Tacoma96 let me know a while back he was going to hike the Nuesiok Trail ( which is my local hiking trail ) this weekend and I told him I would try and meet up with him. Originally the plan was to hike the whole trail but as a major rain storm was/is suppose to come thru today he changed plans. He told me that he and his son would hike the Pine Cliff's section of the trail and double back to camp out at Copperhead Landing shelter for Friday night so that if the rain storm did come thru on Saturday we would only be hiking about 3+ miles back to the Pine Cliffs parking area in the rain vice 10 miles to the other end of the trail. Told him I would meet him at Copperhead. Note...at 3:30 pm it started to rain hard with some thunder thrown in
This is the time to hike the Neusiok Trail as the cool weather is now here so the skeeters and deer flies are gone. Still have to be on the lookout for ticks.
Hiked in to Copperhead Shelter to find that Tacoma and his son had just gotten there and were in the process of gathering firewood for the evening fire. We found some good trees and set our hammocks. Tacoma's son was using an UQ for the first time and agreed in the AM that the UQ was much more comfortable to use that the pad he had used in the past ( I do believe that he will be ordering an UQ in the near future ). Then we fixed dinner and enjoyed the camp fire and the scenery. Went to bed about 10 pm and slept good. Felt like it got down in high 40's with little to no wind. We got up and fixed breakfast...I cooked up a spam single...the food of backpackers everywhere and finished it off with some hot chocolate. The nice thing about camping at the shelters is that one can leave the packs and misc gear in the shelter so if does rain that part of your gear does not get wet.
Normally I hear lots of owls while camping at the Copperhead Landing shelter but did not hear any until we were breaking camp in the AM.
We then packed up and started our hike back to the Pinecliffs parking area. It did start raining but it was a very light rain and not even enough to break out our rain gear for. Lots of downed trees and I got stuck going under one ( the old knees just don't bend like they use to ). Made it back to the parking lot and my ride was waiting for me.
Once I got home I could tell that it has been awhile since I have been hiking as I am tired from that short hike. Have to get out more and plan to now that it has started to cool off.
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