Christmas Camping

I ventured out for a hike on December 25 around 14:30 (2:30pm). I walked across Bear Valley and noted the standing water, in spite of the low tide level. I just realized that a beaver must have built a dam on that stream, because it’s been flooded every time I’ve observed it in the past few months and the tide can’t always be that high! Furthermore, we have barely had any rain in the past few months. Anyway, I used to hike across that valley, keeping my feet dry, where now I would be almost knee deep in water. Beyond the valley, I headed down toward Hunters Creek. I wanted to explore a bit, and see if I could get lost. I did manage to explore off trail for a while, but I failed to get lost.

I got in a pretty good hike before I switched into camping mode. I went back to my car and transferred my gear to my external frame pack, to which I tied my sleeping pad and hammock. I hiked back into the forest with way more gear than I would need.

I spent the night in the forest. It was a chilly night (lower 30’s?), but not below freezing. I abandoned my fire early, for lack of dry firewood, and crawled into my sleeping bag in my Haven hammock around 21:30 (9:30pm). I made the classic error of thinking I could sleep under the stars with no rain fly. I think I woke up shortly after midnight, feeling like it had gotten a lot colder. What had really happened is that the dew that was still falling had made my sleeping bag pretty damp. I had enough layers on that it wasn’t a crisis; I just wasn’t as cozy as I would have preferred.

I really didn’t want to wriggle out of my sleeping bag to throw the rainfly over my hammock, so I went back to sleep and woke up again around 4:30. That’s when I decided I’d get up, find my warm socks (my feet get cold easily), and put the rainfly over my hammock, both to block the moisture and give me a little extra shielding from the cold air. I should have covered myself much earlier … like before I crawled into my sleeping bag in the first place, but it was nice, staring up at the stars.

It was still pretty cold when I got up at 08:30. I stayed in my bag in the hopes that it would warm up quickly. It wasn’t a big deal, once I convinced myself I had to get up, because I was dressed for cold weather. Once I was up, I put on the rest of my warm clothes. I never really had time to get cold.

A hunter visited my campsite and advised me to be careful, hiking out. I left without making coffee or having breakfast, since it was getting late and I had things to do at the house. I met two hunting dogs on my way out, but I got lucky in that where I popped out, there were no hunters pointing guns at me. I got back to my car without incident.