When Things Don't Go as Planned

I was super excited to have my brother come to Arkansas for a visit in October. Those who followed my YouTube channel years ago may remember the podcast series "Super Atheist Bros" that we produced together briefly would know my brother as Turtle.

Turtle on Eagle Rock Loop above the Little Missouri

I invited Turtle to come out to visit to take him on his first backpacking trip. He and I have done an extended day hike once years ago. I mentioned that trip in this article. Here are a couple of photos from that hike around the Buffalo National River with Turtle in the early 2000s.

But Turtle has never before had the experience of hiking into a remote primitive location with a pack, spending the night, then hiking back out. I tried to involve Turtle in the process of selecting which trail we would do on this backpacking trip, but he deferred to me to make the choice. I contemplated several options, but ultimately decided to take him to one of my personal favorite trails, Eagle Rock Loop.

I may do a future article about the specifics of this trip and/or the things I did to prepare Turtle for his first backcountry backpacking trip, but the purpose of this article is just to talk about dealing with two problems we encountered, both related to equipment failure.

Sleep System Insulation Failure

On night one of what was intended to be a two night trip around Eagle Rock Loop (ERL), I got up at 4am to answer the call of nature. When I crawled back into my hammock, my backside felt cold. 

I climbed back out of the hammock to inspect the problem. The underquilt has a fabric loop. There is another loop on the hammock webbing where you attach a carabiner. But between the carabiner that attaches to the hammock and the fabric loop on the underquilt, there is a rubber loop to help manage the tension. You don't want gaps between the underquilt and the underside of your hammock or heat will escape, but you also need some flex so the fabric doesn't tear. The rubber loop had snapped.

I had some cord in my pack and fashioned a loop to hold the quilt in that corner. It was 4 AM at that point and I didn't have too much longer before it was time to wake and start moving for the day, but it was also the coldest part of the night and I didn't want to lie there uncomfortable for another hour or two. This temporary fix worked just fine.

I have mentioned in the past the value of shorter strands of cordage in your pack. This was yet another instance. My brother and I also used cordage to hang our packs on trees near our camp to keep them off the ground overnight, and to hang a gravity feed filter setup. Short cordage for the win.

I have contacted Warbonnet about the broken underquilt band to see if they will replace it. I have only had that underquilt for about seven or eight months. They sell replacement bands on their website for $1 each plus shipping, but I feel like they should last a bit longer than that. We'll see. When I hear back from them I will include an update here.

**UPDATE**

Warbonnet replied to my email yesterday. They are sending me a Lynx underquilt band for free. I figured they would. They have been a decent company. Made in the USA and they stand by their products.

Headlamp Failure

Later that same morning, my brother arose from sleep and started breaking camp. It was around 5:30 AM but the sun wouldn't rise for more than an hour, so we were depending on our headlamps for light. However before long, his light switched off unexpectedly. He asked if it shuts off automatically to save batteries. I didn't know. It's not a headlamp I have used extensively. I have owned this light for a couple of years. I actually bought it before I got back into backpacking for other purposes. It takes three AAA batteries. I had swapped out the batteries that were in it for three AAA rechargeable batteries that were fresh off the charger. But after only one night of use, they were evidently drained so much that they had almost no charge left for the morning. This was not cool.

Camp next to East Saline Creek on the north side of Brushy Mountain

Decision

We still had phones, I had my light, and I also had my RovyVon micro flashlight that can clip onto the brim of a hat and serve as a headlamp. Phones are better than nothing as a light, but they are almost impossible to use for camp chores because one hand is occupied with holding the phone. There are few tasks that don't require two hands or at least become much easier with two hands. It probably would have been okay for us to proceed, especially because we both had power bricks and both my Nitecore headlamp and the RovyVon are rechargeable using USB.

RovyVon light

However, I decided to err on the side of caution, especially because this was my brother's first trip. We were only a couple of miles in from the trailhead when we stopped and made camp. I've found that doing a partial day of hiking on day one of a trip that is planned for two or more nights is a good idea. If you realize you have forgotten some critical piece of gear or have a gear failure, allows you to make a U-turn and head back before you get too far in and turning back becomes risky.

Eagle Rock scenic overlook on a raining morning

We had some rain on our way back from the campsite. Turtle wasn't super keen about hiking in the rain anyhow. I think I made the right call. I'm 80% sure we would have been fine to proceed, but that's still not worth the risk. I didn't know it then but some severe was developing and would have hit us in the wee hours of the morning in the woods. Again, we probably would have been okay, but I'm happy with the choice I made. On some past trips, I have made cascading bad decisions that lead to trouble. I wasn't willing to risk that on this trip.

I discussed some contingency options with Turtle. We opted to hike back to the trailhead (we were parked at the Lower Athens Big Fork trailhead), then we drove to Albert Pike and the Winding Stair trailhead. From the Winding Stair trailhead, we hiked out to Winding Stair and back.

It's also worth noting here that I had the week off work for this visit from Turtle, which put us on trail on Tuesday and Wednesday. Between the two trailheads we stopped at, we saw exactly one other car besides mine and on the trail, zero other people. It blew my mind that the trail was so empty. I have only gone there on weekends in the past and every single time, the trailheads have been been packed to overflowing with vehicles and I would see people passing them or them passing me on trail constantly, especially in the Winding Stair section. It was a ghost town. I liked that and future trips to Eagle Rock Loop will be planned for mid week, but noting that, it does increase the risk factor. Other people being on the trail can be a mild nuisance, but it can also mean that if you get into trouble, there are other people with phones, SOS devices, and other gear redundancies who can help you in a bind. My very first ERL attempt failed because my water filter was dry locked. Some hikers who were stopped for a break by a creek loaned me their filter, which allowed me to hike back to the trailhead where I was parked. I would wager I passed scores of people on that trip. This trip, no one.

Lessons Learned

I feel like I handled the underquilt issue and the headlamp issue pretty well. Given that this was my brother's very first backpacking trip, I didn't want it to be stressful for him more than it was already, just being outside his comfort zone. He did well and learned the ropes fairly quickly.

I have been reflecting on the choice of bringing a headlamp that uses AAA batteries and no backup batteries. This was a bad idea, even though I charged them before leaving. Without testing or knowledge of how long those batteries would last in that headlamp, I should have at minimum brought along spare batteries. I have since tested the battery life with fully charged AAA batteries. They lasted a little over four hours at home. It seems like the time Turtle was using it was less than that, but temperature was slightly cooler and he was changing modes between red and white light, so that may have also decreased life.

My conclusion, I won't be bringing a light like that on an overnight trip again. Under different circumstances, I might have decided to press on with the trip, but because Turtle was a complete rookie and we had some weather coming, I'm glad I didn't press our luck.

In hindsight, trying to hike all of the 26+ mile Eagle Rock Loop was probably a little over ambitious for a first time ever backpacking trip. Turtle was sore with the miles we did, and it was only a fraction of the planned miles.

Overall, I would say this was a successful backpacking trip. We hiked in to a remote location. Turtle got to see his first armadillo. He also saw a salamander. We ate dinner under the stars, we got to talk and catch up, and we hiked out safely the next day. It didn't go to plan, but we had fun, got exercise, and survived to possibly do it again sometime.

Thanks Turtle for indulging me this week!

Thanks to you, the reader for stopping by,

Gavagai