Water and trail notes aside, there's not a lot to say about last weekends backpacking trip. Tried out a new quilt and, cheap blanket bags aside, I don't think I'll ever go back to a traditional sleeping bag. Got into the vicinity of the P.O.W. Camp by 3:30, but it took the next hour and a half to settle on a campsite, fetch water, cook supper, and settle down with a book and listen to Friday evening blues on shortwave:
Not coincidentally, this is the model picked as the winner for the "what to take on the Appalachian Trail" contest over at The SWLing Post. Just a half-pound including batteries and reel antenna. I especially like the easy to work "power off in one hour" option. BTW, the top vent zipper on the Spitfire tent makes a handy antenna port when turning in for the night. Which happened around 7:30, btw, and I was out by 8:30.
I did meet a few interesting people on the trail: a homeschooling mom and her two kids a couple of miles in from the Hwy 49 trailhead; a recently retired couple practicing up for an upcoming hike on the Camino de Santiago; and at the horse camp, a fellow backpacker carrying virtually the same gear I was. That was an interesting conversation. In fact, they were all interesting conversations. Nice folks, all of them.
As for the rest, the trail was pretty dry without getting dusty. A little mud, but no wading the way I had to do last month. That's lucky, because I only brought one pair of socks. The creek was down but still useable for water, as you can see in yesterday's post. Here, have a couple more pics of the creek and then we'll move on to other topics, tomorrow or perhaps later in the week.
Looking upstream.
Looking downstream. This is usually 3' or so deep, sometimes 12' or more, rather than this weekend's 6".
OK, that's probably it for backpacking until sometime next fall.
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