(no subject)
Les Cousins DangereuxSo I thought I'd break in the spring early with a backpacking trip to Shawnee State Park, near Portsmouth, Ohio. Matt and Jon were on board, and Steve joined the parade from lovely Athens. Hopes were high as I ventured forth, especially since we'd found ourselves to be old men last December when we visited Zaleski. I'd decided to invest in a self-inflating sleeping pad, which had passed the initial battery of tests with flying colors. All that was needed was a field test, and that was soon approaching.
Navigation was courtesy of my Garmin eTrex Legend C, a nifty little gadget that satisfies that innate masculine urge to know exactly where I am in relation to everything else at any given point in time. With the aid of some uploaded topographical maps, its functionality extended throughout the entire expedition, and gave peace of mind to four weary travelers for whom the knowledge of exactly how far away the cars were parked were of pressing importance.
Steve and I approached from the southeast, while Matt and Jon approached from the northwest. After securing our gear (and downing a few Krispy Kreme crullers), we set out with the best of intentions. Unfortunately, we found that they paved the way to Suck. About half a mile into the trail, we met a guy and his dog packing out who told us that not only were the trails the most poorly designed he'd ever seen, but he'd found that they didn't seem to follow the provided map. Even though both man and beast looked to be three paces from death, we decided to continue.
That's when it started raining.
And raining. And raining. For a good six hours. Initially, we had planned to hike in a dozen miles or so to the furthest campsite from the trailhead, but becoming waterlogged damped our intrepitude. The forecast had called for a 40% chance of spotty showers, but once we realized that the situation was closer to 100% chance of steady rain, the ponchos came out, and we determined to sit on the first site we found.
Some might call this a "poor man's shanty town." To us, it was a welcome haven.Which happened to be next to a Boy Scout Camp, and at the top of a 300-foot climb. Finding the actual trail leading up would have made it an easier ascent, but the GPS made it quite clear that the lines drawn on the map had no reference to reality, and so when we came across a muddy horse trail, we took it. The campsite was actually fairly decent- plenty of deadfall, and the Scouts had erected poles around the site, which made the task of setting up a shelter much easier on us. The decision was made to combine our tarp-resources, and pitch our tents under whatever shelter we could cobble together. We lashed the tarps together as efficiently as possible, and once we had a dry (or at least, not still rained-on) patch of ground, we set up our tents underneath.
The rest of the day was spent huddled either around the fire, which Steve and Matt made to an impressive size, the former with a pillar candle and the latter with gasoline-enhanced starter sticks, or underneath the tarps, keeping alternatively warm or dry, but never both. Matt and Jon broke out the hobo stew, and Steve revealed a remarkable quart of canned egg nog. I provided s'mores all around, having craved them the last time that we'd been backpacking. After dark fell, the rain petered out and we could see a few stars and the moon, here and there. It was actually quite nice at that point, but we were too tired to appreciate it for any length of time.
I will say that the sleeping pad proved itself to be invaluable, as was hoped. I was both warm and comfortable pretty much all night, except for waking up early in the morning, realizing that I had to urinate desperately, but unwilling to extricate myself from the warm cocoon out into the cold, muddy wasteland I knew was waiting for me. All in all, however, a fun time. I'd do it again, just not at Shawnee.