Monday, February 21, 2005

I Went

I finally made it to the woods for a four-day, three-night backpacking trip. Solo. Winter. Not just in a wilderness area, but in two wilderness areas. So there.

Actually, it was great, one of the best outdoor experiences I've had so far.

Day One: (Thursday)

I drove up to the mountains, and spent about an hour scouting by car for 1) a good place to ford the West Fork of the Pigeon River and 2) the trailhead for the Green Mountain Trail.

Didn't find the trailhead, though I did find two spots that might have been the trailhead. I did find a reasonable crossing, so I decided to start my loop by crossing the river. Elevation: 3,080 ft.

Crossing the river wasn't too hard, after I accepted the idea of wading a short distance in knee-deep 35° water. Most of the crossing was rock-hopping, with only a little wading. Most of the wading was in swift, but very shallow, water; the knee-deep part was nearly still. But to dip my foot in the cold water, though! I had debated whether or not to bring sandals for just such a crossing, and I was glad to have brought them, to be able to put on dry socks and boots after drying my feet on the other side.

A short scramble up a steep bank and I was on the Fork Mountain Trail. I walked maybe two-tenths of a mile, then went steeply uphill offtrail to an area which looked promising for campsite locations. A short while later, I'd found a perfect spot. Elevation: 3,450 ft. I made myself a cup of cowboy coffee (I know cowboys don't usually drink coarse-ground vanilla coffee, but just call it poetic license), and set up my tarp.

By this time, the sun was fading fast, and the sunny-but-breezy day was giving way to what promised to be a clear, cool, breezy night. A short distance from my little camp, I found a good tree for bear-hanging my food bag, set that system up, then cooked my dinner there and ate it.

Why do dehydrated Thai sesame noodles taste so good in the woods? Life's mysteries... Ah well, I followed that with a little chocolate and a wee dram of rum, then off to bed was I, at the late, late hour of 8:00 pm. It actually does seem late when it's completely dark, when you're starting to shiver a little and the wind is blowing. A warm sleeping bag, out of the wind inside a well-pitched tarp is a mighty fine place to be.
Aside: backpacking in winter involves only three main elements: walking, sleeping, and camp chores. This time of year here, it's light enough to travel by about 7:30 am and fully dark by about 6:45 pm. That gives you 11 hours and 15 minutes. Subtract the time it takes to do the evening camp chores, and you have about 9 hours. Subtract the morning chores, and you're down to about 7 hours. Which is plenty long enough to walk in one day when you're in shape like I'm not.

So, seven hours of walking, four hours of chores and thirteen hours of sleep? Yep, pretty much. Thirteen hours in the sleeping bag, at any rate. As a certified sleepaholic, I think this is one of the hidden gems of winter backpacking.
Day Two: (Friday)

With the wind still shaking the trees outside, I found it easy to be lazy. Eventually, I got up, fixed some tea, packed up some of my stuff, boiled some water for grits, packed up some more of my stuff, then ate the grits.
Aside: they were the worst grits I'd ever eaten. I didn't know why until this morning, when I realized they were quick grits, not instant as I'd thought. Makes a difference!
After breakfast, I packed up what remained, made my way down to the trail, and off I went. 10:15 am. The trail soon turned steeply uphill, following a creek for a little while before leaving it to switchback (still steeply) up to a ridgeline.
Aside: I filled my water bottles from the creek. I don't filter or treat water from streams if I know there's no agriculture, industry or habitations upstream. I've never been sick. I believe giardiasis and similar backcountry ailments are usually caused by bad hygiene, not bad water. Your mileage may vary.

I carry two bottles: one is a standard one-liter plastic soda bottle, the other is a 2.5 liter hydration pack bladder. I made an insulated pouch for the hydration bladder so the water won't freeze. So far, it's worked. I used to carry a nalgene bottle until I realized it was something like 5 times as heavy as a soda bottle. The soda bottle works fine. I keep it inside my pack as my "reserve."

When the hydration pack is empty, I know I have one liter remaining and it's time to find some more water. 3.5 liters is just right for two hot beverages, two hot meals, and seven hours of walking.
Not long after the trail reaches the ridgeline, it turns sharply and follows the ridge until it dead-ends into another ridge, at an old road.

That's where I got a little "confused," if I may borrow from my fellow Tar Heel Daniel Boone. The map indicated that the trail turned sharply south at this point. The old road, (built by loggers over a hundred years ago and now overgrown but still recognizable) went north and south. So I turned right and went south on the old road. For quite a while (at least 30 minutes) this seemed to have been the right choice. Then the road ended at the top of a cliff.
Aside: trails in wilderness areas aren't supposed to have blazes or signs, so you have to be at least fairly good with map and compass to get around (or travel with someone who is). Many states totally fudge the no-blazes-or-signs rule, but North Carolina plays it almost entirely by the book. They do make exceptions for the Appalachian Trail (AT), and the Mountains to the Sea Trail (MST), but even along those routes, blazes and signs are scarce through wilderness areas.
I looked for something that looked like a trail heading south from the cliff, but there was nothing. I looked left off the trail; I looked right off the trail, but there was nothing. Okay, maybe that faint trace to the left was something. It led uphill, which was more-or-less in line with what the map indicated. I knew it wasn't the trail, but now I knew the road wasn't the trail, either, so I hoped the trace would lead me to the trail faster than backtracking would.

Clearly, I reasoned, I should have turned left on the road. It would have gone north briefly before curving south. It should now be paralleling this route, and if so, it would be uphill from here. So up the trace I went. Soon the trace disappeared, but I continued on the same compass bearing and to my delight, a few minutes later I came to an old road! Yes!

The road went north and south. I went south again. Makes sense, right? Guess what? About five minutes later, the road ended at, yep, a cliff. I looked left. I saw a path. I followed it to a Really Good View. Where it dead-ended. I backtracked. I looked right. I saw a steep descent along the top of the escarpment with no trail (or even trace) evident. Hmmmm....

I headed back along the road, past the trace, past a huge tangle of fallen trees (apparently years old, not an encouraging sign) until I came to a second old tangle of fallen trees, at which point I decided my best bet was to backtrack all the way back to the trace, back down the trace to the old road, back along the road, past the trail junction--and see where that got me.

Since I did have a good spot for it, before I headed down, I quickly triangulated my position, using two of the area's more famous high points as reference points. (I hadn't done this exercise in a long time; I found it reassuring that it came back so naturally.) I found I was approximately at the point where the trail turned 180° from north to south. Great.

So I backtracked to the trace, then back to the other old road, then back 30 minutes to the trail junction. And beyond. This did seem more like a trail and less like a road. After about 5 minutes, it curved around 180° to head south. After a few more minutes, it came to a very familiar old tangle of fallen trees. What the?!? I worked my way around the tangle and sure enough, I soon came to the other tangle and from there to the cliff edge. Again. Great.

I reflected that there were many good campsites here, and that getting back to the car would be no problem, unless the river rose significantly, but the weather was not-a-cloud-in-the-sky sunny. So, I reflected, things could be worse. I took my lunch break. I enjoyed the view and the warm sun. I snapped a few pictures.

After lunch, I backtracked the road, looking carefully for any path, however faint, that might diverge from it. Not long after the second tangle of trees, I found it: a faint, but distinct path, almost impossible to spot from the other direction. It skewed off from the road and headed to a different spot on the cliff--where it made a steep, but fairly easy, descent. Then it led south onto what appeared to be the main Fork Mountain ridgeline. Success!

The rest of Friday's hiking was easy, up a well-designed, easy-to-follow trail to the top of Birdstand Mountain and finally onto Fire Scald Ridge, where the fire scars are gone, but a huge grassy meadow remains. After a brief scout for a good campsite on the trail ahead proved futile, I decided to make camp in the meadow. Elevation: 5,220 feet. I set up my tarp in a flat space between two trees on one side of the meadow, and cooked/ate/hung my food on the other side of the meadow.

The site was open to the southwest, so I had a great view of sunset and a nice, long twilight. Still, I was in the sleeping bag by 8:00 pm. I had wandered for over 2 hours; I'd covered a grand total of 6 miles of my loop so far. For a final insult, I realized I had only 16 oz of water, so I wouldn't be able to cook a hot breakfast in the morning. Oh, well, nothing for it but to sleep. Soundly.

Day Three: (Saturday)

Who needs a hot breakfast, anyway? I got warmed up by de-icing the tarp. I'd expected a windy night, but instead it had been mostly still. The temperature had fallen to 15°, not too cold, but cold enough that I wasn't in any hurry to get up. Fire Scald Ridge was between me and the sun, so while the rest of the visible world bathed in sunlight, the meadow stayed shaded until well after 8:00 am. A heavy frost had coated the tarp in a thick film of ice, so I put on my waterproof mitten shells and scraped it off by hand. This was a pain in the ass, but it worked.

While I waited for the sun, I ate my trail food: sesame sticks (spicy, of course) and a gorp mix I've been eating since I was a Boy Scout, raisins, honey-roasted peanuts and M&Ms. Washed down with a single swig of water. Yum. I was packed and on the trail by 9:30 am.

The trail follows the shady side of Fork Mountain, ascending gently through a world coated in moss and frost for about a mile and a half, until it junctions with the Ivestor Gap trail just below Ivestor Gap. Just before the junction, I came to a small, but vigorously-flowing stream, where I gratefully filled up my water bottles.

At the Ivestor Gap junction, I left the wilderness and entered the Pisgah National Forest. After taking in the huge view, I headed south in bright sunshine along the somewhat-famous Art Loeb trail, which ascends steadily to the top of Tennent Mountain (6,040 ft, it has a great 360° view), then descends a little before ascending again to the top of Black Balsam Knob (6,214 ft, it has an even better view--and a good deal of wind).

Here I took some pictures, and a quick lunch break, ducking down behind the summit rocks for a break from the steady wind. I put on sunscreen, and donned my shades, and checked the map. I was amazed to see that I'd already walked as many miles as I'd covered the previous day! I saw that most of the rest of today's walk would be either almost-level or downhill.

With a spring in my step, I made my way along the trail, across a fire road, through a beautiful "enchanted forest" of balsam fir, up slightly, then turning west on the MST, skirting a dizzing cliff line above the Blue Ridge Parkway. A few thin clouds began to slide in from the west.

Having heard the view was spectacular, I decided to make the short detour to Devil's Courthouse. I passed a stream on the way and was surprised by an older German couple as I
filled my water bottles again. They asked me about my previous night; I asked them about the weather forecast. They said it was supposed to rain late Sunday, which was the same forecast I'd heard Thursday.

As the sky clouded over, I followed the MST as it meandered north of the Parkway through a diverse forest, around the side of a minor peak, and then steeply down a valley beside a swiftly-flowing, cascasding stream to cross NC Hwy 215 where the stream joins Bubbling Spring Branch.

I formulated a plan A, a plan B and a plan C for Sunday. Plan A would be to follow the MST into the Middle Prong Wilderness Area, to the "old and obscure" Green Mountain Trail, and along that back to the car. Plan B would be to follow the MST just a bit further to a trail I'd hiked last year; it would make for a shorter, easier walk back. Plan C was to walk 10 miles down highway 215.

Having formed the plans, I started singing to myself, something I do fairly often on long solo walks. A large German Shepherd dog startled me in the middle of "The Happy Wanderer" (corny, I know, but it's such a good walking song that it keeps popping into my head when I fall into a certain rhythm). The dog belonged to a young, heavily-bundled couple, with whom I exchanged friendly greetings. I wandered happily across 215 and into Middle Prong Wilderness.
The MST crosses Bubbling Spring Branch, parallels the road briefly, then heads west, ascending to the foot of Mt. Hardy, which I'd considered climbing if time had permitted. I decided I didn't have time to climb it if I wanted to make it out of the woods before sunset on Sunday.

Saturday was almost done. It was late afternoon, I'd covered a lot of miles and now I just needed a good campsite. I passed a meadow, then another, but it was still too early to stop. I passed a wonderful area of Balsam fir, then just before it was time to stop, I passed a marginally-acceptable site in a small clump of trees at the top of short, sharp hill. I went ahead a little further on the trail, but seeing no good sites, I ended up backtracking to the hillside spot. I'd traveled over 12 miles today. Elevation: 5,180 ft.

The site was a little small, which made setting up my (fairly huge) tarp a little tricky. There was exactly one human-body-sized flat place, so that's where the groundsheet and sleeping pad went. I had coffee, then dinner. The only good tree for bear-bagging was, unfortunately, just a few yards away, but I'd eaten my dinner well away from camp, so I wasn't too worried. By 7:30 pm, I was on my way to sleep.

Day Four: (Sunday)

I woke with a start around 3:00 am. Something hitting the tarp! Okay, not a bear. Rain? Sleet? It turned out to be rain mixed with sleet. Lovely.

I managed to get back to sleep, but I had bizarre dreams. In one of them, Johnny Depp and Benecio del Toro were trying to kill me. They had rifles and were chasing me around the Arboretum on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. I kept taking cover behind trees, benches--anything to deny them a clear shot. Finally, Depp had me cornered. I charged him, grabbing the rifle barrel. We wrestled with it and he managed to get the muzzle into my mouth. Before he could pull the trigger, I got it out of my mouth. I was stronger than he was, and was able to put the the muzzle into his mouth. I saw his finger tightening on the trigger--he was going to kill himself! I pulled the muzzle out of his mouth and, with a defeated air, he released the rifle in disgust and slinked off. His hair had become tangled and ratty; his face was blue--not blue like a dead person, but blue like a smurf or like Krishna.

The dream, and a stronger burst of rain/sleet woke me up around 5:30 am. Why would Johnny Depp want to kill me? Why would he want to kill himself? What an odd dream. It still doesn't make sense, but it is really weird to me that I had the dream on the morning of the day Hunter S. Thompson shot himself (Depp played Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; his co-star in that was Benecio del Toro). Just plain weird. I had another odd dream, too, involving people I know so I'm not going to discuss it.

Could the campsite have had some kind of psychic resonance? I don't really believe in such things, but I don't think I'll ever camp there again!

I woke to a "crystal palace" of icy limbs and icy everything else around 7:30 am. I decided to skip the hot breakfast again, to just get on the road as soon as possible. Literally the road--Hwy 215, I decided, was the only sensible plan given the weather. By 8:30 I was on my way down the MST. With my instep crampons, traction wasn't an issue, but without them, I think I'd have had a very hard time.

Walking ten miles along a paved highway in cold rain sounds horrible, but I enjoyed it. The rain settled into a steady drizzle and there was no ice underfoot after I reached the road. I hardly saw any cars. I considered trying to flag one down, but decided I'd come for a walk, so I might as well have one! I enjoyed the views along the road, as it followed the creek until it was joined by enough other creeks to be called a river.

I made really good time. I'd expected to go something like 2 mph, but instead I went something like 3.5 mph. Towards the end, I found what I'm fairly sure is the Green Mountain trailhead. I reached my car about 3 hours after leaving camp. I'd walked 10 and a half miles today, making over 28 total. I would have liked to have made a longer loop, but the difficult routefinding on Friday had shown me the wisdom of contingency planning. Similarly, I'd have liked to have walked the Green Mountain trail, but it'll be there another day.

My main "goals" were to get outdoors for 3 nights, to walk a long way in nature, to see beautiful things, to stay out long enough to synchronize myself with the rhythms of nature. And to make it back alive and well.

Mission Accomplished!

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dude, thanks.

27 February, 2005 18:00  

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