Ouachita Trail, Talimena State Park, Oklahoma, American Independence Day Weekend
Hello all! My wife and I planned for our first real backpacking trip over (America's) Independence Day weekend. The plan was simple - 8 mile hike out, camp, and 8 mile hike back in. Here is what happened...
I took Friday off and spent most of the day doing last minute running around grabbing food, gear, and packing my backpack. My wife Crystal couldn't get off work and had packed Thursday evening so when she got off work we could jump on the road and get out there! She came home, we loaded the car up and as I started the car...BAM the first issue - airbag warning light. So we drove over to the dealership and spent a little over an hour there. They ended up giving us a rental (woohoo warranty!) and we got on the road. Fast forward a three hour drive and we arrived at Talimena State Park at about 10pm. This was our first night time set up but it wasn't horrible. It was even raining but we got our tarps up first and the rest was smooth sailing. We cooked dinner and got into our hammocks around midnight.
The next morning we were awoken fairly early (around 0630) by a family in the next campground that was breaking camp to leave. They were fairly quiet at first but then started talking loudly across the campsite to one another and their child grabbed an empty plastic water bottle and smashing spiders on the ground with it. That was enough for me to get up and start working on coffee. Crystal got up and worked on breakfast - I used an instant latte mix starbucks thing for coffee that boiled over when I poured it and really wasn't that good. Luckily, Crystal made a good breakfast. We lazily cleaned up camp and ended up taking a napEventually, we got packed up and on the trail. It was HOT and HUMID!! We spoke to the park ranger earlier who told us a lot of the creeks had dried up but with the recent rains they may be flowing now. The first mile wasn't bad - it was an @$$ kicker but we were still smiling
. By mile two we were sweating pretty good and feeling the weight of our packs but settled into a nice pace. By mile three we were mostly out of water and the water sources we came across were dry. So we reluctantly called an audible and turned back. It was a good thing we did because we learned all the planned water sources we wanted to resupply on were dry. We got back into camp and took FULL advantage of the established camp ground amenities to include a cold shower and full resupply on water. We lazed around for the late afternoon (took another nap), ate a late lunch (mashed taters, gravy and beef (see photo)), ran into town for some ice and cola then enjoyed the rest of the evening talking and enjoying being outdoors. We were disappointed we didn't make our hiking goal but felt pretty accomplished with what we did complete. Dinner was a pad thai mix that was awesome! The next morning we broke camp pretty quickly as more rain (downpour) rolled in and we got on the road. We took the long way home exploring several other areas on the way back for future camping spots.
Lessons Learned: I need to organize my pack "more better" so I can grab the things I need/want when I want them. I also need to lighten my pack up. I have a 7# Gregory pack and carried 30# of gear (including food but not water). I over thought and over packed snacks like almonds and peanut butter ... come to think of it, I over packed food too. For water I carried two Nalgene bottles and that wasn't enough for our hike. I may drop the nalgenes and go with platypus bags to carry more water and same on a small amount of weight.
All in all, this was a great weekend! Hope you enjoy the photos.
-Kevin
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