Walkabout 2011 - Mt Mitchell, Black Mtn Crest Trail, Table Rock, Kitazuma, Curtis Creek

For the 2011 annual Walkabout I had decided to gain some elevation; not elevation like the Rockies, of course, but the greatest elevation east of the Mississippi River. After driving out of Mississippi (max elevation 600 ft), I camped at Black Rock Mountain State Park in north Georgia. The next morning I drove to Mt Mitchell State Park in North Carolina. For those who don't know or have forgotten, Mt Mitchell is the highest point east of the Mississippi River at 6684 ft. (Interestingly, when we lived in Colorado, our house was only a couple of hundred feet lower in elevation than Mt. Mitchell.) The little state park (6320 ft) only has nine walk in tent sites, so one must plan ahead to stay there ... and the sites are almost never vacant. The first night a cloud and a two-hour rain storm passed through. I had a good tarp over my table and have a great tent in which to stow my gear, so I did not get a drop on me, except the few I got walking down to the restroom. Most of the night I sat at the table and read from my Bill Bryson book ... I love to sleep in a tent in the rain!

I'm again trying to visit some places I visited as a boy ... and by 'boy' I mean from the age of nine until I was almost 18. I have a bucket list of re-visits before I can't get to them anymore. After a day of acclimation and a short hike around Craggy Gardens on the Blue Ridge Parkway--a place I had first visited when I was ten, I set out on my main trip: a 4.9 mile hike from Mt Mitchell to a campsite at Deep Gap along the Black Mountain Crest Trail. Deep Gap sits at about 5600 ft in elevation, but one loses those 800 ft over and over again, and finally steeply down to Deep Gap.

Beginning in the Mt. Mitchell parking lot, one travels north through the picnic area to find the Deep GapTrail (Black Mtn Crest Trail) trailhead. The trail follows the crest of the mountains on an easy trail from Mitchell (6684') to Craig (6663'), then down and back up to Big Tom (6584'), down and back up to Balsam Cone (6596'), down and back up to Cattail Peak (6584'), down and steeply up Potato Hill, and, finally, steeply down to Deep Gap(5600'). Deep Gap is the only legal campsite between Bowlens Creek, at the north end, to Mt. Mitchell. I saw several illegal campsites on Potato Hill and Cattail Peak. The state park boundary runs along both sides of the trail until just before the top of Cattail Peak. An orange plastic blaze pretty clearly marks the way along the trail--very difficult to miss. The downside to this trail is that there is not a great water source at Deep Gap, so one has to carry a gallon or so of water for the trip. There IS a water source about half a mile below Deep Gap, but the rangers say that it is not always reliable this time of the year.

I left my vehicle in the Mitchell parking lot about 9:00 AM, with the proper registration form on my dashboard. The walk over to Mt Craig was fairly comfortable, except for the big stone steps going down. These steps work on a backpackers knees when carrying a load, but the trail is a popular one with the dayhikers. I couldn't help but think that these steps would also not be fun when an older gentleman returned the next day. As one approaches Mt. Craig, there is a warning sign to "stay on the marked trail" to avoid the delicate plants on the second highest mountain east of the Mississippi.

The hike down off of Craig to Big Tom is not a killer, but it does have some steep places along the trail. After topping Big Tom--named after the guy who found Dr. Mitchell's body in 1857--the trail down was more challenging with rocky scramble places that the park service has put ropes. There are two sections with fixed ropes, the first obviously placed to assist the hiker, but the second looked as if it was placed to direct the hiker to the side of the trail that the park service wanted hikers to travel. I don't know that they were all that needed, but they were helpful. A person carrying a pack has to pay attention to footing and not walk mindlessly because the trail goes over several rocky areas. The trail is very well traveled and the large rock sections are easily traversed.

As I climbed Balsam Cone I could tell that I was not in the top physical shape that I should have been for an easy climb. I took off my pack and rested a little while eating lunch. I was feeling pretty good about my hike so far until the members of a senior adult tennis club (that's what they looked like) came strolling up to eat their picnic lunches. I'm not positive that they were even perspiring. Some of the women looked like they were fresh off the church bus on a weekday outing.

The trip down the north side of Balsam Cone was even more challenging. Parts of it were steep and rocky. I was trying to look around at the scenery at the same time I was watching each step. The forest was thick with fir trees and other undergrowth. This is the summer, after all, and lots of summer plants and vines had crept out to touch the hiker. The state park rangers and forest service rangers must monitor this trail frequently because the fallen trees--of which there were many--are skillfully cut for the backpacker to travel. I can only remember one or two trees that I had to maneuver under. The next day as I was hiking out, I passed a couple and their two granddaughters, ages 12 and 16. The grandfather was enjoying himself ... the grandmother was not ... and the girls weren't sure whether or not they were having fun. I got the idea that the grandmother was holding the little group up so much the other three were frustrated.

The state park ended between Balsam Cone and Cattail Peak; although I wasn't sure exactly where. Another hiker's blog about the trip says that it is very obvious where the park ends and the NF begins, but I couldn't tell. The trail had some repairs and cross-trail logs to stop erosion practically the whole way to Deep Gap. Anyway, I was too busy watching my step along the way. Except for the first three-quarters of a mile between Mitchell and Craig, the hiker/backpacker has to watch footing. It's not treacherous, just constantly rough and rocky.

After a climb up Cattail Peak there is a big level area where I counted four or five fire rings. The wood is plentiful there and there is a sign to tell the hiker how far he/she has come, and how far he/she has to go. Interestingly, the sign has been pulled out of the ground and is leaning against a tree not accurately pointing in the right directions. Also interestingly, there seemed to be a "piss tube" like we used in the military ... a piece of three-inch PVC vertically driven or buried in the ground for the streaming of urine. It seemed widely used by males ... couldn't say how accurately it was used by females, but, honestly, I've never seen one out in the wild before ... it was certainly being enjoyed by the blowflies.

One the way down the north side of Cattail I encountered a group of ten or eleven young girls from a "summer camp" in the area (there are many). These young ladies looked to be 12, 13, or 14 yrs old, being led by a young man of about 19 or 20. They were stopped in the trail waiting on two girls who had fallen behind or stopped for some necessary relief. The girls said they were on a four-day hike, had hiked up to Deep Gap the day before, and were on their way to Commissary Ridge campsite for the night. I was impressed! The hike up to Deep Gap from any direction is formidable, and it's a good six-mile hump from Deep Gap to Commissary Ridge. Although their packs didn't look too heavy, they looked none too tired for the mileage. They sarcastically said that they had been promised some ice cream if they survived the four-day outing, but they weren't counting on it. They became more excited when I said that the little pizza store at the top of Cattail was open, but that all the owner had was pepperoni, and that the store was out of cokes and only had diet drinks. The look of anticipated ecstasy on one of the girls face quickly caused me to tell them that I was only kidding.

As I was hiking out the next day, I passed two 20-something women who were enjoying a lunch break on the south side of Cattail. They were on their way to Potato Hill trying to get in shape for an extended upcoming backpacking trip. We chatted equipment for a while because one of the women was just beginning to purchase her equipment. Of course, I don't need much encouragement to compare opinions about backpacking equipment.

The north side of Potato Hill was a challenge to tired legs and very tired feet. It went down and further down, and down some more ... and down some more. When the terrain would level out some, I would think that I was closing in on the campsite, but then the trail would go down more. At 2:00 PM I finally recognized the campsite from a couple of pictures on the web. I found a fire ring around which the grass obviously had been slept on by ten or so young girls. Unfortunately, they or someone before them had brought food in tin cans and had left the burned cans in the fire ring. That is one of my pet peeves about hiking in the woods ... I continue to be amazed a people who do not clean up after themselves. Since I was not going to build a fire, I found a place back in the woods a bit to stretch my hammock. After a snack and a nap, I woke up to see the sun beginning to fall down in the west and prepared my eyes (and my camera) for a beautiful sunset. The temperature was about 65 degrees with a wind out of the west at about 10-15 mph ... perfect weather for a campout. I pulled out my freeze-dried chicken stew and fired up my Jetboil ... and, BTW, while I'm on Jetboil stoves ... the new ones have this thingy on the side to tell a person when the water is boiling. IMO, a person who can't tell that his/her water is boiling has no business cooking in the woods ... or messing with a fire source in the woods ... okay, moving on ...

That night I got my best night's sleep on the whole trip. The wind was constantly sounding through the trees and a recording of it might have been put on one of those ambient noise machines that supposedly help people fall asleep and stay asleep. I did wake about 2:00 AM from a dream about sweeping out a school building, but quickly fell back to sleep, waking about 6:00 AM ... my usual waking time. Well, actually I wake at 5:00, but I was in the Eastern Time Zone, so 6:00 was my 5:00 ...

I began my hike out at 8:30 the next morning and climbed uphill for one complete hour before the trail leveled off any. Fortunately, I had drunk all but a liter of water and my pack was considerably lighter. I'm not sure why Potato Hill was named that, but the mental image of a large Idaho potato standing on it's end and being hiked over is a pretty good one. I saw a T-shirt that said, "Attitude is Everything - Have a Good One," and I kept thinking about my good fortune to be in the woods enjoying some of the most beautiful scenery in the eastern US ... consequently, it was not difficult to keep a positive attitude ... and, honestly, for old knees carrying a pack, climbing uphill is less punishing that going steeply downhill. The climb out of Deep Gap was actually not too bad ... the decent down the other side of Potato Hill and the ascent up the north side of Cattail was a challenge. It wasn't too long until I was back on the top of Balsam Cone where the Swannanoa Tennis Club had lunched with me the day before. From Balsam it was back up the ropes on the north side of Big Tom. I wasn't too tired to pretend I was actually doing something dangerous and pulled myself up without a belay. After Big Tom, it wasn't far over to the top of Craig where a day-school class of first- and second-graders was climbing ... their teacher was struggling with the concept of "staying on the trail," which had so plainly been posted on large signs on both sides of the mountain ... too bad first- and second-graders don't comprehend reading so well ... and, needless to say, she didn't linger long on top with the 15-or-so excited children ... in fact, she headed back down before the last few stragglers were herded to the top by a volunteer.

After returning to the parking area, grabbing a soft drink from the concession area, and putting my stuff in my vehicle, I drove 45 minutes or so around to Carolina Hemlocks Campground. I first stayed in the NFS campground when I was 11 or 12 after hiking up the Greybeard Trail, which begins at the back of Montreat Assembly near the town of Black Mountain. I think the old trail follows the old Mt Mitchell toll road ... or, at least, I remember hiking in the late 50s on something like a road up through there. I don't remember much about my stay at Carolina Hemlocks in the 50s except the swimming area on the South Toe River. The campground has been improved by the NFS and even has showers ... which were very nice after four days without a shower ... I stayed in the campground two nights and took a shower both nights ...

The morning after the first night in the CH Campground, I drove over to the Linville Gorge area to climb up on Table Rock. Last summer I descended down into Linville Gorge from the west and camped at the river. I tried to get up the east side of the Gorge to Table Rock, but couldn't make it and return to my camp before dark, so I turned around. This time I drove around the east side to the picnic area south of Table Rock and hiked from that point. After a one-mile hike and getting to watch some rock climbers summit TR after a 300-ft climb, I sat near a spot where I first stood when I was 12 yrs old. It was about 1:00 AM when I was there as a 12 yr old and I left very disappointed ... but that's another story for another time.

Thursday evening, I had a craving for a tomato sandwich, so I went to a little convenience store/fruit stand in Durbin, NC, four miles from Carolina Hemlocks ... I had put "'mater sammich" in my GPS and that's what I got ... and bought a loaf of wheat bread, a jar of Hellman's, and two large tomatoes ... and as soon as I got back to my campsite, I was loving on three big tomato sandwiches ... what else can I say?

On Friday, I packed up and left Carolina Hemlocks for a couple of more check-offs on my bucket list. The plan was to stay at a commercial campground near Old Fort. I had checked it out on a web site and it looked pretty good. When I drove up to the campground, I realized that some company that writes scripts for local politicians must have advertised for the campground. It was horrible! I couldn't stay there. Then I remembered that on the way in to Old Fort I had seen a sign for another Pisgah NF campground: Curtis Creek Campground (No Alcohol Permitted) was about six miles north of Old Fort. I drove on a paved road which became gravel about halfway up the mountain. Curtis Creek Campground was a gem. Most of it was new; which meant fresh outhouses--the big ones, not the portable ones. The new part had about 10 pads for trailers and RVs and four walk-in tent sites, one of which was calling my name. I quickly staked my claim and pitched my tent and hung my hammock. I was in business ...

At the top of the long hill on I-40 that runs from Ridgecrest to Old Fort is a small mountain named Kitsuma ... at least, that's the way the maps show it. When I went to camp nearby for 10 years, it was Kitazuma. In fact, there is a nearby street in the community named Kitazuma. Nevertheless, for one of the recognitions at the nearby camp, a camper seeking the top rank had to meet several tasks. One of the tasks was to run the mile up Kitsuma without stopping ... this was attempted at about 4:30 in the morning after staying up all night to keep a fire burning. I had accomplished this task when I was 11 yrs old, and had not been up Kitsuma since 1961 or '62. Also, down the backside of Kitsuma is a trail along Young's Ridge which runs down to a campground/picnic area near Old Fort. When I was a cabin leader at the camp, I had taken my cabin down the trail, eating blueberries all the way. Now the Young's Ridge trail is a popular bike trail ... and one biker passed me as I was hiking up to the top of Kitsuma Thursday afternoon (For old times sake, I thought about running up the trail again--a mile of switchbacks--but decided that I didn't want to get my shirt all sweaty ... yeah, right ....) When my son had been a camper at the same camp in the late 80s, early 90s, he had climbed Kitsuma several times. I emailed him a picture of the top when I got up there that afternoon.

I got a pizza on my way back through Old Fort and took it back to my Curtis Creek campsite. Ah, ain't roughin' it wonderful!

The next morning, after sleeping late with a pizza hangover (one can't waste good pizzas), I headed for another bucket list visit to a place known as Catawba Falls. I probably hiked to and camped near Catawba Falls twice every summer for the first five years I was at the boys' camp. Then, about 1959 or '60, a college-aged young woman fell off of one of the high ledges of the falls onto the rocks below and was killed instantly. The falls were closed to all hikers for the next five or so years, so I never went back. My second memory about Catawba Falls has to do with the Ratman story that was told every year ... and the first Ratman cave I ever saw was at Catawba Falls. Sadly, the rock over the top of the Ratman cave there has collapsed and one can hardly tell there was a cave ... it was much, much bigger and scarier when one is camping nearby at nine yrs of age. Some of us begin to see a pattern in the storytelling when every cave we came upon during hikes at the camp were declared to be Ratman caves. I think there is even one on the back side of Kitsuma.

Even this late in the summer, as dry as it has been, the falls are still very beautiful--as beautiful as I remember from 55 years ago and I almost didn't want to leave the place that afternoon.

I don't have a lot of places left in my bucket list of repeat visits, unless I start the visits over again ... and that's not a bad idea. I have a framed needlepoint that was always on my wall in my office that quoted John Muir as saying, "Climb the mountains and get their good tidings." I'm not too old to climb yet, so I'll be one of those old dudes who is so full of good tidings from the mountains, he can hardly stand himself.

Out of my comfort zone - Bankhead National Forest

I honestly don't know what's up with the National Forest Service. Because of downed timber as a result of two storms in April, they have closed the Sipsey Wilderness in Bankhead National Forest near Forkville and Rabbitown, Alabama. My understanding of a wilderness is that one gets what one sees. If a tree falls across the trail, the NFS is not going to move or cut it. It's a wilderness and whatever there is there. A wilderness designation by the NFS means that everyone hikes at their own risk. However, because of downed timber in the northern part of the Wilderness, the NFS has closed the entire wilderness. Even the trailheads that have no damage are closed.

I left the house on Sunday afternoon planning to camp near a small waterfall and pool just a little ways up the Borden Creek Trail (FT 200) from the Sipsey Parking Area on CR 60--also called Cranal Road, which runs across the southern edge of the Wilderness. When I got to the parking area Sunday afternoon, I found signs warning that the Wilderness is closed to do "assessments" on the fallen timber in the northern part of the Wilderness. Dumb decision, if you ask me; but maybe they want to sell the downed timber or something ...

So, what to do as the daylight was on the wane ... I pulled out my trusty BNF map and looked on the opposite side from Sipsey Wilderness and looked at the eastern part of the NF area. I drove up Hwy 33 and turned down a dirt road that went through some private, backwoods properties and finally connected with a partially paved road. Since it was getting darker, I headed toward something that looked like a car-camping place near a lake. It was, indeed, a deserted NFS camp ground. I paid my five bucks and set up my hammock and fly as a few sprinkles descended. I climbed in my hammock about 8:30 wondering where I could go to find a good campsite in the backwoods.

Monday morning I packed up my stuff and studied my map while I drank coffee. The sun was bright, the morning crisp, and I was ready for an escape. I found a trail that descended through the woods down to a creek for about a mile and a half. Now, if I could only find the trail

head. After making a couple of wrong turns (the NFS road designations are sometimes confusing to old people) I finally found what looked to be a wide horse trail that had been graded and covered with hay. The hay had sprouted and the trail was knee deep. The Pine Torch horse trail was not too far away, so I figured that the trail must have been intended for a horse circuit. I hiked for probably three-quarters of a mile through the hardwood forest through the knee-deep grass. The deep grass ended at a turn-around and the forest opened up in a "forested section." These trees had been mostly cut, but not clear cut ... just thinned greatly. And, of course, all of the trash wood left from a cut forest. It was probably about ten or so acres of thinned forest. The hardwoods remained and some pines that were not deemed worthy of cutting. I hate places like that, but the ticks and other small critters probably love them.

After walking through the ugly remaining trees and trash wood remaining, I entered the woods trail that descended down over hard rock underpinnings with a pretty steep drop off on each side. The area was obviously a hiking trail on an old roadbed. The trail was pretty easy to follow, but since I wasn't sure where I was I left bread-crumbs in the form of orange surveyors tape on a couple of limbs down the trail. The timber cutters had left some blue tape to mark some kind of road or boundary, but my orange was a little easier to see if I had to hike out at night for some reason.

As I descended down the trail I knew I was getting closer to water and a place I could find and make my own for a couple of days. Near the bottom I saw a wide creek which I believed to be Brown (or Brown's) Creek. However, the banks were rather steep and I didn't want to have to stumble down a steep bank to fill my water bottles. I was interested where the old roadbed forded Brown Creek. The NFS or someone had put rickrack on both banks to help vehicles get a grip on the muddy sides. The bottom was sandy and shallow and obviously had been used sometime in the past, maybe logging, maybe to get to someone's private land.

When I used to hike around Fontana Lake in the southern edge of the Smokies I used to see places like that where people would drive back to their property in the 1920s and 30s. Occasionally, I would come upon an old 29 Ford that had been abandoned ... I once found two vehicles with trees growing up through where the engines had been, or through the trunks. I used to imagine that before the valley was damned to form Fontana Lake in 1944, mountain men would drive through those hills and streams to get to their moonshine stills.

Whether these old roads through the BNF had been used in the 1950s or 60s, I couldn't tell. Would love to know the history of the area. I did go by the old Pine Torch Church built in the early 1800s by "Scots-Irish and Indian ancestry mountain folk."

Anyway, when the old road went left across Brown Creek, I veered to the right along a small tributary until I got to a point formed by that small creek and an unnamed spring-fed stream. I decided to camp on the flat between those two small streams. The area was an old growth fir forest, so it had several very large fir trees that were perfectly arranged for an ENO rain fly and hammock ... not that I was going to need the fly, but just in case. I got my fly and hammock up and my pack unpacked with sleeping bag and Thermarest ... for the hammock. I'm a fairly new hammock sleeper (a year, maybe) and it took me a couple of trips to realize that I didn't need the padding of inflating the pad. All I needed was the insulation; and the pad stayed underneath me better when not inflated. I generally camp alone, so most of the stuff I know by either reading about it or finding out by trial and error. Also, since I generally camp alone, I haul way too much stuff out to the woods ... makes my pack way too heavy; but that's why I don't ever hike a long way.

After setting up my hammock so I could crash for a nap when the urge struck me, I went down beside the smaller of the two streams and began gathering rocks for my fire ring. I decided to put my fire ring about six feet from a smaller fir tree that would allow me to lean my Treker chair back and doze there, if needed. The small fir also had enough low limbs to hand my kitchen stuff around in easy reach. As you might deduce, when I get somewhere I'm going to fix everything where once I settle in I don't have to move too much to take care of business. I moved a large flat rock near the tree to have a cooking rock. Pretty soon I'd be able to sit in my Treker chair, lean back, heat coffee water, toss wood on the fire, and drift off into la-la land without expending too much energy. The perfect old man camping site!

Tuesday was another gorgeous day, so I decided to explore the valley. I was looking for a good bluff which would work during a stormy fall weekend if I got back out in November. For some reason I have two particular bluffs that I love to get under during stormy weather. I like bluffs big enough to sit and cook without getting wet. My sleeping stuff is all weather-proof, but I don't like to have to sit in the rain and cook, cook in the vestibule of my tent, or lie on my stomach in my hammock and cook under that fly. I went up the tight draw of another nearby stream and found some bluffs, but didn't really find one that would work for tent camping in bad weather. I could probably make a hammock work, but if the temp was really low, I would need the added warmth of a tent in December or January. I camped once at -15 when I lived in Colorado, but I was a lot younger then. The coldest I've camped in the deep south is about 12-14 degrees once in the Sipsey Wilderness, when the river froze during the night.

So, I explored bluffs, played around in the creek some, and photographed some wildflowers. Exactly the kind of day I look forward to when I got out in the woods. I returned to my campsite and took a nap ... I mean, what else do old people do on a lazy afternoon? The campfire Tuesday night was good, because the temp was down a little. I burned most of the wood I had gathered and cut. I didn't leave much for the next camper this time ...

Wednesday morning I woke early and began to disassemble my campsite ... always a sad event for me. I made certain my morning fire was completely out ... easy nearby water source for that purpose. I had a little more food and could have stayed another night, but I had some 'obligations' back in town. Isn't that always the reason one returns to civilization? Some will think me strange for wanting to get away to the woods with no others around. Some will think me strange for seeking the difficulties of carrying your "things" on your back. Robert Pirsig once wrote, "(What makes his world so hard to see clearly is not its strangeness but its usualness). Familiarity can blind you too." My personality seeks to flee from the usualness of everyday life ... to keep me seeing both the trees and the forest. I struggle to keep my mind from retiring along with my professional life, so I go to the woods and stay a few days with my own resources. Seems to work ... or maybe it doesn't ...

Wildflowers of the Sipsey Wilderness

These wildflower photos have been taken over the past four or five years around on the Thompson Creek, Ripey, Rampart, and Sipsey River trails. The flowers are most beautiful in April, but can be found earlier and later if one looks carefully.

It started in the rain ... 5 March 2011

It's been a long time since I've gone out camping in the rain ... I've BEEN out camping in the rain, but it's been a while since I've SET OUT on a camping trip in the rain. On the first Saturday in March--a day I had been looking forward to for six weeks--I left my town about 7:30 AM. It was looking like rain, and misting some, but was not supposed to start raining seriously until noonish, and I hoped to be in the woods by then.

Not far out of town it started raining so I started thinking about what I would need to do. I decided to wear rain pants instead of shorts to hike in (good decision). I have a pack cover for my stuff and a good Marmot Preclip rain jacket, so I'm okay there ... have good boots and short gators to keep my feet dry. I hiked all the way down off of Mt LeConte to Newfound Gap in a pouring rain once, so I know that one never stays completely dry hiking in the rain ... Not knowing how much it had already been raining in the Sipsey Wilderness, I was somewhat concerned that White Oak Creek would be up some and I might have to splash through it calf-deep. Anyway, I had plenty to think about on the drive over.

When I arrived at the Thompson Creek trail head, the rain was down to a drizzle, but still enough to need my hood up on my rain jacket. I have a small car, so it takes a few minutes to strap pads and such onto my pack, but I was off on the FT 206 in about 20 minutes. White Oak Creek was up a few inches, but the crossing rocks were still just under the surface, so

nothing to worry about there. My plan was to camp on top of the bluff at the Eye of the Needle and I made a good pace, but stopping now and then to photograph a wildflower. The early wildflowers are just beginning to peek out, so it was a good trip in for me. About halfway in, though, I begin to feel water running down my back ... don't know where that was coming from, but I felt the same thing hiking down from LeConte ... oh, well ... whatever -- I was in the woods!

The climb up to the top of the rock was relatively uneventful at first. I had to take off my pack and shove it up on the first rock, then climb up a crack in the bluff. One more shove of my pack up the next shelf, and climb up that part ... I was doing fine, until ... after I had put my pack back on and was negotiating a relatively mild climb, my foot slipped out from under me and I fell on my knee and my elbow on some rocks ... not good ... much groaning (and cussing) ... and rubbing and groaning. I didn't fall off of the cliff or anything, just fell forward on rocks with my pack on my back ... oh, well, I said, if I die, I couldn't pick a better spot! Of course, I wasn't close to death, just pained with a bruised knee and elbow ... but the prognosis was excellent.

Fairly quickly, I limped up the rest of the steep part of the climb and got to the wooded area where the trail wanders through the rhododendron and the pines ... I was noticing stumps and other places where I might return to get some dryer wood. The wood on the ground would no way be dry enough to burn until possibly Sunday afternoon -- if it cleared up. The weather forecast had said that a cold front would follow the rain, so I was going to need a fire.

I had been up on the top of the Rock a few times previously--once with teenagers and even camped up there once in November (I was younger then)--and I thought I knew where I wanted to pitch my tent. When I got there, the place I had thought about was pretty wet and I had to find another place that was in the pine needles and leaves so as not to be too muddy. I found that place, though I had to disturb some thorny "wait-a-minute" vines. Although the spot wasn't perfectly level, it would do well for one person. Since it was still steadily raining, now would be the challenge of putting up my tent without getting it soaking wet.

Normally, I put up my REI Halfdome tent by securing the poles to the footprint, followed by clipping on the tent, and then adding the fly, if necessary. Of course, that process wouldn't work because my tent would be soaked by the time I got to the fly. So, the process changed (a change I had thought about while lying awake during the previous few nights) to opening the poles (a large X) and draping over the fly and securing its grommets ... now I had a shelter to keep my footprint and tent relatively dry while connecting them. The footprint was not a huge challenge, although it got wet around the edges, but clipping on the tent from the inside was quite a tight squeeze. Fortunately, the Halfdome has two big vestibules, so I had some room in which to work fastening the clips. I am happy to report that the process of putting up the tent in reverse order worked to keep my gear relatively dry.

I had purchased a light-weight 6x8 tarp before I left, so I had to figure out how to create a shelter under which to cook. Of course, in a phone conversation with my son (who lives in Oregon), he asked why I didn't take the ENO rain fly that keeps my hammock dry. I said because I'm stupid ... but, whatever ... after I strung some nylon cord between two trees, I was able to fix a space large enough to cook under and even found a sitting log to drag over ... it all worked...

The next task was to find wood dry enough to burn when everything was soaking wet. I finally found a pine stump that had broken off about five feet above the roots. After sawing and pulling and prying I finally got down to the dry stuff inside both the stump and the fallen tree. I got a sac full of a lot of good little pieces with pine sap inside and really dry. I was able to cut and pry off some bigger pieces to get a fire going big enough and long enough to dry out other pieces of wood I had picked up. I saved it all for Sunday night's fire ...

I woke up during the night Saturday and was aware that the rain had stopped. Sunday morning when I woke up mostly dry, I cooked breakfast pancakes and set off down to the river to gather water. I have a big Base Camp First Need filter, but because I had not back-washed it after my last trip, the filter quickly became difficult to force water through, but enough to get about eight to ten liters, I got three liters of unfiltered river water to boil in case I needed it. Fortunately, I had taken my empty pack down with me and was able to stuff all of the water bottles/bags in the pack and climb back up to the top of The Rock.

While I was down I hiked around to the part of the Sipsey which is normally littles rapids I call riffles, but, after the rain, were full-fledged rapids ... they were roaring like crazy. I saw a hippie-looking couple and a dog camped nearby and frightened them as if they had been smoking weed, or something ... they didn't hear or see me coming. Their dog didn't take well to strangers, but they were able to corral him before he could attack. I tried to be friendly and warn them to watch the river levels because sometime the Sipsey rises fast and furiously.

Being down on that side of The Rock also gave me a chance to check out The Notch, a place right up against the bluff where I had weathered a 14 degree night when the river froze. I thought it might stay dry from the rain up under a ledge -- it had not.

I climbed back up on The Rock and sorted my water bags/bottles and strained my unfiltered water through one of my bandanas to get out the big chunks of stuff. I spent the next couple of hours gathering and sawing wood for Sunday and Monday nights' campfires. It stayed cloudy all day Sunday even though the weather forecast had said "partly sunny." At least it wasn't raining, so I put up a clothes line and hung up some of my wet stuff in the afternoon breeze. About 4:30 I decided to build a fire.

Campfires are magic. As I have said over many a campfire, "It's no wonder ancient man used to worship fire." A good campfire--and I can build a good campfire--has the ability to change one's attitude about life. As I sat on the log staring into the fire and feeling its warmth, I felt all of the stress of being chilled and fretting over the weather fall away. My soul and spirit began to be warmed and comforted and began to dry out. I cranked up some good tunes on my phone and smiled.

As an aside, let me say that the only thing a cell phone is good for in the Sipsey Wilderness is for pre-recorded tunes. There is no data or voice connection. The first time some high school student went to the woods with me they couldn't believe that they couldn't get a connection on their phones. They went through a brief period of withdrawal, but soon realized the freedom of no connections.

After the fire burned out Sunday night, I crawled into my warm bag still smiling from the fire and the tunes ...

Monday morning I woke up to a little fog and still overcast skies. Bummer! Monday was supposed to be fairly sunny, but I never saw blue sky all day. The clouds were high enough, though, that I could tell where and what that big light was. Spent some of the day gathering more wood for the last night's campfire. I love a big fire to celebrate good days in the woods. That night I tried some cherry turnovers I had read about in Backpacker Magazine ... actually in the magazine they were apple turnovers, but I had a taste for something a little spicier. They actually were surprisingly good. I thought they would burn, but they didn't. I will try them again.

I also spent some of the day reflecting on some of my other forays into the woods. I've about decided to call the bluff I think of as Tick Bluff my home base in the woods. I've probably spent more quality nights there than any other spot in the Sipsey Wilderness. It is such an awesome place of comfort, solitude, security, and access. When I hike in at night--as I often do--I seem to gravitate toward Tick Bluff. It's big enough to stand up straight and stretch, and close enough to the trail to get in to when I need shelter. There I have spent several stormy nights and days; once a horrendous lightening storm in which I lay in my tent and smiled, knowing I was protected from a strike and from falling trees.

There is another bluff in which I have spent some great days and nights sheltering, but I think of it as a vacation cabin in the woods. It's sunny and comfortable, but occasionally drips after a hard rain; and after a really hard rain, develops a small stream through the middle that I lovingly refer to as Feng Shui Creek ... there is an ambiance to the place, but it's not quite home.

Anyway, I digress ... Monday night was a good night. I had a great meal with great music from my almost-out-of-power phone. Had I had a partner and some fruit of the vine I might have danced a little. Knowing that I was going to the woods alone again, my wife asked me if I was going with my best friend ... and, indeed, I was with my best camping buddy.

Tuesday morning I woke up dreading the hike-out ... I always dread the hike-out. The sky was again cloudy and threatening rain, so I decided to not spend a lot of time putzing with small stuff the way I usually do. The wind was blowing and gusting, so I hung some stuff on the lines, and when I broke the tent down I faced the bottom of it into the wind to let it dry ... which it did pretty quickly. The inside of the tent's fly was, of course, wet from condensation, so I had to drape it over the bushes to let it dry some. Because of the breeze and gusts, most of my remaining wet stuff got to dry out before I packed it. That's good on two fronts: I had a slightly lighter pack hiking out and I didn't have to rush to hang my stuff in the attic before it began to sour.

The hike-out was uneventful. I passed a couple of guys hiking in. They were in a hurry to get to a campsite and get set up before the rains commenced. We chatted a moment and then moved on. I arrived at my vehicle and was glad--as always--that a tree had not fallen on it during the days/nights I had been in the woods ... always happy about that ... and just about the time I got in my vehicle and started up the hill out of the gorge, the rain began ... not hard ... but enough to keep the road damp.

At my age, that's probably the last time I'll haul my pack up to the top of the Rock ... not my last climb up, but probably my last time with a full pack. It had been three years since the previous camp on the Rock. I will be close to 70 in three more years, so probably won't do the tough stuff. I'll probably hobble in to my favorite bluff and enjoy watching the hikers scramble in and out of the woods and think how fortunate I have been to have traveled these trails again.