time to do anything there is in the fall.

Fall is the big time for birding at Cape May Point, one of the more significant stopover and flyover destinations for long-distance migratory birds. In the park is a large platform with boards where birders mark all the species they have seen. Hawks are the bigger eye-catchers, but there are many other big and small birds that fly through in October and November.

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection cares for the park and has three main trails -

Red, Yellow, and Blue - through varying habitats at Cape May Point. For more information, go to http://www.state.nj.us/dep/parksandforests/

parks/capemay.html.

Appalachian Trail. The famed Appalachian Trail runs northwest of the city, primarily up along the eastern ridge of the Poconos. It is under the auspices of the National Park Service, carved out mostly by volunteers in the 1920s and 1930s, spanning 2,175 miles through 14 states.

The Batona Hiking Club takes care of an eight-mile stretch from Wind Gap to West Bangor, about a 90-minute drive north of Philadelphia. The hiking is hillier and rockier than the flatlands in the Pine Barrens, but all the more glorious for it.

For more information about the whole Appalachian Trail, go to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy Web site at www.appalachiantrail.org.

Delaware Canal State Park. The Delaware Canal was built in the early 19th century to be the main conduit to get coal downstream from the Lehigh Valley to the more populated areas around Philadelphia.

Now a 60-mile stretch of the canal, adjacent to the Delaware River, is a National Recreation Trail, with 11 hiking trails of varying distances. Some of the trails go through towns, but all have river views and many extend on both the Pennsylvania and New Jersey sides of the river over connecting bridges. In fact, it is best to start at one of those bridges, which on the Pennsylvania side are at Uhlerstown, Lumberville, Center Bridge, Washington Crossing, and Morrisville.

For more information, go to the Delaware Canal State Park Web site at http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/parks/delawarecanal.aspx.