Ivy the Poodle has never gone backpacking, so we thought we should fix that problem. Our unicycling friend Alyssa decided to make it her first backpacking trip as well. We chose section six of the Ouachita Trail because it’s an easy hike with accessible water. And on beginner trips, it’s nice to use a trail shelter and leave the tents at home.
What a pretty, pretty weekend! It was warm and pleasant hiking; in fact, we had to stop along the way so that Jarion could adjust Kathy’s pants by cutting out the too-warm linings. Continue reading “Ouachita Trail, Section 6”
The timing was perfect to celebrate Britt’s retirement. After a long career caring for elephants in several states, and one last sad and frustrating year at the Little Rock zoo, he said good-bye to the animals on Thursday. We hiked a few miles together on Friday, and then set up camp near a pretty stream. We made cherry cheesecakes and hung a makeshift “Happy Retirement” banner near the campfire and drank wine together in the dark.
Congratulations, friend. You chose a career in something you loved, something that allowed you to work hard and keep learning. You chose family over money and you chose moving forward over standing still. You made animals’ lives better and you made people smile. We’re looking forward to your next adventures, and we hope you’ll share some of them with us.
Sometimes the best places are the ones close by. We wanted a quick, low-mileage weekend camp-out and hike, so we drove to Lake Catherine, near Hot Springs. Why haven’t we been there before? Probably because it’s only thirty minutes away.
It was a pleasant campground with some walk-in sites, so that we didn’t have to cope with neighbors close by. We enjoyed walking around the camping area early the next morning and and exploring the short dayhiking trails later in the day.
Funny that such a pleasant state park’s practically in our backyard, but we’d never been there before. There’s no doubt we’ll be back soon, though, for another visit.
Our friends Adam and Amy live in Georgia. We keep in touch online but hadn’t spent the weekend together since before Bryan and I were married, and before their daughter Maddie was born. Maddie’s three now, and another baby’s on the way. We decided it was time for another getaway weekend. Since it’s easier for us to travel, they chose a cabin in the north Georgia woods.
The boys worked on some minor photography projects, though since Amy spent part of the weekend feeling yucky, we didn’t do the family pictures we’d been planning. We made a few side trips to visit hiking areas and waterfalls nearby. I think the biggest accomplishment of the weekend may have been figuring out how to drive AROUND (rather than through) the horrible tourist trap town of Helen, GA.
Predictably, all the tourist areas were mobbed with people on a three-day holiday weekend. The viewing deck at this pretty waterfall was so crammed with people we could barely get onto it. Bryan’s magical postprocessing mashup* of several exposures makes it look like a peaceful scene.
We also hiked to the top of Brasstown Bald, the highest point in Georgia. It was a wide, pleasant trail with a great view from the visitors’ center built at the top.
We enjoyed spending a weekend in a comfy cabin in the woods catching up with Adam, Amy, and Maddie. Thanks, friends!
* Take lots of photos, layer them in Photoshop, mask out the people so they disappear and VOILA! Serenity in memory if not in the moment. –Bryan
Our friend Isabel just turned five, but she’s been outside a lot. Her parents are both active, outdoor people – they both cave, and Amy runs and backpacks, and Spike hunts a lot – so Isi’s quite accustomed to sleeping in a tent, to eating noodles while sitting on rocks, to peeing in the woods. No problem. Isabel is comfortable in the big wide world.
Our good friend Kathy is a good campground-camper, but had never backpacked. She likes being outside, but she’d never actually carried all her stuff on her back and spent the night in the woods far away from everything. So we all decided that we should fix that. We picked her up after work on a Friday and drove to Shady Lake campground to spend the night and be ready for an early start on Saturday. Continue reading “Kathy’s First Backpacking Trip – Caney Creek”
Seeing as how this blog’s name is “Past Tents”, you shouldn’t be surprised to find out that we are frequent tent USERS but we’re not very good about maintenance. We tend to leave our tents crammed into their stuff sacks for weeks after a camping trip, without airing them out or cleaning them at all.
Finally, we had enough of stinky tents and washed all four of them this afternoon. We scrubbed them down with soapy water, rinsed them, and even soaked each piece in Mirzyme to get rid of that wet-tent smell. We hung our strange laundry on the backyard line to dry in the breeze. Worked like a charm.
Last winter, we hatched a plan to backpack the whole Ozark Highlands Trail with our friends Britt and Debbie. While we’ve all hiked a ton, none of us has spent much time on the OHT. One weekend trip each spring and one each fall should be enough to finish the 225-mile trail by the time Mandy graduates from high school.
This autumn’s Boy-Free Backpacking Trip was the first weekend in November, in celebration of Amy’s having taken the PE test the weekend before. It was planned by Miss Pic the Iowa Chick, and it couldn’t have been better. Well, it could have been better but that didn’t have anything to do with Pic. She chose to have us spend parts of three days in the Irish Wilderness in Oregon County, Missouri. Everyone from last spring’s trip was there again (Mandy and I, Debbie and Amy, Pic and Sue) and we were joined by Amber, Kathy, and Patti. And lots of snacks, including Godiva pumpkin truffles. Continue reading “Boy Free Backpacking in the Irish Wilderness”
Several polo players have been saying they’d like to go backpacking, and somehow our schedule shifted and gave us a free weekend, and we thought that sounded like a good plan. Bryan brought maps, I brought food, and Mandy brought plastic pirate gear.
Our original plan was to hike section seven of the Ouachita Trail. It’s a pretty 20(ish) miles, and climbs up and over Blue Ouachita Mountain. But it hasn’t rained in awhile and nearly all of this section of the OT is high up, crossing the tops of some drainage areas. The trail shelter is near a spring that doesn’t run all year. So almost at the last minute we realized that since we didn’t want to carry two days’ water, section seven wasn’t a good plan, and we switched to section six instead. Section seven isn’t as high up, and it would allow us to spend the night at a shelter near a substantial stream.
Adam has some knee problems, but he’s a good sport and wanted to try the hike. He brought two or three different knee braces and a lot of pain medicine.
We hiked about six miles on Saturday before arriving at the trail shelter, a simple wooden structure with almost four sides. The shelters on the OT are handy for people who may not have lightweight backpacking tents, or who may just want a break from carrying them. If the weather’s bad, it’s nice to have a tin roof and a wooden floor, instead of a drippy nylon tent. And no matter what the weather, picnic tables are handy.
Ruth and I both brought our ENO hammocks. Mandy was called into service (dressed in her lovely military longjohns) to help hang the higher hammock.
Ruth taught us how to flip from one hammock into another, and a great deal of the in-camp entertainment involved watching Mandy and Ruth attempt to do this at the same time.
Our decision to change plans, to the lower section of trail, was a smart one. Not only did we have a creek to play in after a long day of hiking, but there was water to pump for supper and for breakfast the next morning, and there was water at lunchtime on day two as well.
It’s been a busy autumn for all of us, and I think we all enjoyed getting out of town and into the woods for a couple of days.
We’d had a late morning start on Sunday, and at almost suppertime Adam’s knee was starting to give out with nearly five miles to go. Ruth, Vinnie, and Mandy still had a lot of energy, so we decided to split up at a road crossing. Bryan and I stayed with Adam and all six packs. We loaded up the others’ pockets with snacks and a small first aid kit. We made sure they all had jackets and water and headlamps and a map. When they left, we set up our hammocks and waited.
They finished the trail in just under two hours, running a fair portion of it. They got to the car, picked up the truck, had a snack stop at a gas station and a bathroom stop at a church. As we waited, we set up two red blinkers in the woods near our hammocks, so that they could find us easily. And sure enough, just as it got too dark to see easily, the Subaru and the pickup pulled up to take us to a good Mexican supper in Jessieville.
