New rule

Okay, I have a new camping rule. From now on, I will only go camping if I stick to established trails! Sure, you can still convince me to take a "bushwhacking" day hike and I'll still venture far off trail in pursuit of an elusive waterfall or a new shortcut, but NOT with a 35 pound pack strapped to my back!

As you might have guessed, I had some difficulties on my most recent camping trip. First, the positives. It wasn't too cold and I did get to see a new part of the Sipsey. Oh, and a lot of my new equipment worked very well. I'm nominating the Thermarest folks for a Nobel next year! Seriously, who could think about starting a war or such after a night on one of their sleeping pads? On the down side, equipment wise, the new "short" sleeping bag that I took a chance on is just a tad too short. I fear I am going to have to "gift" it to someone -- Merry Christmas, cousin Kari?

Regardless, the CAMPING experience wasn't bad. I left work early Friday and made it to the woods by early afternoon. I'd decided to explore a new part of the Sipsey and maybe find Clifty Falls. Though there is no official Forest Service trail to Clifty Falls, I relied on a sort of guidebook that claimed one would never realize the Clifty trail wasn't an official trail. The guidebook was right -- for the first couple miles. After a while the trail started getting rougher. I'd passed a couple of potential campsites when I finally came to a huge area of downed trees with no apparent path through. Not wanting to make a mistake I've made many times in the past, I backtracked about a tenth of a mile to a pretty good campsite. I figured I could scout a way through/around the barrier in the morning.

My original plan was to leave my equipment at the campsite and search for Clifty Falls with just my map, some snacks, and a large bottle of water. At the end of the day, I'd return to the campsite and head out. Friday night, though, I looked at the map and realized once I got to Clifty Falls I'd be darned close to a really easy trail back to my car. Shoot, that sounded better than backtracking over the sort of rough trail that I'd come in on, so I loaded everything up and headed out Saturday morning.

I did find a way around the big dead tree barrier and though the trail became very faint from that point, it wasn't a bad hike. Eventually, though, the path just disappeared and I was left to follow the creek the best I could. Even that wasn't too bad, but as I looked at the map more closely, I noticed the topo lines. There was a pretty serious elevation change between me and the falls and I'd noticed the creeks were all really low anyway (end of summer and all) so the falls probably weren' t that impressive. Plus, as I mentioned, the trail had disappeared and I had a 35 pound pack on my back. Finally, my handy GPS receiver told me I was only 0.6 miles (as the crow flies) from the easy path back to the car. Of course I am not a crow, but I did begin to look for a way out of the canyon/hollow I was hiking in. Some of the stone walls were pretty darned imposing, but I eventually found a "drainage" coming down into the canyon/hollow from the direction I wanted to go. The only problem was that there was still about a 10 foot, and VERY steep, wall to be scaled before getting up into the drainage.

I scouted severall places and I found one that wasn't too bad. It was way too steep, though, for me to climb with the pack, so I had to take it off and pitch it ahead a few feet at a time. Pitch a few feet, climb; pitch a few feet, climb, etc. I eventually got over that, but then the "thickets" began to grab at me. Honestly, it took a shade over two hours to cover those 0.6 miles. Heck, the last 300 feet took over 30 minutes. By the time I got to the trail I was exhausted -- and scratched up from head to toe. I'd fight through the briars and limbs and vines and think I had 5 or 10 feet of clear space when I'd discover the aforementioned briars, limbs, vines had grabbed my pack. It was very frustrating! I probably only walked about 4 miles Saturday, but I don't think I've ever been so tired at the end of the day.

Like I said, no more camping unless it's on well-travelled, cleared, official Forest Service trails. Every time something like this happens, I wonder how Daniel Boone or Davey Crockett or ... did it. Did they just stick to established native or game trails or was the undergrowth less of a problem due to more frequent fires or did they suffer as I did Saturday? I don't know, but I suspect they were better men than I.