Hiking/Camping Catch-all

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It would appear there are enough of us into the outdoors that we can merit a dedicated thread. Let's hear accounts and see some pictures!

This weekend I did a solo two night trip in Pike National Forest, along Lost Creek. It's an amazingly beautiful area. I took way too many photos though so I'm still trying to pick out highlights and process them.

I'm going Canoe Camping for a week in Temagami, Northern Ontario in a couple of weeks. I've done short canoe-camping trips before, but this will be my first extended one. It will also be my first week-long trip truly away from all civilization. I can't wait.

LiquidMantis wrote:

It would appear there are enough of us into the outdoors that we can merit a dedicated thread. Let's hear accounts and see some pictures!

This weekend I did a solo two night trip in Pike National Forest, along Lost Creek. It's an amazingly beautiful area. I took way too many photos though so I'm still trying to pick out highlights and process them.

I read that as "into the out doors". Sounds like some hippy LSD sh*t there-- you a hippy, ya junkie? Huh?!

In all seriousness, I can't remember the last time I went camping, and the most "camping" I've ever done, from what I can recall, was in a tent set up next to my parents' trailer. I enjoy the great outdoors, but I never really get out much.

Haven't done much camping recently, but I've got pictures from a climbing trip to Buzzard Rocks, in the northern part of the Shenandoah mountains. It had about a 45 min approach over a rough-ish trail. It was a pretty good climb, mostly slab with very tiny/nonexistent handholds. The worst part was the 1 ft wide climbers trail at the base. Barely any room to set up gear, much less belay.
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The view from the top.
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Just one little step, really, not a big deal...
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Me back up at the top, well, almost to the top.
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One of the guys repelling back down.
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The long hike back to the cars. Not as fun when you're tired, bruised, bleeding, and hauling 20-30 lbs. of gear.

I've also got pics from a rafting trip at the New River Gorge, in WV from like 2 weeks ago that I haven't uploaded yet. I'll try to post them later.

I'll go ahead and post a couple of pictures that I have uploaded so far. I didn't want to put anything in the first post as that gets really annoying on multi-page threads.

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Yippee! Pictures from my recent honeymoon trip to Hawaii, complete with a hike around an old Volcano Crater, a trip to a botanical garden and enviously watching people jump off a cliff into the pacific ocean.

My photos aren't very good in some places due to the cloudiness, but there were some great sights to see. I really liked the 20 minute hike past a bunch of signs saying turn back and keep out to a state beach where we were the only ones there.

My girlfriend and I are going to try to get some nice day hikes in Northern Colorado (Ft. Collins area) before winter comes. I'm trying to get her converted to long hikes like I did at Glen Canyon which is probably my favorite hike of all time.

Climbing is beyond my tolerance for "exciting, yet survivable" entertainment, but I love me some backpacking. Considering taking a week up in the Smoky Mountains soon. There are some trails there I haven't been able to visit yet this summer and I need to get away in the worst way. Will post pics if it comes together.

Here are some of my highlights from the Summer:

Goodwin Lake-Jackson Peak Hike
Holly Lake-Grizzly Lake Overlook Hike
Snow King (with my Son)
Delta Lake, Amphitheater Lake Hike

If you ever have a chance to hike/camp in the Teton National Park (or surrounding areas), I highly recommend it!

About a month ago my girlfriend and I camped in Promised Land State Park in northeastern Pennsylvania.

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Promised Lake.

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We missed the peak of the rhododendron bloom by a couple weeks but found a few plants that did not adhere to the schedule.

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The first time I used my Swedish FireSteel to start a fire. You can barely make out the outline of our tent in this picture.

Aside from the dense swarms of mosquitoes and other carnivorous insects, we had great time.

doubleplusungood wrote:

The first time I used my Swedish FireSteel to start a fire.

Ha! I used mine a bunch on this trip too. My first other than screwing around at home with it. Cotton balls rubbed with Vaseline make awesome fire starters. I keep several squished up inside a 35mm film canister.

LiquidMantis wrote:
doubleplusungood wrote:

The first time I used my Swedish FireSteel to start a fire.

Ha! I used mine a bunch on this trip too. My first other than screwing around at home with it. Cotton balls rubbed with Vaseline make awesome fire starters. I keep several squished up inside a 35mm film canister.

Not the sort of thing I carry about on my person but cotton tampons are perfect for this purpose. They are compact and contain an amazing amount of material for starting a fire.

We were just noting the other day that between rain, kids' soccer, rain, summer travel, rain, and planning for an extended bike trip, we haven't made it to any part of the Finger Lakes Trail yet this summer. While I was off at an early music conference, my husband and the kids did a couple of short hikes near Old Forge, NY (Rocky Mountain and Rondaxe), and that's about it. Hopefully we will have good weather and enough time this fall.

For solo hikes sans tent, R. uses a hammock. Handy, comfortable and lightweight.

I was hoping to get some hiking in along the Superior Hiking Trail (Northern MN, along Lake Superior) but life intervened.

Which is a shame because I think I've finally gotten my entire gear load under 15 pounds. I have somewhat bad knees, so ultralight is my best option. I have a hammock (same as posted above), top bag, lots of titanium (even a spork!), and hiking poles.

kleinetako wrote:

Which is a shame because I think I've finally gotten my entire gear load under 15 pounds. I have somewhat bad knees, so ultralight is my best option. I have a hammock (same as posted above), top bag, lots of titanium (even a spork!), and hiking poles.

Nice. I was just sub 50# with food and water this past weekend. It was my first trip though so I went well prepared and also had two novels.

I have just returned from the the Porcupine Mountians State Park in upper Michigan, and lived to tell of it.

We drove up one night, and car camped (or tail gated I suppose) while being surrounded by large rv's. We then proceeded to hike along the Lake Superior Trail, down the Little Carp River Trail, and then back to the Lake of the Clouds parking lot where we started three days ago.

Obligatory pictures can be found here.

doubleplusungood wrote:
LiquidMantis wrote:
doubleplusungood wrote:

The first time I used my Swedish FireSteel to start a fire.

Ha! I used mine a bunch on this trip too. My first other than screwing around at home with it. Cotton balls rubbed with Vaseline make awesome fire starters. I keep several squished up inside a 35mm film canister.

Not the sort of thing I carry about on my person but cotton tampons are perfect for this purpose. They are compact and contain an amazing amount of material for starting a fire.

I have never needed any of that stuff. My Jetboil starts up without a hitch with the built in striker and the backup Bic lighter I carry has never been an issue. If I want to start a campfire, I just find local materials, make a stack and use the Bic lighter to get things started. If it is wet out and I have a hard time finding starter stuff, I'll just use the Jetboil like a blowtorch to dry out and start the wet stuff.

Technology is your friend.

Hooray! Glad to see this thread, and I look forward to reading more.

I used to camp and hike a LOT, but it's been at least a decade since those days. Now that the kids are all old enough (youngest is 2) we're planning on multiple local camping trips this fall starting this coming weekend. Other than camping, we've had the kids out in nature plenty of times, including a trip in July to my favorite place on the planet - Yosemite.

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Taken from Glacier Point during sunset.

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Anyone that's been there can tell you the Merced river is COLD. The 50 degree water (from snow melt) was a stark contrast to the over 99F/37C heat in the valley. It didn't stop us from playing in it!

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Wow Lou, amazing photos.

My wife and I do some backcountry camping in Shenandoah. I think rock climbing is beyond my scope, but we certainly don't mind doing a lot of scrambling and tackling tough trails. I think we did around a 13 mile loop over a couple days two weekends ago, but we got into some poison ivy and are both still recovering. From our hike:

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Lake Crescent:
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Sol Duc falls:
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Some great shots in this thread.

Any rock-climbers in here?

There's a climber in my family, and he sent an email to me with a lot of terms I don't quite understand. Any climbers care to shed some light?

The pictures are from our Lone Peak ascent. Approximately a 5 mile, 5000 vertical foot gain topping out at about 11,000 feet. So in other words very steep and very hard approach. The hike up took about 5-6 hours and the hike down, 3 hours, and we were hurtin but haulin... The climb was a 5 pitch approximately 500+ foot climb. Not including the 100 foot 5.3 scramble to the base. The pitches consisted of a 5.6, 5.8+, 5.6, 5.10a, and then a 5.6 to the top. All of it being trad/pro protected. No bolts except for a piton here and there that we didn't use. The 10a section was a stack of overhanging blocks about 350 feet from the start of the climb. Absolutely phenomenal moves to pull through, a series of hand over hand handjams while spread eagle steaming, brilliant. Took us about 4 hours total or so to climb. This is the highest peak in this area of the Wasatch mountain range.

Great pic, Evo! Barring something cataclysmic happening, if you give the Rockies and Sierras several hundred million to a billion years more, that's about what they'll look like. I like the contrast between the two. When I'm in the newer ranges I get a feeling like I'm seeing the world as it was long ago. The forces at work on the rock and their immediate results are everywhere you look. When I'm in the Appalachians I feel like the ground underfoot has withstood the test of time. I enjoy visiting them as they're some of the oldest geological features on earth. The Blue Ridge in particular are some of my favorites.

Beautiful pics, guys. Thanks for sharing.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Lake Crescent:
Sol Duc falls:

Hey, that's my neck of the woods! Lake Crescent is one of my very favorite spots.

On tap for this weekend: day hike to the summit of Mount Ellinor.

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Great shot Evo. What part of the Shenandoah was that? I was just at Old Rag the weekend before last. Great hike, interesting rock scramble. I came up this one chimney and around a rock with all my climbing gear and kind of spooked a couple walking by when I looked at them and said "I know I parked the car somewhere around here." The woman laughed, but the guy said something unintelligible and I moved on.

Puce Moose:
5 pitch - When you climb taller mountains/cliffs/whatever you have to do the climb in stages because the rope would not reach all the way to the top, and even if it did you wouldn't want the rope extending that much since when you fall the rope actually stretches a bit to cushion the fall. More rope=more stretchy, too much rope=really long fall.
5.3, 5.6, 5.8+, 5.6, 5.10a - Are difficulty ratings used in the Yosemite Decimal System.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_(climbing)
Basically the rock climbing starts at 5.1 and goes up to the hardest climb right now of 5.15b. Think of a 5.1 as the easiest climb you could do, but still fall off and die. Most climbing gyms don't set anything lower than a 5.6 (at least that [/i]I've seen.) The pluses and minuses indicate a little harder or a little easier respectively. Same goes for a, b, c, and d designations, but they're only used on the harder stuff.
trad/pro protected - "Trad" climbing is shorthand for Traditional climbing where you set your own "Pro," or protective equipment. This includes cams, multicams, stoppers, nuts, and other paraphernalia. The important part of Trad climbing is that it's non-destructive to the environment. You aren't drilling holes in the rock to anchor yourself in.
hand over hand handjams while spread eagle steaming - I think that last word is supposed to be "stemming" which is using opposing forces on a wall to increase your grip on the surface, kind of like the spider walk on Ninja Warrior, if you've ever seen that show. Handjams are when you stick your hands into a crack and just flex the muscles enough to get it stuck in the crack relying on the friction to hold you up.

That one was taken on the way out from the cascades on Overall Run trail. We hiked in on Heiskel Hollow trail from the Matthews Arm campground and hiked out on the Overall Run trail. It was a pretty steep hike out, about 2000 feet over a mile, but that view was the payoff when you got (nearly) to the top. The photo obviously doesn't do it justice.

The bummer of that trip was that none of the rivers had any water flowing. The cascades had some water going over them, but it was a trickle. We were getting a little worried on the way in because we only packed 3 liters of water for the entire two night trip. We normally use a filter to pump water out of the streams to drink and cook, so when we saw the dry stream beds, we got a little worried. Fortunately, we found some pooled water in some of the creeks the first night, and on the second day we set camp right next to the cascades and had plenty of water to draw.

Podunk wrote:

Hey, that's my neck of the woods! Lake Crescent is one of my very favorite spots.

We spent a night at the Sol Duc Hot Springs. Sadly I was still getting over my initial flu/cold at the time, so we couldn't do a lot of hiking.

Rob_Anybody:

Thanks for the answers. I asked my girlfriend if she'd ever heard of anything called 'spread eagle steaming' and she accused me of trying to talk dirty to her.

So that's what a handjam is! I imagine if I tried one my arms would rip out of their burger-padded sockets and my body would become a feast for crows.

Well, I snapped this one not all that long ago. Not a fantastic shot, but it was a fun hike in the Smokies.

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I think I may have already linked this somewhere, but a few shots from my honeymoon camping in Jasper, AB.

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I love black bears.

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I HAVE APPL OM NOM NOM

Here's another pic I took at Lake Crescent...
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