I have another weekend adventure under my belt. I basically had two main goals for the trip this weekend. The primary goal was to see if doing 20 or more miles in a single day was realistic. The second goal was to get more practice spending the night and using some of my newer gear.
This was an exhausting trip by design to test my limits when I was closer to home and before I committed to a 223 mile, two week trek.
Going the distance
The result of the first test was yes. I was able to complete 22 miles in a single day. I started early and finished well before dark on a spring day when I had around 12 hours of sunlight. My plan for the trip currently includes three days of 20+ miles. They are later in the trip, so I will have shorter days to build up my stamina a bit (this is known as "getting your trail legs").
Some things I learned about distances on that level were that my footwear needs some adjustment. I don't know if it was simply the number of miles, the type of terrain I was covering, the fact that my feet got wet a couple of times due to creek crossings, the kind of socks I wear, the way my shoes were laced, or some combination of the above, but whatever the case, I got some serious blisters that I don't normally get in a day of hiking. This was the longest distance I have covered over the roughest ground maybe ever. Back about ten years ago or so I had planned to do the last section of trail starting at Highway 10, spend the night camping somewhere around Lake Maumelle and exit at Pinnacle the following day. I don't recall exactly why I decided to just push through in a day, but I did that whole section in a day. That section is 20.5 miles and mostly level. The toughest parts are difficult only because they are soggy or muddy.
The section I hiked last weekend started at the trailhead on Highway 7 just north of Jessieville and went through to Lake Sylvia. I stopped over night at Brown Creek Shelter.
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| https://arkokhiker.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/TR-01_Ouachita_National_Rec_Trail_000.pdf |
The section I hiked is highlighted in the map above. It was a very pretty section, but mountainous. The terrain varied from flat smooth trail, to narrow trail that sloped laterally because I was walking along the side of a mountain ridge, ups and downs, across creeks and over mountains.One of the most frightening parts of the trip for me was the river crossing at Crystal Prong river. Here are a couple of photos I took of at crossing.
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| Rapids area as I was approaching on the trail |
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| This was the section where the trail crosses. You can see the blue trail blaze on the tree on the left. |
I haven't talked about trekking poles yet, but this is a great time to mention them. Personally, I think trekking poles are a great idea almost all the time when you are hiking and backpacking. I use them on shorter day hikes because they help ease the stress on my knees, they provide extra stability, and they can help you catch your balance if you are starting to fall. For situations like this river crossing, I can't imaging trying to do it without trekking poles.Having trekking poles for river crossings can help you figure out how deep the water is, they can help feel out whether a rock is stable before you move to it, and they can help provide additional balance and support. The rocks beneath those rapids were slick with algae. I caught my balance with my poles at least once.
There are decent trekking pole sets that are light weight and easy to use. You don't have to spend a fortune on super expensive poles, but if you plan to do any serious backpacking, get some poles and practice using them. The water was fast moving and about knee deep. I switched from my trail running shoes to sandals. If I have to cross again, I might just stick with my shoes because they have better tread. I don't think the sandals helped me much on the slick rocks. It was nice to be able to have dry feet afterward though.
Camp skills
Here are a few photos I took while I was at the shelter.
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Me, just after I arrived.
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Dinner
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| Bear hanging skills |
You can see my trekking poles and pack on the porch behind me.
Meal prep and cooking
The dinner I brought was a mashed potatoes meal with chicken, peas and corn, onion crisps, chives, and cranberries. It's a variation on a recipe shared by a backpacker on YouTube. Here is a link.
Her recipe was more involved than mine, and I actually opted to make mine a little simpler than I had planned. In part, I ran out of room in the bowl for more ingredients, but it really didn't need anything more. It was delicious. In the future, I will cut the recipe in half. That was a whole package of mashed potatoes (Idahoan brand). It was way more than I needed.
Bear hanging
The third photo above was my food bag hanging from a tree to keep bears and other critters away from it. It's curious to me that so many backpackers spend money on expensive dyneema rock bags and cord. I had cheap-o paracord from Walmart that I bought years ago. I am pretty sure it's just nylon. It doesn't weigh much. I'm guessing it's around 30 feet long. It's not heavy, 1.75 oz for the whole thing. I can pack it in a relatively neat bundle, so no need for a bag, and I found a rock, just smaller than a baseball. I tied one end of the line around the rock, threw it up and over a large tree limb, tied the other end to my bag, raised the bag in the air, and then tied the end that used to have the rock around a nearby tree to keep the food bag in the air.
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| Paracord bundle |
My food bag was just a reusable shopping bag. My smelly food was contained inside a ziplock bag. This was my first time hanging my food. I felt like I did a fairly good job of it. One throw of my rock got it over the tree limb. All my knots held when they needed to and released when I needed them to. I'm not a knot expert, but I know how to tie a few useful knots (I don't even really know that they are called, haha), but they did the job for me.
Room for improvement with my bear hang was mainly that I neglected to put my toothpaste in the bag. Supposedly that smell can sometimes attract animals to your camp as well. In the future, I will have toothpaste pellets instead of paste. They are lighter weight and I don't think they give off fragrance until you crunch into them and add saliva and water. So, that shouldn't be an issue moving forward.
Water management
This was one of the biggest issues for me. I should have done better noting the last source of water before getting to the shelter. There had been rain the week before, so it seemed like I was crossing flowing drains down the mountain and little streams at every turn. That was true until I climbed from Crystal Prong up to Flatside Pinnacle. I really didn't see any good water source after Crystal Prong, and I failed to fill up there.
Reading the guidebook (Tim Ernst's Ouachita Trail) it seemed like every potential water source in the section, he was saying, fill up here, because it might be the last water you see. After seeing a dozen more, I stopped worrying about it and just filled up when I was getting low-ish. Crystal Prong would have been the ideal place to fill up one more time.
I was so tired when I reached the shelter, I also neglected to consult the map to see if there was a decent water source nearby a shelter called "Brown Creek". Supposedly within 200 yards from the shelter, there is water and a waterfall even. I had left the guidebook at home, so I didn't see that and failed to remember where Tim Ernst said that water source could be found.
I did not have a tent with me on this trip. My tent will have it's own separate post, but it had not quite arrived when I was leaving for this trip, so I was restricted to either cowboy camping or the shelter. Having plenty of water for camp is very helpful for cooking, meal clean up, hygiene, and general hydration needs. That can be a lot of water. If you are restricted to what you carry into camp, you had better bring everything you can with you.
Another thing I tried that worked, but needs improvement with regard to water management was gravity filtering. I haven't talked about my water filtration solution yet, and I won't get into detail in this article, but one of the options with my setup is to hang my dirty water receptacle with the filter connected below it and a water bottle below, allowing gravity to pull the water through the filter while I do other useful things around camp. It worked, but the connection between the filter and my water bottle wasn't tight enough and when the water bottle filled to capacity, it started leaking from the top, spilling over onto the ground. So I lost some of the little bit of water that I had managed to bring with me. I may need to do some more testing with the connection here at home to see if it was user error or equipment failure. My guess is user error. In theory however, that was a useful setup and I'm glad I have the option.
Pooping in the woods
I'm not a big fan of pooping outside. This is my absolute least favorite thing about camping in the wilderness. I like to have a seat when I'm going about my business. Regardless, I managed to execute here without issue. My cat hole spade was another upgrade. I went from a plastic spade that weighs 1.75 oz to a titanium spade that weighs 0.45 oz and packs smaller. Here is a link to the Boglerco Ultralite trowel. There is nothing glamorous about this, so I will be frank here. I almost had an embarrassing incident because I did not void my bladder first. I'm used to taking a seat in the morning and letting it all go at once. I managed to kegel my way to saving my pants from disaster, but it was close. Room for improvement, pee before you squat.
I was not alone at the shelter camp. There was a small family camping at the same location. As such, I tried to go far enough away in the dark so as not to give the kids a show (and to preserve my dignity, haha). It was very dark because the moon had set by this time. I had enough foresight to give myself a beacon back to the shelter. My battery power bank has a small LED flashlight function. I put that light on the porch facing away from my neighbors, with the hope that it would help me find my way back to the shelter in the dark. This turned out to be a very good choice as I got turned around a little while tending to my business. After I finished cleaning up and packing up my kit (more on the contents of my poop kit in a future article), I headed back in the direction I believed I would find the shelter. In fact, I was not quite heading back and would have missed my mark by about 200 feet or so, had I continued in the direction I was going. I realized that I should have stared to see the shelter in the light of my headlamp by that point, but I was not. I stopped, looked around, and spotted my light.
Sleep system
Here again, I won't go into a great deal of detail about my sleep system, but my sleeping pad and quilt were comfortable and kept me warm in 40°F low temps over night. The quilt is supposed to be comfortable down to 20°F. I'm not 100% satisfied with my pillow situation, but I did appreciate having two pillows. I had the option of propping my head higher for reading when lying on my back. I am also a side and stomach sleeper (really, I toss and turn every which way) and I like to have one pillow in my arm and the other arm under my head. I will go into more detail about the pillows I brought with me on this trip in a future article on my sleep system. It's a work in progress, but no major concerns from this experience.
Equipment failure
The backpack I have had and opted to use here was the Osprey Atmos 50. It's a 50 liter capacity backpack with frame and traditional straps and supports. It also has a back ventilation system that helps keep you cool. That was the second backpacking pack I bought. I believe I got it more so I could take my sons or wife with my on my trips, but I think I am the one who used it most. In any case, the outside stretchy pocket had a blowout.
Osprey is a brand with a good reputation for quality. I was a bit surprised when I realized that the mesh part in the center of that pocket was only bonded to the stretchy fabric with some kind of glue. Osprey has a lifetime warranty on their gear. I submitted a repair request through their website and that bag is in transit to Osprey. I have a Greggory brand pack to use in the meantime and another bag that will hopefully be on its way to me soon...
Let me know if you have questions. Let me know if you have found this helpful or interesting.
I think that is all for now. Thanks for dropping by.
Gavagai
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