Cave Creek Backpack

Since we had this weekend free, and new camping gear, we decided to go hiking and camping. We initially set out to do the "High Country Loop" which goes by Cave Creek trail and back by the Pinhoti, however due to weather concerns we decided to cut it short. I think it worked out better that way.
Yesterday morning I packed our two backpacks with all the gear we'd need, and at about 12:00, we set off for Mt. Cheaha. We ate lunch at the restaurant there,

 and then went to the trailhead just down the hill. This trailhead has a connector to the Pinhoti which is where we went to get to McDill point (which is on the high country loop) and our bald rock hike. We then began to follow the cave creek trail.

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    We were headed for the "Pinhoti Connector," though we would never make it. After hiking some distance down the trail, we noticed a spot where a number of other people had gone off the trail. We looked down the hill and saw this:

It is a sinkhole, where an underground water feature eroded the dirt to such a degree that it fell in. The sound of running water echoed from the hole, implying that there is still a larger cavern down there. We opted not to go down and see however, as it seemed to be in the mood to fall in. There was a fairly large tree that had been swallowed by the gaping maw that had opened beneath it.

 We then proceeded down the trail. There are a number of different types of areas, biomes if you will, along the trails. There were the more open woods, usually on a steep drop,

  and rocky areas where the shallow-rooted pines would grow,

and around the creeks there were green thickets of dense brush. These would be hotspots of life, since water is necessary for all life. Here I am looking down toward one of the creeks.

 And here I am crossing said creek. It was nice having those trekking poles, they helped us keep our balance when crossing streams and when walking across boulder fields.

Cave Creek Trail follows a contour line, as opposed to the Pinhoti, which goes along the top of the ridge. This makes it much easier to hike, since we didn't have to climb much. This also meant that there would be stretches where the trail was very narrow, and dropped off steeply to one side.

It usually wasn't a sharp cliff though, until the trail came to the point of the ridge. It then switched back to follow the contour toward Cave Creek, but not before revealing an excellent view. We stopped here to rest.

 The view to the southeast seemed to go on forever.

Looking back north, you could see where the two ridges converged, which is where the parking lot is.

The forest had thickened leading up to this vista.

It was equally thick under the cliff, but it was high enough to allow the view.
We then followed the switchback to the west, a long, meandering trail.

I feel very lucky that I am close with my father. I can't imagine what my life would be like if I weren't.

Shortly after the vista, we saw a rock which would be great for hiding under in a rainstorm, or for some hobbits to hide under. Depending on the situation.

About 45 minutes later, we arrived at Cave Creek. This creek is present year round, and is a common watering hole for hikers. It was a very pretty mountain stream, rushing by with the recent rainwater.

At this point. it was about 5:00. We decided to start looking for a campsite. About thirty feet from the creek, there was a small side trail that led up the mountain. We decided to follow it to a probable campsite.
When we got to the top, we found what looked at first like the perfect campsite.

Rocks to sit on, a nice fire ring, and a good view.

Of course, it had a few minor issues, it had obviously been used a lot, and firewood was scarce. It was also on a hill, so the wind may get bad at night. These were minor issues though, and we started to set up camp.

We quickly realized a problem we didn't see at first, that made it impossible to stay there. 

Ants. Billions of ants. They were covering everything in sight, from the rocks to the trees. (That picture is from google, I didn't take it. For the record.) 

So we decided to look for a second campsite. We found this place on the side of Cave Creek, but we decided that it was too close to the water and we didn't have enough room.

 It was a nice spot though. We moved a few hundred feet up the hill, where the forest opened up more. 

We gathered some sticks to start a fire, and set up our hammocks. 

Luckily, it wasn't supposed to rain, so the tarp didn't have to cover both of us. It worked well to keep the wind and treestuffs off of us, and allowed us to see the stars out the sides. You can see where the brush gets thicker around the creek, just past where Dad was gathering firewood. 

After the sun dipped behind the ridge, the light faded quickly. 

The fire quickly became the only significant light source. 

When the dark hit, we heard a Barred Owl's "Who cooks for you?" cry. 

Soon it got dark enough so that pictures were no longer possible. I cooked (read: burned) some hot dogs over the fire, and Dad ate a can or two of oysters. I also ate some animal crackers, and drank mint tea. I first had mint tea in Morocco, and I now think it is quite good. It is easy to make camping as well, adding flavor to the water. (In some cases, overpowering the "purified" taste of iodine water. Though I didn't notice much of a taste this trip.) After discussing some philosophy and astronomy, and other such things, we retired to bed. 

I didn't have much trouble sleeping, my mummy bag kept me plenty warm and I was comfortable in the hammock. I woke the following morning at about 6:30. 

I use that ridgeline rope to hang stuff like my light and my glasses. I have a bug net, which I used although father said that no bugs ever bothered him in the night. (I did offer it to him before I attached it to mine.) 

As you can see, the hammocks look pretty warm and cozy, with the proper gear. It never dropped below fifty this night though, and there is a point in temperature where I would recommend a tent. But the hammocks are better than a tent for this sort of thing, in my opinion. 

Dad started up a breakfast fire, and I boiled some water we had collected the previous night. 

I used the MSR "Pocketrocket" stove, which was really nice for backpacking. It folds up to be really small, and is virtually weightless. The main complaint I had read in reviews about it is also my only complaint, stability. However using a rock to keep it flat worked, and to have a stove that small and effective was worth it. 

Its prongs are designed for a bowl-shaped bottom, which causes most of the stability issues. It worked great though. I made grits and Dad made coffee with it. 

The grits didn't last long. 

Here is a "Where's Waldo" type picture from when I went down to get some water. 

It was nice, getting our own water instead of just relying on what we brought. It made me feel self-sufficient. Like we were living off the land. We used the Coleman Iodine solution to purify the water of harmful bacterias. 

After breakfast we began to pack up. 

At this point, the clouds began to look ominous. Father checked his weather app on his phone, revealing that the rain was going to arrive hours before it was predicted yesterday. 

 So we decided to fall back the way we came in the effort to escape the downpour. 

We trekked out with some speed, meandering along the ridge whilst looking over our shoulders at the approaching rainstorm sweeping across the valley.  

 We arrived back at the vista again. 

We wound back through the thickets, 

The little path made a thin line through the vast forest. It soon began to sprinkle as the rainclouds encircled us. 

We passed the steep drop again, this time moving faster. 

Horse Creek ran in the valley far below, slowly carving it deeper. 

The rain swept over the next ridge east of us, but we were close to the parking lot now. 

By this point it had begun to rain pretty hard. 

It had been a great hike. I thoroughly enjoyed all of it. Everything seemed to work out well. The minimalist attitude was nice as well, as we didn't have much stuff to deal with. Just us, our packs, and the wild. The hammocks were great, at least for me, and the food was excellent. We didn't accomplish our goal of making the loop, but it turned out great. 

Eagle's Nest Dryfly Rain Fly Review

Recently, I purchased the Dryfly rain fly from ENO. I have not been disappointed. A few days after buying it I went out in the rain to test it, and ended up taking a good nap under it in the hammock.

 Even having hung it in a somewhat poor position, it still kept me completely dry. The only water which posed a problem was that which I had on myself from walking out there.

The fly repelled the water without issue, and easily covered the whole hammock. It dried off fairly quickly as well. Coverage was the main complaint I had read before buying it, and I can't see how it was an issue. Maybe if you hang it too high, then the hammock could swing out into the rain, but then you could stake the middle two guy lines out further and have a wider footprint.

Here I hung it high on one side, so to allow good airflow. This illustrates my point that these flys are very versatile. You can hang it closer to the hammock with the stakes all close to you to be warmer and dryer, or you can hang it high on one side to block the wind from one side and reflect the fire on the other, or many other methods. All in all, I am a fan.

Lost On The Mountain

My father, my sister, and I went hiking again today. We intended to follow the route in my book, ("50 Hikes In Alabama.") to Bald Rock, but we ended up taking an unintentional shortcut and not making it to Bald Rock.
Olivia drove us in her Jeep to the Pinhoti trailhead just down the mountain from Cheaha State Park. We proceeded up the connector to the Pinhoti, and turned north. Soon we came to a hollow with green plants and the sound of running water.

                                                                 It was a bit foggy on the mountain. 
After passing through the greenery, we came to a flowing mountain stream. You can almost smell the water before you get to it, a clean, mountain scent.

Olivia had some issues crossing the streams, as she was wearing the wrong sort of shoes.

            Father tried to help her across them. She pushed on valiantly, despite not knowing that we were going hiking that day.  

We continued up and out of that hollow, then down into another. It rained last night, making the water features far more dramatic. We came across this vista:

 We crossed several more small, pleasant, mountain streams until we came to what the book calls a "sliding cascade." It was a large waterfall off to one side of the trail. These little greenery-filled valleys felt like something out of a Disney movie. Like a fairy glen or something. It was a very pleasant atmosphere.

I wish we could have set up a camp there, but I didn't see anywhere we could do that in the future. 

We continued down the seemingly endless trail, through pine forests and rock gardens, past sweeping vistas,

more beautiful mountain streams,

and eventually to the "Blue Mountain Trail Shelter."

 This is where the journey went a bit off-plan. The sign for the shelter was at a four way intersection of trails. We knew that somewhere nearby was the "Bald Rock Trail," but we did not know which trail it was. We decided to go to the trail that went vaguely in the right direction. After going down this trail for a while, I ended up farther ahead than the others. I began to think that this trail was not the Bald Rock Trail, but rather a service road. By this point the fog had begun to roll in more intently, though I suppose it was more likely just a cloud that we had climbed into.

 I saw the others not far behind, and continued forward. I climbed out of sight of the others, and stumbled across a length of PVC pipe running out of the ground and across the road. I knew I must be close to civilization, so I decided to go on, instead of waiting. I hung my Renovation Ministries bracelet on the pipe so the others would know they hadn't lost my trail. I rounded the next bend, and found a small cluster of loosely maintained buildings.

The rock one in the background said "Spring pump house" (or something to that effect) on the door, and that seemed to be the source of the stream this road had been following. I opened the door of the small wooden shack in the middle, only to be greeted by a flock of birds exiting the shack. Shortly after my heart began to beat again, the others caught up. We could see the tall radio tower to our left, and a collapsing asphalt road. We followed this road as the fog thickened.

 Soon, we emerged from the fog bank to see the sunset over the clouds.

We proceeded on until we found a gate with a sign stating "Service Road, do not enter."  Olivia observed that it did not say "Do Not Exit," so we continued to the paved road, where mother met us in the Yukon. We were very excited to see her. On the way out, we were treated to a last view of the sunset.

All in all it was a great trip. Despite some despair by some in the group thinking we were lost forever, we all seemed to benefit from the experience. In the end our unintentional short cut shaved off nearly a mile and a half from the journey, and we got to see where Cheaha gets some of its water. The mountains are always beautiful, but more so when you are truly out in them. There is nothing like being in nature to make a good day.

The Patriot

This past weekend we headed down to Sylacauga to meet up with a Land Cruiser club to do some off roading and camping. Father and I met them at the Sylacauga walmart, and after getting some gas, we headed out to the forest. The first road we took ended up being impassable after a distance in. Though it was open on the map, it clearly had not been used much as fair sized trees were growing in the middle of it.

We didn't know it at the time, but this would be a forshadowing  of things to come. We decided to go the way that Clarence and I had gone previously, which did turn out to be open. We spent quite some time in the forest, we came to many dead ends, but it was fun. There were a few sections with pretty good rocks and hills, though for the most part we were on fairly good forest service roads. Most of the roads we tried that weren't main roads were either closed or dead ends. I rather wish we had more open roads out there. Many of the truly fun roads I have been on out there are now closed. But I digress. About halfway through the day, we came to one of these dead ends. After we turned around, we got back on the main road and turned right. After going about fifty yards down the road, we noticed three of the vehicles weren't behind us. We waited for a while for them to come around the curve, but they never did. Clarence and I took my Jeep back to see if they had gotten stuck or had broken down, but they were gone. We realized they must have gone left out of the road instead of right, and that the road network was too large to find them easily. Luckily, Clarence got a text from one of the lost, and we decided to just meet them at the campsite. We proceeded through the forest, which was very pleasant. The thin dirt road wound though hollows and around hills, over creeks and through fields. At one point we had even stumbled across a closed covered bridge, which was rather cool. Eventually we made it back to Tree Farm, the large campsite we camped at last year. My sisters Olivia and Ashley and my niece Lydia met us there. 

We set up our camp, and a few people began cooking. One member of the group was a competition level bar-b-q-er. We had our enormous tent-mansion.

Before too long, the three missing trucks found the campsite as well, and some time later two more vehicles came. We had ten vehicles in all at the campsite. The people who were there were all agreeable, I thought, and the food was good. I really enjoyed the large group camp. It made me wish we had a Jeep club locally.

You can see the smoker in this picture, the black canister. He used it to smoke some chicken, which was really good. 

Father was rather glad that Rowan and Lydia came. They were really good too, one would expect small kids to be less well behaved out in the wilderness. This campsite was good for the kids too, since it was just a big field.

This blur is Lydia.

I'll have to update this again when I get the pictures from father, but this is all I have for now.

Ps: I titled this the patriot because I had the only American made vehicle there.

New gear, looking forward to camping again soon

It has been cold. Given, that is to be expected in January, but it doesn't stop it from being unpleasant. As such, we haven't done much camping recently. In fact, even as i'm posting this, we still haven't been camping since the last post. I have however gotten some ideas for camping over the winter. For instance, I got a hammock for Christmas which is designed for backpacking. It rolls up into a very small container, and is amazingly comfortable. I believe it will be rather nice in campouts in the future.

  It is quite versatile. We are planning to do some more backpacking in the near future, the stories of which I will post here. If I can, I'm gonna use the hammock and a tarp instead of a tent of some of those trips, as it is much lighter. Although some places a hammock won't work, and tents will be more practical.
I am still hoping for a roof rack in the future, but perhaps that is just a wish, as they are quite expensive.

Here you can see it's quite comfortable, and also very large. I can lay diagonally in it and be flat, or lay straight and have that gentle curve. Its very comfortable, truly I cannot even really describe how much so.
Also, you can see here the tarp over it. Eagle's Nest Outfitters also make a rain fly for hammocks, but it's expensive, and this tarp rolls up rather small for its size. I may yet get the rain fly though, as it is very light. It was raining in this picture, and neither I nor any of my gear got wet.

If you look at the top picture, you can see that the way I rig it up creates a rope above the Hammock, which is both to avoid cutting the rope and to have a place to hang the tarp. It also allows a place to hang a light.

McDill geocache

While this isn't camping, it was still an outdoor adventure, so I figured i'd post it anyway. There is a fairly new geocache (a GPS based scavenger hunt game) on the McDill point lookout, a few miles south of Cheaha off the Pinhoti trail. The three of us (dad, Leah, [My awesome and beautiful girlfriend] and I) went out to find it. The intended way to get there would be to go down the Pinhoti. However, we decided it would be quicker to go straight up the side of the mountain. It was a pretty hard climb, nearly 1000 vertical feet, but we did eventually make it to the top. Once there, we were treated to this view:

Which is pretty epic. That is the actual McDill point lookout there. We stopped to eat upon arriving there.

After we stopped, we followed the GPS over to where the geocache actually was. Leah found it after I sorta bumbled around for a while.

After that, followed the trail a little ways and found this

Which is a crashed airplane that several of us had sought after in the past. I have heard several different stories as to what happened in this crash, but I truly have no idea.

I wrote this weeks ago when we went and did this, but for some reason it never posted. So here it is.