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!

A Walk in the Woods II - October 2010

Once again I was lucky enough to go camping with some of the greatest teenagers in the world ... and, yes, there are great kids all over the world, but these that were in my world this weekend are part of the reason I do what I do. I love 'em ... And, you're saying to yourself, so, get on with the story ...

Homecoming Week at our high school ... several of the campers

were sweethearts, princesses, escorts, and such, so we couldn't leave Friday until after the football game (which we won 39-6) and everyone had a chance to take a shower. Can you believe that kids went camping right after they were all loaded-up with beauty for their Homecoming presentations at halftime? Just before the end of the game, I observed one of our campers leaving the game with five very attractive young ladies ... he was 40 minutes late getting to the meeting place ... at his age, with those ladies, I probably would have been late also ... real late! (He said he went to get ice cream ... sure ... we believe that, don't we?) It was after 10:00 PM when most of them got to the rendezvous point and they looked tired and ready to get away from it all. We got away from our rendezvous point about 10:45 and were on our way in three vehicles. One of my colleague teachers has gone with us on both trips -- a long-time backpacker. She is a super art teacher and a very creative lady. I am thankful that she is willing to join us.

After dodging one large doe and a couple of raccoons on the road, we arrived at the trail head at exactly 1:00 AM and because we had already loaded our packs, we were crossing the bridge at the Thompson Creek TH shortly thereafter with headlamps blazing. We didn't have far to walk in the dark, but it was the first time the kids had had a chance to backpack in the dark. We didn't see or hear anything too frightening, so we got to White Oak Creek in about 20 minutes. I had chosen a campground that I have only seen people in once in my many trips. It's not in a great place because everybody who hikes in on FT 206 walks right by the campsite, but it was at the end of the White Oak Hollow Trail (unnumbered) that we would use to go over the "shortcut" to Big Tree the next day. As everyone was choosing a spot to pitch their tent, I was looking for two well-spaced trees between which to string my hammock. For kids who don't get a lot of practice, the tents went up amazingly fast. One of our students is kind of a 'take charge' guy, and he had everyone working to pitch tents, because they couldn't wait to crash in their bags after a long week and a long day.

Because it's only rained for about 45 minutes in the Bankhead Nat'l Forest over the past eight or nine weeks, the NFS has issued a burn ban in the

Wilderness and we were all disappointed that we couldn't have a campfire. White Oak Creek that would have put us to sleep babbling over the rocks was silent. It hadn't had any water coming down from the Hollow for six or seven weeks. It would have been perfect to hear water flowing in the creek and to be able to have a camp fire. However, had we been able to have a campfire, we might have stayed up even later. As it was, I snuggled down into my bivey sack at exactly 3:00 AM.

I woke up about 6:30 Saturday morning, but didn't get out of my comfortable hammock until about 6:45. Of course, none of the students were up. I got up and putzed around with my gear for a while and then got my Jetboil going to get some coffee water heating. I started my freeze dried granola re-hydrating and sat on a log thinking about the day. (FWIW, that Mtn House granola is really good.) The plan was to get the kids to Big Tree, do some water coloring with them and get back to camp before it got pitch dark. We had to make sure we had water bottles filled before we left.

The other teacher and her son were the next over to my area looking for some hot water for coffee and oatmeal. We had just enough to get both of those covered and knew we needed to get down to the water source before heading to Big Tree.

After the kids all got up and ate/drank whatever morning nourishment they had brought, we all went east to the next campsite to get down to a pool of water to fill our water bottles. The pool has a small spring keeping it filled, but the standing water is beginning to get a little filled with debris; enough to make me work on my filter when I got back home.

I had hoped to get off to Big Tree about 10:00, but it was closer to 11:00 when we left camp, but it was a gorgeous, sunny day, and I was glad to be in the woods on such a beautiful day. We headed up the White Oak Trail to FT 205 on the top of the ridge, stopped for water and a photo, then headed down the east side of the ridge to the Bee Branch watershed. The trail down is a nice trail, normally paralleling a stream with several small water falls, going through several hardwood stands before getting into fir forests and bluffs to scramble down. When the soil is dry (as it was this day), the scramble is not too difficult. When the soil is muddy, the way down is much more of an adventure to keep from slipping and landing hard on the big boulders of the stream. We had fun under the bluffs and fir shade, taking photos and eating snacks, but I urged us along to Big Tree.

When we got to the bottom of the trail where it empties into West Bee Branch, we turned south and went to the confluence of the West Branch and the East Branch where we intersected with the East Bee Branch Trail up to Big Tree. This trail used to be a beautiful little trail, but so many trees have fallen across it that it has become quite a scramble at several points. Actually, I went up this trail a year or so ago when one of the larger oak trees uprooted and fell on the trail. I almost never got my pack through all of the limbs, leaves, and up the muddy slope. The kids were excited, however, and scrambled up the canyon pretty quickly. When we first arrived a Big Tree, another family with kids was there and our students hung back a little to let the smaller children get out of the way.

Everyone counted coup on Big Tree and then we settled on the rocks to eat some lunch and drink some juice. I had predicted that--because of the extreme dry--neither of the falls would be running, and that was true, except from the tiniest dripping off of the right-hand falls. After we ate, the art teacher got our her art supplies and prepared them for us. As one of our students joyfully exclaimed, "Art supplies -- in the woods!" and, indeed, they were. After all of us had grabbed papers, paints, a pencils, and some water, we spread out around Big Tree to paint. Some sat on rocks, some disappeared to the bottom of the (non) falls, and one even held her paper up to the tree to trace the shadows of the leave on Big Tree (wish I had thought of that). We painted what we saw or what we imagined ... some heavy work and some minimalist work.

At around 3:00 PM, we packed our trash, our art supplies and headed up the side of the bluff to the trail that connects with FT 204. I had been on the north end of 204 connecting with 223, but I had never gone down 204 to the intersection with 209 ... I manipulated the students into thinking they had chosen that trail ... I later admitted my sin to the art teacher. Actually, the south end of 204 is a pretty trail to descend ... it intersects with 209 about a half mile east of the confluence of Bee Branch and the Sipsey.

We passed several groups of hikers/backpackers on 204 asking 'how much farther' to Big Tree. One of the groups was five day-hikers who had walked by our campsite about 8:30 that morning asking about the trail to Big Tree. They went down 206 to Bee Branch and should have taken an immediate left, but missed that trail and went on half a mile until they saw 204 go up the hill. It was about 3:30 in the afternoon, with another 30 minutes to Big Tree, then about four hours to hike out. I asked if they had headlamps, and they said yes, but they never came by our campsite that evening, so I don't know where they bivouacked, if they did. Anyway, it took us almost exactly an hour to get to FT 209. I had not been on that little section of 209, so it was nice for me to see that portion of the trail.

It took us 15 minutes to get to the bottom of Bee Branch, cross the log, and continue on to the 209 crossing of the Sipsey--where it goes up to intersect with 201. At that point, the trail continues on "not 206" through private land to a point where--supposedly--206 comes back across the Sipsey near the confluence of Parker Creek and Thompson Creek and continues west toward White Oak Creek.

That sounds confusing, but since the NFS can't number trails on private land, I call it "not 206" across the private land. Most people don't know it's officially not FT 206 ...

Okay, back to the story ... when we finally got back to the east side of the Eye of the Needle, the kids scrambled up the hill and through the eye. This leg-weary old man decided to walk the 10 minutes around the parrot's beak to the Ship Rock campground. The kids and the my colleague scrambled through quickly and got ahead of me by 1/4 mile.

(Okay, here's a diversion story ... while we were at Big Tree, five middle aged guys came up and ate lunch and took pictures and such. We chatted with them some and swapped hiking stories and left a little before

we did. . When the kids scrambled through the Eye, the five men were camped at the Ship Rock campsite (where these kids camped last spring) and had a fire in their fire ring. Our students were incensed that these adults would violate the 'no campfire' edict of the NFS. One of our students asked them, "Oh, did the Forest Service lift the burn ban?" One of the men replied that "they didn't know anything about the burn ban." Yeah, right ... a big sign at the trail head that one almost had to step around to get up the trail ... Hey, not that they'll ever read this, but, "Way to go, guys ... nice example for our younger campers.")

I was extremely proud of the maturity of our teenagers when not one of them asked, "Those guys had a fire, so why can't we?" I was extremely embarrassed at the immaturity of the five experienced hikers who built a fire even though they knew they shouldn't have. No wonder we picked up trash on every trail we traveled on ...

We hiked pretty quickly from Ship Rock to the Auburn Falls trail. At that point, the kids were desperate to get back to their camp, and started running. It's probably a mile or more from that point to White Oak Creek and they ran the whole way. This old man walked a fast pace, but he definitely did not run. Ah, youth!!

Dinner that evening was around the fireless fire ring. One of the guys put his stove in the middle of the ring and we lit tea lights around on the stones. It wasn't quite the same as sitting around the campfire, but we had good camaraderie anyway. We ended the night together telling stories about our childhood and such ... another good time together.

I went to my hammock about 10-ish or so, reminding the group that we had to get-up-and-get-around the next morning so we could break camp, hike out, and drive back to give them time to work on

an IB internal assessment that had due the next day. I thought would be early enough ... they got up about 8:45 ... oh, well ...

Hiking out of the woods is always a downer for me ... I love to be in the woods and would be there every week, if possible. It is a spiritual connection for me. It relieves my stress, gives me a chance to right my perspectives and realign my priorities. At the end of the trail near the Thompson Creek TH there is a hill I always think of as Disappointment Hill ... disappointment and headed back to civilization ... Alexander Supertramp: where are you?