With a warm front in Georgia, we decided to hike off some Christmas calories with a family trip since the projected low was 54* and also because we wanted to test out the camping related Christmas presents. The destination chosen involved a 1 mile hike to a very popular waterfall, then about another mile on an unmaintained trail to a prettier and bigger set of falls that is much less frequented.
Camp was setup before 2:30 pm and I wet waded in the stream fishing for a couple hours while the rest of the family collected firewood. After the sun set, the wind picked up and temperature dropped. With the wind and cold, we were in the hammocks by 8 pm. The people folk slept cozily, but it was clear that temperatures were well below the expected mid 50s.
My dog woke up shivering early despite a nemo switchback, Chuckit dog bed, and his own puffy vest. I donated my down puffy to him which seemed to do the trick and only had to wake up once more to zip him into it when it fell off around midnight. We'll have to do some more backyard testing with his setup. He got me back by photobombing our attempted family shot by lifting his leg as we were saying cheese.
The other oddity was, when taking down camp in the morning, I found condensation on the outside of my underquilt between it and the UQP which I haven't seen before. Looking at the weather station near the trailhead shows that the temperatures got down to 43 with a dew point of 42 which explains a lot.
We were the only ones at the upper falls for the duration of our trip and I can't imagine a much more peaceful place. All of our new gear performed as expected.
Stream crossing above the first falls
One of the steep sections of the unmaintained trail
Upper falls
Stream next to camp
Camp. I can't say enough how much I enjoyed the new tarp.
Bookmarks