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.

Growing Up Outside - A Way-Too-Long Story

My earliest memories of being outside must be in the late 1940s. The first story told to me about an outside event happened in South Mississippi at my grandfather Scott's farm in Walthall County. On the other side of the hill from his home was some wooded land with a small creek meandering through it. My two sisters and I used to go to the woods accompanied by my grandfather carrying his shovel to dam the creek with rocks and gravel to make a small pool for us to play in. Bandee--as we called him--loved to make the pool just below a large beech tree, and we would play for hours in the sultry summer afternoons. The memorable event happened some time before the damming of the creek as our family--both grandparents, father, mother, and sisters--was hiking into the woods to find a place for a picnic. I was perhaps 18 months old and my father was carrying me. My grandfather spotted a high bank across the creek, but to get there, everyone had to cross the creek, either by wading or by walking across on a fallen tree. Since the women had on summer dresses and my sisters had on shorts, they waded across. My grandfather and my father had on trousers, so they decided to walk across on the log. My father started out first with me in his arms. About halfway across the log, it broke in half and my father and I fell several feet into the creek. My father's reaction to an event like this was to laugh loudly. So there he sat fully clothed in the creek laughing his head off, with me in his lap, both of us in the water. My mother and grandmother were horrified and frantic that I was injured until I looked at my laughing father and said, "Do it again, Daddy!"

Sometime in the early 1950s, my father was called to be the head of the largest religious publishing house in the nation. One of the associated tasks of this organization was to facilitate religious training for denominational workers throughout the US. When he arrived, the organization already ran a conference center in North Carolina and wanted another one in the Western US. Land was found and purchased east of Santa Fe, NM, and the first summer of operation were called Pioneer Weeks, because there were very few buildings and everyone who came to the conferences would have to stay in travel trailers and tents. Our family went to New Mexico with two tents, one for my parents and one for my sisters and me. I think I was about seven, which would have made my older sister about 14 and my other sister about 10 or 11. We stayed in our two tents for the entire week, though I can't imagine that the sleeping arrangement with my two sisters and I staying in a small tent together worked. I seem to remember that the first couple of nights I started off sleeping with my sisters, but got thrown out before we could get to sleep, and ended up sleeping in my parent's tent. That's my first camping memory, though I may have slept out in my backyard while we lived in Abilene, TX. I would probably have started off out in the yard and ended up in the house ... too many imagination stimulation noises in the night in West Texas.

When I was small there were no televisions or video games, so I went outside early in the morning and had to be called in each evening when it got dark. Living in Texas and the south, I grew up playing barefooted outside most of the time. I do remember having a war with the sand spurs in Texas. We called them "goatheads," and I had to dig the plants for my punishment. I hated goatheads for more than sticking in my bare feet.

The summer I was nine I started going to a boy's camp east of Asheville each summer for ten years. The sessions were five weeks long and there were two sessions. Some summers I went for five weeks and some summers I stayed all ten weeks. We had to choose skills that we wanted to learn. The choices were Indian lore, riflery, archery, camping skills, horse riding, crafts, team sports, swimming, canoeing, and probably more that I have forgotten. Each cabin of boys, assigned by age, had about 12 campers and a counselor. The cabins of younger boys would also have a "junior counselor" to help with supervision. The cabins were spaced in groups designated as different tribes of Native Americans. When I was young, I was an Apache; in my early teens I was a Choctaw; and as an older teen I was a Navaho. Political correctness was not to be worried about in the 1950s and early 60s.

Beginning with the early years, at least one night each week was spent camping outside of the confines of the campgrounds. We may have only been a half a mile down a trail, but it seemed to a young boy as if we were way out in the wilderness. I had a rectangular cotton-filled sleeping bag. We usually had a poncho to put over us, but no sleeping pads under us. Back then we didn't know better, so we cut small limbs off of fir and spruce trees to make a sleeping pad, or piled up six or more inches of leaves. I remember sleeping cold most nights. Eventually, I bought another poncho and snapped them together for a kind of bivy sack.

One year I went to camp with a jungle hammock, but on one outing when the rains came and stayed for three consecutive days and I was the only dry one in the group, they cut my hammock down in the mud ... not nice ... I don't think I took that hammock to camp the next year.

My first trip on the Appalachian Trail was my third year at camp. We left from Newfound Gap, stayed at Ice Water Springs, hiked down to Charley's Bunion, then backtracked to the Boulevard Trail and hiked to the top of Mt LeConte. I was 11 years old at the time and we carried cans of food, many of which a bear ate ... we had "hidden" them under a rock thinking the bear couldn't get to them, since it took four or five of us to move the rock ... I don't think the bear even broke a sweat getting to them ... tore the cans up and ate a lot of our food. We had other food tied in the tree. She tried to get to that, but I had a bell tied on the food sack and when we heard it ring, we chased her away. I have other stories to tell about that bear, but I'll save that for another telling ...

After college and some exciting times in the Army (68-71, with my last year overseas), I thought a good way to reconnect with my wife would be for us to backpack together. We got a bare minimum of equipment and hiked from Newfound Gap up the AT to Ice Water Springs. We spent the night there and then hiked the Boulevard Trail to Mr. LeConte. As soon as we came on to the shelter there a young black bear was gnawing on someone's pack. I tossed some rocks chased the bear away and hung the badly torn pack inside the bear-cage on the LeConte shelter (they have removed the bear-cages on the shelters and provided a cable system for hanging food, but back then all of the shelters had chain link on the front of them). My wife and I decided to tent camp down closer to the LeConte Lodge (which was legal back then), and pitched our tarp shelter to set up our camp. We didn't see the bear again, but my wife thought she heard him throughout the night. On the morning we hiked out, a wet cloud had covered the top of LeConte and the temp dropped below freezing providing us with a gorgeous ice crystal scene in all of the trees. My wife had a great time and was a real trooper, but decided that maybe I should depend on another friend to backpack with me as often as I wanted to go.

So, I hooked up with an old friend with whom I had grown up in Nashville. Paul and I started backpacking together. We covered most of the main trails in the Smokies and had many adventures in the woods ... unfortunately, we told too many people about the fun we were having and the group started growing ... grew to 10 guys on one hike ... way, way too many grown men on a backpacking trip ... especially when one is 100 lbs overweight and brings along a full bag of those little Snickers candy bars to eat along the trail. We like to say he got five Snickers to the mile before he emptied his stomach and we thought he was having a heart attack ...

Paul was the logistics person with a touch of OCD, so I never had to worry about when, where, or what. All I had to do was show up ... where is Paul now when I need him? While we were actually hiking the trails Paul and I were hardly ever together. Paul loved to hike fast, get to the destination or meeting place and crash. I was the plodder ... stopping often to look at plants or scenic views or think about how heavy my pack was. We did complement each other's personalities ... and both of us were a little weird.

Paul and I hiked in to the woods over near Smokemont on the Cherokee side with a naturalist/biologist ... I wish I could remember all of the things he showed us about plants and bugs and stuff ... we didn't make many miles that day, but we sure learned a lot of stuff. One thing Paul and I still would argue about, though, is the difference between a spruce and a fir. The needles are different and any knowledgeable person should be able to remember the difference, but we never could--or I never was certain, so we debated back and forth about which was which; and to this day, I can't remember the difference. Spruce or fir??

Paul and I backpacked together so much that in my camping talk I still refer to him as an element of time ... before Paul ... when Paul and I ... and since Paul ... I was the risk-taker in the two of us and, as I said, Paul came close to being OCD. He was the planner, preparer, scheduler, etc., and I just had fun ... although he tried to kill me once when he took so long to decide what to wear that the Raven Fork River rose from crotch-deep to chest deep in a 30-minute period and blocked our hike out of the woods. We ended up hiking out through the Cherokee Reservation beyond where I maps covered ... fortunately, catching a ride in the back of a pickup after I threw down my pack and said I wasn't going any further--I had just decided to die right there ... okay, so maybe it wasn't quite that bad ... but it wasn't fun at the end ... well, yeah, it was, since it makes for some great stories ...

Somehow, I acquired a canoe. Paul and I began canoeing rivers and streams in Mississippi. We would put in on the Strong River near D'Lo and canoe down to the confluence of the Strong and the Pearl near Georgetown. A group of us even drove up to northern Arkansas and canoed the Buffalo River from Ponca to Pruitt ... great trip, except for the fact that it drizzled rain most of the trip. One spot in the river was know for swamping every canoe that came through it. Paul and I had canoed many miles together and were pretty good. We stopped, scouted the rapids, made a plan, got low in the canoe and made it without turning over. The people sitting along the banks watching the fun actually booed us because we didn't turn over.

The most memorable story about canoeing with Paul was when we put in way up on the Strong near Puckett in order to get a couple of days of canoeing. We were somewhere north of D'Lo when we came to a big log-jam in the river just under a suspension bridge. Not only was it a huge log-jam that blocked the whole river, but right in the middle of it was a very dead cow ... a VERY dead cow ... know what I mean? We were discussing how to drag our canoe and supplies around the putrid cow log-jam and looked up at the suspension bridge and there was an old guy in a T-shirt and overalls standing in the middle of the bridge watching us. Paul and I had seen James Dickey's Deliverance and we both thought we heard banjos playing ... I volunteered Paul to sacrifice himself for my safety ... but, actually, the guy was very friendly (Mississippi people are different than North Carolinians) and helped us portage around the jam as both Paul and I gaged at the smell ...

Both Paul and I had sons and we moved away and haven't hiked together since ... too bad. He still hikes with some guys and I still hike a lot alone ... He's a counselor and needs people; I'm an introverted school administrator and need to get away.

In 1978, when my son was about 16 months old, I took him on our first "guys" camping trip. We drove down to Rocky Springs on the south Natchez Trace and found a great car-camping campsite. I put Jeff in the middle of the picnic table while I set up the tent. I was earnestly pitching the tent and glanced at Jeff on the table -- only Jeff wasn't on the table! He was lying in the gravel and dirt under neath the table where he had fallen. I don't remember him crying. He didn't seem to be cut or scraped, but to this day, when he does weird things, he still blames me for the head injury when he fell off of the picnic table. Anyway, we spent the night in the tent and ate camp food and bonded some ...

After that, son, wife, and I began canoeing along the Strong River. We planned to pitch a tent on a sand bar and spend the night, but Jeff wanted to stay up in the woods, so we hauled stuff up the bank into the woods and set up camp there. Jeff heard a deer run by during the night and was convinced it was a bear, but, other than that, the trip went as planned. After telling that story to some friends, the convinced us to take them, so the three of us and a five-person-two-canoe family joined us. We camped on the sand bar and I told the "Bird Boy" story around the fire ... still a legend ...

When we moved to Colorado we hooked up with a group of people that loved to camp. We all camped together at the Sand Dunes National Monument (now a national park), Mt. Rushmore, and the Old Mill on the Crystal River. What great memories we made in our family and tales to tell.

Moving back to North Mississippi, the three of us camped at some parks and then Jeff and I began backpacking some. We hiked in to the Sipsey Wilderness a couple of times and developed my love affair with that beautiful river basin. The most important about all of these experiences, however, is that I was able to pass along a love and appreciation of the outside to my son. Jeff now lives in the northwest and he and his beautiful wife are gradually making memories along the trails there. I'm envious of his youth and his strength ...

What else can I say? ... forget the box, think OUTSIDE!

The Woods in December - 2010 December

I took a couple of days off from work to get in to the woods, since it doesn't look like I'll have a chance to get back until January. I had just about decided to head in on Wednesday evening, which meant hiking with a headlamp (which I've done many times) and setting up my campsite in the dark. The hesitancy I had was that it was supposed to get into the low 20's that night and I wasn't excited about pitching my tent without building a fire. I figured I didn't want to stumble around looking for firewood at 10 at night ... too old for that in the winter.

So, I waited until Thursday morning and left early. It was a gloriously sunny day in the winter in Mississippi/Alabama. The sun was warming the woods and yet the crisp air was good for a hike. Perfect!

Because there was another front blowing through the south and a 90% chance for rain on Saturday, I decided to throw

down my gear under a bluff I frequent when there is bad weather on the way. The bluff faces south and is protected from those cold north winds; plus it's large enough for me to pitch a tent, build a fire, and hang my gear up under the overhang, so nothing gets wet.

When I got to the bluff--I call it Tick Bluff because two summers ago when I camped there I pulled ticks off of me all weekend--before I pitched my tent or unpacked my pack, I started dragging up logs and limbs for firewood. I wanted to get started in case the rains came earlier than predicted. After I got a pretty good pile of limbs and such, I pitched my tent where I had pitched it before. I found a plastic bottle nearby, so someone had been there, but it looked like day hikers had sheltered there and not camped over night. I had left a small pile of wood beside the fire ring a year earlier and it was there untouched. After getting my camp set up I decided to go for an afternoon hike and look for other bluffs suitable for winter camping. I covered several big bluffs where major rocks had broken off, but nothing that looked inviting. I went to one overhang that I had visited before where there was an old campsite. The fire ring looked 25 or so years old--built up three or more feet--but it was a campsite that should have been closed until it recovers from the abuse ... lots of garbage and tin cans around--what a shame.

I went by Auburn falls where the falls were icicles and took a few pictures ... quite beautiful. The sun, while not shining directly on the falls, was warming up the air, and I surmised that the icicles were not long with us this weekend unless the temp went back down.

Thursday night was probably in the lower 30s or upper 20s - just right for a good campfire and a warm meal. I didn't take a watch with me to the woods this time, so I thought it was about 8 PM, but when I turned on my phone long enough to see the time, it was only 6:40. I stoked the fire for another hour or so and decided to turn in.

For some reason, I floss every night when I'm in the woods. In all honesty, I don't always floss when I'm at home -- now, one has to ask, why does a person always floss in the woods? Anyway, I do ... and I brushed extra well. I slept well Thursday night, except that I had forgotten to put my extra insulated pad under my feet and when I scrunched down in my bag my heels went on the ground and I woke sometime in the middle of the night with cold feet. I know better and always take a couple of old insulated pads to sit on and put under my feet for just such times. I didn't make that mistake the next two nights.

I woke up when the sky was getting lighter and had to leave the tent for a few minutes (you figure it out), then got back in the bag for another 30-45 minutes. When it got full light, I was up and heating water for my Starbucks Via. Um-mm-mm good!

After breakfast, I decided to walk the bluffs from where I was around to Ship Rock to see if there were any more bluffs suitable for shelter in a storm. I found several places that were certainly large enough to get out of the rain, but they did not have spaces level enough to comfortably pitch tents ... one could make-do in a crisis, but one would not want to pitch there intentionally. A couple would certainly have been adequate with a hammock during the summer, but nothing where several tents could be pitched. (At this point I had decided to look for somewhere I could take my student Wolfpack for a weekend.) One big bluff looked as if it had a cave entrance and space for a couple of tents, but the water there was not potable. (Okay, so I'm picky ... however, after a study of the terrain, I have found a couple of excellent bluffs which not only offer shelter from the storms, but have good water nearby.) The biggest one had several level places to pitch tents and was not too far from a water source ... a possibility, but not a definite.

Slabbing the edge of the bluffs is not particularly easy ... lots of ups and downs often steep and rough on the ankles ... but if one is going to explore like this, winter is certainly the time to do that. The undergrowth is non-existent except for an occasional wait-a-minute vine, and often the forest floor is simply beautiful.

After covering a mile and a half of bluff edges, I headed down hill to the trail along the valley bottom. I returned to my campsite with ease on the trail. I had covered a lot of the bluff bottoms looking for a suitable campsite and had found nothing note-worthy. I always anticipate finding something really neat where no one else has camped before ... didn't this time -- maybe tomorrow ...

Friday afternoon was cloudy, and, anticipating rain the next day, I hauled and cut more wood for my fire. If I was going to be sitting under my sheltered bluff for 12 hours, I wanted to be sitting next to a nice warm fire. Cutting firewood with a small crosscut saw will always get one's BTUs generating under a jacket.

Friday night was warmer in the tent. After flossing and brushing, wisely, I put an insulated pad under my feet and one under my head. My Thermarest is 72" long and I am 73" long, so, if I stretch completely, something is going to be hanging off. I have this awesome new pillow I purchased from ENO, the hammock people. It's hard as the dickens to repack, but it is awesome for sleeping. It's big and soft and when I stuff my down vest up inside of it, um-mm-mm, can this old man saw some Zs on his new pillow! The night was pleasant and I fell asleep to the soft whoot of an owl prowling the forest looking for a mouse. Some of the owls in the Sipsey are very large and one can hear them flying through the trees because their wingtips hit the ends of limbs as they fly from tree to tree.

Saturday morning was much like the morning before. I got out of my bag too early because the large amounts of liquids I had drunk the afternoon and evening before. I had had several cups of Via de-caf and lots of flavored drinks to quench my thirst from sawing wood. You get the point ... and then crawled back in my bag, knowing that I would be unable to gain sleep again, but happy to be in a tent in the woods awaiting full daylight.

Breakfast was once again Mountain House Granola reconstituted with warm water instead of cold. Pretty good! I can't always find that MH granola--ought to learn to make my own--but when I do find it, I usually get several packs. It just hits the spot in the woods ... sometime that breakfast itch is scratched with oatmeal, and sometimes with grits, but I always scratch it ... and I remembered to take my vitamins.

Saturday morning I felt some fine misty sprinkles about mid-morning. Not so much that I didn't want to go for a walk. I climbed a ridge and sat under several young fir trees that made a shelter from the mist. I had a holiday flavored Cliff bar with some cheese sticks and some jerky, so I was looking for a place to chill. I crawled out toward the edge where I could see the forest floor and the trail for several hundred yards. Three guys with lots of blaze orange came by and stopped right underneath where I was sitting. I was about 200 or so feet above them, so they didn't see me. I'm not sure why they stopped where they did, nor what they did when they stopped, but after 20 minutes or so, they loaded up and hiked on toward FT 209. A day hiker in a red jacket passed them while they were stopped ... he was on his way in, so he needed to hustle or get caught in the rain. When I was finishing the jerky and some water, I noticed two dark movements on the trail. The first thing I saw was the large Standard Poodle--solid black--with red bows on its ears and tail; then I saw the woman dressed all in black trailing along behind, trying to keep up. She had the dog on one of those leashes that is on a reel and lets out or draws up with the push of a button (at least from 200 ft above, that's what it appeared to be). She was hustling on up the trail toward the trailhead with another 45 min to an hour to go. Really? A Standard Poodle with bows??? Really?

The rain was getting heavier, so I climbed down from my perch and headed back to my campsite. The rain set in and I started my fire with plenty of wood to keep it going for most of the night. I cannot tell you how wonderful and relaxing it is to sit under a bluff in the woods and listen to the rain and wind coming through. If a person cannot find the beauty of those sounds and sights, then we're on different planets.

Sunday morning I broke camp a little earlier than I had thought. Without a watch, one goes to bed a little earlier and breaks camp a little earlier than planned. As soon as I put on my pack, I noticed that it had started snowing. The flakes were tiny at first, but by the time I had gotten on down the trail toward the trailhead, the flakes were huge and coming down pretty well. Good grief, it was so beautiful! Sunday morning ... wilderness ... snowing ... hiking ... Thank you, Lord!