This is an account of the five day, four night backpacking trip that my husband, Ambrose, and I took to Stump Lake, including pictures :)
Day 1: August 9th
Day 1: August 9th
I took a half day off of work, so we could get started before dark. As we were pulling into the Kennally Creek Campground, the sky had become so covered in smoke that the late afternoon sun was an orange ball mostly occluded by clouds:
I dubbed it the 'Eye of Sauron.'
The campground was crowded. We had considered staying at the site for the night and travelling on in the morning, but at the sight of a couple dozen people and the sound of screaming children in the river, we agreed to go out a mile and make camp. After parking and changing into our hiking clothes, we were off.
We had hiked this first mile of the trail before, on a trip two summers ago, so it was relatively familiar. Add to that a lack of gain, and we made that first mile in less than 30 minutes, stopping after crossing a well-maintained wooden bridge and before we could get too far from the water.
I picked a place to pitch our tent, and Ambrose objected that it was too close to an animal trail. So we looked around for a better spot for another five minutes before he picked my original spot and I pitched the tent. I've gotten a lot better at doing that this summer. We use an REI Quarter Dome, which has a single pole set-up, which is actually three poles that are connected - I've never felt that really counts as one. The pole (poles) needs to be oriented properly, or the ends won't go into their respective holes, and it seemed like last year was completely hit-or-miss, while this year, I started to figure out how to place the pole (poles!) right the first time.
I'll admit, we've been spoiled this summer when it comes to mosquitoes. It's been a dry summer, and we hardly had to break out our repellent at all until this trip, due to a lack of standing water breeding grounds in our usual routes. But I began to get bites almost immediately once we stopped, so I asked if Ambrose would mind eating in the tent instead of on the bridge as he wanted to. He agreed, and we huddled in the tent, with the rainfly deployed against the 30% chance of rain forecast, eating as the sky grew dark.
After we ate, I looked for my head lamp.
It wasn't in my kit bag. It wasn't in my pack top. It wasn't in Ambrose's things.
It was at home.
A headlamp is one of the ten essentials, one of those items that you should always carry with you on a backpacking trip. I had a fear, for a moment, that we would be hiking right back to the car, if not immediately, then in the morning, because I had left my head lamp at home. But Ambrose had his, and since we were not going to be travelling extensively, not needing to travel at night at all, we chose to stick it out and not change anything about our plans.
I was relieved not to have ruined our trip, but I did feel guilty for forgetting something so fundamental. And I knew, now that I thought of it, exactly where my head lamp was. At home, in my day pack, precisely where I left it after we rode our bikes to the movie theater. I could have kicked myself, but it would have been a waste of energy. Instead, I lay in the dark, and eventually fell asleep, waking only once to go outside and pee.
I completely missed the little creatures that crawled under the rainfly and munched on my boot laces. I thought that might cut our trip short as well, but though parts of the braided laces were pulled apart, they managed to hold through the remainder of the trip.
Day 2: August 10th (Continued - click the 'Read More' link below)
It's watching you! |
The campground was crowded. We had considered staying at the site for the night and travelling on in the morning, but at the sight of a couple dozen people and the sound of screaming children in the river, we agreed to go out a mile and make camp. After parking and changing into our hiking clothes, we were off.
We had hiked this first mile of the trail before, on a trip two summers ago, so it was relatively familiar. Add to that a lack of gain, and we made that first mile in less than 30 minutes, stopping after crossing a well-maintained wooden bridge and before we could get too far from the water.
I took this picture on the way back, once the smoke had cleared. |
This was where we camped the first night, as pictured on the last morning. |
I'll admit, we've been spoiled this summer when it comes to mosquitoes. It's been a dry summer, and we hardly had to break out our repellent at all until this trip, due to a lack of standing water breeding grounds in our usual routes. But I began to get bites almost immediately once we stopped, so I asked if Ambrose would mind eating in the tent instead of on the bridge as he wanted to. He agreed, and we huddled in the tent, with the rainfly deployed against the 30% chance of rain forecast, eating as the sky grew dark.
After we ate, I looked for my head lamp.
It wasn't in my kit bag. It wasn't in my pack top. It wasn't in Ambrose's things.
It was at home.
A headlamp is one of the ten essentials, one of those items that you should always carry with you on a backpacking trip. I had a fear, for a moment, that we would be hiking right back to the car, if not immediately, then in the morning, because I had left my head lamp at home. But Ambrose had his, and since we were not going to be travelling extensively, not needing to travel at night at all, we chose to stick it out and not change anything about our plans.
I was relieved not to have ruined our trip, but I did feel guilty for forgetting something so fundamental. And I knew, now that I thought of it, exactly where my head lamp was. At home, in my day pack, precisely where I left it after we rode our bikes to the movie theater. I could have kicked myself, but it would have been a waste of energy. Instead, I lay in the dark, and eventually fell asleep, waking only once to go outside and pee.
I completely missed the little creatures that crawled under the rainfly and munched on my boot laces. I thought that might cut our trip short as well, but though parts of the braided laces were pulled apart, they managed to hold through the remainder of the trip.
Day 2: August 10th (Continued - click the 'Read More' link below)