Big E and Hooch's Excellent Adventure
Well, we survived the heat and had a good trip! Seriously, it was HOT!! We originally planned on hiking in to Indian Staircase for the evening, but given the forecast of 105+ heat index, and the possibility of no water up there, we decided to hike down Buck Trail to a spot that someone else on the forum mentioned where we could be close to water and hopefully cooler temps for the evening.
We met at the Shell station (a little late :) ) and hit the trailhead around 3 pm or so. Koomer Ridge Trail was fairly level and and easy stroll down to Hidden Arch Trailhead. Hidden Arch Trial is about a 1 mile loop from Koomer Ridge Trail down to a nice arch and then back up to Koomer Ridge trail. There were a few nice views before the steps down to the Arch. The hike back up was steep, but short enough not to cross into the "strenuous" category! After a little huffin' and puffin' we were back at Koomer Ridge Trail for a water break and then off again.
Koomer Ridge Trail to Buck Trail goes along Koomer Ridge, but with the dense foliage, there are really no views at this time of the year. The trail is well marked and what little blow down there was had well trodden pass arounds. There was a short stretch where the underbrush had almost grown over the trail, but it is only a few meters long. We passed the nice little camp on the right just prior to the Buck Trailhead.
Buck Trail down is a fairly steep trail (one you just salivate over climbing back up;) ). We got to the bottom and found the campsite exactly as described here, a nice little spot with stone benches and a fire ring and room enough for a couple of hammocks. The temp was about 20 degrees cooler from the top of Buck Trail, so that was a HUGE relief.
On a down note, we discovered that some idiot(s) had deffecated all over the perimeter of the campsite, and failed to dig catholes or even make an attempt at covering up their TP, etc. I am not a LNT Nazi, but come on, at least get off into the woods and dig a cathole!!!
After getting the hammocks up and the camp situated we decided to do a little geocaching. I had previously downloaded a few geocaches in RRG and we happened to be hanging about a 1/4 from one on Buck Trail. We set off for Hooch's first geocache find. We soon discovered that we had to climb almost all the way up to Pinch Em Tight trail to find the Buck Trail geocache. I left a Bank OC ballpoint pen and took a set of earplugs. It was fun, but, I learned a valuable lesson about changing into the dry sleeping tee shirt and then doing more hiking :mad: gotta make a note not to do that again. By the time we climbed up to the cache and back to camp I felt like I had been swimming. The humidity must have been near 100%.
After a nice little dinner (Hooch had tuna salad and crackers while I had a Mountain House Chicken Terriaki that I shared a bit of with him) we got situated for bedding down as it was getting to dusk down in the canopy.
Glad I had the earplugs!!! :D
Had a great nights sleep, despite getting up at 3 am to pitch the rainfly due to spotting some lightning in the distance. No rain came down, but better safe than sorry!.
Had a little breakfast and packed up (some were a little quicker due to the ultra light philosophy!!!!! ;) ) and tackled the climb back out. We thought about hiking a loop out via Pinch Em Tight to Rough Trail back to Koomer Ridge, but again, the heat scared us off of that idea. The climb out led to a lot of huffin' and puffin' but no heart attacks, so all was good. Seriously, climbing out of Buck Trail in either direction is a strenuous little hike. It isn't terribly long, but it will get the heart pumping!!
On a personal note it was great to me Hooch and get to know him a bit and I look forward to the next group hang so I can get to know more of you.
On a gear note, this was my first hike with the light pack. I ended up skin out with a 3 day pack (including food and 2 liters of water) around 18 pounds. I have to tell you all that I was amazed at how much difference it made! I had hiked these trails back in early June with my son's scout troop carrying about 40 pounds and it was brutal. Carrying the lighter load I felt much faster up the hills and ready to put on some big mileage. Another big change was switching to New Balance 810s from my Asola GTX. My feet felt great, no twisted ankles and I felt like I could go on forever. I picked up Hooch's pack once to assist him under a blow down and I could not believe that I used to carry that kind of weight a couple of months ago.
All in all a great trip!! If anyone would like the GPS tracks, let me know. I also wondered if we couldn't create a members only discussion where we could all post GPS coordinates for cool spots we find for all members to enjoy. I would not want to let the general public have them so that we could keep them all pristine as possible, but it would be nice to have a little repository of great hanging spots all over the country. Any thoughts on that?