Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Cliff Dwelling at High Falls

This Christmas break we spent most of the time outside, despite cold rain the entire time. Today marked the end of my break and so I decided to go backpacking to finish.
We went to High Falls and climbed the cliffs to the top.
We went around and climbed up a ramp-like rock on the side. It was a bit of a climb, but it was worth it. The campsite we ended up on was on top of the cliff in the picture.
The waterfall and creek flowed in the valley at the base of the cliffs.
As the sun set, we set up our camp in front of the view.

Olivia and Leah were my companions on this trip.

I started a fire using a flint and steel.
Due to the cold, I used my hammock as a ground sheet and slept on the earth.
It was warm enough, but I should have tied the tarp lower to break some of the wind. I did not have any issue sleeping though.
As the sun set, the view became spectacular.



We ate dinner, freeze dried Mountain House, and went to bed not long afterwards. It was an early night, but I was pretty tired.
That rock marks a roughly seventy foot drop down to the creek and the waterfall. The sound was very peaceful.
The sun had not yet risen over the mountain behind.

I found a fallen tree and Leah and I sawed and chopped it into logs.



We had a pretty good breakfast, Leah had bacon and I ate grits. Olivia ate a freeze dried hash brown and egg thing, which she says wasn't good. Freeze-dried eggs.


We stayed up there for a while, it wasn't too cold and we wanted to relax. The wind began to pick up, and we packed up our stuff.
I didn't think descending the cliff would be safe with all our stuff on our backs, so I made a paracord pulley on a tree and lowered our stuff to the bottom of the cliff, then climbed down.
This cliff.

It was a great trip, and an excellent way to end the break. 




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