| That first night I poked about six words into my phone for my first blog post from the trail before putting it away deciding this would be a video blog. Here’s the first day’s video. We are standing on a tiny footbridge over the brook we slept next to that night. |
We started out around 11AM from the Northville trail head on Collins Gifford Valley Road. It’s the new trail head that avoids the road walk up to Benson. We hiked on narrow barely there paths and across a few streams. I soon learned that hiking rolling terrain with 32+ pounds on my back was different than hiking rolling hills with a day pack or a high peak for that matter. As always Joe would plow up the inclines like a tank and I’d slow down to a crawl gulping air. We crossed over Benson Road and stopped to chat with another pair of thru hikers that were sitting by the side of the road with huge packs. They were having trouble and we expected they were turning back. After crossing Benson Road and re-entering the forest we found Woods Lake and a bunch of rowdy campers. Had we known there was camping here when we were planning our route we probably would have planned to stop there the first night. But they were loud and unappealing to us at the moment, we were seeking nature and forest sounds not a party. We passed by the Woods Lake without getting water.
Our plan was to camp at the only authorized camp site on the map which was 15.7 miles from where my sister dropped us off. The next authorized location was the Silver Lake lean to at 21.4 miles in and we knew we couldn’t make that with the planned start of 11AM. Our inReach clocked us at about 3 mph which was a pretty fast pace for us hiking. We arrived where the campsite should have been according to the map around 6:30PM. There was a little brook and a footbridge like the map showed. We found no campsite marker nor any evidence of anyone having camped there before. The light inside the forest was barely there. So we pulled out our head lamps and plowed ahead thinking maybe it was further along. After about a half mile we agreed it was time to turn back and make camp for the night next to the brook.
By this time we were both tired and dehydrated and decided to forgo a real dinner and have a Clifbar. I setup the tent in the near dark while Joe took care of filtering water and getting the food far away from us and hung in a tree. I had to beat down the forest growth to try and get the tent to lay flat. The stakes for the tent did nothing because the ground was so soft from decayed leaves and moss, they pushed in without any resistance or strength to hold the tent. We wouldn’t be able to find those stakes the next day. We crawled into the tent exhausted and happy with our first days efforts.
Sometime in the middle of the night dehydration caught up with Joe and his legs started cramping. Thanks to our Wilderness First Aid training he knew this was the issue and he started downing water. Then he got the chills with uncontrollable shivers from all the cold water. I dug out his warm clothes and he eventually warmed up. Even though this was a situation we could handle it emphasized that we were all alone 15 miles from anywhere and had to be more careful. I slept little that night and was treated to all the sounds of the forest including some conversation among owls or coyotes or something else, one near the tent and another way far away. I thought about recording it but didn’t want to find my phone in the dark.
After the first day we drank every time we stopped and filtered water every time we crossed any viable water with two empty water bottles.
Words of Wanderers 