So I just kind of went on a blind date backpacking. Well, let me explain.
My wife showed me a Facebook video of her high school friend, a guy backpacking with a hammock. She said I should write him and make plans, since I sometimes have a hard time finding someone who shares my love of cold weather backpacking.
This was months ago, and finally we both had time off, and decided to meet up. He lives a few hours south of me, and a good halfway point is the Loyalsock Trail. We'd both been there before so it was an easy meet up point.
We decided to start at the eastern most point of the trail, hike a few miles in to check out the Haystacks Rapids, find a camp spot, and hike out.
The hike could have been a disaster. The weather was a grey area between freezing and not freezing, so there was wet snow, and lots of mud everywhere. We had to cross many streams thay normally are never there, due to snow melt. I was wearing new, not broken in boots, and he was wearing muck boots (to combat the conditions). Fortunately both our footwear selection worked out well, as both choices were completely waterproof, and we spent most the day walking in a few inches of water, or at least wet snow.
The start of the trail was, as typical for the Loyalsock, very rough and somewhat challenging, but very scenic. This met up with an old railroad grade, and the rest of our hike followed that mostly. We took a detour off the railroad grade to continue down to the Haystacks rapids.
I had been to the haystacks Rapids as a kid, but that was 20 years ago at least. They are a unique rock formation that's found nowhere else in the country. It's not known why, or how that formation got there. They are large, hard mounds of rock that stick up from the creek, making piles that look like old "haystacks" in a field. The area was big into logging many years ago, and the creek they are in was used to float logs down. The haystacks made a back up that piled logs up 3 stories high. Loggers tried to dynamite the rock, but they survived due to their unqiue hardness and composition.
We backtracked some, then continued a few miles to find a nice camp site. Our trip at that point had been a mix of the Loyalsock Trail, the Red X trail, and Haystacks Trail... which all run together and branch off each other.
He is a summer hammock camper, but just doesn't have the right gear for very cold weather, so he had his one man tent. Despite everything being extremely wet we managed a very nice fire, and enjoyed some surprisingly good Tito's Vodka, and some Knob Creek Bourbon. I don't like vodka at all, but Tito surprised me. Pretty soon Tito became our friend, and Tito convinced me vodka isn't so bad. Thanks Tito.
Low was only 26 degrees, but the wind made it feel much colder. I slept nice and warm in my JRB Sierra Sniveler and Mt Washington 3, I paired that with my DIY GOMHAQS top sock system. My thermometer read 26 outside, and 58 degrees inside the sock. I was nice and toasty, but my buddy didn't fare as well. He had climbed in his MSS and somehow his feet were not inside both layers, so he woke hours later with ice cold feet. I think our buddy Tito was partly to blame. Tito also had made his hike out a little harder, since him and Tito had spent a little more time together than he would have liked. Due to our lax schedule, and needing to start another fire to war up, we weren't even headed out until noon. We had slept in until 10, which was awesome since I rarely get to sleep in.
My "blind date" ended up being a really great hiking buddy, and we shared a lot of common interests (besides long walks on the beach, poetry, and pictures of unicorns). Coincidently, we both:
-got married a day apart from each other
-to girls from the same home town
-both went to Lake Erie for our 1 year anniversary
-both had a daughter last year
-both named our daughter the same first name
After a while the coincidences just made us laugh. Overall we both had a great time. We kept out miles low, so we only did maybe 4 miles each day. We were both out there just to relax, see some of the trail, and hang out. With the slick conditions, we were happy to take more of a stroll than to run a marathon. We had lots to talk about, between politics (something we both like and agree on) football, backpacking gear, and our mutual love of crawfish boils, so it was alright to spend more time BSing than just hiking.
So overall the trip was awesome, a great trail that we both really want to see more of this summer. Plus, I made a new friend that isn't afraid to camp when the weather gets cold. Next time, maybe just leave our friend Tito at home.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by tollermama
Bookmarks