Autumn Cherry Trees

            We slipped out of life and into the wild again this weekend, my second week in a row. The weather was positively amazing; dry, clear, and cool. We went south-east of Munford to Cherry Tree Hunter's Camp.

             There was a fire ring of flat rocks under a thick pine and hardwood canopy, preventing thick underbrush from growing atop the smooth knoll upon which the campsite was located. The trees were spaced out far enough to be reminiscent of columns in a tall cathedral, complete with a vaulted ceiling and bright light shining through green "stained glass." There was a steady breeze which kept the area cool, and very few signs of humanity.
We set up our shelters, and gathered firewood. We decided to do without any artificial fire starters to prove to ourselves we haven't become too soft, so I piled some wood shavings and a touch of lint on a piece of bark and used a flint and steel to set it alight. I put the tinder under the kindling teepee, and soon we had a fire.

We managed to keep it quite large, and were able to cook on it.

There were three of us on this trip, myself, my father, and Mike.

        A fun group, with lots of jokes and good conversation.
For dinner, Father and Mike grilled hamburgers, while I made an aluminium foil packet meal of hamburger meat and green beans.

Mine was very good, and though I can't speak for the others, they didn't complain. (Much)

         We sat by the flickering flames for a time and talked. while talking, The orange firelight reflected off of the nearby trees. In the distance coyotes cried their piercing howl, and screech and Barred owls let loose their songs. The peaceful autumn evening-crickets sang around us as we became slowly more drowsy. Eventually the fire had settled down to a small flicker, and so had we.

       There was a faint blue light in the sky the following morning when I awoke, feeling the chill on my face. I untangled myself from my warm nest of sleeping bags and climbed down to the ground below. The morning air was chilly, and soundless. The night crickets had ceased their songs, and the day crickets had yet to begin. I put on my jacket and walked over to the fire ring. I stirred up the white dust to reveal heat below, and piled some pine straw and small twigs on the red coals. With a little bit of blowing, the straw caught and we had a fire again.

         It was still somewhat dark when father woke up, the dawn having not yet broken over the tall mountains to the east. We began to make breakfast and coffee on the fire, which I had let burn down to hot coals for cooking.
After hearing several reports of bears in the area, and seeing that the state park and forest service have begun to place " what to do in a bear encounter"signs around, I decided to hang our trash up, as opposed to the usual of putting in the car or just leaving it hanging low on a tree.

      I personally don't mind having black bears here as they are traditionally fairly reasonable animals. That being said, we will start having to take precautions to avoid a close encounter, though I wouldn't mind seeing one at a distance.

        After breakfast, we built the fire back up, never having to restart it fully after just some tinder and a flint the previous day, and watched the sunlight appear first in the upper reaches of the trees a hundred feet above us, and then slowly creep down to us.

 After our wood pile was largely depleted we decided to pack up our stuff and head off to find some lunch. We got everything in the Yukon and I went to crank it. I turned the key and it made a faint click, and the electric locks started locking and unlocking. We popped the hood, but nothing obvious was wrong. We decided the battery must have discharged for some reason, although we couldn't think of one. Nothing was plugged in,and I turned the dome lights off the night before (to save the battery).

As you can see, it was very stressful

      We called a number of people, but eventually Mom, Olivia, Zac, and Kristen came in Mom's Jeep and jumped us off. We then all went down the road and up the mountain to Cheaha State Park, where we ate lunch before going to Bald Rock.

The Road Less Traveled (Mann hunter camp)

Having nothing else to do, we decided to go on an adventure Thursday. We thought about going to a campground with showers and bathrooms and plugs for phone chargers, but instead decided that the road less traveled is more rewarding.We went out to Mann campground, which is well out in the middle of nowhere. It was a fairly uneventful trip out there, and a peaceful day.
There were six of us on this trip, Dad, Olivia, Mike, and Courtney, Gracie and myself.

 Olivia and Courtney 

Mike, our resident comedian 

and Dad. 

All in all, it was a great group of people to be out in the forest with. We had many a story around the campfire, and laughter echoed throughout the valley throughout the night. The campsite was at the end of a dirt forest road, near a stream. The stream dribbled on, carving a sizable valley. The tall mountains which the Pinhoti travels along stood east of the campsite, and a vast track of empty wilderness ran to the north and south. This camp was at the end of a dead end two track forest road, untold miles from pavement and two miles from the nearest through road.

The (literal) road less traveled 

 Arriving late in the afternoon, we lit the fire and set up the tent as the sun set. 

Soon darkness fell. 

It was fairly cloudy, but outer space was visible in the gaps between the clouds. 

We sat out and talked until each of us got tired and went to bed.  I sat out a little later by the fire. Campfires have a certain mesmerizing quality. 

I then tried to go to bed, but unlike last campout, Gracie wasn't particularly sleepy. She barked and whined most all night, for no apparent reason. She is able to unzip the the tent door, and did so. I eventually put her in the jeep, where her whining was quieter and I was able to go to sleep. The following morning, all five members of the company reported hearing some sort of animal walking about the campsite. Finding some droppings, I figured that Gracie had been trying to inform us of some Coyotes nearby. I heard them the night before, and I believe Gracie smelled them. 

 She is one cute guard dog. 

I slept in the 2 person tent, and Dad, Olivia, and Courtney slept in the 8 person tent, and Mike slept on an alter-like air mattress in the bed of the truck. The following morning, I got up first. It was supposed to be the warmest night of December, but it did feel fairly cool in the morning. My 0 Degree sleeping bag kept me warm enough, but Mike said he was rather cold. It sprinkled a tad in the early morning, which did not help him much. 

Mike's sleeping arrangement 

The sun rose in the East, as one would assume it would, and cast a pink hue over the vale. 

 The others woke up fairly soon afterwards, and we began to make breakfast. 

A little while after breakfast Dad left to go to work. Not very long after, we packed up and left as well. 

On the way out, we passed a fairly large number of hunters, following the dirt road north toward Oxford. It was a pleasant campout, less adventurous and more peaceful. It was a very pleasant, remote location, and we had great company. Mike and I have a great friendship, he is hilarious and I think we make a great comedic team together. All in all, it was a great trip. I hope to go out again soon, if weather allows. Perhaps a good backpacking trip.   

Photographic Expedition with Mike

Today Mike and I were having issues figuring out what to do this afternoon, so we decided to borrow Mom's nice camera and try to get some pictures of the forest at sunset.

We soon found an overlook which faced out over the valley in the south, toward Talladega and Munford.

Soon the darkness fell, and the picture taking opportunities got even better.

 If you can't tell, that is the night sky, complete with billions of stars.
We took a few more... pictures,

and headed up the side of Cheaha. The sound of coyotes echoed throughout the valley behind us. Soon, the lights of Oxford appeared before us.

We took a few more pictures, but this one stood out the most to me.

With the trees in the foreground, it is easier to see the sky. Anyway, that was our afternoon. Wandering through empty forests at night can be frightening, but worth it, in my opinion. Although in the course of this trip, the pin that holds my tire carrier closed was lost, forcing us to improvise. Luckily, I carry a lot of random tools everywhere with me.

I c-clamped the tailgate closed, which somehow held up the rest of the trip. Anyway, I just wanted to share.





Some other pictures of the trip:

Turkey Day Camp 2 at Skeeter Branch

                 

 
I know I am posting this a little late, but last week was my finals week, which concluded the worst experience of my life. I cannot even begin to describe how unpleasant this last semester was. But it is past now, and I must look to the future, and figure out ways to improve it. I find that spending more time outdoors usually makes it easier to cope with the daily stress of civilized life, and they say that having hobbies and being involved with clubs correlates with better grades. The week before last was Thanksgiving week, and we had family in from out of town. The same family as last year, in fact. With the dark shadow of final exams looming ever closer, my cousin Michael and I decided to get away for a while and go camping again. Unfortunately, most people were unwilling or unable to come with me, and it was just me, Michael, and Olivia out there. We did have one more member of our party though, one who was able to bring great comfort and who did unexpectedly well camping for the first time.

This is Gracie. She had never been camping before, though she has spent the majority of her life living outside. 

           So the day after Thanksgiving, (Known as Black Friday, presumably because of the inexplicable darkness that falls over people's souls when they go out with a bloodlust in order to loot stores for minor sales) we loaded up the two Jeeps and headed into the forest. Our target was Skeeter Branch hunter's camp, which we hoped would be unoccupied even though it was hunting season. Luckily it seemed as though all the hunters were also out trying to make up for any thankfulness they had on Thanksgiving by going shopping to feed their materialistic selves with more stuff they don't need, and weren't at the campsite. (In case you are wondering, I don't really condemn Black Friday this much, but the whole thing seems kinda wrong, like going from being thankful to being the opposite of that the next day.) The campsite was empty, as was most of the forest. It was a nice place, an elevated campsite on a knob surrounded by two low vales dipping down and then rising back to ridglines in the north and east, and a lower ridge to the west bearing the snaking passageway of the road making a thin path through the vast, mysterious forest. The northern vale contained a small stream from which one could gather water, if they found it necessary to do so.

Facing North from the camp, looking towards the stream. 

We set up our camp and lit a fire. 

Then I fetched our over-fire grill from the Jeep, and we cooked some hot dogs, followed by a fancier Lemongrass Salmon dinner. Both turned out pretty well, though the Salmon that I cooked turned out a bit more rare than I prefer. The night grew cold, but the crisp air was thin. The sky opened and revealed more stars than I have seen in Alabama in rather some time, possibly ever, exposing but a small portion of the vast creation of which we are but a small part. Many do not share my reverence for stars, but there is very little on earth which impresses me more than the beauty and vastness of the night sky. It is difficult, nay, impossible to comprehend the vastness of the distance between us and those tiny specks of light. Nature's beauty in all of its forms serve to remind me of the majesty of it's creator. Others may interpret it differently, but as for me, being in nature is a spiritual experience, a form of worship. I oft am in a state of prayer when I am wandering about in the wilds. After talking around the campfire for a while, the cold eventually convinced us to go to bed. Gracie and I took an ironically named pup tent, and the others went in the two person tent.

  Gracie had gone to bed before the rest of us, and was taking up quite a lot of the tent when I came in to sleep. She moved without complaint, and the two of us were able to sleep without any difficulty. I was expecting her to bark, or to try to lick my face, or otherwise be a bother, but she actually slept all night calmly and without incident, as though she had been doing this for years. The only issue I had sleeping came from my slowly declining foam pad and a pine root under my back. The temperature had also declined greatly, down to under 28 degrees Fahrenheit, though i felt no cold in my mummy bag under a quilt.

The following morning, I woke to find that Gracie had done some burrowing to make herself warmer, but otherwise had done well.

I awoke at first light, before the sun had risen, and found it rather cold. Opening the door of the small tent was like letting a flood of cold water in, showing how surprisingly well the cheap tent had held out the cold. It is a $30 bass pro tent, and leaves some to be desired in many respects, but it packs down small and holds its own against weather.

That blanket is our clean staging area for various things, also where Gracie laid before going to bed.

I rekindled the flame, and ate a pop tart as I watched the sun rise. 

 This was a fairly solitary time, the 45 minutes before sunrise. A good time for quiet reflection. I soon broke any hint of peace and quiet when I awoke my companions, using a metal spoon and the bottom of a cookpot.  Drearily they arose one by one and wandered over. Olivia made a breakfast of potatoes and chopped sausages. 

It seems that the two-person tent was not really large enough for two people to sleep comfortably, which is to be expected. But it works in a pinch, I suppose. 

Before too long we loaded the Jeeps back up, not dissimilar to a wagon train in the old west, and headed back out. 

It ended up being a good campout, very peaceful. It is likely that I will visit Skeeter Branch again, and look at other hunters camps in the Talladega National Forest as well, now that I've seen that they aren't all as trash ridden as Duck Nest hunter's camp. This campout was very much what I needed then. The following week was wrought with stress and turmoil, but I did survive it, and the ordeal of my first semester at JSU is now but a painful memory. I will take lessons from it, and use them to make next year better. That is the embodiment of the outdoorsman-adventurer mentality really, taking the unpleasant, unwanted, and unforeseen and appreciating it, learning from it, and in many ways seeking it out to learn how to better your life and make you a more versatile and capable person.