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  1. #1
    Senior Member jb_outdoors's Avatar
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    Foolin' Around on The Foothills Trail

    Foolin' Around

    My buddy Marcos and I took advantage of the long weekend to drive up to Oconee from Florida and do a "short" out-n-back on The Foothills Trail. We have been on a few short overnights before but had since acquired quite a bit of new gear that was as-yet untested and were itching to get out of the house after several months of Covid isolation.

    Day 0

    We left Orlando at 3pm on Thursday and drove to Tybee Island where we stayed at the Admiral's Inn overnight. The Admiral's Inn was a great place to stay. The staff were very friendly and everything was clean. Basic accommodations but a few steps up from your typical side of the highway motel and convenient to the central restaurant and bar district on Tybee. The beach was a 10 minute walk away. There is a fantastic pier there with a large pavilion containing a few food and drink huts. These were all closed during our visit but in less interesting times it would be a wonderful place to bring your family. We took a short walk out to the beach and wandered around a bit but things were not very lively so we headed back to the hotel. We watched the Denver Nuggets get trounced by the Clippers and dozed off for a few hours.

    IMG_20200903_213450.jpg


    Day 1

    The alarms rang all too soon at 4am. Too tired or too excited, we skipped breakfast and hit the road by 5am. The drive up from Tybee was uneventful as anyone who has driven through South Carolina can imagine. Marcos had never been through this way so I'm sure it was somewhat interesting for him. He got his first taste of Bojangles breakfast in Clemson and I think he'll be a convert for life now.

    We got to Oconee State Park just before noon. I should mention that getting registered and finding the trailhead was a bit more confusing than I expected. It wasn't clear from either the Foothills Trail website or the Oconee State Park website that the $5/night parking fee is per person, not per vehicle. There's a little stand right at the park entrance where you pull an envelope, fill out some details, leave your money inside, tear off your parking pass, and stick the envelope back in the stand for the rangers to collect later. I was expecting an actual ranger booth at the entrance, but this wasn't a big deal. To get the Foothills Trailhead just keep making right turns. You'll drive past the playground and minigolf course and around past the lift station to a fork in the road that has signage for cabins. Keep right here and you'll reach the parking lot for the trail about a quarter mile beyond. The parking lot was pretty full even at noon on a Friday but we managed to find a space and get loaded up to hit the trail. There is another registration kiosk right at the trailhead for overnight hikers.

    It was pretty hot to start out and we made the mistake of not starting with any water, expecting to find a source either at the trailhead or pretty close to the beginning of the trail. It was around 3 miles to the first accessible stream crossing and I was gagging with thirst by the time we got there. The water in these mountain streams tastes so good! It is a definite improvement over the water we find in the Florida boonies both in taste and temperature. After making water we had a quick snack of my homemade strawberry fruit leather that Marcos deemed addictively delicious (I had to make a second one pound batch for the trip because the first batch got eaten at home in a single day).

    A little less than a mile later we reached the first potential campsite. I believe it is the one mentioned in the FHT Guidebook at 3.7 miles east of Oconee. It's a nice spot on a small peninsula where Tamassee(?) Creek makes an oxbow. We had originally planned to stop at this site for the first night, hike to Simms Field on Saturday, fool around in the river on Sunday and hike back to the first spot, then hike out Monday morning. However, it was only 2pm by the time we reached this spot so I did some figuring in my head with the help of the guidebook and decided that we could probably make it almost to the Chattooga river if we pressed on for a few more hours. It's easy to be bold and brave in the full daylight of a Friday afternoon.

    We finished up section A14 still feeling good and started into A13 ticking off the miles in regular fashion. Things got pretty hilly here, however, and we both became keenly aware of our age and lack of conditioning in short order. Marcos started to ask how much further we had to go with increasing frequency. We stopped a few times to drink some water and catch our collective breath, but the anxious thought of being caught out in the woods at dusk with no campsite gnawed at the back of my mind constantly so I urged both of us on. There were a couple of spots that had amazing views through the trees of the mountains and the piedmont in the distance. After the leaves fall these views are probably even more spectacular. We made it to the end of A13 at SC 107 and collapsed onto the ground for a 20 minute break. At this point our sole thought was to find somewhere suitable to hang up for the night.

    Based on the guidebook I estimated we had a little over two miles left to reach our intended resting place for the night just shy of the Chattooga. After crossing SC 107 into section A12 we immediately passed from mixed hardwood forest to predominantly pine woods with lots and lots of blowdowns. The volunteers have done an amazing job keeping the trail clear and level. We saw a couple snakes I couldn't identify and while there was a small campsite complete with boy scout cistern about a mile from the highway we decided to keep going to find something bigger and with less company from the serpentes suborder. Another half mile on we came to what I believe is the Nicholson Ford Rd. parking lot and there met a gentleman from Asheville who had two huge dogs and very kindly told us we were not far from an area with numerous campsites to choose from. We had both already consumed our day's ration of ibuprofen at this point so that was good news to hear. At this point I think Marcos was a bit exasperated with my constant reassurances that we had "only a little bit further" to go. I think we had passed three or four campsites along the way that I had judged as uninteresting or unsuitable for one reason or another.

    A half mile on we passed a family out for a day hike who confirmed there was rest and solace to found only a few hundred yards down the trail. At least we were going steadily downhill at this point. Another half mile later we found an open spot right on the trail maybe 10 yards across that didn't look at all the thing to me but my poor exhausted friend insisted we give it a good once-over. There might have been trees enough to hang our hammocks but we would have been dangling our rears in laurel bushes. Being familiar as I am with the kinds of critters that like to inhabit these yells I was not having it. We kept on and crossed a bridge over a small creek that carried in its muddy banks an impression of the paw of either a small bear or one of the Saint Bernards we had seen earlier. I could only mutter "welp!" and keep on moving.

    About a hundred yards beyond the first open spot we found a huge open area with a half dozen fallen trees and maybe another half dozen dead but still standing. The creek (which as we learned from the guidebook is named "Lick Log Creek", a moniker that tickles me to death for I don't know why) ran right along the back of the "property". I overcame some significant scepticism about the quantity of rotten timber and declared this would be our final resting place for the day, much to my friend's relief. We set about putting up our tarps and hammocks. I brought an 8'x10' blue poly tarp and found that my hang was a bit too short to use the diagonal configuration I had planned on for this trip, so I ended up using the two hammock stakes to hang the tarp in an A-frame. This worked well enough but in hindsight I would have hung it higher and wider.

    Marcos brought out his pocket rocket and GSR cooking set and whipped up a delicious dinner of cheddar broccoli rice and Puerto Rican spam. If you haven't tried Puerto Rican spam, you had better. That's all there is to it. I discovered right away the one piece of gear I would regret not having for the rest of the trip: a chair. I had intended to use my homemade FBC coozie as a seat rest on any suitable logs or the ground, but none of the available timber offered a sitting spot compatible with my anatomy. I ate dinner standing. It is usually my custom when camping to sit beside the fire after dinner and enjoy a hot tea or cup of fruit juice or whiskey with a pipe of McLellan's Virginia Woods. This night I was too tired, sore, hot, sweaty, anxious, bothered, and irresponsibly lacking in whiskey to fool with either a fire or my pipe. We both crawled into our hammocks around 7pm and neither talked nor moved much subsequently.

    IMG_20200904_145803.jpg

    Day 2

    This being my first night ever sleeping in a hammock I expected to be uncomfortable, but to my delight I found it wasn't much trouble to get a good "lay" and after a not unreasonable period of squirming around I dozed off. I dreamed of bears. Lots of bears. Bears ravaging our camp, stealing our food, and clawing our hammocks. In my dream I yelled at the bears to go on and git. I woke up around 5am to see a large shadow looming over me and, being the fast-thinking, quick-acting, cat-like reflexes fella I am I sat up and hollered as loud as I could at this bear to scare him off. The "bear" in the form of my poor friend Marcos almost had a heart attack. He had come over to check on me because I was yelling in my sleep. Once we both recovered our sense we had a good laugh and went back to bed. That, my friends, is how Marcos earned his trail name, El Oso.

    Aside from my nightmare I slept magnificently in the hammock. In fact, I attribute the depth and quality of sleep to allowing the possibility of nightmares at all. I have come to expect from my years of sleeping in tents that camping necessarily entails waking up ever 30 minutes or so during the night to toss around. I'm telling y'all I was dead to the whole entire world and Hades beyond on this night. It was some time after I woke up before I could be bothered to stir from my nest. Marcos, however, had passed the night uncomfortable. The low was around 60 degrees which to mountain folk is "good sleepin' weather", but my poor friend who has spent most of his life in much warmer environs had brought only a blanket and found himself awake and shivering most of the night. I suspect this naturally damped his enthusiasm for the whole expedition, but to his everlasting credit and despite my nocturnal contributions to his mental discomfort he greeted me cheerful shortly after dawn. We had an easy breakfast of Cafe Bustelo and strawberry pop tarts and starting breaking down camp.

    Our original plan was all busted. I had hoped by putting in miles on day 1 we would be able to extend our range and make it some ways past Burrell's Ford for night two. After further consideration over our coffee, however, we realized this wouldn't do. Going much further would mean an even longer day of hiking to get back to Oconee on time to leave Monday. I suggested we could have a "near zero" day and move a couple miles down the trail, setup camp in Simms Field right on the banks of the Chattooga and spend the day lollygagging in and around the river, but this plan wasn't met with much enthusiasm. We decided to pass along the trail for a mile more to at least glimpse the legendary effluence, paused for a bit to admire Lick Log Falls, before turning back towards Oconee to knock off half the return trip. Once we saw how steep the gorge was the wisdom of this plan was confirmed. We took our sweet time picking our way out of the river valley and back towards Cheohee Road. We passed a group of young men toting several large coolers and even a wagon full of "supplies" headed towards the river. Having seen how steep the trail was down to the riverside I had my doubts about whether they'd be able to get all that stuff back out again. The vigor of youth overcomes many obstacles I suppose.

    I had made water before leaving camp in the morning and by the time we reached the boy scout cistern again I had consumed all two liters. We lingered for a bit taking pictures by a small waterfall and then pressed on towards the highway. After crossing the road we stopped in the shade to have a brunch of sorts. There was some phone signal here so we called home to check in with the families. I really wished I had brought a chair or stool. Squatting in the dirt to eat lunch is not fun when your calves are already on fire. We sat for a bit watching motorcyclists defy death up and down the highway and then picked up to finish the last couple miles to camp.

    We got back to the first campsite around 2 or 3. Marcos immediately got to work setting up his tarp and hammock. I had to sit for a while and drink some fruit juice before I could get the energy to do the same. The selection of spots to hang a hammock here was a bit tricky. I ended up using the 20' straps Marcos brought for his hammock and he used the 10' straps that came with my hammock. The first tree he chose cracked in half after he sat in the hammock so he ended up having to move. My hang left me with a big tree right next to the opening to my hammock that I would end up banging my feet into all night. This evening's dinner was a trail pizza recipe I found here, and it was amazing. I used my Trangia spirit burner in a Firebox Nano stove with a homemade, Shug-style tinfoil windscreen, and a Stanley pot to boil the water. More on this setup later, but needless to say cleanup after dinner was a breeze. We ate out of the freezer bags and chucked them in our trash bag. Cleanup done!

    If you're a real stickler for LNT, you might want to skip this part. One step of making trail pizza is breaking up a mozzarella stick into pieces so they'll melt in the bag. The first cheese stick I opened flew out of my hands and fell on the ground, and in my tired, frustrated state I kicked it into the creek. A few moments later I looked up to see that it had disappeared. Marcos peered into the creek and a moment later shouted for me to come look. A half dozen crawdads had snatched the cheese stick and were having an underwater battle royale over the spoils. The biggest one finally won out and dragged the cheesy remains into his crevice under the bank. That was better than TV after dinner. On top of that we managed a bit of a fire for a while and I got to have my pipe of Virginia Woods. We sat up talking pretty late

    I did not sleep as well this night. I'm not sure if it was the length of the hang or my cramped quarters banging my feet against the tree all night but I tossed and turned quite a bit. The one upside was I chose not to put up my tarp and at 1am I woke up to see the full moon streaming down from a gap in the tree canopy. It was nice to be able to look right out of my hammock all around and see there were no bears or any other critters rambling through camp.

    IMG_20200904_192003.jpg

    Day 3

    I loaned Marcos my inflatable air mattress for night two to help him stay warmer, and he said it did help but wasn't comfortable to sleep on. I was perfectly snug in my 20 degree bag despite the zipper failing a couple times and needing to be fixed in the middle of the night. I extolled the virtues of underquilts but I'm afraid freezing his butt off might have turned him off of hammocking in all but the balmiest of climates. We'll see. We got up around 8, had some coffee and were packed up and on the trail by 9. The hike back to Oconee was mostly uneventful. The weather this day was amazing and with packs a little lighter we made good time back to the trailhead. We passed quite a few groups of day hikers coming in which was the most people we saw the whole weekend despite it being a holiday. Our first stop after leaving the park was, of course, Cook Out, which we don't have here in Florida and Marcos had never tasted before. It was every bit as good as I remembered, and a half gallon of Cheerwine goes a long way towards curing whatever ails ya.

    IMG_20200906_094013.jpg

    The Trail

    day1.png

    We hiked all of A14, all of A13, and the first 2-3 miles of A12. Then we hiked it all again in the other direction. With the exception of the first hundred yards or so from the Oconee trailhead, the trail was well marked and easy to follow, with copious signage at strategic points. Never once did we feel lost or unsure of where the trail was. The guidebook was immensely helpful in this regard as well. I brought the official map along, but never had a reason to consult it. The maps and descriptions in the guidebook were plenty. I will strongly suggest, however, that those who are using the West-to-East section of the guidebook refer back to the East-to-West version of each section because the descriptions are not the same and there was information in the E2W sections that the W2E directions did not have that ended up being very useful.

    The trail does get pretty narrow in some places and there are some moderately steep dropoffs. Nothing that would cause you to expend a pair of drawers but caution is nonetheless advised. I would not hike this trail in the dark.That being said the trail is otherwise in very good condition and it's obvious there are volunteers clearing it and making repairs on a regular basis. A huge thanks to those folks! There are no gruelling climbs that we encountered, and there are amazing views at several spots. All of the creeks we crossed had sturdy bridges over. We never had to get our feet wet.

    We barely scratched the surface of all the Foothills Trail has to offer, but it has to be said that on these sections it was not as easy to find spots for hanging a hammock as I had expected. The campsites we encountered were much more suited to tents, and the available trees were either too close, too far apart, too small, or too big. This might be chalked up to our inexperience, but anyone heading into these woods with a hammock should be prepared to hunt a bit for a good hang.

    The Gear

    • Hammock: Etrol "The Bat"
    • Tarp: 8'x10' Walmart Blue Poly
    • Sleep System: Kelty Tuck 35 Mummy Bag
    • Insulation: Outdoorsman Lab Inflatable Pad (not used by me this trip)
    • Rigging: 550 Paracord (50')
    • Stove: Trangia 27 Spirit Burner w/ Firebox Nano Stainless
    • Cookset: Stanley Adventure Camp Pot and Cup, plus homemade Reflectix FBC Coozie
    • Water Treatment: Sawyer Squeeze w/ CNOC Vecto 2L and Osprey 3L Pack Bladder
    • Pack: Teton Mountain Adventurer 4000


    Of this list, I had never used the hammock, tarp, stove or cookset on the trail before. Sadly I don't have anywhere in my yard to pitch the hammock or tarp, so it had been setup a grand total of once at the park before hitting the trail. Yikes! Nevertheless it worked out pretty well. All the videos and advice I've found here on the forums helped immensely, so thank you all for sharing your wisdom here. Freezer bag cooking was new to me as well but I'm absolutely hooked on it. I spent about a week before the trip dehydrating ingredients and testing recipes. I packed enough food for four full days and in total this weighed just under 3lbs. Not having to scrub pots and plates after dinner was a huge plus as well, and saved me weight in dish soap and scrubbies, not to mention having to carry the aforementioned pots and plates.

    The Etrol "The Bat" is a decent starter kit. For under $40 I got the hammock with integrated bug net, integrated ridgeline and mesh item organizer, 10' looped straps, stakes, and a bag. I can't find it on Amazon anymore but there are a dozen other no-name hammocks just like it for a similar price. Since I wasn't sure if I would like hammocking or not it was a great way to test the waters without the missus raising her eyebrows. Both Marcos and I used this hammock for this trip and we found it easy to setup and easy to get situated in. It weighs 21.5 ozs but if you swap out the included carabiners for something lighter it drops down to 17.04 ozs. This was a huge improvement for me over my "ultralight" Six Moon Designs Lunar Duo which weighs in at a chunky 3.6 lbs.

    The poly tarp was a poly tarp. It's ugly. It's heavy (30.41 ozs). It's loud. But it's also cheap. I only used it one night on this trip and I'm glad I brought it and even more glad I didn't need it the second night. A lighter tarp is probably my very next kit upgrade.

    The Kelty Tuck is now out of production as far as I know and that's a shame because it's hands down the most comfortable sleeping bag I've ever slept in. The only trouble it gave me this trip was the zipper parted a couple times on the second night letting a draft in on my feet. Easily fixed.

    The Outdoorsman Lab inflatable pad is another product that is essentially the same as a dozen others sold under different brand names on Amazon. It's functional. It's cheap. It's small. It's light. I didn't end up using it on this trip but my buddy said it did help keep him warm enough to get a little sleep on night two when it got down in the low 60s.

    This was my first trip using this stove and cookset rig and I love it. I will upgrade to a lighter titanium pot at some point but the Stanley set works fine for now. The combination of Trangia burner and Firebox Nano combination packs small, is reasonably light (10.87 ozs combined including the cloth bag the Firebox comes in), dead silent (I can't stand loud gas burners in the woods), and exceptionally versatile giving me the option of using twigs or alcohol to boil water. All told my "kitchen" weighed in around two pounds including fuel and various other accessories I brought along. The Stanley pot was by far the heaviest item at 7.55 ozes, so replacing it with a Toaks or similar 550ml pot would more than cut that in half.

    This was also my first trip using the freezer bag cooking method. It did require several days of prep before the trip to research recipes, dehydrate ingredients, test recipes, and get everything packed up. Completely and utterly worth it. My food plan covered three meals a day for four days and in total it weighed in at 2.9 lbs. I had lots of food left over even accounting for our early departure. Cooking was a breeze, just boil water. Cleanup was a breeze, just put the bag in the trash sack. I found lots and lots of good recipes over at https://trailcooking.com/fbc/.

    The last bit of new gear was the CNOC Vecto 2L which I purchased just before this trip to upgrade my Sawyer Squeeze system. I'm not a fan of the stiff squeeze bags the Sawyer comes with and wanted a gravity feed system that I could hang up and let work while I do other things around camp. The CNOC worked a treat. I had previous purchased a coupler kit for my Osprey 3L bladder so that I can just disconnect my bite valve and plug a filter directly into the tube to fill the bladder without removing it from the pack. With the new bag I can scoop some water, hook up the filter, hang it on a tree, and come back 5 minutes later to a bladder full of safe water. Marcos brought along a Katadyn filter pump which I have used before. They work great and the weight of the Katadyn system is comparable to the Sawyer + CNOC. However, while he had to spend 5-10 minutes squatting next to the river to make his water I was able to get a big scoop and walk away. The whole process took about the same amount of time for both of us, but needless to say I prefer my method
    Attached Images Attached Images

  2. #2
    FLTurtle's Avatar
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    Nice write up...sounds like ya'll had fun, along with a good learning experience. I had planned on thru hiking the FHT last fall, but life got in the way. Maybe next spring.

    If you're looking for a spot in Orlando to try out your gear, take a look at Hal Scott. There are two back country sites about 2-2.5 miles in. It's an easy walk, except for almost no cover until you cross the Econ River (there's a bridge). From there, it's about a 10 minute walk to the first site. It has a pitcher pump that was working when I was there last (October 2019). Otherwise, you'll need to pack in water...yeah, the Econ River flows thru there but it's gonna take more than a Sawyer for treatment. The second site is about 1/2 mile past, but it doesn't have a pitcher pump. Both sites have a fire ring and picnic table and a few decent spots for hanging.

    https://www.sjrwmd.com/lands/recreation/hal-scott/

    2019-03-29_17-46-35_570 (2).jpg

  3. #3
    Senior Member jb_outdoors's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by FLTurtle View Post
    Nice write up...sounds like ya'll had fun, along with a good learning experience. I had planned on thru hiking the FHT last fall, but life got in the way. Maybe next spring.

    If you're looking for a spot in Orlando to try out your gear, take a look at Hal Scott. There are two back country sites about 2-2.5 miles in. It's an easy walk, except for almost no cover until you cross the Econ River (there's a bridge). From there, it's about a 10 minute walk to the first site. It has a pitcher pump that was working when I was there last (October 2019). Otherwise, you'll need to pack in water...yeah, the Econ River flows thru there but it's gonna take more than a Sawyer for treatment. The second site is about 1/2 mile past, but it doesn't have a pitcher pump. Both sites have a fire ring and picnic table and a few decent spots for hanging.

    https://www.sjrwmd.com/lands/recreation/hal-scott/

    2019-03-29_17-46-35_570 (2).jpg
    Hey that's great info! Thank you!

  4. #4
    New Member
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    Thanks for the write up. Foothills is on my list of places visit.

  5. #5
    swampfox's Avatar
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    Great report.
    I think you would have enjoyed a night on the Chattooga though.

    Swampfox
    He is your friend, your companion, your defender... he is your dog. You are his life, his leader, and master. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of that devotion.

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