I selected 15 photos for this blog entry. I don’t know if I’ll get them all in. On January 31 (Friday), I left work around 14:30 to pack up and head to the forest for some daylight hiking and an overnight camping trip.
I started my hike by hiking down to Holsten Creek from Highway 58. The creek wasn’t high, but it also wasn’t really low. It had a nice flow and it was a very pleasant day to be exploring the stream. I had no fear of getting wet, as it was over 70 degrees (~ 21C). I encountered a deer that nearly ran into me in it’s rush to outrun some hound dogs, as I would soon find out, as the first of the dogs could be heard, baying in the distance and closing fast. I wondered if that poor hound dog had been abandoned, but then 2 more followed, so either all three were abandoned or someone was running deer well after the season had closed. The dogs had collars, but I didn’t think to get a good photo when I had the chance. I was shooting video of the lead dog and I’ll include a frame from my video, in case anyone recognizes the collar. The only thing I’d really care about is that the dogs get returned home if they are lost.
That was the highlight of my daylight hike along Holsten Creek. After that, I drove down Long Point road to where the Weetock crosses and I hiked east along the trail, looking for a place where I could set up my 4-man tent and try to set up my hammock inside the tent (with the ridge line going out the 2 doors of the tend. The sun was setting and I really wasn’t committed to setting up my big tent and then taking it down if I didn’t find the perfect spot, which I did not … at least not while I still had daylight. I had to hike back to my car in near darkness, but I managed to make it.
Next, I drove to the culvert and repacked all of my gear into my larger pack, so I could include my sleep system. It was well after dark when I headed south on the west side of the culvert. It was getting windy and the forecast was calling for rain, so I hiked about 10 minutes in and set up my rain fly; just in case I needed a shelter. I put my hammock chair under the rain fly and hung out for a while. The photo on the left is of my first visitor. She seemed very interested in my ditty bags. I made some ramen noodles, ate them and hung out a while longer to let my stomach settle.
Fred was planning to come out, but he wasn’t going to be out for a while, so I took a hike further south to the beaver dam where I crossed to the trail on the west side of the beaver lack and hiked north to the culvert road. Fred showed up about 10 minutes after I got back to the road. We walked together back to where I had set up my rain fly and hammock chair. We finished setting up camp and hung out for a while before crashing. The weather was getting a bit ominous. Our rain flies were whipping in the wind, the trees were swaying; a couple of them were squeaking, and you could hear the wind roaring above us. I wondered, as I lied there in my hammock, if this was a safe night to be in the woods.
The rains came, the wind died down, the temperature dropped, and morning came as scheduled. We considered leaving our hammocks in the woods and returning to the same spot for a second night, but we decided to pack everything out and try a new spot the next night. I had to return home to check on some things, but I knew I’d be back in the woods, later.
We decided that it might be fun to kayak up Pettiford Creek and camp somewhere near the creek. Thanks to the distractions of real life, we didn’t actually hit the water until 17:00 (about 40 minutes before sunset). The tide was low so we didn’t get that far up the creek before we encountered a log we couldn’t cross. Neither of us was that excited about getting wet, as the temperature was dropping pretty fast, the sun was setting, and the water was cold. So, we retreated to the old mill dam, set our camp up near there, built a cozy fire, heated our food on the fire, and drank a few beers.
The temperature kept dropping all night. I’m not sure exactly how cold it got; probably in the mid 30’s (~2C). I slept well in my Haven hammock with a 20 degree (-5C) sleeping bag, and insulated sleeping pad, and an insulated undershirt. It was a chilly morning and the clouds were pretty thick, so we rekindled the campfire in the morning. We had cowboy coffee and cooked sausage for breakfast.
After we broke camp and got all of our gear loaded back into the kayaks, we continued our trip up the creek until we got to a pretty large beaver dam that would have been pretty difficult to cross with all the gear we were hauling. I honestly believe we had everything with us, except maybe some things we could have really used.
Anyway, we got out of our boats and explored on foot for a while, then we headed back downstream to where we parked the truck. We loaded up our gear and drove back to Fred’s place where we transferred my gear and my boat back to my vehicle and we went our separate ways. That was about 13:30 on Feb 2, so there was still enough of the day for me to go home, make coffee, get some lunch and do some laundry. Back to work on Monday!
