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.   

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. 

Pine Glen Campout

As the weeks of school trudge on, I grow weary of the endless lack of wilderness. After some struggle,

Mike and I decided to go camping this weekend.

Mike

 My family is discussing a family campout at pine glen campground, so Mike and I decided to go test it out. Pine glen is located some distance from any major towns, and is thus rather peaceful. 

Pine Glen Close to the Middle

Father and Olivia followed us out there and stayed for a little while. The campground is located in a bend in Shoal Creek, making white noise in the night and making a pleasant valley to hold the campground.

The Creek

We lit a fire and began to set up the camp. 

It was a rather pleasant campsite. 

I ate some freeze dried spaghetti, and Mike had some tomato soup, then we ate hot dogs for dinner. 

Before long, the sun set and the valley was plunged into darkness. 

I walked to the restroom facilities, which were fairly clean, and on the way, my flashlight went out. 

See?

When it did, I noticed small, dim lights on the ground. I first thought it was a reflection of a distant lantern, but then I realized that they were too many and moving. I turned my flashlight on on one of the glowing spots, revealing small centipedes. There were thousands of them, little bioluminescent centipedes. It was spectacular. The stars were also amazing, and equally as unphotographable. Mike went to bed fairly early, I stayed out and poked the fire and watched the stars for a while, and then retired into my hammock. I used a foam pad for insulation, and slept in my mummy bag. I never got cold, though I could tell it was cold. After we woke up, we lit the fire back up and made some grits. We packed up and continued driving north, finding a cemetery and then stopping at sweetwater lake. 

It is a beautiful and fairly large lake made from a dam on Shoal Creek. 

Mike ended up jumping into the lake, I changed into some gym shorts and wading in a short distance. 

 The Loch Sweetwater Monster

It really is a pretty lake. It is very secluded too. Miles down a fairly bad road. The road had a number of unusual humps, I assume they are designed to stop boat trailers from coming down the road. 

We then followed the road on until we found a bald with a few and a small trail heading up it. The views were impressive. 

Duggar Mountain

Not long afterwards, we emerged from the forest in Rabbittown. We then proceeded home not long afterwards. It was an excellent trip, and a welcome reprieve from the stresses of daily life.